The Warning

by Saul, Jonas

  It would work. She could fit in there and stay relatively hidden unless the guy looked directly down and bent a little.

  He crawled back out and pulled the worn toothpick he was munching on out of his mouth. When he turned to throw it in the small motel garbage he saw a crumpled up piece of paper in there.

  Why didn’t he think to look in the wastebasket before? Why hadn’t the local cops?

  He grabbed the paper and opened it. He recognized Sarah’s handwriting as he’d seen it so many times over the years.

  The handwriting said, Fredonia, Arizona, and the other said, 10:18pm, get a drink.

  “That’s it,” he said aloud.

  It was right after ten earlier this evening when the clerk had said the boyfriend had shown up. That meant these messages were from Vivian. Why wasn’t Sarah out of the room at 10:18pm then? Did she plan on torturing the guy? Did she lie in wait?

  That kind of reasoning led him down a path he didn’t want to go. But the bed looked like the maid had done it. He’d already looked at room 104. It was clear that Sarah didn’t even go into that room.

  So why didn’t she do what Vivian told her to and leave the room at 10:18pm? Unless she did but came back at the right time to surprise the guy.

  Either way, this didn’t look good for Sarah. He needed to find her and sort everything out before anyone else got to her.

  The other note had a location on it. He figured he’d find Sarah in Fredonia, Arizona.

  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Jill. Then, before the first ring he cancelled the call.

  No, this time it would be on his terms. She could get to the motel and ask the tenants all the questions she wanted. She and her Special Agents could do the clean-up.

  Parkman was going after Sarah and he wasn’t going to answer his cell phone. Let them think his battery had died.

  He stepped out of room 107 and realized he was still holding his toothpick in his hand. He flipped his wrist tossing it to the ground.

  Minutes later he was in his cruiser heading to Fredonia, a new pick swishing back and forth, calming his nerves.

  Chapter 44

  Sarah pulled over on the outskirts of Fredonia around four in the morning at a little truck stop and slept for two hours.

  Dreams of violence flitted through her consciousness. She woke feeling a desire to sleep another day.

  The rearview mirror displayed a forlorn gaze looking back. She felt her wounds were healing well. The bruise on her face was turning a jaundice color. The bullet wounds to her skin were covering over well with, as far as she could tell, no signs of infection.

  She eased out of the cramped driver’s seat and stood beside the car to stretch. The sun was rising in the east and hell was waiting in the south.

  Sometimes a good stretch wasn’t enough. Her one arm felt more stiff than usual. She shut the car door and walked over to the entrance of the all-night truck stop. On her way to the back she saw two men having breakfast and one guy buying coffee. Other than that the place was empty.

  After using the toilet she washed her face with cold water, waking her up fast.

  Now, awake and cognizant, she was ready to do what she came to do.

  What that was she still had no idea other than get a little food.

  Voices from the restaurant wafted in through the bathroom door. She stepped out and almost walked right into a State Trooper.

  “Excuse me, I’m sorry,” she said and moved around him, careful to keep her head down in case her picture had been circulated.

  “Ma’am?”

  Sarah stopped.

  “Ma’am, are you okay? Let me take a look at your face?”

  Sarah lifted her head and looked into the intense blue eyes of a cop in his mid-twenties.

  “I’m fine…basketball accident. My girlfriends and I get a little rough during twenty-one.”

  He stared at her a moment longer and then offered her an out. “Are you sure?”

  Sarah nodded and turned to leave. He let her go. She heard the bathroom door close behind her.

  The cop was perfect. She was ready to change cars and, as Gert taught her four years ago, a cop car was the best for what she had in mind.

  She climbed into the driver’s seat of the Nissan and waited for the cop to leave and get back into his car. She could see his car through her rear view mirrors as long as she sat a little slumped to the side.

  The Nissan had a pad of paper attached to a plastic sticky thing on the dash. She looked up at it and saw her own handwriting. When she pulled it off the dash she realized why her arm was so cramped. She must have written all this when asleep. There were three pages of text.

  Why had Vivian waited this long to explain everything to her?

  As she read, she kept glancing at her mirrors to make sure she didn’t miss the cop.

  Alex wasn’t Armond’s son, the notes said. They were brothers. This had nothing to do with voodoo and everything to do with human smuggling. It always had been, only on a smaller scale years ago. She learned that Jake Tate, as she suspected, was involved. He was Armond. All that time and she had the leader of this smuggling ring in her possession and he fooled her too.

  Fucking pissed off now.

  A quick check of her mirrors told her the State Trooper was still inside the truck stop.

