In Plain Sight

Then the guilt came in. Where she once saw Julie and thought of royalty, it seemed what Julie had inherited was a kind of genetic disease. The poor girl had been reared by relations who disliked one another, a kind of parents’ committee made up of her separated father and mother, her uncle, grandmother, and a number of domestics and ranch employees who treated her with barely disguised contempt simply for who she was. She grew up isolated from other kids, in the middle of a simmering stew of anger and resentment. That she’d turned out halfway normal was a testament not only to her mom but also to Julie herself. And it wasn’t as if Julie had lots of friends, even though it seemed like it at school. When it really mattered, like tonight, Julie had only one friend: Sheridan. No one else showed up.

Julie needed Sheridan’s friendship and understanding. Sheridan vowed to try harder to give it to her. She only wished she didn’t have the feeling Julie needed much more than Sheridan could provide.

SHERIDAN HAD TO go to the bathroom but didn’t want to get out of bed to do it so she lay there in the dark, studying the ceiling, wondering if she could hold out all night. And deciding she couldn’t.

She slid out of her bag wearing her pajama pants and a T-shirt. Julie didn’t wake up, even when Sheridan stepped over her and took a thin fleece blanket from Julie’s bed to wrap herself in against the chill in the house. Opening the bedroom door, Sheridan stuck her head out and looked both ways in the hallway. It was dark, although there was some kind of light coming from the first floor, down the staircase. There was a bathroom at the end of the hall next to Arlen’s bedroom. Although his door was closed and there was no light under it, Sheridan thought it best to go downstairs to use the guest bathroom.

SHERIDAN PADDED DOWN the stairs in her bare feet, wrapping the blanket around her. She found herself drawn to the Scarlett Legacy Wall, and specifically to the tinted photo of Opal she had seen earlier that night. It was one of those portraits that drew you in, she thought. Something about that woman’s eyes and that confident but mysterious half-smile. She broke away and quickly used the bathroom, washed up, crept out, and shut the door. Since the bathroom didn’t have a cup near the sink and she wanted a drink of water, she followed the light.

The kitchen was empty and stark, and she had the feeling the light hadn’t been left on by mistake. Then she saw the loaf of bread and a knife on a cutting board on the counter, the cold cuts near it, and wondered who had been up making a sandwich but wasn’t there now. And she decided she was in the process of scaring herself silly, so she must stop it. The main house of the Thunderhead Ranch wasn’t simply the home for Julie and Uncle Arlen. It was also the business headquarters of a large enterprise. Employees could come and go. Maybe one of them wanted a midnight snack, she thought. There was nothing frightening in that.

Nevertheless, when she heard a set of deep men’s voices outside approaching the house, Sheridan reached out, grasped the handle of a steak knife from a collection of them near the cutting board, and pulled it inside the blanket. As the front door swung open and heavy boots scraped the hardwood floor in the living room, Sheridan had a choice to make: either dash through toward the stairs and be seen by the men, run out the back door into the ranch yard, or stay where she was.

She quickly reasoned that just as there was nothing wrong with making a snack in the middle of the night, there was nothing wrong with her getting a drink of water from the kitchen sink. But she would also keep the knife under her wrap, and return it later when the coast was clear.

She recognized one of the voices as Arlen’s. The other was unfamiliar, a guttural but syrupy southern drawl. They were coming toward the kitchen. She would be caught unless she made the decision—now—to run out the back door into the ranch yard. She froze.

Arlen was saying, “So he’s got all you boys building fence . . .” when he swung the kitchen door open and saw Sheridan standing there by the counter. He was obviously startled, and what Sheridan took as genuine anger flashed across his face for a brief second. Then his semiauthentic smile returned.

“Sheridan, what are you doing up?” he asked.

“I wanted a drink of water,” she said as boldly as she could.

The man with Arlen squeezed into the kitchen behind his host, his eyes fixed on her. He was medium height, rangy, with pinched-together eyes, a taut skeletal face, and thin lips stretched over a big mouthful of teeth. His brown ponytail spilled down his back from beneath his hat over the shoulders of his denim jacket.

Arlen stepped aside stiffly, as if embarrassed by the situation he was in. “Sheridan, this is Bill,” he said.

“Bill Monroe,” the man said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sheridan Pickett.”