Unraveling Jane Doe (Holding The Line Book 3)

by Carol Ericson

  “Sirens. The first responders are here. What are we going to tell them?” She wedged her phone in the cup holder again.

  “That we saw the wreck, determined the driver was dead and called 911.” Rob shoved his weapon into its holster. “We don’t know him, don’t recognize him, didn’t see anyone around.”

  “What about Zeke? Should we tell them Zeke is the one who spotted the wreck and another car in the vicinity?”

  “Not without letting Zeke know first.” Rob drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. “In fact, I want to go back to Luna and Zeke’s place and question him...and warn him.”

  “Warn him?” The lights from the emergency vehicles cast a red-and-blue halo around Libby’s hair, making it look like fire.

  “If the people who killed Troy saw Zeke’s bike, noticed anything about him, he could be in trouble. He should at least know what he stumbled on. Luna mentioned she didn’t much like the new residents of the camp. Maybe this is their opportunity to move on.”

  Libby clasped her hands. “I didn’t even think about it. Luna and Zeke could be in danger.”

  “I suppose they don’t have a phone, do they?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then we’ll have to drive out there when we’re done with this.” He squeezed her neck, his fingers pressing into her soft skin. “Are you up for that?”

  “Of course. I don’t want to see them get hurt. Those other bikers there might not provide any protection if they think the cartel will come after them, or if the cartel pays them off.” She grabbed the handle of the truck when the first highway patrol pulled up. “The two dudes who came out to meet us didn’t exactly look like Boy Scouts, did they?”

  “Let me handle this.” He caught a strand of her hair. “I’ll tell them you didn’t see anything, never left the truck. Okay?”

  “Do you think they’ll want to question me?”

  Leaning forward in his seat, he pulled his ID and badge from his pocket. “Not when I show them this. As soon as I make it clear we don’t know anything, they’ll let us go. Then we can continue on to Zeke’s place. The sooner we raise the alarm with him, the better.”

  She nodded and released the handle with a snap.

  Shading his eyes, Rob marched up to the first patrolman and explained the situation. He ended by crossing his arms and saying, “Looks like the guy was shot, close range.”

  Another patrolman called from the wreck, holding up a bag. “Drugs.”

  Rob swore under his breath. EGV’s people must keep a supply on hand to implicate unsuspecting and innocent people...and dead people.

  The patrolman in front of him cracked a smile. “Looks like you boys might be getting this case anyway.”

  “Maybe so.” Rob jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Can we be on our way now? You have my card if you need anything else, and like you said, we might be picking this up anyway.”

  “Yeah, sure.” The patrolman stuck Rob’s card in his front pocket and pivoted back to the scene.

  Rob strode back to the truck and climbed into the cab. “That was easy.”

  “Professional courtesy?”

  “Something like that.” He cranked on the ignition. “Also, they found drugs in the trunk.”

  Libby covered her mouth. “Just like me. They want to make sure to blame the victim, don’t they?”

  “Blame the victim, muddy the waters, divert suspicion from the real motive. I hope Highway Patrol does throw the case to us. Then I can set things right for Troy. He deserves that.”

  “Rob?” Libby was turned around in her seat.

  “What is it?” He shifted his gaze to his rearview mirror as they made a dip in the road.

  “I saw some lights behind us. C-could that be the highway patrol following us?”

  “No way.” He squinted into the mirror and caught a flash of something coming over the rise. His foot came down hard on the gas pedal, and his V-8 roared.

  Libby braced a hand against the door. “What is it? Is there someone behind us?”

  “Someone who just cut their lights.”

  She whipped around in her seat again. “Why would someone drive without lights in the middle of the desert? I don’t care how deserted it is, nobody would do that.”

  “Unless they didn’t want to be detected.”

  “Rob, are you saying we’re being followed? How? Why would they think we’re out on this stretch of highway? They don’t know anything about that campsite, or they would’ve paid it a visit by now to collect my phone.”

