The Shadow Tracer

by Mg Gardiner

  She smiled. “But puzzles intrigue me. Buried trails.”

  “Hence your avocation for skip tracing?”

  “Maybe.”

  Teresa drank her tea. “So this wasn’t where you intended to end up.”

  Sarah almost laughed. Five years earlier she’d had a round-the-world plane ticket. She had saved for years to buy it. She’d planned to stay at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem and the guesthouse where her mom and dad had stayed in Marrakech. She could still see the map of the world on her wall, pins stuck in it.

  “Yeah, well,” she said. “I’m here now.”

  She glanced around at the kitchen and the desert outside. The house was isolated. How much help would a religious sister be if the Worthe clan came crashing through the windows?

  Teresa seemed to understand her qualms. “Michael is on his way.”

  A buzz ran through her head. She tried to speak, and her voice caught. She cleared her throat. “Is he on the clock?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  She nodded. No way to tell whether he was coming as an official emissary of the U.S. Marshals Service, or on his own dime and for his own purposes. That should have given her pause, but all she felt was an overwhelming sense of hope and relief.

  Teresa said, “I should let him know that you’re here and safe with Zoe.”

  “Okay.” Sarah realized she was trembling. She took a quick breath. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “Really, I’m okay.”

  Teresa put her hand over Sarah’s clenched fist. Sarah gulped another breath and stood up. She couldn’t risk emotional release. She walked to the window. The trembling diminished. The view over the edge receded. Not yet.

  “Don’t worry. I got this. I’ll hold it together.” She blinked away the stinging in her eyes and turned back to Teresa. “Lawless helped me get Zoe to safety when my sister died. I owe him.”

  Everything.

  Teresa held out a hand. This time Sarah walked back, sat down, and took it.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  “Have you told anybody you were coming to Roswell?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Have you used a credit card or a cell phone?”

  “Prepaid card. Burn phone. They’re as sanitized as I can make them, but no guarantees.”

  “This house has an alarm system. Doors, windows. And a perimeter alarm—motion-activated.”

  “Weapons?” Sarah said.

  Teresa shook her head. “I took vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. I’ve added my own vow of nonviolence. I will not raise a weapon against another human being. But I’ll do everything else to protect and defend you. And I certainly won’t stop you from defending your life and your daughter’s.”

  Sarah weighed her next words. Her impulse was to keep quiet and justify it with What they don’t know won’t hurt them. Her conscience, however, piped up. At a nun’s house? Honestly?

  She said, “I have a handgun. It’s in a lockbox in the pickup.”

  Teresa considered her reply. “Do you consider that to be a safe distance from where you’ll be sleeping tonight?”

  “No.” Sarah took a moment. “Bringing a gun into a room with a five-year-old is not ideal. If that’s what you mean by safe. But leaving the weapon in the truck makes me see snakes in my head. I’d like to bring it inside.”

  “Thank you for your honesty.”

  “I’ll get it before I go to bed.”

  “Leave it in the lockbox, please,” Teresa said.

  Sarah nodded. Teresa patted her hand and stood up. She lifted the phone from the cradle on the wall and called a number from memory.

  After a moment, she said, “They’re here.”

  Her body language was relaxed. She rubbed a crack on the kitchen counter with her thumb, seemingly with absentminded fondness.

  “Tired but healthy. Zoe’s tucked in bed. Do you want to say hello to Sarah?”

  With a pleasant smile, she extended the phone. “Michael.”

  Sarah took the receiver. “We’re both tucked up nice and tight in Sister Teresa’s desert hideaway.”

  “Don’t worry, she won’t throw holy water over you, or force you to listen to the Sound of Music sound track.”

  His tone was offhand, almost reassuring, except for the undercurrent of urgency.

  “Glad to hear it,” she said. “Thank you. I mean it.”

  “Stick with Terry. Just keep your head down. I’m at the San Francisco airport, catching a connection to El Paso. I’ll get a car there and be in Roswell midmorning tomorrow.”

