Protector (Copper Mesa Eagles Book 3)

by Roxie Noir

  Linda half-laughed at that.

  “Anyone would think that,” Ellie said, leaning forward over the table.

  Garrett felt a hand on his knee, squeezing it. He swallowed and covered it with his own, and a warm buzz of something like relief trickled down his spine. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear a hum.

  It’s a truck on the highway, he thought.

  “The next day, your parents got cremated instead of the other two,” Linda finished. “I tried to bring it up a couple of times to hospital leadership, but I got shut down. They told me mistakes were made, that sort of thing, and they were right, of course. A few months later, they announced that an anonymous donor had offered to fund a brand new hospital, state-of-the-art facility. Best of everything in Southern Utah.”

  Linda looked at Garrett, and smiled regretfully.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. “I just dropped it.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Garrett said. He squeezed Ellie’s hand on his leg, and she squeezed back.

  The hum got louder.

  The interstate isn’t that close, Garrett thought.

  “I wish I’d pushed harder,” Linda said.

  “Do you remember what the strange man looked like?”

  Linda took a deep breath, and her eyes focused on the far wall, like she was remembering.

  “Not very much,” she said. Now she had to raise her voice over the hum, which was becoming a roar. “It’s been a long time, but I think he was going bald. He seemed pretty out of place here, to be honest.”

  Now all three of them were staring at the ceiling.

  “What on earth is that?” Linda said. “Sounds like the second coming all of a sudden.”

  Ellie was up and leaning over the sink, looking out the kitchen window.

  “I think it’s a helicopter,” she said, her voice tense.

  Garrett stood and paced to the door, peeking out.

  “Shit,” he said. He turned to the woman at the table.

  “Linda, thank you,” he said. “You’ve been so helpful.”

  “I wish I could tell you more,” she said. “It must have been awful for you.”

  “We should go,” Ellie said.

  “Is that them?” Linda asked, her voice quiet.

  Garrett looked at her quietly serious face.

  “I think so,” he said.

  “We have to get a different car,” Ellie said. “They know yours.”

  “Wait,” said Linda, and she stood and disappeared, leaving Garrett and Ellie alone in the kitchen, the whirring roar overhead.

  Garrett could feel the sweat make its way down his neck and onto his back.

  I’ve got no plan for this, he thought.

  “Where’d she go?” Ellie whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Garrett said.

  She slipped her hand into his, and he squeezed it

  Through the kitchen window, a helicopter emerged. It was shiny and black and heading toward town, slowly and evenly.

  As they watched, it circled once, then hovered over a three-story concrete and glass building.

  “Those assholes,” said Linda, behind them.

  Ellie and Garrett turned.

  “Pardon my French,” she said. “But that’s not a medical helicopter, it can’t land on the hospital.”

  It landed on the hospital roof slowly, like it was taking its time. Garrett felt like his heart was pumping sand with every squeeze, the fine grains laboring through his veins.

  “Come on,” Linda said, jingling keys in her hand. “Get anything you need from your car. I’ll get you out of Blanding.”

  “We can’t let you do that,” Garrett said.

  “You’ve been so helpful already,” Ellie added.

  “Oh, stop it,” Linda said. “I should have raised a stink fifteen years ago. Let an old lady have a little fun. Now go get your stuff.”

  Minutes later, Ellie and Garrett stood in front of Linda’s house as she pulled a pristine 1990’s Jeep out of her garage.

  “My father loved this thing,” she said. “He bought it about six months before he got his license revoked, but I used to take him riding the trails out here up until he died a few years ago.”

  She opened the lift gate and nodded.

  “Get in,” she said. “I’ll drive you out of town.”

  Garrett and Ellie looked at each other, doubtfully.

  “Unless you’ve got a better idea?” Linda asked.

  Garrett climbed into the back of the Jeep, curling his tall frame into the space. Ellie followed, until the two of them were crammed into the back like canned sardines, her body warm and appealing against his.

  “Sorry,” Linda said. “This is gonna be an uncomfortable fifteen minutes.”

  She piled empty boxes on them, and they took off.

  It took Garrett two minutes to get a cramp in his leg, which was folded at a strange angle.

  “My entire right leg is asleep,” Ellie whispered.

  He could feel her breathing against his chest, and as uncomfortable as he was, he found a strange comfort in that.

  “It’s not a very glamorous escape,” he whispered.

  “Sure it is,” she whispered back. “We’re getting smuggled out of town.”

  Garrett wriggled until he had one arm around her, which promptly went to sleep.

  * * *

  Every time the Jeep came to a stop, Garrett held his breath until they started moving again. It felt like eternity that they were in the back of the car until Linda stopped and the engine cut off.

  “I think we’re there,” Ellie murmured.

  “Where’s there?” Garrett asked.

  The lift gate opened, empty boxes tumbled out, and then Linda was standing there. Ellie and Garret sat up, rubbing life back into their limbs.

  They were right behind some kind of barn. A horse whinnied inside.

  Linda held out a set of keys.

  “Take it,” she said.

