Lee Ray felt the breath whoosh out of him, as if he were blowing out a candle. Damn kid was killing him, pushing him to take insane risks. But now that he’d gotten started, he couldn’t make himself stop. He’d taken the kid outside earlier to burn off some of his energy and keep him from driving Evie crazy. Because Evie was already plenty crazy at her most sedate. And that memory gave him an idea.
“You remember that old dead tree we played on this afternoon, don’tcha?”
“Uh-huh. The big log that fell down from the mountain. You showed me how to ride it and make it bounce just like a horse.”
“Right,” Lee Ray said. “I want you to hide down under the end with all the branches, make yourself a little nest in the dry leaves and wait for me. And don’t you let her know you’re there. No matter what she says, don’t you answer her, you hear?”
“And you’ll come find me when you get back? Cross your heart and hope to die?”
“Cross my heart,” he said, feeling a little silly as he sketched out the gesture. If I haven’t been arrested—or Evie hasn’t shot me dead.
* * *
AT TWELVE TWENTY-nine exactly, Lisa pulled into a graveled spot just outside the unfenced graveyard. Her headlights washed over a cluster of tombstones resting among the rocks and scrubby creosote, a final resting place that was a far cry from the green and manicured cemetery where Devin lay buried. Spotting movement, she tensed, her heart slamming its way into her throat.
“Coyote. That’s all,” she whispered, making out the glowing eyes and shaggy, rail-thin body. As the animal melted away into the darkness, she remembered how to breathe again.
For a moment the sighting made her think about the cougar, a far more dangerous beast. But even if the mountain lion were padding directly toward her, instead of miles away in the Chisos Mountains, she was not about to let fear keep her from doing what she had to do.
Exiting the SUV, she shivered, surprised to realize that the temperature had dropped so low that she could see her breath. But she would be shaking anyway, terrified to imagine that Cole had been spotted as he’d hiked in to scout the perimeter and take up position.
Fighting the temptation to look around for him, she switched on one of the pocket-size flashlights they had picked up at the convenience store, then swung its bright beam toward a pair of twin stone pillars that might once have supported a gate. A cold wind stirred a tumbleweed, which gave a few halfhearted bounces before lodging against a crooked cross.
Out here in the lonely desert, she felt like the last human on the planet. Other than the coyote, she could see no sign of life, only its relics in the form of a pickup parked in front of an old Airstream trailer, a half-
collapsed adobe wall and the dark bulk of a few businesses she could not identify.
As she entered the cemetery, her shoulders drew up stiffly, more from nervousness than cold. Every few steps she stopped, her eyes scanning for the slightest flicker, her ears straining for the slightest sound. But she heard nothing but the wind’s hiss, the hoot of some small night bird and the low drone of an engine out on Highway 118.
Where are you, Cole? And where is Sabra with my son? Would she even show, or was her demand that Lisa come here no more than a cruel joke? For all she knew, her tormenter was somewhere miles away, meeting the man to whom she’d threatened to sell Tyler. Was her son as cold and scared as she was? As terrified that they would never again see each other?
The disposable phone chirped loudly in her pocket, the sound startling her so badly that she jumped as if she’d been shot. Her own heartbeat like thunder in her ears, she fumbled to answer. But it was just another text, maybe because those messages could come through in places where a regular call couldn’t.
Gold star for Daddy’s good girl. The venom in those few words drew a shudder. Glad to see you can still follow directions. Now follow these...
“I’m here!” Lisa’s voice rang over earth so hard and stony, many of the dead had been laid to rest in above-ground mausoleums. “Now come out. Please, Sabra. Let’s talk face-to-face. Let me tell you how very sorry I am for how you suffered. How sorry I am that I was too afraid to get you the help you needed before it was too—”
She stopped speaking abruptly when the phone chimed again, and an instinctive jolt of horror zinged along her spine.
Find the grave of Maria Elena Delgadillo. Climb inside the little fence there.
Little fence, little fence. Flashlight beam dancing frantically before her, Lisa moved as quickly as she could among disordered markers, desperate to spot one surrounded by a fence.
