Tularosa Moon

by Stacey Coverstone

  After sharing that passionate kiss in the miner’s museum, he sure hoped for more than talk.

  Damn. Why hadn’t she been clear, so he’d know exactly where to go and what to think? He could come right out and ask her. But that wasn’t sexy. Being the one who was from here, she was probably counting on him to choose the perfect place for their spontaneous rendezvous.

  There was a patch of pecan trees across the highway and down a dirt road a couple of miles. But he didn’t carry a blanket in the truck. It could be buggy if they were to lie under the trees. And it was too hot outside anyway. They’d both be dripping with sweat before long—and that visual didn’t arouse him, except when it involved them both being naked in his bed.

  Staying in the truck with the air conditioner on was a possibility. But even if they only kissed, the thought of maneuvering around a gear shifter with the steering wheel protruding into one or the other’s back struck him as unromantic and awkward. After all, they weren’t teenagers.

  All this thinking was causing his erection to shrink. This was too much stress. He was a grown man, dammit. It shouldn’t be this difficult to seduce a woman.

  Cole glanced at Lindy’s profile, and his stomach rolled like a wave. Immediately, he knew why this was hard. He didn’t want to just have sex with her. Even if that was what she was after this afternoon, he wanted more than a quick roll on the truck seat, between the sheets, or on the insect-infested ground. He wanted to make love to her—and he wanted it to be perfect for both of them when it happened.

  In a few short days, Lindy had come to mean more to him than he could have imagined. His thoughts returned to that first night when he’d found her gazing upon the full moon in the garden. He’d always been a sucker for a good romantic legend. Why couldn’t she be the woman he would marry? Stranger things had happened, like Jordan falling for Wyatt instead of him.

  His musings were interrupted when Lindy said, “Where are you taking us?”

  Before he could answer, the end of the road met the highway and his cell phone rang. Glancing onto the screen, he saw there was a voice mail message waiting for him from his mom. “I have a message. White Oaks is too far out in the boonies to receive cell phone service,” he said. “It’s a message from Mom. Let me take this while we’re stopped.”

  After listening to the message, he snapped the phone shut and answered Lindy’s question. “I’m taking us back to the ranch. Luz is sick and Mom needs my help in getting supper ready for the guests.”

  Whatever disappointment Lindy might have felt didn’t show. She smoothed her expression into a sweet mask. “I’m sorry Luz is sick. I’ll help you in the kitchen. It’ll be fun.”

  Cole smiled and reached for her hand. When they touched again, it wasn’t a stretch at all to imagine them as partners—not only in the kitchen, but in every sense of the word.

  Twenty-Four

  Skin spent the afternoon reading, although it was not easy to concentrate, as his mind was already outside the prison gates. He had no idea if Roy was alive or dead—no one had bothered to give him an update—but with him out of the way, Skin was free to prepare for his escape tonight. Roy had been a liability. Delbert had simply been a pawn. Tat hadn’t asked what the raw chicken juice was for. This was, and always had been a one-man job.

  Stealing the tools out of the workshop had been a piece of cake. Skin had paid another prisoner to cause a distraction so he could hide what he needed inside his jumpsuit—two screwdrivers, one small and one large for dismantling the door locks and to force any other stubborn doors—a chisel in case any of the doors would not yield to his more gentle persuasions, and a file should he have to modify any keys. Back in the cell, he’d concealed the tools inside a hole in his mattress until later. Then he’d double-checked the sugar tin he was allowed to keep in the cell to satisfy himself that the ten forged keys he’d hidden were still there.

  At shower time, Skin snuck past the guard when a fight started between two of the prisoners and hurriedly checked the closet that held the water heater. Stuffed behind the heater was the bag holding his civilian clothes and shoes that he’d placed there several days ago.

  At supper, he forced himself to eat the vile soup and bread being served, barring a slice of bread to take back to his cell. As Monday was book day when a large box of library books was brought into the dining room, he finished eating and selected a stack of books as usual. Those he tucked under his arms and took to his cell.

