Reluctant Runaway (16 page)

“Thanks, Ortiz. Speaking for the Boston office, we appreciate the cooperation.”

Tony cut the connection. Just two more hurdles. Get the shrink off his back, and persuade Cooke that his little Westward Ho! was the best scenario for everyone.

He punched in Desi’s cell number. His call went to voice mail. Blast! She must have shut the phone off so she could sleep. Not that he blamed her. She’d sounded pretty worn out when he talked to her earlier, and she wouldn’t have expected him to call again.

He got up, padded to his bedroom, undressed, and crawled between the sheets. Desi was all right, just catching z’s in a hotel room. He’d call again in the morning. Nothing to worry about.

So why, then, was every muscle in his body stretched tight as a drum-skin?

I’m an idiot!

No other explanation for why she was still chauffeuring this injured fugitive through the desert.

Too late to turn back. Cheama might know where they were headed, but she was lost—and not because it was dark outside. She’d be just as disoriented in broad daylight. No landmarks in this desolate sandscape, much less a road sign, and they’d made so many twists and turns, for all she knew she could be headed for Outer Mongolia.

Desi leaned forward, straining to make out the vehicle track. The headlights made ghostly wisps out of passing clumps of creosote. Here and there, a piñon pine made a brave stand in the barren terrain.

“Oomph!” Her jaw snapped shut as the car bottomed out on a rut for the umpteenth time. Her passenger yelped. “Sorry.” What was she apologizing for? She was out here because this guy hijacked her. He’d better keep his promise to tell her where Sanctuary was located. “No wonder you had a dually pickup, Cheama. My rental car isn’t meant to travel a road like this. If it gets worse, I can’t promise we’ll make it to the reservation.”

“We’ve been … on the res … since leaving Albuquerque.”

“So where’s the town?”

“Not … going to a town.”

Oh, happy day! A mystery destination. Desi gritted her teeth and wrestled the wheel to avoid another gouge in the earth. Too late! The rut grabbed her front driver’s side tire. The vehicle plunged to the axle with a hideous scrape of sand against metal. Something popped, the front end lurched, and the rear end slewed to the side. The car jerked to a halt.

Desi sat back, rubbing at the pain in her neck. “Okay, now what do we do?”

No answer.

Desi turned on the dome light and looked into the rear seat. Her passenger was slumped onto his side, eyes closed,
skin ashen around angry bruises.
Please don’t be dead!
Then she saw his chest rise and fall.

Okay, think. Next move.

A little reconnaissance. She opened her door and eased into the desert night. A cedarlike fragrance tickled her nostrils from a juniper bush haloed in the headlights. Shoes crunching on sand, Desi walked to the front of the vehicle and stared down at the trapped wheel. The tire was flat. She leaned close and let out a hiss. The tie rod could be bent, too. Even if she could get the car out of the rut and put on the spare, she might not be able to drive it.

She rubbed her bare arms against the night breeze. Stars gleamed down at her, looking near enough to touch. Over the purr of the car engine, silence echoed. It was like standing in a deep, empty well. Desi closed her eyes. Her heart rate slowed, and the desert filled her ears. Little scurrying noises. The soft cry of an owl. A rustle. Contrary to appearances, life was busy in the wasteland—but not the kind of life that would welcome her. She wouldn’t make it long stranded out here.

Should she try to walk for help? Not possible. Outside the range of the headlights, she’d creep along blind. One false step, and she’d have a close encounter with a stand of prickly pear, or a rattlesnake, or who knew what. She suppressed a shudder.

There had to be an alternative. She was at an unknown location in the middle of the desert with an unconscious man who might never wake up. A vision of herself exploded in her mind’s eye: Dressed in cactus-shredded rags, staggering across burning sand, fevered from scorpion sting, dehydrated flesh cracked and bleeding.

Pursued by images of reptiles and gargantuan insects, Desi raced around the car to the rear driver’s side door and yanked. It didn’t budge. The inconsiderate oaf had locked it. She wrenched
the driver door open and dove inside. “Cheama, wake up!” She lunged over the seat back and shook the man. An object slid out of his shirt pocket and thumped to the floor. Her cell phone.

