by Ann Simko
Dakota knew that, but questions remained. From what, and why? He opened his hand and studied the dog tags again. Maybe they would provide him with the answers.
He counted on it.
Chapter 3
Dakota stepped into the radiological reading room and sat down in front of three large interconnected flat-panel screens. Ricco had a vertical crack on the exterior portion of his left scapula, but the bullet's path had miraculously missed anything vital. One centimeter in either direction and the outcome would have been very different. Michael Ricco was one hell of a lucky guy. He had massive soft tissue damage, and the cracked scapula was going to hurt like a bitch for a good week or two, but he would live.
He checked the desk monitors and scanned Ricco's vital signs. After two hours of intensive resuscitation, he was finally stable. The initial crisis had passed, and Dakota felt as if he could take a breath. He leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes, and rubbed a hand over his face. The adrenaline that fueled him earlier had long since vanished. He wished he'd slept when he had the chance.
"Hey." Doris peeked into the reading room. "Sorry to bother you, but there's some captain from a military base in Carson City on the phone. Says you called him about our missing Marine."
"Yeah, I've been expecting him. Can you put it through back here, or do you want me to take it up front?"
"You'll never hear a thing out there. I'll transfer it."
"Thanks, Doris." He turned back to the screens.
"No problem, and hey..." She waited until he faced her again. "You did good."
Dakota gave her a nod, knowing that was the highest compliment he would ever get from Doris.
A moment later, the phone disturbed the relative quiet of the secluded reading room. He picked up the receiver, hoping for some answers. "Doctor Thomas."
"Doctor, this is Captain Anthony Ziller from the Marine division in Carson City. I understand you're trying to identify a possible AWOL Marine?"
"Well, I'm not sure what he is, Captain. I have identification on him. I'm just trying to find out where he belongs." Dakota heard papers shuffling in the background.
"Well, now, that's where we have a problem. You told my clerk this boy's name is Ricco, Michael, J. PFC. Is that correct?"
"Yes, sir, it is."
"Doctor, the Marines do not currently have a private, or anyone else for that matter, on active duty by that name. You might want to look at another branch of the military. I'm sorry, but I can't help you."
"But he was wearing dog tags that clearly state he is a Marine. Maybe if you look again..."
"Listen, Doctor Thomas, I did a thorough search. If he was one of ours, trust me, I'd know about it. As for the dog tags, hell, you can pick them up in any novelty shop. They look damn real too. As I said, I can't help you. You might try missing persons, or the Army, for all the good that will do you." Without the courtesy of a goodbye, the line went dead in Dakota's hand.
Dakota stared at the X-rays in front of him. Now what? Who the hell are you, Michael Ricco, and why did someone try to kill you? He leaned back, laced his fingers behind his head, and stretched. Maybe Cal Tremont would have better luck figuring it out in the morning. Right now, all that mattered was that the kid was stable and resting comfortably in a bed on one of the few monitored floors in the hospital. He had done his job. It was three in the morning, and he was tired.
He left the dimly lit reading room and squinted his eyes in the bright lights of the main ER. "Doris, I'm going home to get some sleep. Try not to need me for the next three hours."
"No promises, but it looks quiet." She grinned and pointed her pen at him. "I do have your beeper number if anything happens, though."
"Don't I know it." Dakota grabbed his bag from under the desk.
"Say, do we know who he is yet?"
"Michael Ricco appears to be a mystery." He slung the bag over his shoulder and headed out of the ER. If Doris made a reply, he didn't hear one.
His comment made him think of someone who was very good at mysteries. When he was more awake, he would call to see if his brother was back in town. Maybe Montana was up for a job.
****
Tommy Lawson was not in a good mood. Sheriff Tremont promised him he could have this Saturday off. So why was he up at six in the morning driving out to Beaver Dam State Park? Because Sheriff Tremont scared the hell out of him, that's why.
His father was a good friend of the sheriff's. Between the two of them, they'd decided the deputy job would be an opportunity for Tommy to make something out of his life. He had no objections to that; he just didn't want to be the Sheriff's whipping boy. What he really wanted was to be a musician. That had about as much chance of happening as him standing up to his father.