  Since there was still some time before the six o’clock lockup, he walked around the exercise yard a couple of laps, as he normally would. As he strolled, he took a last look at the walls that had surrounded him for three years. They had lost their solid, impenetrable look. It now seemed as though they were transparent and insubstantial, and he had to suppress a chuckle. The knowledge that he would soon be walking through them with minimum effort made a mockery of all the security measures that asshole warden kept in place. And it tickled Skin.

  Lockdown took place at six p.m. as usual. The guard in control of the keys locked the doors in his typical mindless way, and the other guard in charge of inspecting prisoners trod the length of the passage and back like an impatient yo-yo. Neither appeared to suspect anything. As Skin’s hated jailers trooped out of the section and locked the section door, he silently bade them farewell and good riddance.

  As soon as he heard the clang of the section door, he set to work. For over two years, he’d invested so much emotional, mental and physical energy in the planning of this break out that he went about carrying out the mental list of things to do in an efficient manner.

  First, there was some tidying up to do. Donning rubber gloves—something else Tat had provided for cigarette money—Skin cleaned up his cell to eliminate clues, beginning with preparing his clothing to streamline his exit. That meant washing everything in the basin that could be given to dogs to acquire his scent.

  Bed linens were pulled back and his jumpsuit was placed on his bed. Inside the jumpsuit he stuffed clean towels and the library books he’d brought in earlier. His shoes he propped at the bottom of the jumpsuit legs to look like feet. Then he whipped the bedding over the lump and pummeled it into the shape of a sleeping body.

  His extra clothing was quickly plunged into soapy water in the basin so the clothes could not later be given to the dogs to retrieve his scent. To further confuse the dogs the warden might use, Skin rubbed his bed and the jumpsuit body with stick deodorant and filled his shoes with pepper that he’d been taking from the dining hall over time and stashing away.

  Dressed only in his underwear and a T-shirt and socks, he left a book open on the table along with the slice of bread. This he did to make it look like he’d gone to sleep reading, in case a night-warder should do a visual inspection later in the evening. Then he retrieved the tools from the mattress stuffing, as well as a handful of cigarettes he’d filtered from Roy over time. All this took only a few minutes.

  In short time, Skin cocked his head and heard the staff ending their inspection by shouting orders and stamping their feet to attention. Soon after, the familiar clang of the metal doors in the administrative section sounded, and Skin knew it was time to hustle.

  With the tools grasped in one hand, he dug the ten keys out of the sugar tin and slipped all but one into a plastic bag he’d taken from Roy’s belongings. Then he unlocked the cell grill with the key he’d marked with the number one. To prevent the grill from banging as he went out, he taped toilet paper to the doorframe where it made contact when it closed. The door swung open and Skin stepped into the dimly lit passage and then relocked the door behind him.

  He skated down the passage on cat feet, halting once when another prisoner whispered to him through the bars of his cell. Skin handed him a cigarette from his stash, hoping to buy his silence. The prisoner snatched the cigarette and nodded, and Skin continued down the passage.

  He ducked into the shadows when he saw the night-warder strolling along the catwalk. The guard soon m
oved to the far end and out of view. Skin used the number two key to unlock the door separating the catwalk from the next level staircase and then relocked it. Down the stairs he went.

  In the shower room, he sprinted to the closet and pulled out the bag of civilian clothes from behind the water heater and dressed. Though somewhat bulky, the tools fit inside his pants pocket. After pushing the bag that had held his clothes to the bottom of the space behind the heater, he edged toward the entrance of the shower room to listen for any guard movements. Hearing nothing, he tiptoed in a crouched position down the passage to door three where the guards’ lounge was located. He peered through the keyhole of the third door to see if anyone was standing on the other side. Assured that all was safe, he quietly unlocked that door and scurried down the stairs.