  She continued on with the notes, but all that was left on the last two of the three pages were an address and a warning. The warning said that the address was for the police. Sarah was supposed to hand it over to the police and let them deal with Armond. He had the victims in some kind of Mormon compound where he was hiding out with a few of his mercenaries.

  After all Sarah had gone through to stay alive and she was just supposed to hand this information over to the police.

  “Then why do this at all?” she asked out loud. “If you can hear me, Vivian, I want an answer. Why did you send me after him in the first place? Why did you lie and let me think those men at his house were going to kill him? Why not just write it all out in the first place and let me hand that over to the police then, huh? Why!?”

  Sarah smacked the passenger seat beside her with the back of her hand.

  “Is it not enough that I almost died? They kidnapped our parents. Why did that have to happen? Is this some kind of joke? Is that what I am to you, a fucking joke? Well, Vivian, I’m here to tell you that I will not just hand this over to the police. I have the address of this Mormon compound. I’m going to break down its doors and make those responsible pay for what they did. Do you hear me?”

  She caught a glimpse of her tear-streaked face in the mirror. The hurt, the anger and the feelings of being used overwhelmed her. It was okay to break down. It felt good to let it out. She held on to things too much. Actually, she had a right to be pissed off.

  “I agreed to respond to your messages because of how it made me feel. I love helping others who need it. I know there are risks. I’m willing to take them on most days. But when you intentionally lead me into harm’s way, I need to know why or I won’t be able to trust you. Do you fucking hear me?” Sarah said as she raised a fist. “No, I will not give this to the police. I will finish it on my own. Or was that your plan? Taunt me with everything and goad me into choosing my own path. Is that why you also sent along a warning that it’s too dangerous for me alone? What, am I not good enough to deal with it? If this kills me then we’ll be together. Is that what you want? I assure you, when I come to your side I’m gonna fucking smack you for this.” She stopped and looked down at the written warning. “Attempt on your own at great personal risk. Don’t do it. Chances of survival are slim.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Sarah tossed the papers on the passenger seat and wiped her face with both hands. A shudder and then a deep breath helped to collect herself.

  She looked in the mirror to see if the State Trooper’s vehicle was still there.

  It was gone.

  As fast as she could, she started the Nissan an
d squealed out to the highway.

  Which way did he go? A minivan passed her heading south. A Subaru raced by going north.

  She chose south. The State Trooper was an Arizona Trooper as far as she could remember. He’d be patrolling the highway and not heading toward Utah.

  There was no way for her to establish how far ahead he was, only that he would probably be doing the speed limit or thereabouts. As the Nissan raced to eighty miles an hour she hoped he hadn’t had to respond to a call.

  Passing car after car, Sarah chased the Trooper in the early morning sun being careful to not lose control. After ten minutes she saw him up ahead and whispered a soft thank you to whoever may hear it.

  Traffic on this remote highway stretch south of Fredonia wasn’t thick at this time in the morning, but still she wanted to wait until the road was visibly clear behind her to make her move.

  A sign said they were entering Kaibab National Forest area. Another sign said that a sharp turn to the right was coming up and to slow down.

  No one was in sight. The corner had small shrubs which would aid in cover as this area of land seemed pretty flat and barren.

  This was it.

  She gunned the car as hard as she could. In seconds she was already gaining quite fast on the tail of the cruiser. Flashing her high beams on and off, she caught up just before the corner. Little yellow signs with small black arrows told her the road headed to the right. She swung out and smashed the accelerator to the floor again, passing the cruiser doing around ninety. To handle the turn she had to drop her speed hard. With a gentle hand she pulled back into her lane and hit the brakes as she maneuvered through the beginning of the turn waiting for the right second to make her move.

  She heard the police siren come on behind her.

  Perfect, he was taking her bait. All she needed now was the right spot.

  Halfway through the turn she saw the perfect spot. The shoulder led into a grassy area that was a foot lower than the road. About ten feet from the shoulder lay small trees and shrubs.

  Sarah jerked the car off highway 89 and hit the grass. By this time she’d slowed it down to about fifty miles an hour. She aimed for the shrubs, careful to drive the Nissan deep enough so it wouldn’t be spotted from the highway. She knew the Trooper wouldn’t follow in here with his car, so that gave her time to prepare.

  The Nissan slid to a stop in front of a rock formation, bumping it softly. She killed the engine and turned around. All she saw was green. She could not see the highway at all.

  With her gun in hand, Sarah lowered the driver’s side window and hopped out of the car. It took three steps to be completely covered by foliage. Then she waited.

  The wait wasn’t long. From where she hid, Sarah heard the siren turn off but not the cruiser’s engine. Without a car passing on the highway it was so quiet out here she could hear his dispatcher talking through the open door or window of his cruiser. There was no line of sight, but she knew he would come and have a look. The only question she had now was how long before backup arrived.

