The Shadow Tracer

by Mg Gardiner

  “The clan buries its own, Sarah.”

  “They took him?” She still felt ready to short-circuit. “Are you sure? If he’s gone, how can you know he’s …”

  Lawless shook his head. The look that overcame him was sad—as though he hated to deflate such a naive hope. She realized how much she wanted him to tell her that some miracle-working trauma doc had shocked Nolan back to life.

  “After I helped get you and Zoe to the switchback, I went back to the house. He was still there—they hadn’t found him yet. I stopped and checked his pulse.”

  He waited for her to absorb it. “But as far as everybody else knows, Nolan Worthe is simply missing.”

  She shifted the baby against her chest and walked to the map on the wall. It blurred in her vision.

  Lawless approached. “Sarah. You have an opportunity here.”

  “To tell the police what happened?”

  He shook his head. “That won’t work. You don’t have to convince me you acted in self-defense. But I didn’t see the shooting. I heard the gunshot and then saw you running toward me. So …”

  “You didn’t see Nolan threaten my life. Nobody saw him with the gun.”

  Nobody saw him brutalizing a woman with an infant. Nobody saw her fighting for her life. Nolan was Zoe’s father. He caught her running out the door of his house with his baby hidden in her coat—and his girlfriend dead in the kitchen. He confronted her. Thirty seconds later, she shot him dead.

  The situation was vague enough that she might be arrested and put on trial.

  Lawless said, “The crime scene will yield all kinds of evidence. The ejected cartridge casing. Signs of a struggle. And forensic evidence, especially DNA,” he said. “But as long as you’re not arrested, nobody can match that to you.”

  Blood. Not just Nolan’s; hers. She’d fallen and sliced open her palm. Her blood was all over the scene.

  She said, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I believe you’re righteous. And that you mean it when you say you’ll protect the baby. So you need to know the score,” he said. “I know you acted to save your life and Zoe’s. I will testify if called to do that—but it will be best if it never comes to that. A trial, publicity—”

  “Will bring the clan after Zoe,” she said.

  A cold certainty settled on her. If she stayed in Cupertino, the cops would eventually come to her for DNA comparison—and they’d have her dead to rights. Zoe would be taken away.

  In that moment of dark clarity, she understood. She had been praying, crying, imagining that she could conjure a way out: some excuse, some path back to the way things had been that morning. A lawyer, a confession, a miracle. But there was no way back.

  And there was no standing still. Lawless believed in her innocence, but his faith wouldn’t keep her safe. If she stayed put, soon enough the cops or the clan would batter down her door.

  There was only one thing to do. Lawless stood close, waiting. He knew. He just couldn’t tell her to do it.

  “I have to go.” She pulled Zoe against her chest. “I have to get her out of here.”

  Sarah told the story to Teresa in a monotone. Her voice, her emotions, were running on empty. She didn’t try to explain or justify herself. Teresa would accept it, or not.

  When she finished, Teresa brushed her hair away from her face. She stood up. She said nothing. She just looked at Sarah. Sarah’s nerves were stretched taut.

  Then Teresa’s phone rang. When she answered, her fingers were beginning to tremble. “Michael,” she said.

  Phone to her ear, she walked past Sarah. As she went by, she set a hand on her shoulder.

  38

  At the information booth, the young woman in the bandanna shook her head. “Crazy, I’m telling you.”

  The noise from the Gatecrasher Festival stage sounded like an F-18 nosediving into the crowd. Harker put away his badge. “Describe the woman you saw running.”

  “Short black hair. Like, Goth. But jeans. And maybe cowboy boots?”

  “What else?”

  “The baby in the carrier. That was weird.”

  He already knew it was a decoy. “Who was pursuing her?”

  “A girl with blond hair. Were they related?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Both of them were running.” She shrugged.

  Harker knew the pursuer was Reavy Worthe. This wasn’t helpful. He turned to leave.

  The woman said, “I thought maybe they were trying to keep up with their mother.”

  Harker turned slowly back. “Who?”