Cal had given him the information from where EMS picked the kid up last night. All he had to do was look around, see if anything jumped out at him, and report back to the office. Go in armed, Cal had told him. The kid in question had a gunshot wound. Cal also told him if his weapon was discharged, Tommy better be shooting his own foot, or Cal would do it for him.
"We're just going through the motions, boy," the sheriff had told him. "Don't get all worked up. You're not going to see anything. Go there, come back, take the rest of the day off."
"He better not be shittin' me." He checked the coordinates on his map and decided he was as close as he was going to get to the directions the sheriff gave him, and if he wasn't, screw it.
He stepped out of the car, stretched, and yawned. No decent human being was awake at this hour. The desert was still cool under the early morning sun, but the cloudless blue sky told him it wouldn't stay that way. Might as well get this over with.
It turned out the sheriff was right on with his directions. About twenty yards from where he'd pulled over, he recognized the distinctive tire tracks of the town's only ambulance in soft dirt.
He followed the trail the medics had made walking in and out. Someone had been shot all right. The blood was still on the ground. Big, fat drops of it, dried to a dull brown under the morning sun. Through the trees, he spotted the tent of the campers who called EMS, but he didn't stop. He would wake them later and flash the badge, ask some questions and pretend he was important. Right now, the blood trail drew him on.
After an hour, convinced he had lost the trail, he was about to double back and wake the campers, when he saw something. He walked to where a large, dark-brown patch of sand stained the ground. Tommy had been so focused on looking for the same teardrop-shaped splatters that he almost missed the bigger patch of blood drying in the desert heat. From that point on, the drops of blood got bigger and farther apart as if the kid had been running fast and bleeding heavily.
This is so cool. He had no idea what he expected at the end of the trail, or what he would do when he got there. He only knew he had to keep going.
The bloody trail led him down a steep hill into a hidden ravine. Sagebrush and yucca plants were uprooted and pushed aside, and the ground appeared torn up, as if someone had been digging there recently. Even to Tommy, it was clear that a struggle had taken place on that spot.
"Awesome. This must be where it happened." He placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the scene. Maybe this deputy gig wasn't so bad after all. Then he noticed something unusual in the center of the disturbance. He edged closer and stared in open-mouthed disbelief. A large metal door lay half-buried in the sand of the desert floor.
"What the hell?" He crouched down to get a better look. The temperature had risen at least ten degrees in the last hour, but Tommy barely noticed. He reached out a tentative hand and grabbed the rusted metal ring. "I'm not hallucinating. Fucking-A! Cal can kiss my ass and give me the next month of Saturdays off for this." He pulled on the handle.
His smile faltered as the world dimmed. Something's wrong. What—
Chapter 4
A slight vibration under his left hip brought Dakota out of a disturbing dream. Confused and disoriented, he reached for the source of t
he offending disturbance and found his pager still clipped to his pants. He vaguely recalled coming home and falling into bed. Apparently, he had done so fully dressed.
He rubbed sleep-blurred eyes, and stared at the clock on his nightstand. Noon. He had been asleep for a little over eight hours. Once upright, he ran a hand over his disheveled hair and focused on the pager display. The seven-digit extension wasn't familiar.
"What the hell?" The only people who should have access to his pager number were the hospital staff. Officially, his shift had ended at six that morning. If someone was paging him now, it could only mean his Marine had started going south. But the number wasn't a hospital extension. Apprehension turned to curiosity as he picked up the phone and made the call.
An overly cheery female voice answered. "Caliente Sheriff's department, how may I help you?"
Dakota cleared his throat and said, his voice still thick with sleep, "Um, I'm not sure. You called me."
"Excuse me?"
"Ah, yeah, this is Dakota Thomas. Someone paged me."
"Dakota Thomas? Oh, Doctor Thomas! Yes, the sheriff wants to talk to you. Hang on a sec."
