White Heat. Brenda Novak

everyone when she goes missing? The police will come here first.”

      “We’ll say we haven’t seen her. They can’t do anything unless they can prove otherwise. The Lord will stand by us and so will our people.”

      “Right. We don’t know what happened to her. Like Courtney,” he said.

      “Like Courtney,” Bart repeated and hurried to the gate, where he told the hysterical Mrs. Sinclair that she had to leave or he’d call the cops and have her forcibly removed.

      Willcox seemed like a big city compared to Portal, but it was infinitesimally small by L.A. standards and looked like the set of a John Wayne movie. According to some trivia Nate had mentioned, the building designated as city hall had once been a train depot for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Not far away, on Railroad Avenue, sat several Old West-style buildings with plank walkways and wood overhangs. In this cluster of buildings Rachel saw the Willcox Cowboy Hall of Fame—A Tribute to Rex Allen, the Singing Cowboy. She supposed he’d either been born in Willcox or he’d died here—maybe both.

      “Interesting place,” she said as Nate slowed the truck to a crawl in accordance with the new speed limit.