  “We can’t—“

  “I’m not gonna argue the point,” she said, and grinned. “This is a friend’s farm, and she’ll give me a ride back. You two seem like a nice young couple. You’ll get the car back, or you won’t. I’ve been meaning to get rid of it for an age, anyway.”

  Garrett pulled his keys out, took his car key off, and handed it over.

  “At least exchange with us,” he said.

  Linda laughed.

  “Fine,” she said, putting it in her pocket. “Now get.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ellie

  Garrett pulled up to a gate across a road and stopped the Jeep. Piñon Gulch, the road beyond was dirt and gravel, and it looked like it hadn’t been used in years, strewn with stray tumbleweeds and rocks.

  To the left of the road, a cliff face rose a hundred feet.

  To the right, it dropped steeply into a canyon.

  The road itself wasn’t big — maybe wide enough for a car and a half, or two small cars, if they were very careful. There was no shoulder, no guard rail.

  “That’s the road?” Ellie asked.

  “This is it,” Garrett said.

  “Are we going on it?” she asked.

  “If we can get through that gate,” he said.

  Ellie’s stomach tightened, and she gripped the door handle tightly, her fingers turning white. Garrett turned to look at her.

  “I’m not gonna drive through it,” he said.

  Ellie looked over at him, amusement twinkling in his eyes.

  She laughed, relieved.

  “I don’t know why I thought that,” she said, and followed him out of the car.

  It was a simple, low gate, with two crossbars that met in the middle, chained together and locked. Garrett crouched down and examined the chain and the lock carefully, tugging and pulling on them.

  “You didn’t bring a bolt cutter, did you?” he asked.

  Ellie shook her head.

  Garrett kept looking.

  “The eye bolt where th
ese chains are attached is pretty rusty,” he said, walking to the back of the Jeep. “Let me see what I can do here.”

  It was hot, and sweat was already coming through the forest-green t-shirt he wore, making it stick to his body.

  Ellie didn’t mind, and she watched appreciatively as he grabbed a tire iron, went to the gate, and pushed it through the opening where the chain connected.

  I hope this is over soon, she thought. And I hope we’re both okay.

  Garrett pushed hard on the tire iron and the muscles in his arms bunched with the force of it.

  Ellie swallowed.

  You’re escaping shadowy bad guys and solving his parents’ murder, she thought. This is very much neither the time nor the place for dirty thoughts.

  He pushed down on the bar again, and Ellie heard a creak. Then she couldn’t help but imagine those hands on her, her fingernails raking down his back with her legs wrapped around his hips...

  She heard a snap and the chain fell to the ground. Garrett tossed the tire iron in the air once and grinned at her.

  “You like that?” he asked.

  Hell yes, Ellie thought.

  “Good thinking,” she said, trying not to think about the heat building between her legs.

  They swung both halves of the gate open together and got back in the Jeep, Garrett in the driver’s seat. Ellie buckled up and then sat very quietly.

  “Hey,” Garrett said. “Don’t worry. I used to drive roads like this at two in the morning doing sixty in a half-busted Chevy. I got this.”

  “Please don’t do any of that,” she said earnestly.

  He looked at her, his gold eyes intense.

  “I would never do anything that might hurt you,” he said, his voice suddenly solemn.

  “You mean besides come to my office?” Ellie said.

  She could feel every heartbeat in her entire body, and she didn’t know whether it was the road, or Garrett, or both.

  “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Garrett admitted. “But I’m not sorry I met you. Not at all.”

  “Me either,” Ellie said.

  Garrett leaned over the console and kissed her. Ellie twisted in her seat, against her seatbelt, and put her hand on the side of his face, the stubble sharp beneath her fingers.

  The kiss deepened and Ellie felt like she was weightless, like nothing existed outside her and Garrett and this moment.

  At last, they pulled away.

  “I promise I’ll go slow,” Garrett said, and pulled the Jeep forward.

  * * *

  When Ellie finally relaxed, the view was beautiful. The red cliff tapered off into dark green scrubland below, the azure sky arching overhead.

  It was almost enough to make her forget that they were racing against the clock, and against someone else, someone with a lot more resources than the two of them. Ellie still didn’t have a good plan: somehow, they needed to get to the paper files of the Obsidian Police, and somehow she needed to figure out how that black helicopter and a billionaire named Pierce Boudreaux fit in, but she wasn’t feeling optimistic about it.

  This all happened fifteen years ago, she thought. All the evidence could just be gone.

  She traced their location on a printed map. They were getting close to the red arrow that showed where Garrett’s parents’ car had gone off the road.

  Would someone be after us if there was nothing to find? she thought. That’s the biggest piece of evidence, right there.

  “It’s just around this bend,” she said, quietly. “The article in the paper says they skidded around a sharp turn and went over.”

  Garrett didn’t answer. When they reached the hairpin bend, he pulled the Jeep to one side of the tiny road and they both got out.

  Ellie heaved a sigh of relief, glad to be out of the car at last, even if she was standing in the middle of nowhere on a cliff. Garrett’s face was dark as he walked to the edge of the road and looked over. Ellie hung back, looking at the cliff wall above the road.