The connection went through before he had time to wonder what the Sheriff wanted him for. He pulled the receiver from his ear as Cal's gruff voice nearly blew out his eardrums.
"Thomas! Who the hell is this Marine of yours? I want his CO's name, and I want to know everything you know about the somabitch!"
That brought him from zero to sixty in under a second. "Whoa, wait a minute, Sheriff, back up. What's wrong?" He swung his legs over the side if the bed and stood, trying to make sense out of why Cal Tremont decided to be his personal, extremely unpleasant, wake-up call.
"I'll tell you what's wrong. I sent Tommy Lawson out to Beaver Dam this morning to cover my ass, and he never came back. That's what's wrong!"
"What's that got to do with my Marine? If you're talking about the same Tommy Lawson I used to know, he's probably in town or behind the graveyard with Earl Freemont drinking beer."
"Things have changed since you've been away, boy. Tommy's my deputy, and I admit he's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but there's no way in hell he'd take off without reporting back to me, 'cause I scare the shit out of him."
Dakota had to grin. "You do seem to have that effect on people."
"In case you didn't notice, I am not in a humorous mood. I want this Ricco's CO's name and I want it now. Something ain't smelling right, and I want to know who the hell I'm dealing with."
His voice stabbed through Dakota's brain like an ice pick. He needed coffee, lots of it, and something decent to eat. "The Marines couldn't help me, Sheriff. I spoke with the office in Carson City. According to a Captain Ziller, there is no Michael J. Ricco on active duty with the Marines." He padded barefoot into the kitchen. "But I planned on following up on it later today."
"Well, it is later today, boy. I have a missing deputy and a serious case of 'I don't give a shit' about your excuses."
Dakota stopped in the middle of filling the coffee pot. "You know, Sheriff, I got home at three-thirty this morning. Ricco is my patient; he was stable when I left, and today is officially my day off. I hate to get all Trekkie on you, but I'm a doctor not a cop. What the hell does your missing deputy have to do with me?" Dakota realized his mistake the second the words were out of his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut, anticipating a major tirade.
He decided he would have preferred the tirade when Cal's voice went deadly quiet. "You called me, boy, remember? I sent Tommy out there, because of what you told me. As I see it, that makes this as much your problem as it does mine. Now, I'm going looking for my deputy, and you'd better hope to hell he is drinking beer up behind the graveyard with Earl, because if I have to call the state cops in on this, I guarantee I'll make you live to regret it."
Cal hung up with a crash.
Dakota didn't pull the phone away from his ear in time, and the resulting echo was loud enough to make him wince. "Jesus, did I say he'd mellowed?" He rubbed a hand over the stubble sprouting on his face. He finished filling the coffee maker and waited, half-asleep, while it worked its magic. Once it stopped gurgling, he filled a chipped ceramic mug pilfered from some donut shop during his residency to the brim with strong black brew.
Despite his efforts, Dakota's mind kept circling back to the conversation with Cal Tremont. He picked up the phone. That's all the further he got. He felt he should do something about Tommy Lawson or Michael Ricco, but for all his good intentions, he didn't have a clue as to what, or who he should call.
"Why is this my problem?" he asked the coffee pot. Mr. Coffee wisely kept his opinions to himself. "I did what I was supposed to do. I saved the kid's life and I reported the gunshot wound to Cal. I don't owe anyone anything more." The words held as much conviction as a sieve did water. In hopes that a shower would chase thoughts of Michael Ricco and Tommy Lawson from his head, he decided to start there first.
Once under the steaming spray, he tilted his head back and let the hot water ease the tension in his neck and shoulders. He turned and braced his hands against the back wall, letting the water cascade down his back. After a while, with closed eyes, he turned his face into the spray as unwanted images from his dream flitted across his brain. Images of Michael Ricco, running for his life across the desert.
But then he realized it wasn't Ricco running wounded and bleeding. The face hidden in the shadows was his own. His feet moved with slow-motion madness as unnamed monsters chased him in the dark. With some effort, he shook the disturbing pictures out of his head, turned the water off, and dried off with the only towel he owned.
