Fatal Flashback

by Kellie VanHorn

“Yes, I know. But we have to figure out the right timing anyway. If we arrive when Jimenez isn’t there, we’ll scare him off.” She rubbed her eyes, suddenly exhausted by all the logistics that had seemed exciting only minutes ago. “Here’s what I think. Since we believe they might be transporting the gold at night, our best bet would be to reach the mine at midday. That will give Jimenez’s crew time to get involved with their work, and hopefully give us the element of surprise.”

  “Agreed.” He hesitated, adding, “How do we keep something like this secret from our rangers?”

  “I’ll tell the agents to meet us at the trailhead. It won’t be a big team. They should be able to slip under the radar.”

  “What about Ed? If we bring him in on the raid, he can help with the cover-up.”

  Ashley nodded. It made sense. They trusted him, and he could ensure whoever was assigned to patrol the trailhead wasn’t there at midday. “And it’ll be good to have another person who knows this terrain.”

  “Barclay is going to hate this when he finds out.” Logan’s mouth tipped into a crooked smile as he ran a hand through his sandy-brown hair, making the ends stand out at odd angles. He looked almost boyish for a moment, but she knew a warrior’s heart beat in his chest.

  Even with everything that had happened, she’d never regret coming here and meeting him.

  “Yeah, he will.” She smiled. “Even if he’s innocent.”

  Between Morton’s advance communication and Ashley’s call to the El Paso office, it didn’t take long to arrange for a small team of agents to meet them at the Pine Canyon trailhead the next day.

  When she hung up the phone, Logan nodded toward the door. “Come on, it’s late. Let me walk you home. We can finalize plans in the morning.”

  They followed the familiar path to her house in silence and Ashley stopped in front of her door. His face was visible in the soft glow of the moonlight. Strong chin. Warm eyes. And his lips... Well, she didn’t need to remember what they felt like.

  “Thank you. For everything. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  He smiled, joy and sorrow mingling. His voice was low and rough when he spoke. “It’s been my pleasure.”

  She rested her fingertips lightly on his chest. “Good night, Logan.”

  “Good night, Ashley.”

  It took a long, long time to fall asleep.

  SEVENTEEN

  The day dawned hot and muggy, with hazy wisps of clouds hovering on the edges of a dull blue, faded-denim sky. Ashley woke early—too early to expect Logan. But there was no way she could fall back to sleep, not with the day looming ahead.

  She tried to roll some of the tension out of her shoulders, shifting restlessly on the edge of her bed. Why the sudden nerves? Maybe because she still didn’t know who the traitor was. Or maybe it was because the day looked sultry and miserable, and she’d hoped for a more auspicious beginning.

  Whatever the case, maybe a jog around the neighborhood would clear away the jitters. It only took a few minutes to pull on a pair of black yoga pants and a running top. She left her gun in its place under the extra pillow and the map tucked between the mattress and box spring, along with her computer. She’d just finished quaffing a large glass of water when someone knocked at the door.

  “Logan, you’re early—” She stopped short as she opened the door. Not Logan. “Oh, hey, Will. What’s up?” Perhaps a golden opportunity to see what he knew about Sam.

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and leaned one forearm against her doorjamb, somehow managing to look both suave and nervous at the same time. “Hey, got a minute? I’m heading out on patrol, but I wanted to talk to you. It’ll be quick.”

  “Sure.” She opened the door. As he passed by her, Ashley caught a sudden whiff of that same soap she had noticed at the staff picnic. So familiar—hauntingly familiar—but the connection dangled there on the edge of her brain, just out of reach.

  “What happened to your face?” He gestured at her bruised cheek, which didn’t look a whole lot better this morning. His dark eyes were full of concern. “Did that happen in San Vicente?”

  “Oh, um, n-no,” she stammered, grasping for a reasonable explanation that didn’t involve telling the truth. “I ran into some trouble out on the trail yesterday. But I’ll tell you about it some other time. Want to sit?”