  Once downstairs, he went to the switchboard to turn off the lights for the first floor. When that was accomplished, he relocked the door and quickly made his way to the day room. Upon seeing one guard sitting at a desk inside a small office outside the room, he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled below the glass window and past the closed door.

  After he’d entered the day room undetected, Skin squeezed his tall frame into an equipment cabinet. Suddenly, he heard emergency bells sounding. He knew these were ringing because of the unexpected darkness that had blackened the first floor when he switched off the lights. He cracked open the cabinet door and heard the guard in the office acknowledge a call about the lights being out. Then the guard picked up his keys and hurried down the hall.

  Skin slipped out of the cabinet and followed the man on silent feet. The guard made his way down the passage to door four. He unlocked the gate and, without relocking it, hurriedly treaded up the stairs. Skin almost burst out laughing at the man’s stupidity. The guard went into the next section without checking the switchboard first. Skin dashed to the gate, closed the door without relocking it, and ran down the passage, which led to doors five and six.

  He reached the office where the button for opening door eight was located. Springing into the empty office, he pressed the button and heard a loud buzz and clang as the electric bolt released the door. It was a much louder sound than he’d expected, and he wondered, for a second, if his plan would fail. Quickly, he realized that his senses were in such a state of arousal that every slight noise probably sounded greatly amplified.

  After hastily unlocking doors five and six and then relocking them behind him, Skin was now out of sight of any guards and ready to tackle the remaining doors.

  Knowing door number seven to be a problem after several tests, he’d made three keys for it. The first one he tried almost turned the lock, but jammed just as he began to move the bolt. The cuts were obviously too high. The second key glided around as smoothly as a perfectly machined cog. The door swung open, and he burst through it into the last section of the passage.

  Door eight he’d already buzzed open, and it was swung back and hooked against the wall, which he unhooked with nimble fingers. Door nine was opened with the visiting room key.

  All this took Skin only a few minutes. It was just past seven o’clock according to his calculations, and he was standing in front of the last barrier to his freedom, the wooden number ten doors. Mounted on the wall above the doors was a security camera, which he promptly bashed with the butt of the screwdriver.

  He strained to listen for noises of the gate opening and the voices of guards. But there was nothing, just total silence. Although it was what his long years of surveillance had told him he would find, he could still hardly believe it. It was nearly impossible to imagine that if he opened the front door, he could simply walk out, totally unseen and unheard, and no one would ever know how he’d done it.

  As he surveyed his last hurdle, he spotted something on the door. At eye level was a small flap that opened to give view of the street outside the prison. With an internal chuckle, he saw that the gate of the prison was wide open. The gates by the street were hooked back against the walls on both sides of the street. However, a guard was posted in the sentry box.

  “Shit.”

  Without wasting a moment, Skin pulled the little keys he’d made for the wooden doors out of the key bag. He tested each one expectantly, but not one of them would turn. He cursed silently in disappointment and took the pick from his pocket and began to jab the levers. Even with picking at the levers for a couple of precious minutes, the bolt still refused to turn. After escaping through nine other doors, it seemed absurd that the failure of the tenth could keep him from his goal—finding Joy Elliott and silencing her.

  With his impatience building to an explosive pitch, Skin glanced over his shoulder, thinking at any moment a sentry would catch him. If the pick did not work, there was only one other way of opening the door: with violence.

  In anger, Skin flung the bits of picked metal on the floor and decided to bust the door open. He dug the point of the chisel into the frame and a large chip of wood fell onto the floor. Over and over, he continued to dig into the wood. Periodically, he tested the plate with the large screwdriver to see if he’d removed enough wood. After what seemed like an eternity, he’d gouged out enough wood from behind the locking plate to allow the bolt to clear it when he pulled on the door handle. Sweat was pouring down his face.