  This is the first time he’s been to the scene, she thought. Let him do whatever he needs to do.

  There was a deep gouge in the cliff face, just before the curve, and Ellie moved her face closer to it. It looked like a car had sideswiped the wall, hard enough to carve a chunk out of the soft stone, but it obviously wasn’t recent.

  It could be anything, she reminded herself.

  Steps crunched toward her.

  “You got something?” Garrett’s voice said.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  He reached one hand out and touched the rock, his fingers dragging along the scar in it.

  “Even if it’s from a car, it could be from anything,” she said. “I doubt your parents were the first to have trouble on this road.”

  “I’m sure they’re not,” Garrett admitted. “It’s hard enough in the afternoon with full sun, never mind at night in the rain.”

  He took his fingers off the cliff wall and looked at the red dust on them.

  “I’m gonna check out the valley,” he said. “You in?”

  “Sure,” Ellie said.

  From the inside of the bend it was steep and rough, but not impossible, to get to the bottom. As the ground flattened out, Ellie looked back up at where they’d come from.

  I’m not looking forward to climbing back up that, she thought.

  They paused at the bottom and looked up at the road. The roof of the Jeep was barely visible, but even now, years later, it was obvious where the car has rolled down the steep cliff. Gouges were cut out of the side of the mountain, and even though they were covered with grass, they were still deep and obvious.

  “I’ve never seen it before,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve come.”

  Ellie didn’t know what to say, so she took his hand in hers and squeezed. Garrett squeezed back.

  “I’m gonna look around,” he said.

  There wasn’t much, though they wandered around the area for an hour. Ellie found shattered safety glass. Garrett found a hubcap, but they also found an ancient-looking wood burning stove and a cache of fast food cups.

  No solid clues. Nothing to really go on.

  The sun lowered in the sky. Garrett looked around one more time, at the scars in the mountain where his parents’ car had fallen, at the valley where they’d been when they died.

  “We should go,” he finally said. “It’s a tough hike back up.”

  Ellie just nodded.

  He let her go first, after pointing out that he could catch her if she fell, but not the reverse. It was steep and rocky, and the footholds were precarious to say the least, so it was slow-going.

  A third of the way up, Ellie stopped to catch her breath. She looked down into a gully, carved by rainwater.

  Something glinted back. The sun was at exactly the right angle, otherwise she’d never have seen it.

  She squinted at the light, leaning down. She couldn’t quite make out what it was, but it was something oddly shaped and very shiny.

  “What is it?” Garrett asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ellie said, and pointed.

  He frowned and scrambled down, yanking it from the dirt, then brushing it off.

  Slowly, he held it up.

  It was a side-view mirror, bright red paint still on the back.

  “I guess we know what made that gouge in the cliff up there,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Ellie said. “What color was your parents’ car?”

  “Silver,” Garrett said.

  That could be from anything, Ellie reminded herself. It’s a terrifying road, and I’m sure Garrett’s parents weren’t the first ones to get in an accident on it.

  Still, it was circumstantial. It was something. There was something about their death that Boudreaux, the man behind everything, wanted to make disappear.

  Until now, it had worked.

  When they reached the Jeep again, Ellie was breathing hard and covered in sweat. Garrett’s shirt stuck to him, and he fanned i
t out in front of him.

  Take it off, Ellie thought, then squeezed her eyes shut.

  You’re visiting the spot where his parents died. What’s wrong with you?

  “To Obsidian?” she said, getting into the passenger side.

  “To Obsidian,” Garrett said.

  For a moment, he rested his hands on the steering wheel and stared off into the distance, his eyes taking the path his parents’ car had taken, all those years ago.

  “I guess you get to meet Seth,” he said, and started the car.

  Chapter Eleven

  Garrett

  What if he doesn’t let us stay? Garrett thought. What if he’s pissed, like really, really pissed off at me, still?

  He swallowed as the road in front of him descended, the valley floor coming up to meet them, until suddenly they were on flat land again, driving through a low evergreen forest.

  Seth had been married for nearly four years, he knew that much. To a woman from West Virginia named Juliana who worked for the US Geological Survey. They still lived in the house where they’d all grown up.

  “You know the story of the prodigal son, right?” Ellie asked.

  “The one in the Bible?”

  “Yup.”

  Garrett just nodded.

  “He’ll forgive you, is the point,” Ellie said.

  “He’s not my father, he’s my brother,” Garrett said. “The Bible’s also got the story of Cain and Abel.”

  Ellie just rolled her eyes in the passenger seat. In the back of the Jeep, Garrett could hear the red rear view mirror clunking around whenever he went around a bend.

  Soon, he could see the big farmhouse through the trees, the tall red sandstone mesa lurking behind it.

  “This is us,” Garrett said. His voice sounded nervous to him, almost high-pitched.

  Nearly ten years, he thought.

  For a moment, he couldn’t remember why he’d stayed away.

  “This is gorgeous,” Ellie said. “That’s the mesa the mining company tried to destroy?”

  “Yup,” said Garrett. “Copper Mesa. Pretty as hell, but there’s fuck-all to do.”