Exit Row

by Judi Culbertson

“Well, we could sip the water and sing ‘New York, New York.’ Make a kick line on the road. Listen, Rosa: the next time someone asks, the word is terlet.”

  “Terlet.”

  Eimer Jensen would have said they were whistling in the dark. Eimer. She wished her uncle were there now, holding the rifle he had insisted she learn to use. She had drawn the line at going into the woods with him to kill animals, but was a crack shot at tin cans.

  The line of cars coming toward them had thinned to one every several minutes. It seemed too early for twilight, but the sun had disappeared from the sky, leaving only a few cool streaks of rose. Fiona could feel the chill seeping through the window cracks.

  “This is bad,” Rosa said, all pretense gone. “How did we get ourselves in such a bad situation?”

  “I don’t know. The worst thing is, you and Greg don’t even have to be here. I feel like I made him come.” And then she told Rosa what had happened to her in Egypt.

  When she was done, when she’d told her about Marcelle’s death and fleeing the country, Rosa reached over and stroked her arm. “What a terrible thing for you!”

  “At least I got out alive. And this time I’m sure we will too. But it’s—”

  She was interrupted by a screech of tires on the gravel behind them, the wheeze of a truck braking.

  Both woman turned to look at the same time.

  The black truck had “The Death Squad” painted in white script on the front hood.

  No. Fiona looked frantically down the dirt road, praying for Dominick and Greg to appear. She imagined them running to the Explorer and jumping in as she turned the key and they sped off. But the darkening area was as empty as when they had driven up. She was reaching toward the ignition when she felt the truck ram the back of the Explorer insolently.

  The jolt was electric and shook her into action. She felt around for the emergency brake, found it, and released it as she turned the key and shifted into Drive. Cutting the wheel hard toward the asphalt road, she pumped the gas pedal. The Explorer jerked forward, breaking clear, jouncing Fiona and Rosa hard. This time, there would be no phony sheriff to rescue them.

  Rosa craned her neck to look through the opening between the seats, and Fiona tried to yell at her to get down. But no words came out.

  She heard the ping of metal hitting the truck before the explosion of gunfire. The back window splintering sent glass shards everywhere. Rosa slumped against the door, blood pouring from her forehead. Her eyes and mouth were half open.

  Jesus, help us. Every word Paolo Recchia had said, every warning had been true. First, stop the bleeding. Reaching toward the floor, trying to drive fast at the same time, she groped in Rosa’s bag until she pulled out a navy flowered scarf. Frantically she pushed it against Rosa’s head, pressing as hard as she could. There was no time to do anything else but look for help.

  Find the nearest hospital. She had not seen any signs for one on the drive up, and the Death Squad would never let them turn around. Better to keep going straight ahead and find help. Maybe there would be a house she could call from. Park in the driveway and press on the horn until someone came outside. But what if the Death Squad shot them too? Her phone was in her bag, somewhere in the backseat on the floor, but she could not take her eyes off the road to find it. A look in her mirror told her the truck was right behind her, though they hadn’t fired any more shots.

  Fiona streaked past a sign for the Sand Dunes in the shape of an arrowhead and realized, horrified, that this highway must dead-end there. But was that so bad? There would be rangers at the headquarters, someone who could help them. “Rosa?”

  There was no answer. Fiona put her hand on Rosa’s arm and shook her. She was still warm, still breathing . . .

  A childhood prayer: God, if you get me out of this, I’ll never ask you for anything again.

  The black truck had switched on its high beams, illuminating the interior of the Explorer.

  Fiona kept reassuring Rosa, trying to keep her conscious. “Rosa, you’re going to be fine. You said you were tough; you can do this. I’m getting help right up the road.”

  What if Rosa lived, but her brain had been damaged?

  As both vehicles screeched around a new curve, Fiona saw the flat, one-storied visitor center at the same moment she noticed the chain across the road. Helplessly she crashed through the metal, ripping it away. There was an interior light burning from somewhere inside the building, and she saw two official jeeps parked to one side. Thank God. Beyond the visitor center rose huge mounds of sand.

