by Elle James
“It happens more than people imagine—probably more than the statistics say, though the Justice Department estimates that more than seventeen thousand people a year are brought into the United States for trafficking purposes. They’re forced to work in factories or on farms, and as household help. More than eighty percent of trafficking victims are sex slaves. Many of them are immigrants, though young Americans, runaways and homeless teens get caught up in trafficking, too.”
“That’s appalling.”
“It is.” He looked toward the now-deserted camp. “If these people are involved in that kind of thing, I want to stop them.”
“I want to stop them, too,” Abby said. “But we also need to get Angelique to a safe place. She’s going to need to eat soon, and she’ll need diapers.” So many things they didn’t have here in the middle of nowhere. Worry settled like a brick in her stomach. “How long do you think it will be before your team realizes we’re missing?”
He glanced up at the sky, the color of purest turquoise. “They’ll expect me to check in in a few hours, at the latest.”
And it would probably be hours after that before anyone became really concerned, she thought. After all, their plan had been to spend the day in the backcountry, where it wasn’t unusual to be without cell phone and radio signals. She shifted the baby to her other shoulder. They needed to find a place to settle and wait.
They had to cross a hundred yards of open prairie to reach the first cover that led along the edge of the wash to the creek. The wash itself began as a depression in the landscape, then gradually deepened and widened into the side drainage where Michael had fallen. That mini canyon was only about thirty feet deep—compared to the Black Canyon that gave the park its name, which plunged more than two thousand seven hundred feet at its deepest point.
Michael drew his gun. At least he hadn’t lost it in the fall. “How do you feel about making a run for it?” he asked. “Just in case someone is out there looking for us?”
“Do you really think they left someone behind to search for us?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But we shouldn’t take chances.”
She nodded. “What do you want me to do?”
“Run as fast as you can to that clump of trees over there.” He indicated a grouping of scrub oak. “I’ll cover you. Then you can do the same for me.”
She studied the expanse of ground, with its scant vegetation and rocky surface. “All right.” Then she took off, cradling the infant to her, her feet raising little puffs of dust as she zigzagged her way across the ground. Within seconds, she’d reached the safety of the rocks; no one had fired.
He waited until she removed the Sig Sauer from the holster at her right hip and nodded in his direction. His darted out into the open, running hard, pumping his arms and legs, taking long strides, covering the ground as rapidly as possible. Then he threw himself on the ground beside her, too winded to speak.
“You looked good,” she said. “Did you ever run track?”
He nodded. “In high school.” He wiped his mouth. “A long time ago.”
“I never liked running,” she said. “Those drills were the worst part of basic training for me.”
“I’m still trying to picture a beauty queen in boot camp.”
She made a face. “I didn’t tell anyone I was a beauty queen. If anything, I tried to make myself as plain as possible—no makeup, hair scraped back into a ponytail.”
“I’ll bet it didn’t work,” he said. “No one—no man, for certain—would ever mistake you for homely.” He stood and offered a hand to help her up. “You ready?”
“Ready.” She stood, but didn’t let go of his hand right away. When their eyes met, she offered a shy smile before turning away and moving toward the creek.
At the creek bank, Michael knelt to drink. Abby wandered along the bank, searching the ground.
He looked up, the cuffs of his sleeves and the front of his shirt damp from the creek water. “What are you looking for?”
“This.” She held up a nearly new tin can she’d plucked from beneath a tree. She’d spotted the label earlier and it had vaguely registered as just another piece of garbage—a can that had once held corn and been discarded. “We can make a fire and boil water for Angelique,” she explained. “You and I can deal with an upset stomach from anything that might be in that water, but a baby could die from the wrong bacteria.”
“Good idea.” He stood and pointed up the creek bank. “Let’s move to that rock outcropping there. We’ll be sheltered a little from the sun and wind, and we’ll have a good view of anyone approaching the camp from this direction.”
He led the way to a spot beneath a lone piñon that seemed to grow straight out of the surrounding rock. The stunted tree leaned crazily to one side, its branches spread like open arms, casting a pool of shade on the red granite. Michael began gathering pine needles and bark for tinder. “I had fire starters and matches in my pack,” she said.
“See if you can find some broken glass around the camp. Otherwise, I can make a fire drill out of two sticks. It takes forever, but it does work.”
She returned to the creek to wash out the can and fill it with water. She got a drink for herself and studied the plants that grew in or near the water. Ten minutes later, she returned to camp, feeling triumphant.
“What are you grinning about?” Michael asked.
“I found a good piece of glass.” She held up what looked like the bottom of a jar. “And I found these.” She opened the sling and began laying out the plants she’d gathered.
He took the glass and studied the plants. “What is all that?”
“Wild lettuce, cress and mustard. Wild onion. A few piñon nuts.” She pointed to the various plants. “We can have a salad for lunch.”
“If you say so.”