  “No time. I wanted to see how you were doing. It’s a big adjustment, moving here, and now with all these scary things that keep happening to you...” He let the words trail away, fidgeting with a button on his cuff.

  “That’s so kind of you, Will.” Ashley smiled, trying to set him at ease. There had to be some way to steer this conversation toward his friendship with Sam. But how? “You know, there was something I wanted to ask you. I heard a rumor about a ranger dying here recently. Is it true?” She shifted her weight back and forth, feigning nervousness. “I’m a little hesitant to ask Logan. He seems kind of secretive about it.”

  An outright lie. Sorry, Logan. She was pretty sure he’d understand.

  Will ran his hand through his thick, dark hair, a gesture that reminded her of Logan. But along with the motion came that scent of fabric softener, demanding her attention. “Um, yeah. It was pretty tragic.”

  Ashley heard the words, saw his lips moving, but her mind suddenly filled with recognition so forceful she had to swallow back the bile rising into her esophagus.

  Will was the one who had dumped her into the river.

  Images flashed through her mind, one after another, filling the last blank place in her memory. She had driven down past the trail where Sam had died, and then, with nothing else to do but grieve, she had kept going all the way to the end of the road. Right to the Santa Elena Canyon parking lot, where she had inadvertently stumbled across a drug exchange.

  She remembered the blow to the head, the distant sound of voices and the feel of someone stuffing her gun into her pocket. And the smell—that fabric softener—on the man’s shirt as he’d lugged her limp body to the river.

  Well, Sykes, one of the others had said, you’re in for it now. She looks like law enforcement. How are we going to cover up this mess?

  Don’t tell my uncle.

  Will had panicked. He had picked her up, carried her to the Rio Grande and thrown her in.

  And he had gone out of his way to be friendly to her ever since, because he wanted to know what she remembered.

  That truck that had run her and Logan off the road on the way to Terlingua? It was probably whomever had picked up the drugs on this side of the river.

  “Ashley, what’s wrong?” Will’s words snapped her back to the present, where they both stood inside her house. With the door shut. And Will’s back leaning against it.

  “Nothing.” She forced a smile even though her head was spinning. She had to tell Logan—if Barclay was one of Jimenez’s men, he wasn’t alone. Will, so deceptively charming, was a mole, too. It took all her self-control to keep her hands from shaking. “Just sad. For the family. Of the ranger that died.”

  Her gun—it was in the bedroom, under the pillow. How long would it take to reach it? Should she try taking him down now, before he realized she had remembered the truth?

  “You know...” Her voice came out a half octave too high. “I’ve got some things to take care of, and I’m sure you need to get going. We can talk more later.”

  Her stomach turned over as she waited, hoping he couldn’t read the visceral terror on her face.

  “Of course.” Will’s lips curled into a smile, but his eyes filled with something else that looked a lot like...fear.

  She took a step back, letting out the breath she’d been holding as he turned for the door.

  Before she could react, he lunged. Black flashed in his hand and the gun smashed into the side of her head, filling her vision with stars as her legs crumpled. The last thing s
he heard before she blacked out was Will’s voice.

  “I’m sorry, Ashley. I didn’t want it to end like this. Not for you and not for Sam.”

  * * *

  Ashley was gone. Logan pounded on her door as Ed waited with him on the front step, but nobody answered. All the hairs stood up on his arms.

  He strode over to her window and peered into the living area. Empty. Tension roiled in his stomach. With a glance at Ed, he walked around the back to the bedroom window.

  Nothing.

  Wait! The sash was open an inch. And on the ground—footprints. At least two sets.

  “Ed!”

  The chief ranger dashed around to the back and examined his find. “Too big for Ashley’s?”

  “They’re not hers,” Logan managed to choke out. Failed. He’d failed. The world collapsed in on him as he imagined her tied up, gagged, maybe dead.

  Please, Lord, not that... The prayer ripped its way out of his soul.

  Ed grasped his shoulders. “We’re going to find her. You and me. Okay, buddy?”