After dressing in jeans, sneakers and a comfortable t-shirt, he poured another cup of coffee, scrambled some eggs, managed not to burn the toast. He felt nearly human again as he sat down to eat his first meal in over twenty-four hours. It did wonders for chasing away thoughts of disturbing dreams and missing deputies.
Dakota had forty-eight hours all to himself. Cal's words wouldn't leave him alone. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as he finally figured out exactly what to do about his mysterious Marine. There were a lot of things he needed to do, but only one thing he wanted to do. After stacking the dirty dishes in the sink, he grabbed the phone from the counter once more and punched in a local seven-digit extension. He was surprised when he didn't get an answering machine or voice-mail.
"Speak to me."
Dakota couldn't suppress the smile that spread across his face. "Woof."
"Dakota."
"Montana. Verbose as usual. When'd you get back?"
"Last night. Heard you were home."
"Home." Dakota considered the word. "Yeah. Hey, what are you doing?"
"Now?"
"Yes, now. I want to talk to you about something."
Montana paused to consider the request. Dakota knew the routine. Nothing was ever easy with Montana, so he waited.
"I'll meet you at La Playa's in an hour. I want a pitcher of original Margaritas and the fajita special."
Dakota heard the line disconnect, but his smile stayed. "Must be my day for people hanging up on me, but damn it's good to be home."
* * * *
The Fajitas were ordered and the Margaritas waited. Dakota poured the green delight into a frosted, salt-rimmed glass and waited. Montana was late. As expected.
It only reassured him that Montana hadn't changed. It had been five years since he had seen his brother. They had kept in touch with e-mails and phone calls, but this was the first time he would see Montana face to face in all that time. Dakota hadn't changed much, maybe a little thinner, but no gray hairs threaded through the black, and no new wrinkles. He wondered how the years had treated his brother.
Dakota checked his watch. He had been waiting for thirty minutes. Montana wouldn't show for at least another thirty, which was why he had them hold the fajitas. It was all part of the game. Montana never did easy. He made you work for even his time.
Dakota knew Montana wou
ld show. La Playa was his brother's one great weakness. Well, actually, Mexican food in any form, but La Playa in particular. It was, according to Montana, the only place north of the border that did it right. Dakota was on his second margarita. He didn't mind the wait. At the forty minute mark he called the waitress over to the table and told her to have the fajitas put on.
An hour to the minute after he'd hung up the phone, Montana sauntered in. The dazzling light of the Nevada afternoon momentarily framed him. He looked exactly the same as Dakota remembered; tousled black hair that always seemed in need of a trim, faded jeans with frayed holes in the knees and an untucked white oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up against the heat. Montana never changed. He oozed confidence and always seemed comfortable in his own skin.
Montana took the Ray-Bans off in deference to the dimly lit restaurant, spotted Dakota, and gave him a slight nod. Without saying a word, he sat down, drained the frosted Margarita glass, and filled it once more. Only then did he center his attention on Dakota. "Did you order the fajitas?"
"Good to see you too."
"I'm hungry." He stared at Dakota with an intense gaze anyone else might not have withstood, but Dakota had a lifetime of practice. He simply stared back.
As if convinced he'd won the staring contest, Montana finally spoke. "You look good."
Dakota tried not to smile. "You look the same."
The waitress placed a steaming plate of fajitas in front of Montana and reached for the empty Margarita pitcher. "You want a refill?"
Montana looked directly at her. "Please."
The waitress flushed from the bottom of her neck to the top of her head and nearly knocked over the glass pitcher. Dakota took pity on her and put it into her unsteady hands.
"Thanks." She gave Montana a demure smile and left the table quickly.
"You love doing that, don't you?"
"Doing what?" Without looking up or waiting for an answer, Montana attacked the fajitas.
Dakota wasn't sure if the innocence was feigned or not, but he knew better than to interrupt his brother until he was finished eating. He took another sip of his Margarita. Montana didn't even notice when the flustered waitress brought another pitcher back to the table. Dakota filled both their glasses and waited until Montana scraped the last of the fajitas off the plate.