Her mind was screaming what-ifs, each more horrifying than the last. Had Sabra left another set of coordinates, as if she were directing some cruel scavenger hunt? Worse yet, could she have left Tyler’s lifeless body at the grave for her to find?
There—off to the right. Heart in her throat, Lisa approached a fenced plot and confirmed the name on the stone tablet. She noticed the date of Maria Elena Delgadillo’s
death—exactly eighty years before the December day when Jerry Crowley died and Sabra had gone missing. Beside the tombstone was a small cross, this one reading Niño, the Spanish word for “little boy.” A little boy lost in infancy, judging from the crudely carved dates.
Lisa hissed as she sliced her hand on the rusty fence when she grabbed it to step inside. Ignoring the bite of pain, she shone the flashlight among the scrubby weeds, but there was no small body, thank God, nothing but some rocks and a few broken liquor bottles.
“There. I’ve done it,” she called, though she had no idea whether Sabra was really close enough to hear her. “Now I need to see my son.”
Another chime. Take your clothes off, Sweet Girl Baby, every stitch, and throw them over the fence. Then I want to see you kneel and lean your forehead up against the headstone.
Sweet Girl Baby. It was definitely Sabra. Lisa sagged to her knees, tiny bursts of light exploding in her vision. Finally she understood that Cole had been right about this from the outset. Trying to placate a psychopath was like chasing shadows.
No matter what she did, there would be no end to the torments Sabra inflicted on her. The woman meant to humiliate and torture her for as many hours as it took to utterly break her down, having obviously grown obsessed with destroying her. And then Sabra would shoot her—or maybe bash her head in, just as she had promised so many years before.
The cruel voice floated into her mind from the distant past. “I’ve never backed off from a threat. Not ever.”
Apparently that was true even if it took her twenty years to follow through. And even worse, once it was over, the same evil creature who had once crushed baby birds with her shoes would only laugh off her promise to spare Tyler anyway.
Inside Lisa, a wall crashed down as she realized that out here, in this time and place, the rules that guided the civilized, the sane, no longer held sway.
* * *
NOW THAT COLE’S EYES had adjusted, he could see far more than he had been able to at first. The moon’s absence, along with the lack of light pollution, drew out the hazy band of the Milky Way, which offered just enough illumination for an experienced night hunter to get by on. And get by he did, squatting on a low rise, listening to Lisa calling to Evie and keeping the bright star of her flashlight in his peripheral vision at all times.
Mostly, though, he was scanning the darkness all around her, his gaze sweeping from the tombstones to the rocky gateposts and more distant pickup—anything that could hide a human figure.
There. He had one of them in his sights. He couldn’t yet tell which, couldn’t even be a hundred percent certain he wasn’t looking at a stray dog or one of the piglike native javelinas.
No, he realized as the shadow shifted. The figure might be hunching low, looking through an empty window in a crumbling wall that was all that remained of what had once been an adobe house perched just above the cemetery, but it was definitely two-legged. And not necessarily alone.
Figuring the
watcher would be focusing on Lisa, he crept closer, Lisa’s gun in hand, an arrangement she’d agreed to after admitting that she’d never actually fired a weapon. Somehow he had to make his way to that wall without being spotted, then silently subdue his target, so he could find out where they had stashed Tyler.
The trouble was, he needed to slip up behind his quarry, but that meant he would no longer be able to watch for the muzzle of a weapon aimed at Lisa, no longer be able to so much as shout out a warning for her to duck.
Somewhere not far away a coyote’s solitary yip touched off an answering chorus. A moment later Lisa’s voice rose above the din, her words clipped and furious instead of fearful.
“I came here alone just like you wanted. I came for my son, ‘Evie.’” She spat out the alias with obvious disgust. “If you’ve got the guts to crawl out of your hidey-hole to talk, then come and get me. But I’m finished playing your twisted little text-the-patsy game, you sadistic bitch.”