  He nodded woodenly, digging cold fingertips into his hair, and walked with Ed around to the front.

  The door was unlocked, no sign of a struggle inside. Except... He dropped to one knee, examining the white linoleum tiles in the entryway, where a few red splotches had almost escaped his attention. Some of the blood came away on one of his fingers. “Happened this morning.”

  Ed nodded grimly.

  It didn’t take long to search the small home. In her bedroom, Ed lifted one of the pillows to reveal Ashley’s gun.

  Logan pursed his lips. “She must’ve let whoever it was in.”

  “Or forgot to lock her door.”

  No, it had to have been the mole. Somebody she trusted enough to let inside her house. But who? Surely not Barclay, not after last night’s conversation. Somebody else they’d overlooked?

  Thinking about it wasn’t going to get Ashley back. “We have to assume Jimenez has her and take the team in to the mine.”

  “Agreed.”

  The next two hours passed in a brutally slow haze of anxiety and preparation. Logan notified the FBI team of Ashley’s capture and arranged for them to put a helicopter in the air as soon as the raid was finished. Just in case she wasn’t there.

  Logan and Ed were already waiting at the Pine Canyon trailhead when the team of agents arrived. Six agents, wearing FBI windbreakers over body armor, climbed out of two vehicles. Logan spread a trail map out on the hood of one of the cars and went over the details of the raid.

  Fifteen minutes later Ed led two agents in first to clear the trail of guards. They only found one and, mercifully, no evidence of anyone being mauled by a mountain lion the previous night.

  Once the guard was secured, Logan signaled his team. One agent stayed on the trail to cover their backs and the rest scrambled in behind Logan up the steep mountainside. His legs burned from the extra weight of his Kevlar flak jacket and gear, but he barely noticed as he prayed for Ashley’s safety. She had to be in there.

  The mine entrance, hidden in a cleft of rock behind a cover of bushes, stayed quiet as they approached. To avoid direct observation, Logan led the team in from above, positioning them around the mine entrance. A guard sounded the alarm, opening fire.

  “Stop!” Ed called out from behind the protection of a large boulder. “This is National Park Service law enforcement and the FBI. Cease fire or we’ll shoot.”

  When the man ignored him, Ed signaled to the agent who’d claimed to be their best shot. The man nodded, braced his gun against a rock and took the guard down.

  Logan dropped into the cleft from above, followed by one of the agents, who secured the fallen guard. When the others were in position, he stepped inside the mine, gun up, flashlight on.

  Pale faces blinked at him from within the darkness. A few lanterns glowed in the background, casting dark shadows from the occupants on the glittering walls.

  “Freeze!” he ordered, though no one had moved. Most of them held tools—a jackhammer, a shovel, an old-school pickax like something out of a Western movie.

  Sudden movement to his side sent his heart into his throat, but another agent was ready. “Drop it.”

  The man’s face, illuminated in a flashlight beam, was familiar. José, from San Vicente. He scowled but dropped his gun with a heavy clatter to the cave floor. Only one other man was armed. The rest, unfortunate souls, had been carted in solely for the purpose of manual labor.

  “Amazing.” Ed shone his light around the inside of the mine. Narrow veins of white and yellow quartz, most of them already partially removed, ran through the hard rock wall.

  Logan traced his fingers along one of the rough veins where someone had recently been working. Tiny gold flecks glinted in the quartz. Gold in Big Bend, right there beneath his fingertips. Ashley had been right.

  But she wasn’t here.

  They’d cuffed everyone they’d found and searched the mine, which ran back in a single tunnel that grew narrower and narrower to the point of claustrophobia before it ended. Three guards in total, plus six workers. No Jimenez and no Ashley. The other two men from San Vicente weren’t there, either.

  Logan stalked out the mine entrance and scrambled back down the hill to the trail, where the agents had hauled the suspects. He found José. “Where’s Jimenez?”

  “No hablo inglés.” José shrugged.

  Logan stepped closer, his face inches away. “You can either cooperate, or I can make the next few days very difficult for you.”