“I’ll see to the baby first, then I’ll prepare some of this for us.”
Using the piece of glass to focus sunlight on the tinder, Michael soon had a fire going. He fed the small blaze with more tinder, then twigs, and finally dead wood he’d salvaged from around the camp. Abby balanced the can of water on three rocks in the center of the blaze. When the liquid was boiling, she used the sleeve of her jacket like a potholder to remove it from the heat. “You still have Life Savers with you, don’t you?” she asked.
“Sure.” He fished the roll from his pocket.
“Let me have a couple.”
He handed over the candies and she dropped them in the hot water. “They’ll make a kind of sugar water for the baby.”
“Clever,” Michael said.
“The sugar will give her a little energy,” Abby said. “And the sweet taste might make her more willing to drink.” While the water cooled, she set about stripping the stems from leaves and cleaning dirt from roots she collected.
Michael moved closer. “Is all that really edible?” he asked.
“Sure. All our native salad greens started out as wild plants. People think of this as a desert, but there are really a lot of edible plants here, if you know what to look for.”
“What can I do to help?” he asked.
He’d already been a big help, keeping her calm and starting the fire. His steady, capable presence reassured her. “Just keep me company while I work. Were you a Boy Scout when you were little?”
“I was. And my family went camping a lot. Every other weekend in the summer, we’d pack the car with a tent and sleeping bags and a cooler and head to the national forest. We’d hike and fish and roast marshmallows around a campfire.”
“And you liked that?”
“Are you kidding? For two days, my sister and I had our parents all to ourselves. We ran around outside, ate hot dogs and hamburgers, and no one cared how dirty we got. It was great.” He smiled, remembering. “Those trips made me love being outdoo
rs. They’re probably why I was attracted to this job.”
“You weren’t worried you’d end up in an office, reviewing paperwork?”
“There’s paperwork in every job, but from the first I applied for positions that allowed me to be out and on my own more. If it weren’t for the crime and the bad guys, this would be the ideal job. What about you? Were you a Girl Scout?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. My mother would not have spent the night outdoors unless forced to do so at gunpoint. I spent my weekends at dance recitals and beauty parlors and pageant practice.”
“Boot camp must have been a big culture shock.”
“It was and it wasn’t.” She tested the water in the can. Still a little too warm. “When I was in high school, I joined the school hiking club. It introduced me to a whole new group of kids—kids who liked to camp and hike and spend time outdoors.”
“And they accepted you?”
“They were suspicious at first, but after I proved myself, they saw me as one of them. I discovered how much I liked spending time in the woods. A couple of my friends in the club went into the military right out of high school. Later, when I was searching for something to do with my life, I remembered them and thought, ‘Why not?’”
She settled back against the trunk of the tree and unfastened the sling, using it as a blanket to swaddle the baby. Angelique fussed and began to cry. “I know, sweetheart. You’re probably hungry.” She dipped her finger in the can and brought it to the baby’s lips. “Let’s see if you’ll take some of this for me.”
The little mouth latched on to her finger and Abby felt a pull deep within her womb. She dribbled more water into the infant’s mouth.
“I think she likes it.” Michael had moved closer and watched the two of them with his usual intensity.
“At least it will keep her hydrated,” she said. “But I hope someone comes for us soon.”
“We might have to spend the night out here, but tomorrow, I know someone will come for us,” he said.
The idea of a night without shelter, blankets or formula didn’t thrill her, but whining about it wouldn’t change anything. For now, Angelique seemed content, and that was all that mattered.
“Why do you think Mariposa gave her to you?”
She’d had plenty of time to ponder the answer to that question. “The only reason I can imagine a mother would give up her baby was because she thought Angelique would be safer with me.” And Mariposa must have been desperate, to hand her child over to a stranger.
“Why didn’t she give the baby to you the first day you two met?”
“Maybe she’s learned some new information since then that made her fear for her safety—or the baby’s safety.”
“Maybe breaking up camp today didn’t have anything to do with us finding that dead man,” he said. “Maybe something else is up.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But if she thought the baby was going to be in danger, she would have tried to protect her.”
Anger at the thought of anyone trying to hurt this baby pushed away some of her weariness. “I want to find whoever’s responsible and make sure they’re punished,” she said.
“I want to find them, too.” He pulled out his phone and clicked over to the photos he’d taken earlier.
“Did you get anything useful?” she asked.
He squinted at the photos of the trucks lined up, ready to leave. “I can’t make out the license plates,” he said. “I think they’ve splattered them with mud.”
“Who was the man you fought with?” she asked. “Do you have any idea?”
He shook his head. “Mariposa called him El Jefe—the chief. My guess is he’s the boss, at least on this level.”
“So there’s probably someone else supervising operations above him?” she asked.
“Probably. Someone who doesn’t get his hands dirty by dealing with people directly. He probably ordered them to move camp, now that we’ve gotten so close.”
