Free Deep South by Nevada Barr

the inebriated child into the living room. Determined not to give up her own bed, she laid her out on the hard narrow cushion of her grandmother's couch, removed two ticks from the back of her patient's right knee, swabbed iodine on a scrape on her elbow and, having arranged her on her side so she wouldn't choke on her own vomit, threw a comforter over her.
    Following a personal tick check, Anna went back to bed. Piedmont had come out of seclusion and lay on the rumpled sheets. As she wriggled in on the far side so as not to disturb him, Taco padded from the room. The retriever's instincts were in alignment with the law enforcement credo "to protect and serve." Anna didn't doubt that he would camp out next to the drunken prom queen and keep the bad guys at bay.
    E excuse me, ma'am? Excuse me." Thin piping penetrated Anna's slumbers.
    Claws on her arm jerked her more rudely from her dreams as a still-skittish Piedmont launched himself off the bed and back to the imagined safety of the closet, his hiding place of choice when strangers intruded. "Excuse me, ma'am. Do you have a phone I could use?" Anna sat up. Foreseeing just such an awakening, she'd done the unthinkable-and the uncomfortable. She'd slept in her emergency backup pajamas.
    Peeking timidly through the bedroom door was her little drunk.
    Mascara ringed the big brown eyes and the brown hair, done up to the nines and affixed with industrial-strength hair spray the night before, resembled a ruined cake. Around her shoulders she clutched the comforter against the cool of the morning-or the shame of the night.
    One small white band was fiddling with the sable ear of her newly adopted protector, Taco. "What time is it?" Anna asked.
    I don't know." The girl's voice faltered; then her face crumpled and fat tears rolled blackly through the makeup and down her checks. "I don't know where I am. I don't know what happened." Tears clogged the slender throat, making intelligible conversation impossible. She slumped to the floor, buried her mucky face in Taco's coat and bawled.
    "Take it easy. Take it easy," Anna said and unwrapped herself from the sheets. "Doggone it, don't cry. You're okay." It annoyed her that she didn't have any tried-and-true soothing maternal phrases, and the annoyance made her voice sharper than she intended.
    The girl cried harder. Anna sat on the edge of the bed and tried to scrub some sense into her tired mind by scratching her scalp good and hard. "Okay," she tried again. "My name's Anna. I'm the ranger here, as of yesterday.
    I found you passed out drunk in the graveyard and brought t you here to my house. That's where you are and what happened. Now how about you tell me who you are and we call somebody to take you home?" The sobs changed tone. Anna could tell they were on the wane and sat quietly lest she trigger another storm.
    Finally the girl lifted her head. Black tears glistened on Taco's coat but he stood his ground. "Start with your name," Anna suggested.
    "Heather," came in a whisper. "Heather what?" A long silence followed then the girl said, "Barnes. Heather Barnes. My father's going to kill me!" She dove wetly back into the dog's fur.
    Anna stood and tugged on the corner of the comforter. "Tell you what, Heather. Let's call your dad first. The sooner he finds out the less likely he'll be to kill you outright." Heather clung to the dog. "I'll talk to him if you like," Anna offered. "Give him some time to cool off.
    Tell me your number, and I'll call while you take a shower.
    You'll feel better. I'll feel better. Nothing wrong with that." Heather let Anna get her up then and show her into the bathroom. As a gesture of goodwill, Anna tossed in a pair of old sweats and a T-shirt so the girl wouldn't have to shimmy back into her handkerchief-sized dress.
    At the joyous news her daughter was safe, Mrs. Barnes burst into tears.
    Then, proving Heather might not be oriented to time and place but her sense of family was intact, the woman added: "Her