  The seconds ticked by. The waiting was nerve-wracking. This would all be ruined if she was seen first.

  Then, from the corner of her eye she saw the Trooper approaching. He seemed to be on guard like this was a trap or something. What could’ve led him to think that? she wondered. A lone vehicle taking the corner too fast, lost control and veered into the bushes. If he had a chance to catch a glimpse of the driver he would’ve seen a single white young female.

  The ground was soft so she couldn’t hear his footsteps but she could see his approach.

  Three feet. Two feet.

  Sarah stepped from the bushes as he passed her, his back exposed.

  “Don’t,” she said as he dropped his hand to the butt of his weapon and crouched a little as if to spin around. “Just don’t. Easy now, raise those hands.”

  He did as instructed. The holster un-clicked without trouble and Sarah lifted his gun out while placing her own against the back of his neck.

  “Easy, take it easy and you will walk away from this.”

  “You may not, missus. I’m a State Trooper. You’re in a lot of trouble now.”

  “If you only knew,” she said as she shoved his gun into the back of her pants. She stepped back and around to face him. “Take off your jacket, slowly. No hero stuff. I’m jittery and this gun could go off by accident. Any sudden moves, you’re dead and I’m gone.”

  The cop removed his jacket with caution. Small beads of sweat formed on his forehead. “You’re that girl from the truck stop. Something has happened to you. Maybe I can help instead of you running scared like this.”

  “You are helping. Toss the jacket away and remove your handcuffs. Then put them on your wrists in the front.”

  He threw his jacket aside and paused. “Are you sure about this? Do you know how much trouble you’re in right now? I can help. Put your gun down and I will tell them you had an accident because you were nervous when you saw the cruiser and you didn’t want to tell on whomever it is that hurt you. Let me in and I can help.”

  “As I said, you are helping, but you cease to be of service if you keep talking because you’re delaying me. Now, the cuffs.”

  He crossed his arms and shook his head in the negative. “I won’t cuff myself. You’re going to have to do it.”

  Sarah dropped her weapon a few inches and fired. The report was deafening in the early morning silence. The response from the young officer was what she wanted. He crouched down and with both hands raised started shouting compliance.

  “Okay, okay…don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

  The bullet hit a rock just behind his right foot, ricocheting off into the trees. The sound of the ricochet was just as scary as the gunfire, because she had no idea where the bullet would end up.

  The Trooper cuffed himself and stood back up to his full height of about six feet. On any other day, Sarah would have assessed how fucking hot he was, but today was all business.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  Sarah reached into her pocket and pulled out the Nissan’s key fob. Holding down the trunk button popped the lid. She eased over, never taking her eyes off the Trooper, and lifted the trunk.

  “Get in.”

  “Are you serious? It’s going to get very hot later today. I could die.”

  “I will tell someone you’re here, but not until after lunch. In the meantime, I parked it among these little trees. The car will be in the shade until at least three or four this afternoon. Now get in or I will shoot your leg and drag you in. It’d be bleeding to death you’d have to worry about then.”

  A truck of some kind passed on the highway going slowly through the long curve in the road. The officer halted to see if Sarah would look toward the highway.

  “Nothing distracts me when I’m on the job. This is your last five seconds on soil. Get in now!”

  To the Trooper’s credit, or maybe it was something in Sarah’s eye that frightened him, he jumped into the trunk like it was a bowl of jelly.

  “Scrunch down.”

  He lowered his head and Sarah brought the gun up. She pulled the trigger until the last two bullets in her weapon spat out creating holes in the lid of the trunk.

  She tossed the empty gun into trunk with the cop and pulled his revolver out of the back of her pants.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “I know what it’s like being in a trunk for a long period of time so I decided to be nice and give you breathing holes for when it gets a bit nasty.”

  Before shutting the lid, she reached in and snatched the pepper spray off his belt loop.

  “Thanks, I think I’ll need this too.”

  Sarah shut the lid and tossed the car keys into the bush. She picked his jacket up off the ground, put it on and ran out to the waiting cruiser.

  The engine was still running as she originally heard, the dispatcher still talking. Another truck came up from behind, slowing to take the
corner. Sarah ducked down a little and waited until it passed.

  She put the cruiser in drive, turned on the lights and siren and did a U-turn on Highway 89, heading back towards Fredonia. Just as Gert had taught her four years ago, stealing a police car got you where you wanted to go and fast - but it also added to the risk factor. Out here, in the emptiness of northern Arizona, it would take them a lot longer to find the missing cop and then longer still to track her down.

  A little more preparation and she’d be ready.

  When ready, she would enter the Mormon compound on Six Mile Road and announce that she had arrived.