What the hell? After insisting on following the kidnapper’s demands to the letter, was Lisa trying to get herself killed? Adrenaline surging through his veins, Cole raced up the back of the hill, toward the wall—and prayed that Lisa’s challenge would provide enough of a distraction that the watcher wouldn’t see or hear him coming.
Suddenly someone moved out from behind the wall and started scrambling downhill, cursing in a male voice with each step. Cole chose a course to intercept him.
“Don’t you do it, Evie,” the man said, leaving Cole uncertain whether he was talking into a phone or to himself. “Don’t you dump me here to go ’n’ kill that kid. Don’t you—”
An angry burst of automatic gunfire interrupted his words. And it came from the cemetery below.
Chapter Sixteen
As bullets ricocheted off tombstones, fence and rocks alike, Lisa threw herself to the ground, biting down on her tongue as she fought not to scream.
The shooting stopped abruptly, and the world fell deathly silent. So silent, and for so long, that her nerves stretched to the breaking point as she wondered, would the next bullet kill her? Or had Sabra left already, rushing to take out Lisa’s defiance on her son?
Finally she heard the light crunch of approaching footsteps on the gravel. Had Cole come to find her?
But the words that floated from the darkness were chiseled out of ice.
“Sabra’s dead because of you,” said Evie. “Just like the lady in the grave and her dead whelp. Just like me and mine and you and yours.”
Wanting to cry and plead, to shout and rage at this new threat, Lisa fought to hold back the floodgates on her emotions. “I don’t understand,” she said, tears pushing through as she clambered to her feet. “If Sabra’s
really dead, who are you? Why are you doing this to my son and me?”
“She was so strong. She was invincible—practically a goddess in that crappy little town—until you blabbed.”
“What?” Lisa blinked as the pieces snapped together, like the bonds of sisterhood. Twisted bonds, in this case. “Are you Ava? Ava Crowley? Why would you—”
From somewhere outside the cemetery, a male voice shouted, “Watch out! He’s coming at us!”
A pop of gunfire followed, two quick shots before Evie whirled to shoot toward the sound. Springing to her feet, Lisa stepped over the fence, her every instinct screaming to run to the relative safety of her rental.
Instead, she rushed after Evie, desperately launching herself at the taller woman from behind, needing at all costs to stop her before she killed Cole, to subdue her and force her to give up Tyler’s location.
The impact sent them both crashing to the ground, with Lisa slamming down on top of Evie—or Ava, if that was really who she was. As the woman fought to flip her over and regain control of the weapon pinned beneath her, Lisa reached under her for the gun, screaming into her ear, “Let go!” Finally she wrapped her hand around some part of the automatic.
Her palm and fingers burning, Lisa realized she had grabbed the still-hot barrel. But she didn’t dare let go, though Evie swore and elbowed, fighting like a demon.
When Evie’s teeth sank into her forearm, Lisa shrieked with pain, shock making her hand reflexively release.
As Evie struggled to her feet, Cole yelled from somewhere nearby, “Move away from her—now!”
“Watch out!” Lisa cried. “She still has the—”
Then something struck her hard in the head, a kick that brought the stars down with a sound like breaking glass.
* * *
SOMETIMES, IN THE heat of the moment, a man could take a bullet and barely even notice.
It hadn’t been like that for Cole this time. He’d felt the burn of the bullet in his left thigh when the man he’d been trailing had suddenly wheeled around and fired. Pure dumb luck on the shooter’s part—and one of the hazards of trying to take a man alive.
But the explosion of pain that was the price of each step hadn’t stopped him. Nor had he quit advancing, only ducked behind any monument tall enough to offer shelter, when Evie fired in his direction, one of her bullets striking her own partner, who cried out before collapsing.
He’d been driven by the need to get to Lisa, to save her before Evie could—
He shouted to Evie to get away from Lisa, then heard Lisa call out a truncated warning. His stomach pitched wildly with the thought that he might already be too late, that those could have been the last words she ever spoke.
No. He wouldn’t let her die, even if he had to take another bullet.