  Gripping the wheel, Rob tipped his head back and swore. “They have Troy’s phone.”

  “So what? I didn’t tell Troy where the phone was. They wouldn’t be able to locate that site from the description I texted Troy. They may not even have the same phone with that text on it.”

  Rob turned off his own lights, and the darkness engulfed them. “Remember how Troy found us in Tucson after we dropped off Teresa?”

  “He put a GPS tracker on your truck.” Libby rubbed her arms. “What does that mean? How’d they get that GPS?”

  “Libby, it’s on his phone. They took Troy’s phone after they killed him and found the tracking program.” He pounded the steering wheel. “As soon as I learned Troy had a GPS on my truck, I should’ve demanded he remove it.”

  “C-can you find it now? Remove it now?”

  “With that bearing down on us? I’m not going to take that chance with you in the truck.”

  She scooted forward in her seat. “We just left a gaggle of emergency vehicles back there. Can we turn around and get help?”

  “We would have to drive straight back toward them. We’d have a shoot-out before we ever reached the scene of Troy’s accident.” Rob swallowed. “Do you know how much firepower these cartels have? I’m not bringing that to bear on those EMTs and patrolmen. There would be a slaughter.”

  “Your phone. I’ll call the Border Patrol. You can let them know what to expect, and they can come prepared. Surely you guys can match them weapon for weapon?”

  “You can try, but we usually can’t get service out here, Libby. Texts, maybe. Phone calls? Not so much.”

  She pounced on his phone and tapped it. Held it to the window and tapped it. “But you used your phone back at the accident site.”

  “To call 911.”

  “Can I text?”

  “Not the Border Patrol.”

  “How about the individual agents?”

  “I don’t want them walking into an ambush.” He clenched his teeth. This was his mess. He wasn’t going to put another agent’s life at risk.

  Libby stashed his useless phone in the cup holder and caught his arm. “Where are we going, Rob? We can’t go back to Luna and Zeke. We’re not bringing that to rain down on them, either.”

  “I agree. We need to get out of this on our own.” His foot eased off the accelerator.

  “What are you doing? It’s time to speed up, not slow down.”

  “I can’t take the next turn at this speed. We’ll flip.”

  “Next turn?”

  As he cranked the wheel to the left across the oncoming lane of traffic, the tires squealed and Libby’s body fell against his arm. “Sorry. You okay?”

  “I’m not okay, Rob. Where are we going? They’re tracking us via Troy’s GPS. We don’t have a chance.”

  “We can do this, Libby. You just have to trust me. Can you do that?”

  “I’ve done that from the minute you picked me up in the desert—or at least from the minute I dropped my knife.”

  “We’re ditching the truck.”

  “Wait—did I just say I trusted you?” She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Are you out of your mind? Once we ditch this truck, they won’t be able to track us anymore but we’ll be on foot. In the desert. In the middle of the night.�
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  “C’mon. You’ve been there, done that.” Rob leaned over the steering wheel. He wanted to ditch the truck but not crash it into a saguaro cactus. “Besides, as you pointed out, they can’t track us without the truck.”

  “Why would they want to? They’ll just find a couple of corpses.”

  “We still have a head start. They kept their distance because they had the GPS.” He aimed the truck off the access road and toward a gully in the sand. “At the bottom of this dip, we abandon the truck and get out.”

  “Could we maybe search for the GPS on the truck first, remove it and get back in the vehicle...where it’s safe?”

  “This truck is not safe. It’s a big target, although I’m glad it’s black, and we don’t have enough time to look for the GPS. Can’t do it in the dark, and can’t put the lights on.” He halted the truck and cut the engine. “It’s go time.”

  “It’s go crazy time.” She hung on to her seat belt strap as if daring him to pull her out of the truck. “I thought I was the one with holes in my mind.”