  Veering in at the circular drive, she braked, banging the curb. Then Fiona leaned down on the horn. Even if no one was in the building, help had to be somewhere.

  She honked continuously, but nothing stirred. Finally, pushing open the door of the Explorer, she leapt down and raced toward the dark building, in the direction of the huge white sea.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  THE MAIN ROOM of the visitor center was as dark as it had looked from the road. There was no one behind the reception desk, no one anywhere that she could see, but she banged on the glass, pounded on it. Someone had to be in a back office, closing up for the night. No one came.

  She heard the slam of a truck door and knew it was not Rosa.

  Then she was running for her life, around to the back of the building where she had imagined the light was coming from. It was from a security spotlight. She knew it would be futile to try to get inside and kept moving into the sand, into a world of her nightmares. Her legs were once again too heavy to run, the desert-like quicksand pulling her down. She felt her arms flailing, knew she would soon lose her balance, and struggled to keep going. She seemed to be back in Egypt, the peak of the tallest dune as high as a pyramid.

  I should have died there.

  An explosion of gunfire behind her brought her whirling back into her life, made her trip and go sprawling. The sand gleamed white, its coolness like a gentle hand against her face.

  “Fiona, stop!”

  She lay there as if she had been hit.

  How did the Death Squad know her name? But of course they would know it; they would know everything about her.

  “Fiona! Just where do you think you’re running off to?”

  She knew that voice. By the time she turned to look, Will Dunlea had caught up with her. Slowly she pressed herself to her knees. “Will, thank God! I thought it was your brothers.”

  Yet this was a subtly different Will from the one she’d met in Santa Fe. Instead of his carefully sporty clothes, the smooth red shirt and white slacks, he had on work jeans and a threadbare plaid flannel shirt. In his hand was something that glinted only slightly in the darkening light. It was as if an animal she had imagined tame had bared its teeth at her.

  “Why did you shoot at me?” she gasped.

  “I was trying to get your attention. But why are you still here? I thought you’d left for New York.”

  “No, you didn’t.” This was no time for “Let’s Pretend.” “Listen, you shot Rosa! We have to get her to a hospital.”

  He gave her a slight smile. “Collateral damage—isn’t that what you lawyers call it? You took advantage of my kindness, you know.”

  “What kindness?” She pushed herself to her feet. “You lied to me about Lee. When I went to your office to pick up the voucher, someone told me there had been a problem with the plane between Taos and Denver. How could I go home after that?”

  “Who told you that?” Even in the dusk she saw the shock in his eyes.

  “I don’t know her name.” But as soon as she said that, she thought, Priss. It didn’t matter; she would never tell him. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. We have to get Rosa help!” Every minute they wasted talking was making things more desperate.

  He shook his blond head slowly, his lips pursed in a bemused smile. “For a smart woman, for a lawyer, you’re not seeing the bigger picture.”

  “What—”

  He leaned over and tapped her shoulder with the s
ide of the gun. “This way.” He pointed deeper into the sand.

  “No! Rosa’s—”

  “Shut up! I’m tired of hearing you talk about Rosa. I’m really disappointed in you.” His sudden grip was a leather cuff around her arm; she had to walk quickly to keep from being dragged. As it was, her feet caught in the long black footprints left by daytime tourists.

  “We’re going the wrong way.” But she already knew. He was not her savior. He was the bigger threat hidden behind his brothers. He was the second car making a left turn when you’d congratulated yourself on avoiding the first.

  “Here is good.” He indicated the large dune they had circled behind and stopped.

  Standing so close to him, she saw more lines in his face than she had noticed before. Sun lines. Son lines. Did Ginger Lee know what he was going to do? Should she try to grab the gun?

  And then Will was twisting her arm, jerking her down so quickly that she lost her balance and pitched into the sand. Before she could right herself, she felt something heavy in the small of her back—a knee—and then his hand was spreading across the back of her neck. He was pressing her face down roughly into the grit.

