by J. A. Jance
“And the suspect?”
“Gone,” Tica answered.
Except it wasn’t possible that he was gone completely. “He didn’t come north past Deputy Casey?”
“Not so far.”
And no vehicle had come southbound toward Joanna, either. That meant Hal Morgan was out there somewhere, out on the vast plain of the Sulphur Springs Valley, and about to make good his escape. Joanna was north of Rucker Canyon Road by then. That meant he couldn’t have turned off there.
Her first urge was to go racing off to the scene, to do what she could to help Deputy Long. But the truth was, help for him was on the way—both in the form of Deputy Casey and the emergency medical technicians from Douglas. Joanna’s prime concern had to be capturing Hal Morgan.
Forcing herself to respond logically, Joanna pulled over, stopped on the shoulder of the road, and doused the lights. Groping in the glove box, she located a pair of long-range night-vision binocular goggles. Several pairs had found their way into Joanna’s department through participation in the M.J.F., a multi-jurisdiction task force created solely to help local authorities deal with border-focused crime.
As Joanna scanned the horizon, the flashing lights of Deputy Casey’s southbound patrol car were even more clearly visible. Between Joanna and the flashing lights was a slowly dissipating cloud of dust. She was sure the dust marked the site of the ramming. Shaking her head, Joanna resolutely turned the goggles away from there and looked out toward the black mound of the Chiricahuas rising out of the desert to the east. Slowly she scanned back and forth between Highway 191 and the mountains along what she thought had to be the approximate location of Highway 181. There were other, smaller, roads the suspect might have taken, but 181 was the main road leading up to the Wonderland of Rocks, a most popular camping and picnicking area known officially as the Chiricahua National Monument. The road was paved and well-maintained, for one thing, and it was the only route that would offer Hal Morgan any real chance of escape. If the suspect stayed on 181, skirting along at the base of the mountains, eventually he would come to a junction with Highway 186. That would take him into Willcox. And beyond that, onto Interstate 10.
Forcing herself to be patient, Joanna continued to scan the horizon. Eventually—after a space of several minutes—it paid off. In a place where, a moment earlier, there had been nothing, there was now a speeding vehicle. Not one that was starting from a dead stop. No, this one was already traveling at full speed when the headlights came on. No, make that headlight. A single lamp. From a vehicle no doubt damaged by running into another.
“Got him!” Joanna yelped triumphantly to the emptiness of the starlit desert sky.
Racing back to the car, she fastened her belt before slamming the car into gear. The tires sprayed rocks and dirt high into the air behind her as she plunged forward onto the highway. As soon as the Blazer was safely back on the pavement, she switched on the radio.
“Suspect vehicle, missing one headlight, is eastbound on 181, probably two to three miles east of 191.”
“Copy,” Tica replied.
“Contact the Highway Patrol,” Joanna continued. “We need them to set up a roadblock south of Willcox where 181 meets 186. If he makes it all the way into Willcox, we may lose him completely.”
By then, she had reached the place where Deputy Casey’s patrol car was pulled over on the shoulder of the road. Neither Deputy Long nor his wrecked vehicle was visible from the Blazer until Joanna reached a spot where a wash crossed the road. There they were, down in the wash. Barely slowing, Joanna drove straight past.
“I just drove by Deputies Long and Casey,” Joanna said. “What’s the status?” she asked.
“Deputy Long is conscious and talking,” Tica replied. “The ambulance is still a good fifteen minutes out.”
Fifteen minutes! In a situation like that, fifteen minutes could mean the difference between life and death for Deputy Long. And fifteen minutes was a terribly long time for Joanna to go without backup. Still, she couldn’t very well expect Deputy Casey to walk away, leaving his fellow officer gravely injured and alone.
“As soon as emergency crews reach the scene, tell Casey to follow me on 181. I’ll need him for backup, but not until someone’s there to take care of Deputy Long. Got that?”
“Got it,” Tica replied.
Gripping the wheel, flying toward the looming darkness of the Chiricahuas, Joanna felt incredibly alone. Once again her hands were so sweaty and slick that it was all she could do to maintain control of the Blazer.
It had been years since she had traveled Highway 181, but she knew it all too well. It led to a place in the mountains where volcanic activity, combined with wind and water erosion, had carved a forest of spindly rhyolite columns and magically balanced boulders. As a child, that part of the Chiricahuas had been Joanna Lathrop’s favorite place on earth. Her love affair had ended fifteen years earlier, when Big Hank Lathrop died on that road while bringing home a carload of Girl Scout weekend campers. Since that day, Joanna had never once returned to the Wonderland of Rocks.