  Rob reached into the back seat and grabbed his backpack. “I didn’t leave home without my bag of tricks because I didn’t know what we’d find when we picked up your phone. Who knew we’d need it to...?”

  “Survive, right? This is do or die?”

  He hauled the backpack into the center console and kissed Libby’s mouth. “It is. Let’s get moving.”

  This time he was glad she didn’t wait for him to get her door. She scrambled out of the truck and eased it closed.

  Reaching into his backpack, he said, “I brought a weapon for you. It’s the one you had at my house when I left you alone with Teresa. Can you handle it?”

  “Point and shoot. I’d rather have it than not.” She patted the front pocket of her jeans. “I have my knife, too.”

  He grabbed her hand. “Follow in my steps. Even though I have a flashlight in my bag, I don’t want to use it out here. We shouldn’t use the lights from our phones, either.”

  “Won’t they be able to follow our footsteps in the sand?” She glanced down at her own feet creating divots in the sand.

  “Maybe they will, but it won’t be easier than following a GPS... And I have a plan.”

  “That’s good to hear. What is it? We must be close to the border.”

  “We are. That’s why we’re here. I know this terrain better than they do.”

  She huffed behind him. “There are snakes and tarantulas and other...things out here, aren’t there? I got a look at a few of them after the accident.”

  “The most dangerous animal out here right now is the one coming for us, and you’d better believe nothing’s going to stop him.” Rob cranked his head over his shoulder. “If they’ve realized we’ve gone off-road, they know we’re on to them.”

  “And they don’t have to get out of their vehicle. They’ll reach us faster now. Where are we headed? We can’t hide out in the middle of the desert all night. I tried it.”

  “We’re not going to be in the middle of the desert. We’re going right there.” He pointed to a ridge and some scrubby desert bushes.

  “That doesn’t look very promising to me.” She leaned her head on his shoulder, her breath coming out in short spurts.

  “You’re not supposed to be able to see it, and neither are they.” He adjusted his backpack. “It’s a tunnel, Libby, a tunnel that runs beneath the border.”

  “A tunnel? The tunnel where my mother was murdered?” Libby spun around in the sand, falling to her knees. “I can’t do it, Rob. I can’t go in there.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The sand and grit dug into her palms as she tried to push up to her feet. She couldn’t—and she couldn’t crawl into a tunnel, which had been the last thing her mother had done.

  Rob dropped to the ground beside her. “It’s not the same tunnel, Libby. We’ve closed all of those. We had three left to cut off, and this is one of them.”

  “I don’t think I can, Rob.”

  “Your mother would want you to survive, wouldn’t she? It sounds like she did everything she knew how to do to help you at the end. Don’t waste that.”

  Libby sat back on her haunches and brushed her hands together. “Lead the way.”

  “First we’re going to try to cover our tracks around here. Shuffle around in the sand from side to side.”

  They spent a few precious minutes scuffing through the sand to cover their footprints.

  Rob braced his foot against a rock. “Now, follow me. We’re going to hop from rock to rock to the entrance of the tunnel. We’re gonna have to crawl on our bellies to get in, but if I recall, this particular tunnel is paved and we’ll be able to stand to our full height—or you will be.”

  Rob jumped to the first rock and held out his hand to her. “As soon as I leave this rock for that clump of brush, take my place. Our stepping-stones don’t have to be literal stones. There’s scrubby brush we can use, too. Any hard object in the sand that’s not going to show a footprint.”

  Like a couple of kids playing hopscotch, they jumped and careened and stepped from spot to spot toward that dark ridge that seemed to forecast her doom.

  At the last anchor, she froze. “Rob, I hear an engine.”

  “I’ve been hearing it. They’re on the way.” He curled his hand. “C’mon. One more and then we hit the ground.”

  “Okay, I’m ready.” She jumped toward Rob and he caught her, wrapping his arms around her. She wanted to stay here and forget about the men coming for them, forget about the tunnel at their feet.