  With a strong heave, Skin pushed the door, swung it wide open and stepped out onto the small roofless porch between the front door and the yard wall. When he went to pull the door closed, it would not shut properly since the bolt was sticking out, so he left it, ditched his tools, all except one pick, and ran to the sentry box. Before the guard knew what was happening, Skin jammed the pick into his neck. The guard gurgled his last breath, and Skin pulled out the pick and wiped the point against the man’s uniform to clean off the blood. Then he pocketed the pick and glanced up and down the street.

  As far as he could see, it was totally deserted. Casually, he stepped into the street, turned right and made his way toward to the main road, which ran past the prison complex. He was familiar with the area and had a good idea of where to head.

  Still in hot prison territory, he dared not look the few people in the eye that he came across as he moved down the street. But as he walked more and more blocks and got further away from the prison, his confidence grew. In short time, he was strutting with his head held high.

  He reached into his pocket and drew out the money he had left—just enough to pay a taxi to take him to the meeting place of the Brotherhood. He hailed the first cab he saw and hauled his lean body into the back seat. The Caucasian cab driver stared at him through his rearview mirror with the same look Skin had seen hundreds of times—like he was some kind of freak.

  Skin fingered the pick in his pocket at the same time he gave the man the address. If the driver tried to pull something funny, it would take two seconds to kill him. Skin didn’t like to kill white people, unless they did him wrong—like the bitch who had testified against him and gotten him locked up. She’d get hers soon, and this jerk would, too, if he didn’t stop looking at him and get moving.

  Fortunately for the driver, he did his job and drove Skin to his destination without Skin having to kill him. Lil Man greeted him at the apartment door, as if he’d been expecting him.

  “Glad to have you back, Skin. Guess what?” he said, shaking his hand. “Our boy, Magick, pulled it off. He crashed the government computers.” Lil Man smiled broadly and a thin, greasy haired kid stepped out of the next room. He strutted toward Skin with the boldness of a peacock in heat.

  “You must be the hacker,” Skin said, towering over him.

  “Magick is the name,” the kid said, glaring up at him.

  “It sounds like congratulations are in order.”

  “That’s right. I did what you wanted.”

  “That’s good.” Skin angled his head. “Crashing the federal government’s computers was one piece of the equation. Do you have any other news for me, Magick?”

  “Yes, sir,” the kid said proudly. “
I took out the federal marshal and found your girl.”

  A slow smile crept into Skin’s face. “That’s good news indeed. As promised, you’ll receive a reward after you give me the woman’s exact location.”

  After a shower, a meal and a short rest, Skin climbed into the driver’s seat of Lil Man’s car, shoved a nine-millimeter gun into the glove compartment, and began the eighteen-hour haul to Tularosa, New Mexico, alone.

  If luck remained with him, Joy Elliott would be dead before sundown tomorrow night.

  Twenty-Five

  Ella stood at the kitchen counter mixing up pitchers of tea when Cole and Lindy stepped inside the house. “Cole, thank goodness you’re here,” she called. “I need your help. Poor Luz has the flu.”

  “I’m here to help, too,” Lindy said as they approached.

  Ella looked up. “Thank you. That’s even better, because I just received a call from Betty, Cole. She’s at the emergency room with Guy. He’s having chest pains, and Betty’s a wreck. I told her I’d come as soon as possible and sit with her.”

  Lindy noticed a hitch in Ella’s voice, and her face looked drawn and pale.

  “Betty and Guy are Mom and Dad’s best friends,” Cole explained. “Has he had a heart attack?” he asked his mother.

  “They don’t know yet. They’re running tests.” Ella turned quickly, and her elbow hit one of the pitchers and knocked it over. Tea splattered across the counter and splashed to the floor. “Dammit!” Ella’s mouth wrenched into a scowl and she sniffled, obviously trying to hold back tears.

  Cole rushed to her side. Lindy grabbed a towel and the mop from the utility closet and began soaking up the tea.

  “Mom, don’t worry about a thing,” Cole said, gently grasping her by the shoulders and steering her out of the kitchen. “We can handle everything here. Go to the hospital and sit with Betty. Can you drive, or are you too upset? I can get T.J. to take you.”