  She tilted her head. “The older woman, with the kid.”

  “Can you describe her?”

  “Red ponytail. And …” She mulled it. “I think she was wearing a festival badge. A lanyard? Like this one?” She lifted the ID badge that hung around her neck.

  Hers was yellow. Other festival employees wore green badges, white, blue.

  “What color?” he said.

  She considered. “Red? I think.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Medical.”

  Fell abandoned the blue Bonneville at the Roswell city dump. She drove deep into the landfill, rolled the car into a pit, and climbed out over half-spilled Hefty bags and rusted office furniture. She walked out past the curious eyes of men driving garbage trucks and bulldozers. She phoned Reavy and told her to pick her up.

  She followed along the deserted highway unafraid of discovery by the police. Nobody at the dump knew who she was or that she’d carjacked the Bonneville. She was one of the angel’s wings, and she was blessed. Battered and limping, stinking of garbage, but untouchable.

  Nobody could damage her because she’d been torn apart years back. From here on out, there could only be restoration.

  At a windswept crossroads, the Navigator stopped and let her in. She didn’t comment on its beat-up right side, inked with black paint where Keller’s pickup had sideswiped it. Grissom drove. Reavy sat with the Mossberg across her lap. For the first mile none of them spoke. Fell knew that the voice of revelation would come upon Grissom soon enough.

  She hoped it didn’t tell him to discharge lightning from his fists.

  She waited for him to praise her for nearly killing Sarah Keller. To thank her for cracking the windshield of the Bonneville with her own body, and for stranding the car’s owners in the desert without their phones or wallets or shoes, and for smashing the Bonneville into the federal agent who joined the pursuit.

  He kept silent. They rolled along the blacktop through mirages floating in the heat.

  Grissom put a hand on Reavy’s thigh. “You nearly got Keller. Hit the driver, for damn sure.”

  Reavy said, “Not good enough. Couldn’t get a steady shot, not when we kept swerving.”

  “Next time.”

  His voice sounded soothing and full of encouragement. Fell thought, Give her a dog biscuit, why don’t you?

  Fell said, “Next time, shoot the radiator. Don’t shoot straight through the window.”

  If she’d shot the radiator, Zoe would be sitting in the back seat of the Navigator beside her right now. The emptiness, the space where a child should be, felt vast.

  Grissom said, “Hey. Heat of the moment.”

  “She could have killed Zoe,” Fell said.

  Reavy turned, frowning. “You care about that now?”

  The words seemed to hit every bruise on her body. “You’re the one who wants Zoe for …”

  Grissom glared at her in the mirror. She shut up.

  “For what?” he said.

  “Never mind.”

  “Finish what you was gonna say.” He continued glaring. “For the Fiery Branch. That better be what you meant.”

  “Course, Grissom. For the Fiery Branch.”

  Reavy said, “Nothing matters more.”

  Grissom nodded. He rubbed his palm down Reavy’s leg, but his gaze remained on the mirror. His eyes, always sleepy, never closed. Reavy gripped the s
hotgun two-handed and stared at the desert, shoulders tight.

  For yourself, Fell thought. You want Zoe for yourself.

  She wiped her nose and tucked her locket inside her shirt. She leaned back. “They got off the highway.”

  “You see that with your own eyes?” Grissom said.

  “They can’t stay on U.S. 380. Too many people saw the pursuit. They got off the road.”

  Voice as tight as her grip, Reavy said, “They’ll want to get rid of that truck.”

  “To get another vehicle they’ll have to expose themselves,” Fell said.

  Grissom said, “We don’t need to hunt for Sarah Keller. No, sir.”

  “What do you mean?” Fell said.

  “The law wants her as much as we do,” he said. “And they have more people, more technology, more resources.”

  Fell nodded. The clan had eyes and ears throughout the Southwest, but the law had more. And after this morning they’d be hyped up to capture her.

  “So we let them lead us to her,” Fell said.

  “We watch and listen. And when they locate Keller and the girl, we close in,” he said. “We need a place to hole up. We’ll borrow a house for the day.”