  “Good.” Tomorrow sounded too far away. “Will you be driving a company car?”

  “I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll take things from there,” he said.

  “Gotcha.” Though she didn’t. “And …”

  The distance over the phone line seemed to crackle and hum.

  “Sarah?”

  “Thanks, Lawless.”

  She replaced the receiver. The light in the kitchen had deepened to hot orange. The music formed an undercurrent in waltz time, a cello and mournful fiddle rolling through the room like a wave.

  “He’s halfway here,” she said.

  Teresa regarded her with seeming equanimity. Sarah felt like a bug under glass.

  She picked up her mug. “So you weren’t always a nun?”

  “We aren’t born wearing tiny habits.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ve been a farm girl. A mechanic. Social worker. Physician’s assistant. In my thirties I finally stopped ignoring the call to take my life where it wanted to go.” She smiled. “Now stop apologizing. Save your energy. And try to get some rest tonight.”

  She didn’t add: Because you’re going to need it.

  As the sun slid toward the red horizon, Curtis Harker parked his Bureau car in the lot at the new Federal Building. Inside the airy, fortified structure only a few lights glowed. Government hours: the bane and blessing of his existence. He climbed from the air-conditioned car and the heat pressed in, invigorating. The hum of cicadas rose like a crazed buzz from the maples.

  He leaned against the hood of the car and took Danisha Helms’s dusty cell phone from his pocket. When he pressed the power button the display lit up. He smiled.

  Tough little gizmo. Takes a lickin’ and keeps on harboring useful data.

  He thumbed the controls. Most of Helms’s recent calls were to local 405 numbers. City Courthouse and Mom featured prominently. But what caught his eye was the text message from Sarah K: Where r u?

  Helms had replied: Rolling.

  “Gotcha.”

  If those messages were subpoenaed, and Helms was confronted with them in interrogation, she would squirm. But there was no time to get a subpoena.

  Helms’s contacts listed only one number for Keller—and that phone had been dumped in the diaper bag of a woman at a truck stop. But received calls showed several from numbers without caller ID. One of those might be Keller’s burn phone.

  He glanced up. In the fading sunset, the stars were coming out.

  The clan had attacked DHL. They were this close.

  They’d made one play for Sarah Keller. They would try again. Grissom Briggs. Reavy Worthe. Felicity Worthe, known as Fell. He could practically smell them in the heated evening, feel their wild and brimming hatred, hear their breathing—oxygen to their dead hearts. They should be corpses. They should be cold and buried.

  Sarah Keller was the key to that. She was their costar in this misbegotten saga. Whether she had intended it or not—and he thought she was woven into their schemes in a deep and inextricable way—she was in this. She was the key. Because she had the girl.

  Once the girl was located, the rest would follow, like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

  He checked the time: 9:02. Danisha Helms would be leaving the hospital once visitors’ hours were over. She might head back to her ruined office with a flashlight to continue hunting for her phone. It would be bes
t if she found it.

  He stuck the phone in his pocket and headed into the Federal Building to copy the data it contained. He was going to have a busy night tracking Sarah Keller down.

  27

  Keller. K-e-l-l-e-r,” Reavy said. “First name Sarah. Middle initial C.”

  In the motel room, she sat by the window with Keller’s stolen credit card bill. She had the room phone on speaker. They heard typing as the card company’s customer service rep accessed Keller’s account.

  In the corner by the door, Grissom crouched on his haunches, back to the wall.

  Fell paced. The TV was on, the volume muted. She watched, fascinated.

  Clan women who had undergone the blessing ceremony were normally forbidden to watch TV without their husbands’ permission. The media was a firetrap, a series of IEDs buried every five feet in the outside culture. But tonight they were monitoring news channels for information about Zoe and Sarah Keller.

  It was so flashy. Even with the sound off, the newspeople seemed loud and emotional. Movie star attacked by chimpanzee. No way. Second Amendment case goes to Appeals Court. Footage of protesters and a judge—the same maggot who’d sentenced Eldrick. No fucking way. She hissed at Grissom and pointed at the TV. Sleepy-eyed, he looked, and spit on the carpet.