  José smirked. “You’re not allowed to hurt me.”

  Without hesitating, Logan crushed his knuckles into the man’s mouth. “Try me.”

  “Logan!” Ed called, eyebrows raised.

  But Logan ignored him. Time was slipping away and every passing moment increased the odds of Jimenez and Ashley disappearing across the border where he would never find them again. Too many hours had passed already.

  José turned to the side, spitting out a mouthful of blood. “He’s not here.”

  “That’s obvious,” Logan growled. “Where is he? And the woman?”

  “The federal agent?” José laughed. “Dead by now.”

  A knife in the stomach would’ve felt better, but Logan clenched his jaw and sucked in a deep breath. Maybe he was telling the truth, maybe not. In either case, José had known exactly whom he was talking about. Did that mean she’d been there?

  Movement behind José caught his eye. One of the forced laborers. He raised a wavering left hand. The fingertips were filthy and ragged, and multiple scrapes covered his knuckles. Poor man.

  Logan strode over to him. “Do you speak English?”

  “A little.” The man nodded, glancing nervously at José.

  “You’re free. He can’t hurt you anymore,” Logan assured him. “Have you seen an American woman? Brown hair?” He held up a hand. “This tall?”

  When the man nodded again, Logan’s breath lodged in his lungs. Ashley had been here.

  “When?” he prompted.

  “Today. Gone now. Jimenez take her.” The man pointed to the west, where the trail dwindled away into a wall of thick brush. “That way. We go that way with gold, too. Trucks wait on road.”

  Just as Ashley’s contact had told her, they were getting the gold out through Juniper Canyon. He could see now where the foliage had been damaged and cut at the trail’s end, leaving a narrow, barely visible path.

  “Where’s he taking her?” Logan balled his fists, every nerve in his body waiting impatiently for the answer. “To Mexico?”

  “No. To desert. Kill her.”

  No. His fingernails dug into his palms as he turned to find Ed already beside him. “I’m taking two agents into Juniper Canyon. Will’s checking campsites on Glenn Spring Road. He can help search.”

  “I’ll get
that FBI chopper up over the stretch between Juniper and Mariscal.” Ed squeezed Logan’s shoulder, his voice steady as always. “Go get her.”

  * * *

  Ashley’s head throbbed. Again. She groaned, forcing her eyes open. The sun scorched down like an oven set to broil.

  “Good, she’s awake.” Someone kicked her hard in the ribs. Not Will’s voice, but the face was invisible against the bright yellow orb of sun overhead.

  Another voice—a man’s, crisp and clear but with an accent—said, “Manuel, stop kicking the federal agent. Stand her up.”

  Ah, one of her friends from San Vicente. Lovely. He yanked her to her feet, making her head spin like a top. A black SUV and a beat-up truck were parked nearby, off to the side of the dirt road where they now stood. Her hands were bound tightly behind her back and a rock dug into her foot.

  Great. No shoes. She’d never had the chance to put them on. Logan would have a thing or two to say about that...if she ever saw him again.

  She was still in her running clothes, which meant she had nothing. No gun, no cell phone, no water, no knife. No way to tell Logan what had happened, or where to find her, or that he had to arrest Will Sykes.

  A man dressed in a linen shirt and khaki pants stood a few feet away. “We meet at last, Agent Thompson.”

  “Jimenez?” she asked, although it was hardly necessary. Despite his short stature, he wore the air of a man used to getting his way.

  He nodded.

  She glanced around, trying to orient herself. The Chisos towered behind her, close enough she was still on the US side. But the profile of the mountains didn’t match the view from the mine and the cactuses and low brush of the open desert surrounded them. They must be somewhere in that long barren stretch between the mine and the border. “What do you want with me?”

  “We’ve known who you are since your second day in this park. You don’t think I can let you keep chasing me, do you?”

  Second day? That would explain the almost immediate break-in at her home. “Will?” She faltered. How could he have known? “Did Barclay tell him?”