She groped for her connection to civilization. Clutching the cell to her chest, she sank to her haunches facing the rear of the vehicle.

Her mind cleared, and her blood stopped roaring in her ears. All righty, then. All that fuss for no reason. She looked down at her phone. The screen was shattered and the casing crushed. Little wires stuck out of the cracks. Her heart did a flip.

Terror dug frozen fingers into her flesh. “Cheama, you evil creature, you smashed my phone! We have no way to call for help!”

 Thirteen

I
what?” said a groggy voice from the backseat. Desi held the cell up for her blockhead captor to see. “You knew we were headed into no-man’s-land, and you pulverized my phone anyway. Did you stop to think we might need it?”

“Relax, Jacobs. Over that rise … is a valley with a small spring. A family lives there. Get out … and put some of that lung power to good use. Sound … carries in the desert. Yell for help. Someone will come … eventually—once they decide you’re not out witching.”

“Witching?”

Cheama gave a weak wave. “Never mind. Do as I said. Call out my name. We’ll be in a warm kitchen … ” He shifted and winced. “ … before you know it.”

Desi shut the car off and climbed out. “Help! Someone—anyone—hear me?”

“You sound like a half-drowned kitten.”

Desi scowled. Cheama’s little nap must have given him new strength. She poked her head inside. He was sitting up. “If you’re feeling so chipper, why don’t you help me holler?”

He grinned, but the puffiness distorted the look into a grimace. “Give it another try.”

She threw heart and soul into a major yell. Long moments ticked past. She shouted again, gaze fixed on the rise. What had happened to John Wayne and the cavalry? Wait! Wrong movie.
She needed the
Indians
to ride to the rescue.

“I’m not a witch!” Try terrified, white female. “Please! I’m here with Pete Cheama.”

She stopped, winded, and leaned against the side of the—

Wait. What was that?

She straightened. In the distance, a vehicle engine roared to life. The sound of labored chugging grew closer, and a light glowed over the horizon.

“Thank you, dear Jesus!”

A small pickup came into view, a lumbering shadow behind its headlamps. Desi waved. Behind her, the car door opened, and Cheama emerged, puffing and moaning. The truck stopped beside them, brakes squealing. A rusty door creaked open, and the driver got out.

The bowlegged man stared at Desi without expression. He wore a Western-style flannel shirt, faded jeans, and a headband around raven-black hair. A jagged scar traced a path from under the band to his cheekbone and then to his chin. The man’s attention went to her injured captor. He turned and spoke a few words in what sounded like a Native tongue to someone else in the vehicle.

The passenger door groaned open and slammed shut. A younger, unscarred version of the first man walked past Desi without a glance. He went to Cheama and helped him toward the back of the truck. The older man looked at her and jerked his head toward the cab.

Desi swallowed. She was in no position to stick around her disabled vehicle and try to thumb a friendlier ride. “Thank you.” She walked on wooden legs to the passenger side.

A glance into the truck box showed large burlap bags, rounded and fat as pillows, lining the bottom. Pete Cheama was stretched out on several of them with a folded blanket under his
head. Perched on another bag, the young man returned her gaze with a flat stare.

Desi settled onto the cracked seat. No seat belt. The cab smelled of cigarettes. No air freshener. Without a word, the scar-faced man turned the pickup and headed back the way he had come. Every bump about jolted her teeth out. No shock absorbers. Even lying on those bags, Cheama must be in agony. Glancing at the stone-faced driver, Desi kept complaints to herself.

They headed down into a valley, and the road smoothed out. On her side of the track, they passed several large beehive-shaped structures made of adobe. Traditional Pueblo ovens.

The truck pulled into a dirt yard outside a single-story adobe house. The driver got out. Desi stepped to the ground. Several sagging outbuildings sat on the property, but in the dark, she couldn’t tell what they were used for. She heard the soft cluck of hens disturbed on their roosts and smelled the evidence of other livestock.

