"Elena? Está eso usted?"

"Yes, it's me."

"Es Paula. La ambulancia ha ido a la casa de su hermana."

The words came in a string of Spanish so frantic that Elena's half-asleep brain translated only three of them: Paula, ambulance and sister.

"Paula, slow down. Speak English."

"Ambulancia. She has gone to Carla."

Carla? Elena's eyes popped wide open to a hazy gray room. She switched the receiver to her opposite ear as she glanced at the red numbers displayed on her digital clock. 7:20 a.m. After working a long shift at Sanderson County Hospital, she had been asleep only three hours, but this news from Paula Flores, a nurses' aide, had snapped her wide awake. "What happened?" she asked, now on her feet and making her way to the bathroom.

"I don' know. He hus' call. Ella cayó en la arena.

Fell in the arena? It was barely daylight. Carla being in the arena made no sense. "Okay, thanks."

Elena disconnected. No sense wasting valuable time trying to pull useful information out of Paula.

Her heartbeat thumped steadily in her ears as she brushed her teeth. She ran a brush through her long hair and gathered it off her face into a scrunchie, then shucked her pajamas, threw on jeans and a flannel shirt and pulled on boots. Quick-stepping through the kitchen and utility room to the garage, she keyed her sister's number into her cell phone. No answer. She climbed into her SUV and headed for Carla's house.

Sheriff Rusty Joplin cruised through Salvation, Texas, uncomfortable in his starched white shirt. He was so sunburned his skin felt sore and stiff. He had spent Labor Day weekend, the first long weekend he had taken off since being sworn in as sheriff, water skiing with friends in Fort Worth.

He dreaded what awaited him in his office. A draft of next year's budget, the first official request for money he would be making when the county commissioners met Tuesday night. He had tinkered with it for weeks, wanting to get it right.

His cell phone vibrated at his belt. He unhooked the device and glanced at the tiny screen. The time showed to be 7:30 and the caller was Cheryl Hopkins, his assistant and a Sanderson County deputy. Cheryl was one of the few people who had his private cell phone number. "This is Rusty," he said into the phone. "I hope this is important, 'cause I'm headed to Mansell's for breakfast. I'm hungrier than a wolf. I came home to an empty refrigerator."

"Hey, how was your long weekend?"

"Good. How about yours?"

"Same old thing. Clean house, take the kids somewhere. Do laundry, take the kids somewhere."

Rusty chuckled. Cheryl might complain good-naturedly, but she was a devoted parent. "Anything good happen while I was gone?"

"No, it's been boring. But that might change. I just monitored a dispatch for the ambulance to go out to Carla Ryder's place."

Carla Ryder's last name had been Blanchard for ten years, but the Salvation citizens still called her Carla Ryder. "You mean to Blanchard's or to the old man's? What's up?"

"Sorry. I mean Blanchard's. I don't know what's going on. No nine-one-one call came in here. I contacted the hospital to see if I could find out, but the only person I could get on the phone was Paula Flores. You know how that went. I couldn't understand her. But it sounds like it wouldn't hurt if someone went out there. Since it's the Ryder clan, I thought you might want to handle it personally."

Cheryl Hopkins was Rusty's go-to girl. He had hired her when he took office the past January. Besides having years of experience in a neighboring county's sheriff's office, she had a deeply ingrained sense of right and wrong and had been thrilled when Rusty defeated the corrupt former sheriff, Jack Balderson, in last fall's election. She was more loyal than a wife and was almost psychic when it came to recognizing trouble. If she thought he should go to Blanchard's house, he probably should.

"Guess breakfast will have to wait. I'm on my way." He disconnected, made a U-turn and rolled west on the Eunice highway.

Rusty had never been to the Blanchard horse ranch, but he knew it was ten miles west of town. He had passed its entrance many times. He arrived in twelve minutes at the turn-in identified by an oversize mailbox. A sign in the corner of the fenced pasture read: LITTLE RED LENA STANDING AT STUD. In the distance, a cluster of buildings dotted the horizon.

He rumbled across the cattle guard entrance and plowed up the long caliche driveway, slowing when he reached a Y in the road. The left fork turned off toward a sprawling ranch house, its red tiled roof a sharp contrast to its white walls. The straight leg went to a cluster of outbuildings and corrals where he saw activity. He headed in that direction.

Nearing an arena close to a huge beige barn, he saw one of Sanderson County's two ambulances backed up to the gate and a Lexus SUV parked at a crooked angle beside it. He recognized the silver Lexus as belonging to Elena Ryder, Carla's younger sister. He couldn't imagine why she was here at her sister's house so early in the morning. The sun had been up less than an hour.

A blanket-covered mound lay on a gurney just outside the ambulance's double doors. A sinking feeling filled Rusty's chest. One of Blanchard's kids was his first thought, but the blanket's profile looked too large for a child. Pulling the sheriff's department's Crown Victoria to a stop beside the ambulance, he swung out of the driver's seat and rounded the front-end.