  “I’m not going to shoot you and make it look like murder,” he said softly. “You’re just going to go to sleep.”

  Terrified, sputtering, Fiona jerked back, trying to turn over, but found she could not move her head at all. Her eyes—she must have closed them instinctively; everything was black. Gasping, she opened her mouth for air and sucked in sand. Air pockets . . . but there were few air pockets; he had twisted her head back and forth to destroy any.

  How had he known to do that?

  She was drowning in sand, sand as warm as another body against hers. She was with Lee. No, it was death. The sky would blacken after a while, the moon would rise, the air get deeply cold. But she would not feel it. She and Rosa would be left here, one more layer of the disappeared.

  No one would come looking for her. No anxious parents, no brothers or sisters, no determined best friend. Only Lee, but he was gone now himself. Rosa, at least, had sons. Would Maggie think to come to their aid?

  She tried to breathe lightly, barely inhaling, but only took in more sand. One of her legs was jerking convulsively. She had not taken care of Rosa, despite Paolo Recchia’s warnings.

  Will was speaking to her softly. “I’m not enjoying this, you know. I really liked you.”

  It’s not too late.

  “But sometimes you have no choice. When my mom was growing up on the farm, they had to shoot animals that were sick or wounded for their own good. I know you won’t see it that way, but this will help a lot of other people.”

  She tried to control her leg, to stop its motion and make it push her up. She tried scissoring her legs, but the pressure on her back was unyielding. How long could she hold out? This can’t be the end of my life. Except that it was. In stories people relaxed and faced the moment of death with grace. Stories. How had her mother felt when the waters of Packer Lake closed over her?

  “I gave you every chance to go back to New York.” His voice was harsher now.

  Who is he trying to convince? If only she could talk to him. But the blackness in front of her eyes was dissolving into spots, white, then red and yellow, blue, violet, white again, pulsing, pulsating, now attacking her, now retreating. No, not attacking, it was beautiful, a multicolored universe she had never known about. The spots made noise too, buzzing and humming. Even squeaking, like leather on sand.

  The pressure on her neck eased slightly. “Jesus! You startled me, sneaking up on me. I told you to stay in the truck to keep an eye on the other one.”

  “What are you doing to her?”

  Help me. Help me, whoever you are. Don’t let him kill me.

  “She was going to ruin everything. We go into bankruptcy, you’ll never get to fly.”

  She felt something drop heavily onto her upper back, pressing her face deeper into the sand. Then suddenly there was no weight at all. This was how it felt to die.

  But someone was grabbing her by her sweatshirt sleeve and flopping her over on her back. “Breathe!”

  She tried, but all she could do was sputter and choke sand.

  Then a mouth was on hers, sucking everything out, then breathing it all back in. She thrashed her head, trying to get away, but fingers were scrabbling at her nose, scraping away sand. “I said, breathe!”

  She tried to inhale and pulled in some air, but it ended in a coughing spasm. Opening her mouth, she finally felt air rush in.

  She opened her eyes and stared at the man holding the gun. She knew that face, that delicate mustache. These planes are really very safe . . .

  “Come on!” He was trying to jerk her to her feet. “We have to get out of here!” He indicated the shape of Will crumpled in the sand.

  But there were still too many colors and shapes pulsing against her face for Fiona to stand up on her own. “Jackson?”

  The body sprawled in the sand stirred, turned over, and took in the scene. “Jackson, you can give me back my gun now.”

  “You were going to kill her!”

  “I told you why. Don’t be any stupider than you are.”

  Fiona saw Jackson’s face tighten, then go bland. “Stupid? I know you think I’m stupid. I’m stupid, but I can shoot.”

  He moved the gun closer to Will’s chest and fired.

  Will, eyes wide, jerked back down.

  “This is for all the promises about flying.” He squinted and shot Will in the head. “And this is for—”

  “Stop! You’re wasting bullets!” Was it a bad joke? She didn’t know.