A pained cry came from the back of the pickup. Desi hurried around to the tailgate. The two men were helping Cheama get down. As his booted feet met earth, his head lolled and his knees buckled. The men lowered him to the ground. Desi grabbed the blanket from the truck bed.

“You can put him on this and carry him.”

The older man assessed her with his penetrating gaze and then accepted the blanket. The men put Cheama on the blanket and carried him in a sling toward the house. The front door opened, spilling light onto a low porch of weathered boards. A wide woman filled the opening. She chattered in a language Desi didn’t understand. The older man answered with fierce phrases. The woman backed up and let the men pass with their burden.

At the door, Desi stopped and studied the woman. She
gazed back with placid mahogany eyes set deep in a fleshy face. Her hair, drawn back and gathered at her nape, had streaks of gray. She motioned Desi to come inside. Desi stepped over the threshold and watched as the men carried Cheama through a curtained doorway to the right.

Would the injured man wake up to keep his promise about Sanctuary? Even if he told her the secret compound’s location, how and when would she get the information to those who could help? What did these people plan to do with her? Moths fluttered in Desi’s middle.

The Indian woman pointed toward a plank table that stood near the fireplace.

“Thank you.” Desi worked up a smile. “I’m glad to be here. You have no idea, I—”

The woman motioned again without a word.

Desi clamped her mouth shut against any more nervous babble. She walked across well-scrubbed but crinkled linoleum and scooted onto a bench. Rubbing her palms up and down on her slacks, she looked around.

A mottled brown dog lying on a homemade hearth rug lifted its head, thumped its tail, and went back to snoozing. Woven baskets dangled from nails over the fireplace. The mantel was cluttered with pliers, magazines, boxed matches and ammunition, framed photographs, and a pair of paint pots. Strips of meat hung drying on a wire stretched across the room—the source of the gamy scent that unsettled her stomach.

In a far corner sat a metal-framed cot with rumpled bedding. The younger man’s sleeping accommodations?

The kitchen area had a large porcelain sink next to a crude sideboard. Open cupboards hung overhead, displaying assorted pottery cups and plates, as well as a motley collection of glass jars. The jars contained different colored powders. Spices?

Her hostess rummaged in an ancient refrigerator. Desi glanced at the bare bulb that dangled overhead. The place did have electricity.

She searched for a telephone, but found no sign of one. Her spirits sank. The Indian woman turned from the refrigerator, offered her a shy smile, and moved to an iron cookstove. Her clean, but faded housedress swished around ample calves. She wouldn’t get much company out here and not in the wee hours of the night.

“You don’t need to fix anything for me.” Desi cleared her throat. “Er, that’s assuming it’s for me. Whatever you need to do for Pete Cheama, don’t let me keep you.” No reaction from the woman at the stove. “Can I help you with something?”

The woman glanced over her shoulder, brows lifted. She shrugged and went back to what she was doing.

No English? Lovely.

Voices came from the other room. Cheama was awake. Desi headed for the covered doorway. The younger man stepped beyond the curtain and blocked her path. How did he sense her approach? He stood with feet planted apart and arms crossed over a lean chest.

Desi’s hands fisted. “Mr. Cheama has something to tell me. Who knows when I’ll get another chance to talk to him?”

The young man shook his head. Cheama’s voice went on in English, but Desi couldn’t make out more than a word or two. Maybe if she called to him, he’d tell his guard to let her in. Desi opened her mouth. The young man scowled and took a step forward, looming over her. She lifted her chin and marched back to her seat.

A plate of flat bread made from blue cornmeal had appeared on the table, along with a dish of salt crystals, a bowl of scallions, and one of cucumbers. A spicy scent drifted from the
cookstove. Desi’s stomach rebelled against the suggestion of food. Her hostess laid an empty plate in front of her and a scarred tin fork and knife. Smiling, the woman got a jelly jar of golden brown liquid from the refrigerator and set it by the plate.

Iced tea? While her hostess went back to the stove, Desi dipped a finger in the beverage and tasted. Tea, yes, and with mint. She might not be hungry, but she was thirsty. Would it be polite to take a drink before others joined her? The woman placed an enameled tray of steaming tamales on the table. Then she sat down across from Desi, expectation bright in her eyes.