Jimmy Don Estes, one of the volunteer EMTs who most frequently rode the ambulance, stood beside the gurney awaiting Rusty's approach. His mouth was set in a grim line and he was running a loop of rope through his fingers. He spoke before Rusty asked. "Carla Ryder," he said.

A burst of adrenaline shot through Rusty's system and his heartbeat kicked up. He had known Carla since he was ten years old. They were the same age, had been in the same grades all through school.

He glanced toward the shed attached to the arena where a female EMT was cradling a wailing Elena Ryder in her arms. "What happened?" he asked Jimmy Don.

The EMT tilted his head toward a sleek, midnight black horse standing regally on the far side of the arena. "That sumbitch right there."

Rusty stared at the horse. A young stallion. Rope halter, no saddle. A dozen scenarios ran through Rusty's head, tugging his brow into a frown. "He throw her off or what?"

"I don't know," Jimmy Don answered. "One thing's for sure, he drug her. Mr. Blanchard found him standing over her. She had this rope around her neck." He handed over the lead rope.

Rusty took the rope and fingered it, studied its surface. Typical lead rope: heavy duty nylon, half-inch, stained and covered with barn dirt. Nothing unusual for a horse handler. For a few seconds he speculated on what Carla might have been doing with the rope and the horse. "Where's Blanchard now? Did he see what happened?"

"Said he didn't. He was here 'til a few minutes ago. He went to stay with his kids. The maid's husband came out and said she was having trouble with them, so Mr. Blanchard went back to the house."

Rusty turned that information over in his mind for a few seconds, wondering about a man whose wife lay dead on a gurney leaving her. "Where'd he find her?"

The EMT pointed toward the center of the corral. "Right there."

Rusty looked toward the area the EMT had indicated. "Where was she when you got here?"

"Right there. He said he didn't move her. He just took the rope from around her neck."

"Fuck." Rusty disliked the unfolding story more with every second.

"We tried to resuscitate, Rusty," the EMT said in a tone that bordered on being apologetic, "but hell, she was gone before we ever got here."

Jimmy Don Estes had been a medic in the navy, had just returned from deployment with a Marine platoon in Iraq. If anyone could have saved Carla's life in an emergency, he could have.

"What's Elena got to do with this?"

"Nothing. She just got here. Somebody called her."

Rusty walked out into the corral, to the area where Jimmy Don had pointed, where the black barn dirt had been stirred and churned. He squatted and studied the ground. No rain had fallen in weeks, making the soil dry and loose even in the early morning. There had already been too much activity by too many feet for him to detect any telling information. A low-grade anger began to simmer within him. He stood up and walked back to the gurney and Jimmy Don, at the same time noticing that the barn's double doors stood open.

"Why wasn't the sheriff's office called?"

"I didn't know it wasn't," the EMT said.

Rusty stared at the rope in his hand, then at the horse again, still trying to picture exactly what had happened that had resulted in a fatality. Finally, he looked down at the blanket-covered form on the gurney, working to overcome his dread of doing what he knew he had to. "Let me see her," he said.

The EMT lifted the blanket edge, exposing the victim's face. It was covered with dirt, but Rusty could still see the waxy, translucent skin and pale lips, signs of death. He stalled at the eyes. They were open and bugged, the whites red with hemorrhage.

Rusty had worked as a Fort Worth street cop for several years, then as a rookie homicide investigator in one of the city's most brutal crime areas. He had witnessed his share of corpses that had succumbed in violence. Out of necessity, he had developed an ability to objectify the sight. But seeing fatal trauma applied to this woman hit him like a fist to the chest. They had competed in high school rodeo together. He shared a hundred memories of his youth with her and her two sisters.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and moved the blanket edge farther down. Several scrapes showed through the layer of grime on her hands. He saw several broken fingernails. She had on a gray sweat shirt covered with dirt. He lifted the blanket higher and saw she was wearing gray sweat pants and one rubber shower thong on one foot. The other rubber shoe lay on her abdomen. "Where's her boots?" he asked.

"Wasn't wearing any," Jimmy Don answered. "This is just like we found her."

Rusty shot a sharp look at Jimmy Don, who lifted his shoulders in a shrug. The EMT was a horse owner. Like Rusty, he knew that many catastrophes could befall bare feet in a barnyard. Or an arena. No one who knew anything about horses would approach even the gentlest one without wearing protective footwear. "So run it down for me."

"See the halter on that horse?" The EMT tilted his head toward the black stallion. "Mr. Blanchard said that rope was hooked to the lead ring under the chin. He said it looked like it somehow got twisted into a loop that was tight around her neck. He said he didn't know how she got herself tangled up like that."

Rusty tried to form a mental picture of how such an accident could occur, but it failed to come to him, especially with an experienced horsewoman like he knew Carla to be. Hell, he had seen her ride a bucking bronc.

Rusty blew out a breath, an effort to hide his irritation at the mishandling of a fatal accident scene. He plucked his cell phone from his belt and called his office. "Cheryl, I'm at Blanchard's. We need a JP out here."

He didn't have to explain why to Cheryl. She knew that in rural Texas towns, if no one held the office of coroner, the law required a justice of the peace to witness and pronounce an unattended death. "Oh, my God," she said. "Who is it?"

