Jolynn looked at her father for a long time. Then she looked at Coralee, at the counter, with the coffee pot in her hand. Coralee did not say anything. It was not hers to say. She had done her part, and she knew a great deal about the difference between helping somebody and taking a thing out of their hands.
"Did he bring her back?" Jolynn asked her. "Was he bringing her back? Tell me the truth."
"No," Ozias said, before Coralee could answer. "No, honey. I wasn't. I was going to Quartzsite. I'd have gone, if she hadn't—" He nodded at Coralee. "I got as far as starting the truck."
Jolynn closed her eyes. When she opened them she turned to Thane.
"I don't want him in jail," she said. "I want him to come up the stairs. Next time. I want him to walk up and knock on my door. Can you put that in your paper?"
"I can put that you said it," Thane said. "I can put he was found stopped, sober and cooperative, and the child unharmed, and the mother don't wish to proceed. What Washoe does with it, I can't promise." He looked at Ozias. "If I was you, I'd hire a lawyer, Mr. Kroll. And I'd follow that station wagon home real slow."
"I ain't got any gas."
"Benicio'll fill you up," Coralee said, and from the kitchen door Benicio, who had heard every word, nodded once, and Coralee knew without asking that the money was going to come out of a Folgers can with her name on it, and that Mr. Quayle in Fallon was going to have to wait a week, and that it did not matter.
Then she went into the kitchen and got the pie.
It was still on the rack by the screen door, with one slice gone, the mountains gone hard and glossy in the cold. She brought it out and set it on the counter and cut it, all of it, seven pieces, and put them on plates. One for Jolynn, one for Dovie, one for Marcelline, one for Thane, who said he shouldn't and ate it in four bites. One for Benicio. One for herself. And one she put in front of Ozias Kroll, on the counter, with a fork.