  “You’re right.” His arm dropped until the gun was pointed toward the sand. “Let’s go. No, wait! Get his phone.”

  “His phone?”

  “He keeps it in his front pocket.”

  You want me to kneel down and take his phone? When he’s dead? But maybe he wasn’t. She imagined Will jerking to life, grabbing her arm and pulling her down on his bloody chest. Jackson still had the gun, but it would be terrible.

  Still, she sank to her knees, trying to keep from looking at the network of red lines across Will’s face. Roads going nowhere. It spooked her that his eyes were still open. She made herself pretend he wasn’t real. Don’t think that he’ll never eat at La Cantina again or sit behind his beautiful desk. Stop. This man was trying to kill you. It was almost your body lying here in the sand.

  She put her hand on his jeans’ pocket and felt the bulge beneath. But her fingers were shaking so much it was impossible to extract the plastic case. The smell of blood made her nauseated, and she wanted to turn away and collapse. If Jackson weren’t so insistent . . . She made herself grasp the end of the hard plastic case and inch it out.

  “Take it.”

  Fiona pushed back up, swaying as Jackson grabbed her. Then they were floundering through the sand, coming around the dune and toward the faraway visitor center.

  “The rest of them think I’m stupid too.” He was on a mission now.

  “First we have to help Rosa. Please?” Belatedly she realized what it meant to be with Jackson Redhawk. “You know what really happened on the plane.”

  He kept pressing forward without answering.

  “Tell me,” she begged.

  “Later.”

  They reached the asphalt and started to run, Jackson awkwardly as if favoring one leg, but when Fiona saw the screaming horse’s head on the door she lurched back. “Are they in there?”

  Jackson has a gun. Jackson will protect us from them.

  “Who?”

  “Those—Jesse’s sons.” She pointed at the truck.

  “No . . . ” Then he understood. “That’s not their truck. There’s a whole fleet of them.”

  “My God! And they just drive around terrorizing everyone?”

  “Who’s to stop them? This family owns everything.”

  They reached the Explorer, and Fiona yanked open the driver’s side door.

/>   “Rosa?” she cried.

  Rosa was slumped in the same position as before. Her skin was gray in the overhead light, the scarf on her forehead clotted around the hole. Was it good that the bleeding had stopped—or did it mean there was no longer any hope? She leaned her face over Rosa’s. There was shallow breathing.

  “She’s alive!”

  Jackson had pulled open the backseat door and climbed in. Then he leaned over and assessed Rosa, tugging the silk scarf away from her forehead so he could see. Fiona was afraid he would make the wound start bleeding again, but he said, “It’s okay. I think it just grazed her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “How old is she?”

  “Not old enough to die!”

  “Okay. We’ll take her to Magdalena. Turn right on the main road.”

  Fiona started the engine and skidded out of the parking lot, shivering as she passed the Death Squad truck. Ahead, snaked on the asphalt, was the chain she had torn down. She clattered over it, driving as fast as she thought safe.

  “Have you ever shot anyone before?” she asked.

  “No.” She assessed his voice for meaning but couldn’t find any.

  “Turn right up there; it’s the cutoff for Mosca.”

  The Explorer’s headlights played over flat grazing land, shining on the empty road. Crossing a cattle grate in the road, the tires made a deep moan. “Will you at least tell me what happened to Greg?”

  “He’s the climber?”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Will shot him.”

  “Oh my God. But why?”

  “He was upset that he found the plane.”

  “The plane?” Fiona sought his eyes in the rearview mirror. “What plane do you mean? At least tell me if he’s alive so we can go back and get him.”

  “We don’t need to go back.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  FIONA GRIPPED THE steering wheel dizzily. It wasn’t possible that Greg could be dead. She had been terrified when she heard the shots from the mountain but hadn’t accepted what they might have meant. Not really. And it was her fault. If she hadn’t begged him to come, he would be in Santa Fe right now, drinking a beer and planning his next climbing expedition. Maybe he would have found Dimitri’s apartment and what he was looking for.