  “We’ll need a police radio scanner.”

  “You figure out how to get us one.” Grissom nodded to himself. “We hunker down and listen, and we wait for the law to bring her to bay.”

  Reavy looked up. “Then Zoe’s ours.”

  The young volunteer in the medical tent went rigid when Harker flashed his credentials. They generally did. The letters FBI froze people like a Taser.

  The music pounded so loud that the walls of the tent vibrated. She hugged a clipboard to her chest. “They were here this morning. And last night.”

  “Twice?” Harker said. “And you didn’t alert the authorities?”

  She flushed. “I didn’t know who she was. That she was in trouble.”

  “ ‘In trouble’ hardly describes it. Sarah Keller stole that child.”

  Her knuckles whitened on the clipboard. “She had the little—you say it’s a girl but she was dressed like a boy, I didn’t know I should call the police …”

  “Who did they come to see?”

  She seemed to think about it. That was never good.

  “If you withhold information, you can be charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive,” he said.

  Her face crumpled. “Teresa Gavilan.”

  “Is she local? Does she live in Roswell?”

  “Yeah. But this Sarah, she never said the child’s name, I’m sure …”

  The volunteer looked like a sinner caught out and desperate to recite her penance. Harker pulled out his phone. The Bureau could obtain Gavilan’s home address.

  “… I mean, it doesn’t make sense.”

  He looked up. “What was that?”

  The volunteer said, “Why would a nun get involved with a child stealer?”

  Harker lowered the phone. “Tell me more about Teresa Gavilan.”

  39

  The rental car angled across the countryside toward her, a black arrow through the tawny grass. It stopped outside the barn. The driver’s door opened and Michael Lawless got out.

  For a moment Sarah stayed in the shadows behind the Steampunk trailer. She lowered the Glock and cleared the chamber. Her heart drummed and an ache welled up inside it.

  He stood beside the car, hands loose at his sides. As if saying, No gun, no grudge, no worries. He wore a black T-shirt and khaki jeans and black work boots. His hair, dark and wind-wrecked, was shorter than she remembered. His eyes were hidden behind Oakley sunglasses. The expression on his face was calm.

  She stepped from behind the trailer. He didn’t so much move as shift into a higher gear. He inhaled and his shoulders rose. She walked toward him, the Glock hanging from her hand, knowing the play of emotions on her face must have been like fireworks.

  He came toward her and started to shake his head, maybe to smile, maybe to cover a welter of other emotions. For a second they faced each other.

  Sarah stuck out her hand. He gripped it, as for a soul shake, and held tight.

  Heat poured off him. It seemed to flow from his hand into hers, to sink through her skin, hit her veins, stop her breathing.

  She felt like she’d been falling from a great height since the discovery of the microchip Friday morning—but that somebody had caught her just before she hit the ground. She knew that was untrue. He was a U.S. marshal, not an avenger. But she wanted to believe it, if only for a single second. She gripped his hand and told herself: no tears.

  He said, “You’ve had a hell of a run.”

  The curve of his mouth should have been a smile, but his expression seemed to have too much pain behind it.

  Sarah let go of his hand. “Take off those shades. Let me see what you’re really thinking.”

  Lawless set them on top of his head. His eyes were hard and watchful and melancholy. The scar that ran across his eyebrow and ended below his right eye had faded in the last five years to a pale swipe, a parenthetical curve. Strangely, it didn’t look fierce. It humanized him.

  “Mommy?” Zoe approached from the barn, little feet scuffing in the dirt. She eyed Lawless with unabashed curiosity. “Are you Michael?”

  “I am.”

  He shot Sarah a look, like, Have you already trained her to get a skip to identify himself? Then he crouched down to kid level. “Are you Zoe?”

  She nodded. “People in a car shot a gun at us.”

  She knotted her hands together. All at once she looked ineffably vulnerable.

  “That’s terrible. I’m sorry,” Lawless said.