Desi glanced around. No one was going to eat with her? The young man lingered at the door to the inner room. Instead of English words, a soft, eerie chant drifted from beyond the curtain. The older man must be singing, hopefully not a dirge. Desi returned her gaze to the Indian woman. Her expression had flattened. She’d insulted her. Desi picked up her glass and took a sip of tea. So good going down a parched throat. She took another, then smiled and nodded at her hostess. The woman beamed back.

Desi inhaled the scent of hot food and stared at the juicy tamales. Her hostess could cook. Too bad the guest didn’t feel like eating. She picked up a piece of flat bread, ripped off a strip, and took a small bite. Chewing slowly, she smiled at the woman across from her. A grin and head bob answered her.

Forcing the morsel of bread down, Desi moved one of the tamales onto her plate and then helped herself to a scallion. The woman pushed the dish of salt toward her. Desi dipped the vegetable, rolling it around in the unrefined grains. When she could no longer delay the inevitable, she bit into the scallion. Flavor burst in her mouth, a not unpleasant war of hot and salty sensations. Desi chewed slowly, giving her tense stomach time to accept the offering. Finally, she swallowed. Then she took another drink of the tea.

Her hostess continued to bob her head and grin.

Keeping to her methodical procedure, Desi tackled the tamale. A small bite, a sip of tea, then a slice of cucumber. Back to the tamale, followed by a little scallion and a bite of bread. Wash everything down with tea. Warmth began in her middle and radiated outward.

“This is delicious.” She ate more tamale. The spicing was superb and unique. Must be something from one of those jars in the cupboard.

Her hostess looked past Desi and spoke to the young man. Pulling up a rickety wooden chair, he sat at the end of the table. He glanced toward the woman, presumably his mother, then toward Desi. Amusement pulled at the corners of his lips. “She says you have good manners.”

Desi stopped with a bite halfway to her mouth. “Ah, you speak English.”

The man shrugged. “When necessary.”

She put the bite in her mouth and took her last sip of tea. Her hostess grabbed the glass. A refill? Wonderful! Desi rested her elbow on the table and leaned her chin on her hand. “Why does she approve of my manners?”

“You don’t gobble your food like most Anglos. It is our way to savor a meal.”

The woman returned with a full glass. Desi accepted with a word of thanks then took a long pull. She closed her eyes and let the liquid trickle down her throat. There was something to be said for this savoring business. Desi opened her eyes and started to set the glass down. Strange, there were two plates in front of her. She shook her head and blinked. There, that was better. One plate. She released the glass, picked up her fork and stabbed at the tamale, missed and stabbed again. Tricky little bugger. A giggle escaped her lips.

She ate a bite, then drank a sip of tea. “Thish is sho yummy!” She looked at her hostess … correction, hostesses. Two of them—identical twins.

What was the matter with her?

Desi dropped her fork, brain fuzzy, but lucid enough to know something wasn’t right. She’d been poisoned! She groped for the table, pushed herself up, and slumped back down. If she had a body, she couldn’t feel it. Dense fog crept over her vision. Arms encircled her, lifting, pulling.

“Easy now. That’s it.” The masculine words came from a place far away. The arms guided her where they wanted her to go.

Fight it, Des!
But blackness sucked at her. Too strong. The last vestige of strength fled. She drifted.

From another universe, angry words spat—a man, then another man, and then a woman. They spoke a language she didn’t know, but she understood the meaning.

They poisoned her, and now they fought over where to dump the body.

Resistance sparked, but oblivion snuffed it out.

“What did you do last night after you got home?” The psychiatrist brushed his mustache with a knuckle.

Tony folded his hands and peeked at his watch. He’d been here for twenty minutes and handed the guy a blow-by-blow of everything he did or thought yesterday afternoon. Enough, already! History could wait. He had someplace to be.

He met the man’s bland gaze—a look about as safe as a knife in a sheath. “I sat in the dark and stared out my window for a while. Blanked my mind. Then my ex-partner came over and did some pretty good pizza-and-baseball therapy.”