Ahead, he heard the sound of panting and the clatter of small rocks. Evie, on the move, rushing away from him. Away from Lisa, too.
Unless she was taking Lisa with her.
No, she couldn’t be. He’d clearly heard only one person running, leaving Lisa behind, as silent as the dead. Or maybe she was playing possum?
He couldn’t allow himself to wonder. Couldn’t let himself feel. Yet it felt like something from a dream, stopping to reach for the fallen man’s gun, his own muscles tensing with the pain ripping through his damaged thigh.
The hand that gripped the weapon tightened, the tattooed man’s hoarse murmur reaching his ears. “Help me. Hurts so...bad. My guts—they’re all on fire.”
“Where’s the boy?” Cole demanded. “If you want your miserable life to count for anything...”
Grimacing, the man choked out, “Yeah...you gotta find the kid before she gets there. Or she’ll k-kill him for sure.”
“Where? Where is he?”
“Hiding.” A bubbling cough was followed by a deep moan.
“Hiding where?” Cole grabbed his shoulder, shook him. “Where?”
“Fa-fallen treetop, slanting down into the canyon. Maybe a-a couple hundred yards out from the cabin.”
Alarm sliced through Cole. There had to be scores, perhaps hundreds, of canyons in the area. It would take years to search them all. Time that Tyler didn’t have. “Which canyon? Tell me, or so help me...”
But the threat was clearly pointless. The wounded man clearly didn’t have long.
“Your girlfriend was the one,” Cole said. “She’s the one who did this to you, not me.”
“Always knew that Evie’d get me.” This time the moan was longer, softer, and the man’s voice faltered as he struggled to continue. “One way or the other.”
“But you care about the boy, right? You don’t want her to hurt him. So tell me, damn it. Before it’s too late.”
He leaned near the man’s mouth, struggling to hear what he was saying. The sound was nearly drowned out as a nearby engine roared to life. Rising, Cole made out a pair of taillights, what looked like the stolen Explorer heading toward 118.
Cole heard footsteps. Uneven and stumbling, a flashlight beam bouncing ahead of them.
Relief swelled in his chest, sending rivers of warmth through him. “Lisa? Lisa, are you all right?”
“Cole! Where are you?”
“Right here.” He bent and felt for the accomplice
’s carotid. And found not even the flicker of a pulse.
Grimacing, he straightened, then limped to meet her and clasped her to him. Stroking her hair, he warned, “Don’t look.”
But she must have seen the dead man in the beam of her flashlight, because a moment later he heard her gasp.
“It’s him—I know those tattoos,” she said. “He was with her. Did you...?”
“No. Evie shot him. What about you? Are you all right?”
“Nasty headache where she kicked me, but I’ll be fine. But Tyler,” Lisa said. “I have to find my son.”
“Let’s move,” Cole said.
Swallowing hard against the flaring agony in his leg, he struggled to keep up with her.
Before long, she paused to look back his way, her flashlight skimming him. “Your leg. Oh, Cole. She hit you, too.”
“Not her—the guy. But it’s nothing serious,” he said, praying it was true. He felt damp heat and the sticky sensation of his pant leg plastered to the skin with blood. How much blood, he couldn’t be sure, but he would’ve gone down already if the bullet had nicked an artery.
“Are you sure you can keep—”
“There’s no choice,” he said. “We have to find Tyler before she does.”
By the time they reached the SUV, there was no sign of Evie’s taillights.
“Hop in,” he told Lisa. “I’m driving.”
“With a bullet in you?”
“I’m pretty sure you’ve got a concussion, and that trumps my bullet wound. She kicked you in the head, right? Are you even seeing straight?”
He took it as confirmation that she wasn’t when she dug into her pocket and then handed him the key. He climbed into the SUV, biting back a groan. At least the wound was on his left side, so he would be able to work the gas and the brakes.
“Should we try to bandage that?” she asked, looking around the vehicle. “I threw an extra shirt in my bag. Maybe we could at least wad it up and—”
“No time for that.” He fired up the engine. “And
really, it’s not that bad.”
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