  Sarah spread her arms and Zoe leaned against her. She nodded at the barn. “Teresa got us out of it. But it was close.”

  He rose and set a hand on her shoulder. Pebbles of safety glass fell out of her shirt collar.

  The adrenaline faded, and she felt like she was on a sugar crash. The wind funneled across the plain and shivered through the grass.

  “It was Grissom, Fell, and Reavy. How did they find us?” she said.

  “I’m going to check into that.”

  “Teresa has glass and buckshot embedded in her back. She needs medical treatment. And she needs your help to get out of this jam. She needs to walk away clean,” Sarah said.

  “I understand. It’ll be done.”

  She waited, unsure what she wanted to hear in his voice. Rescue. A promise. She said, “I told her. Everything. She deserved to know.”

  He nodded. From the barn Teresa appeared.

  Lawless headed straight to her. He had a way of walking, a slow stride, shoulders square, that reminded her of a wolf. In the face of it, Teresa smiled. She looked worn but was trying, gamely, to hide it.

  “It’s good you’re here,” she said.

  “I wish it hadn’t come to this.”

  “Of course.” She held herself rigid, perhaps from pain. Then she looked at him as a mother might look at her prodigal child, come home too late. With great, irrepressible warmth. She sighed and patted his cheek.

  “You need medical attention,” he said.

  “Soon enough. Sarah cleaned up the worst of it.”

  He looked over the minor repairs Sarah had made, using the first aid kit in Danisha’s pickup. She’d tweezered bits of glass and the buckshot and applied antiseptic and Band-Aids.

  “We need to talk next steps,” he said.

  A gust of wind slithered through the grass. To the north, thunderheads were building. Sarah lifted Zoe onto the hood of the truck. She saw little reason to keep her sequestered from their discussion at this point—Zoe was too attuned to the emotional spectrum, and Sarah didn’t want her to feel exiled, worrying and wondering what was going on.

  Lawless said, “Harker’s here. He got run off the highway about ten miles back.”

  “You saw him?” Sarah said.

  “Had a conversation.”

  She leaned against the side of the truck. “What did you
tell him?”

  “That we should grab a beer if he ever gets done swearing at me.”

  “So he doesn’t expect you to call in a task force from the Marshals Service to bring me in.”

  “He’d hate that.” Lawless didn’t have to say why: Harker wanted to be the one to stake Sarah to open ground, with the Worthes downwind and eager to find her scent. “And he knows I am not out here following protocol.”

  “Does that mean we’re completely cut off from official resources and protection?” Sarah said.

  Carefully, he said, “We’re not cut off. But we have to move …”

  “In the shadows?” she said.

  “Silently.”

  “I think we blew that chance about an hour ago.”

  “We’ll create another chance, Sarah.”

  She felt a wave of emotion, a fading sense that he was trying to buck her up, give her a locker room pep talk. Then she took his measure. Michael Lawless didn’t mess around. He was here, and if he said it, he meant it.

  “Let’s do it,” she said.

  Of course, Michael Lawless couldn’t control what happened outside this field, or disarm the world.

  He got his phone to call the Marshals Service. She waved him toward the barn. “Come on. We can’t count on wind shear grounding police planes and helicopters. Let’s get the car and truck inside.”

  40

  Harker drove cautiously along the gravel drive to the white clapboard house in the grove of scrub pine. In the passenger seat, the Roswell resident agent quietly scanned the scene. He was alert and curious, a kid named Marichal from Gainesville, Florida.

  “Doesn’t look like Gavilan’s at home,” he said.

  Harker didn’t respond. He didn’t know whether the Roswell satellite office had sent Marichal with him as backup—or as a babysitter, a spy, or a mascot. He didn’t particularly want to rely on an agent who looked twelve years old.

  He parked and got out. The wind had risen, clouds in the north seeming to manifest from a void, a black curtain bringing rain and darkness. He peered through the kitchen window. In the house the lights were off.

  Marichal climbed the steps to the kitchen door. To his credit, he raised his eyebrows first, asking Harker’s permission to knock. Harker nodded.