  On speaker, the customer service rep said, “Ms. Keller?”

  “Yes,” Reavy said.

  “Your date of birth?”

  “August sixth.” She added the birth year.

  More typing. “The first line of your address?”

  Reavy gave the UPS Store.

  “Your sister’s first name?”

  “Bethany.”

  “Final question. The most recent transaction on your card?”

  “Well, that’s the problem. I’m afraid my card has been stolen. So I don’t know what the last transaction was.”

  The rep said, “Then how about the last transaction you think you made on the card?”

  Fell mouthed: Play the odds. Keller was running. She’d want to travel light. And for that she’d need greenback dollars.

  Reavy nodded. “Cash withdrawal from an ATM. Yesterday around noon. Here in Oklahoma City.”

  A pause. “Very well. How can I help you, Ms. Keller?”

  Grissom smiled.

  Reavy said, “My account has been debited several hundred dollars in the last day. I want to know if somebody got hold of my card number.”

  “Did you authorize a payment to Del’s Auto Body in Greenspring, Texas?”

  “No.” Reavy wrote down the name and underscored it. “When was that?”

  “Two-fifteen P.M. today.”

  “That’s not a legitimate transaction.” Reavy let her voice sharpen. “Got their phone number?”

  “We’ll deal with unauthorized transactions, Ms. Keller. They won’t be charged to your account.”

  “Good. But I want to get in touch and see if they can tell me who’s got my card. I’ll want to give a description to the police.”

  “Of course. I don’t have their number, but I’m sure it’s in the phone book.”

  “What else?” Reavy said.

  “A cash withdrawal from”—typing—“an ATM, but it’s got an unusual notation on it. An ATM in …”

  Fell walked over to her. Her skin felt cool with excitement.

  The rep said, “Looks like a temporary ATM in Roswell, New Mexico.”

  Reavy’s lips drew back.

  “Oh,” the phone woman said. “I bet it’s at the Gatecrasher Festival.”

  “What?”

  “The music festival. It’s this weekend. A bunch of big acts are playing. Does that help you?”

  Reavy locked eyes with Fell, and almost smiled. “Very much.”

  “Good.” The keys clicked. “We’ll cancel the card, reissue, and send you a new card with a new number. You’ll have to alert—”

  “No,” Reavy said. “Don’t.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t cancel the card. I think I know who’s using it.” She softened her voice. “My little sister. We’ve been looking for her.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Keller, but procedure requires—”

  “Don’t.” Reavy’s voice rose. “She’s been missing for three weeks. If she’s in Roswell, that’s our first good news. Please—if you cancel the card, she’ll know we’ve found her. She might run again.”

  “I’m not sure …”

  “Please, we’re all so worried—leave the card active. I’ll call back every day to see if she’s used it again. That’s the only way I can follow her. And if she’s at a music festival—she’s only fifteen.” She let her voice crack. “We just want Bethany to come home.”

  After a long second, the woman said, “Okay. I can do that.”

  “Thank you.”

  Three minutes later they headed out the door. Reavy said, “Keys. I’ll drive. And Grissom, I need to stay awake.”

  He didn’t balk at handing over the crank. He knew they needed to fly.

  In the darkened guest bedroom, Sarah tiptoed to the window. She checked: It was locked. A sturdy sawed-to-measure broomstick was jammed in the casement to keep intruders from sliding it open.

  But the broomstick wouldn’t stop people from smashing the window—or slicing through it with a glass cutter. She took two books from a shelf and rested them against the pane, so if the glass moved, the books would dislodge and alert her.

  Not that the police would come in that way. And not that the clan was partial to silent entry.

  She closed the thin curtains. Zoe was far gone, lying on her back, arms over her head like a disco dancer in the middle of “YMCA.” Sarah changed into a T-shirt and gym shorts and slipped under the covers.

  Moonlight sifted through the curtains. The silvery light fell on Zoe’s face, almost snowy. Sarah couldn’t help thinking of how Zoe had looked that day five years earlier, in her little cotton blanket and watch cap, face scrunched, as they ran from the cabin.