"Carla Ryder."

"Oh, my God, Rusty....Listen, I'll take care of it. I saw Helen Grayson's car over at the courthouse earlier."

"Who's on today?

"Lowell and Art. Matt, too."

"Is Alan around?"

"He's not due back 'til Monday."

Alan Muncy, the sheriff's department's only investigator, had taken off a week for a family reunion in Lubbock. "Send Matt out here, pronto, but tell him not to come running hot. I'm not ready for everybody in Salvation to know about this. Tell Lowell to go to my house and get my truck and horse trailer and bring it out here. Tell him not to drag his feet....And Cheryl? Y'all keep this quiet."

Cheryl had questions, but Rusty stanched them.

He walked over to Elena. She turned to him with grief-stricken eyes. Recalling her devotion to her family, a new pain began at his deepest center. "Oh, Rusty. Did you see?" She came to him, breaking into a spate of sobbing. He could do nothing else but open his arms to her. She fell against his chest, her voice hitching. "Did you see...what he did to her?...Oh, Rusty...her kids....What'll we do?"

"Shh-shh. Try to calm down, darlin'." He stroked her hair and held her close, murmuring to her in soft words. There had been a time when he felt like his arms belonged around Elena Ryder forever. As kids, they'd had a thing, but since his return to Salvation three years ago, he had seen her only in passing. "I know it's hard."

He held her and petted her, mumbling reassurances until he saw a car slow at the driveway entrance and turn in. As the vehicle came nearer, he recognized it as the JP's car. It parked beside the ambulance and he set the weeping Elena away, into the care of the female EMT.

He walked out of the arena and met Helen Grayson, one of Sanderson County's two JPs, at her car door. The middle-aged woman looked like somebody's grandma, more at home in the kitchen baking cookies than traveling Sanderson County observing corpses.

"What've we got?" she asked as they made their way to the gurney.

"Strangulation it looks like. Carla Ryder. I don't know what happened yet. Everything was all screwed up when I got here. Some things don't look right, Helen. I'm thinking we better get an autopsy."

They reached the gurney and Jimmy Don. He lifted the blanket, exposing Carla's face.

"Dear God," the JP mumbled. "Poor girl."

Jimmy Don pointed a finger at one eye. "I'm not an expert, but there's a couple of indications of asphyxia."

Rusty wasn't an expert, either, but he had seen the signs before. He had been the first arrival at suicides by hanging. He had assisted in investigating murders by strangulation. He had heard the crime scene techs talk and had witnessed autopsies.

Those experiences and the victim's appearance told him she had suffered a torturous death fighting for breath.

Jimmy Don gingerly moved Carla's dirt-covered red hair away from her injured neck. He moved her head from side to side. "She might have a broken neck, too."

At the movement of her neck, Rusty glanced at his watch and noted the time at 8:33. The fact that her neck still moved easily told him she hadn't been dead long enough for the onset of rigor mortis. "We can hope it was a broken neck that did her in," he mumbled, perhaps to console himself.

For Helen, he ran through the list of what he believed was wrong with the accident scene. Only she could authorize an autopsy. The JP shook her head. "Such a shame. I think you're right about the autopsy, Rusty. I'll go ahead--"

"Nooo!" The scream came from behind them. "You can't. I won't let you--"

Rusty wheeled and saw Elena coming toward her sister's body. He had no idea how long she had been behind them. He grabbed her shoulders and stopped her. "Elena, we have to. It's important to know how she died."

Elena broke into sobbing again and he crushed her against his chest, pinning her. Over her head he nodded to Jimmy Don and Helen to go ahead. He wanted to hold her and comfort her in her grief, but he had to do his job. He turned her away from the gurney, speaking to her softly as he guided her toward the silver Lexus. "Elena, you're a nurse. You know this has to be done. When you think about it, you, too, want to know what happened to your sister."

After a few minutes of weeping and protesting, she calmed and allowed him to seat her in the passenger seat of her SUV. His chief deputy, Matt Mercer, was standing behind him, waiting. Rusty hadn't even noticed when he arrived. "Take her home, Matt," Rusty told him. "Or wherever she wants to go."

The deputy nodded. "You coming in soon?"

"Not for a while. Get Cheryl to bring you back out here to get the county car."

Rusty stuck his head back into Elena's rig. "You're still living at your dad's house, right?

She was visibly trembling, but she nodded.

"Matt's gonna take you home, okay? Is your dad at home?"

She shook her head, her eyes set in a vacant stare.

"If you want me to, I'll ask Matt to stay with you a little while."

She looked down at her hands, clenched together in a knot. She shook her head again. "It isn't necessary. I'm all right."

Rusty knew nothing else to say, but he was concerned about her being alone. When they were kids, she hadn't had an abundance of friends and he suspected that hadn't changed. Like him, she had always been a loner amongst a host of family.

"What about Blanca? Do you--"

"She's out of town."

"Look, I'll come by and see you a little later, okay? When I finish up here."

She nodded, but didn't speak.

He closed the SUV's door and Matt drove it away.

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