  “We’re gonna crouch down here. The entrance is between those two rocks. It’s big enough for a grown man to get through, so you won’t have any problems.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “You can do this, Libby. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Behind me?” She gulped. “You mean I have to go through first?”

  “I’m not crawling in there and leaving you out here by yourself. You’ll be safe inside. Hurry.”

  Libby bent her knees, which felt stiff as boards. From above, Rob guided her. No wonder the cartels and coyotes got away with these tunnels. She was kneeling right in front of the opening and still needed Rob to tell her how to get inside.

  As Libby crawled into the tunnel, she thought about her mother doing the same thing over a month ago. She whispered into the darkness, “Why, Mom?”

  After several seconds of claustrophobia where she felt the dirt walls closing in on her, she took a breath that didn’t result in grains of sand in her mouth. Her hands no longer scrabbled through dirt, but hit smooth cement.

  Rob slithered through the entrance behind her, bumping her back with his head. “Is that you?”

  “It had better be.” Still on her knees, Libby stretched up. “There’s a lot of room in here. I can’t believe it.”

  “You’d be surprised at some of these tunnels.” Rob crawled past her and sat up. “Can you stand?”

  Holding her hands above her head, she rose to her feet. “Almost. Can we use the light from our phones in here, or will they see?”

  “They won’t see a thing from inside this tunnel.”

  Libby grabbed her phone from her purse and turned on the flashlight. She scanned Rob’s face first, just to make sure he was beside her. “We made it. Now what?”

  “They’ll be coming after us. They might suspect we’re in a tunnel, but they’re going to have a hard time figuring out how to get in here.” Rob tossed his backpack on the ground and plunged his hands inside.

  “So, we’re going to wait it out or what? They’ll never give up, will they? We could cross to the other side of the border and get to a place where we can make a call from our phones.”

  Rob didn’t answer her. He was busy pulling items from his backpack—scopes, wires, another gun, a rope.

  Narrowing her eyes, she said
, “We’re going to use all that stuff?”

  “If we hope to survive, we are.” He picked up a pair of goggles. “These are night vision. We have to be able to see our enemies before we can take them out.”

  “T-take them out?” Libby ran a hand through her tangled hair. “We’re not just going to hide? Wait for the cavalry? I didn’t realize we were going to engage them.”

  “They will engage us. Make no mistake about it.” He held a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

  Libby kept still, even though her insides quivered as she heard shouts from outside the tunnel.

  She scooted next to Rob. “Can you hear them? Are they speaking Spanish or English?”

  “They’re speaking English—for my benefit. As far as I can tell, they’re ordering us to come out from hiding.”

  “Or what?” She pulled the gun from her purse that she’d slipped in there earlier. “You tell me where to shoot, Rob, and I’ll pull the trigger.”

  “I have no doubt about it, but don’t get trigger-happy just yet.”

  A barrage of gunfire erupted outside, and Libby jerked back. “What are they doing?”

  “Those are automatic weapons. They’re shooting up the ridge. They must think they’re gonna get lucky and hit us.”

  “Are we protected in here?”

  “Stay away from the entrance and try to keep low to the ground when they’re shooting.”

  She curled a finger around Rob’s belt loop. “It doesn’t sound like they’ll ever stop.”

  And then silence descended and it was ten times worse than the bullets. “What’s going on?”

  Rob strapped on the night-vision goggles and did an army crawl toward the tunnel’s opening, his gun clutched in his hand. He hoisted himself on top of the hunk of rock that blocked the rest of the entrance.

  He aimed his thumb to the left and whispered, “They’re that way. I can’t make out what they’re doing.”

  As his words ended, an explosion rocked the tunnel and threw her onto the ground. Her ears rang and she coughed up dirt.

  The blast knocked Rob back, and he reached for her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, but they’re going to blast us out of here, aren’t they? They have explosives, and they’re just going to keep bombing away at us until we die or stagger out of here...and die.”