“Why didn’t they leave yesterday, after the sniper fired at us?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe they had to get permission from someone higher up the chain of command. Or maybe they had to wait for the trucks to arrive from somewhere else.”
“Yet they still had time to gift wrap a rattlesnake for me.”
“If the two incidents are related. We don’t know that for sure.”
She leaned back against a tree trunk, the baby cradled to her shoulder. “I promise you, no one else hates me enough to send me a deadly snake.”
“No jilted lovers or brokenhearted ex-boyfriends?” He kept his tone teasing, but she sensed a tension in the air as he waited for her answer.
“Not a one. I haven’t been in any kind of relationship since before I joined the army. And none of them were serious. And please don’t insult me with clichés like ‘a pretty woman like you’ or ‘having so much to offer.’ I get enough of that from my parents. I’ve been too busy—first with rehab, now with school—to worry about relationships.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
She shifted toward him. “What about you? Do you have a woman waiting for you back home—wherever home is?” Now it was her turn to hold her breath, waiting for his reply. She didn’t like to admit how much his answer mattered to her.
“No. I didn’t date a lot, though I always had women friends. The last long-term relationship I had, several years ago, she broke it off because she said I was too intense. I wasn’t even sure what she meant.”
Yes, he could be intense, a trait that both drew her to him and made her wary. “I think you’re the kind of man who, when you do something, you don’t give a half measure. You put everything you have into it, whether it’s a job or a relationship. If someone else isn’t ready for that level of commitment, that can feel too intense. It can be scary.”
“Are you scared of me?”
She didn’t look away from him, her gaze steady. He’d been honest with her; now it was her turn. “I’m not scared of you, Michael. But fear doesn’t always—or even usually—come from other people. More often, we’re scared of something inside ourselves. Of our own beliefs or emotions.”
“I’m glad you’re not afraid of me,” he said. “I’ve got your back, remember?”
A hint of a smile curved her lips. “Yeah. I remember.”
Chapter Ten
Michael kept his eyes locked to Abby’s, willing her not to look away. What was she scared of inside herself, and how could he help her let go of that fear? But he got the impression if he tried to get that personal, she’d just pull back. As with the fall of hair that kept hiding her scar, Abby liked to keep layers between her and other people.
The baby started fussing, breaking the spell between them. Abby turned away and he sat back, stifling a sigh of frustration.
“I need your bandanna,” she said. “The baby’s diaper is soaked.”
He handed it over, and she folded it into a makeshift diaper and handed him the soaked one. “Wash this out—downstream.”
He made a face, but moved off to do as she asked. Washing dirty diapers wasn’t on the list of things he had expected to do in this job, but there was something calming and grounding about the mundane, domestic chore. Yes, he was lost in the wilderness with the possibility that a killer was searching for them, but his duty was crystal clear—to protect this woman and this baby and somehow return them to safety.
The man in charge of this camp would be back. Everything in the man’s attitude and posture told Michael he wasn’t one to overlook a threat. He’d been outsmarting the Rangers for weeks. The urgency of moving his people might have forced him to delay the hunt momentarily, but he wasn’t going to let two people who had discovered his secret get away. When he’d stolen Michael’s Cruiser h
e’d left the couple stranded, so he could be confident they were still close by. As long as Michael saw the man before he spotted them, they’d be safe. He’d make sure of it.
He had Abby to help, too. Thanks to her, they wouldn’t starve. Roots and leaves weren’t steak and potatoes, but his growling stomach would be thankful for anything he fed it. And being with Abby made him feel calmer and more certain that they’d come through this all right. She was worried, but not panicking. Anyone who mistook her for a dumb blonde was delusional.
He rejoined her and she sat up straighter, her hand making a fist in her lap.
“What do you have there?” He nodded to her fist.
She flushed. “It’s nothing.”
He spread the damp diaper on a tree branch to dry. “It’s not nothing. What is it?”
She looked away. “I’ve been watching and I haven’t seen any sign of anyone headed this way,” she said.
Message received. She didn’t want to talk about whatever she was holding. “We ought to be able to see the dust from a vehicle from a long way off,” he said.
“How far do you think we are from the main road?” she asked.
“About five miles, I think. Maybe a little more.”
“Where do you think they were taking those people?”
“To another camp in the park—or maybe all the way to Denver. I don’t know.”
“What a harsh life.” She arranged the shawl to shade the sleeping infant. “Who’s behind this?”
He sat beside her, wrists on his upraised knees. “We don’t know that, either. There are rumors drug cartels have moved in from Mexico, but they need a local connection—a sponsor who can smooth the way for them.”
“Who?”
“That’s one of the things we’ve been trying to find out. It has to be someone with money. Someone powerful. Someone who thinks he’s above the law.”
“Do you have someone in mind?”
“We do. But we can’t prove anything.” Though law enforcement might rely on hunches to guide their investigation, they needed proof to stand up in court.