  Teresa Gavilan had asked her whether she considered it safe to keep a handgun near a child. Sarah hadn’t said anything then, but carrying a gun scared the Christ out of her. The only thing that scared her worse was the thought of not carrying one.

  She had pulled a gun on a man for the first and only time in her life that day in the forest. Her hand had been shaking so hard that she could have used the barrel to chip ice from a block.

  Michael Lawless. She rolled onto her back.

  After she fled the forest, Sarah had driven down the mountain road, nearly hyperventilating. The baby strapped beneath a seat belt beside her, screaming, her face as red as a burning rose. Windshield fogged, wiping it with her hand. Snow outside, the road white, barely able to see. Beth. Beth.

  Sobbing, she’d crossed the center line. Swerved back. Pulled over and pitched out the door into the snow and retched, falling to her knees. She stared at her hands. Covered in blood, sliced up, burning with pain. She plunged them into the snow and tried to wash it off. The snow soaked it up, blooming red. In her pickup Zoe screamed. God, what had just happened? What had she done?

  She heard another vehicle and gasped and staggered to her feet. Jesus, gun in the truck—she’d left it under her seat. She ran to the open door.

  The car that pulled up was the marshal’s. He got out, his face hyperalert and full of alarm.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  And all her words left her. She looked at the pickup. The baby screamed. “I don’t know. I have to get her somewhere safe.”

  Her legs felt like yarn. He put a hand beneath her elbow. “Move. Keep going. Get out of the mountains and get out now.”

  She nodded.

  “Can you drive?” he said.

  She opened her mouth. She could see nothing but white and static and blood on her hands.

  “Sarah.” He put his hands on either side of her face. His eyes were all dark, one color. “Can you drive?”

  She blinked. “Yes.” She put a hand over his
. “I’ll get her out of here. I’ll take her home.”

  “Lock the doors. Stay there. I will get to you. Now go.”

  “Why … what are you …”

  A black Suburban with a whip antenna raced past them, headed into the mountains. Lawless eyed it. Down the hill, a fire truck was speeding through the trees in their direction, lights spinning.

  “Go,” he said.

  And she had. She’d gone hard.

  Now she sat up. Moonlight flowed across the ceiling. She ran her hands through her hair, and was surprised again to find it short. She got up and opened her messenger bag.

  Earlier, at the Gatecrasher Festival, she had shut off her first burn phone and removed the battery, so nobody could track its location to Teresa’s house. Now she fired up her second burn phone—and called the voice mailbox for the first one. She keyed in her password. It didn’t matter that the phone itself was dead. She could access messages without giving away who was calling, or where from.

  One new message. She pressed Play.

  “It’s Danisha,” the message began. Her night went to pieces.

  28

  Harker was the last to board the jet. The Oklahoma City airport—the Jetway, the MD-80 and its passengers and crew, the entire prairie—felt half asleep. The Sunday morning sunrise had barely cleared the horizon. Phone to his ear, he worked his way along the aisle.

  “Southeastern New Mexico. Absolutely positive. I’d start driving,” he said.

  He ended the call, took his seat, and stared straight ahead, gripping the armrests. He visualized the flight and the mission. An hour to Dallas–Fort Worth, a change of planes, another hour in flight—with the time change, he would get to Roswell just after 10:00 A.M.

  If he was this close, he could only hope that the clan was on the same trail.

  Sarah woke up feeling as if she’d rolled down a hill inside a sack full of rocks. Her stomach was pinched, her neck tight, her eyes gritty. She had barely slept.

  “Mom’s at Southwest Medical Center. I’ll be there till they kick me out, and back in the morning to get her. Then I’ll be at the office. With the insurance adjuster and the biggest mofo of a bodyguard I can hire. After that … Sarah, don’t call my cell phone. Can’t find it. Don’t know who has it. Don’t call the office—the line could be tapped or bugged. Wait for me to contact you again.”