Now, for the first time since that fateful Sunday afternoon, Joanna Lathrop Brady was back on that same stretch of highway. Her father had come to his end unwittingly. When he stopped to change a stranded motorist’s tire, there had been no way for him, to tell in advance that his life was in danger. This was different. Joanna was up against a known killer. Hal Morgan was someone who hadn’t hesitated at resorting to violence on more than one occasion.
Joanna knew she was doing the right thing. She had no intention of tackling Morgan on her own. She had called for assistance and fully intended to wait until her backup arrived, but what if help came too late? What if lightning struck twice in the same place? Maybe Highway 181 would take Joanna’s life in much the same way it had taken her father’s.
Not bloody likely, she muttered under her breath. With that, she reached again for the radio.
EIGHTEEN
“WHAT’S HAPPENING with the Highway Patrol?” Joanna demanded into the radio.
“They’re moving,” Tica responded. “They have vehicles headed into the area coming from both Bowie and Texas Canyon. It’s going to take time for them to get into position. We’ve also asked the Willcox City Marshal for assistance. The problem is…”
“I know. Timing. What about Deputy Casey?”
“The ambulance crew and Chief Deputy Voland both just reached the scene. That means Casey’s on his way to you, along with Deputies Voland and Hollicker. The emergency response team is also on its way.”
“Good,” Joanna said. An intense feeling of relief washed over her. Help was coming. Whatever happened, she wouldn’t have to face it alone.
The road was more winding now. Staying on it required all her concentration as she raced through what she knew to be scrub-oak-dotted foothills. Zigging and zagging and bouncing through one wash after another, it was impossible to see any distance ahead. The only consolation was that if she couldn’t see very far ahead or behind her, then neither could Hal Morgan. If the Willcox City Marshal was moving into position at the junction, Hal Morgan wouldn’t have the same kind of long-term warning he’d had of the roadblock at Township Butte. This time, maybe, they’d catch him.
“Sheriff Brady.” The radio squawked again.
“Yes.”
“Tom Givens from the city of Willcox is now in place,” Tica reported.
“He didn’t meet anybody coming northbound?”
“Not so far.”
Joanna breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Then we still have a chance of catching him. Givens knows what we’re up against?”
“He’s been warned.”
So have I, Joanna thought.
The road took a sharp jog to the left and then straightened again. Ahead, Joanna could see the flashing lights of Tom Givens’s patrol car. Between Joanna and the lights, there was nothing—no sign of any other vehicle, not on the road nor on either side of it.
“Damn!” Joanna mutt
ered under her breath. “We’ve lost him again.”
When she reached the junction where Highway 181 heads off up into the monument itself, she found that both lanes of the roadway were blocked by a Ford Taurus bearing a city of Willcox insignia.
Recognizing her, Tom Givens stepped out of the vehicle. “Hey, there, Sheriff Brady. Got here just as fast as I could. Didn’t see anything along the way,” he added. “Not a damned soul. Do you think maybe he might have stopped off at one of the ranches?”
“Douse your lights for a minute,” Joanna said. “Just long enough for me to check something out. You can turn them on again if you see anybody coming.”
Once again she grabbed up the night-vision gog gles. This time she trained them on the part of Highway 181 that climbed up the mountainside.
“There he is,” she crowed minute later when she finally spotted the glow of a single headlight from a moving vehicle. “That’s got to be him.”
“But why the hell is he going up there?” Tom Givens asked. “There’s only one way in and one way out.”
“That’s right,” Joanna said. “We both know that, but maybe this guy doesn’t. Hal Morgan is from out of town. Get on the radio and notify the ranger station to be on the lookout. And contact my department, too. My backup’s on the way. They’ll need to know we’ve got him cornered.”
With that, Joanna headed back for the Blazer. Givens followed her. “The biggest danger is going to come when Morgan figures that out for himself. Do you want me to come along?”
Joanna shook her head. “No. You stay here, just in case he manages to double back and slip by me after all. And get your lights turned back on so somebody doesn’t run into you in the dark.”
Wrenching the Blazer into a quick U-turn, Joanna started off up the mountain. She was surprised to realize that her hands were no longer sweating. Maybe the bracing chill outside while she talked with Tom Givens had cured the sweat problem. True, she was still scared, but she was also amazingly calm. It was as though the interior of the Blazer had become the eye of a storm. In that sudden stillness Joanna Brady did something she had forgotten to do before. She prayed.
Thank you, God, for bringing us this far. Be with Debbie Howell and Ted Long. And be with me, too. Please.
Just as Tom Givens had pointed out, the biggest danger would come when Hal Morgan finally figured out that he had nowhere else to run. Joanna had no doubt that he’d come tearing back down the mountain then, intent on getting away no matter what the cost. And until her backup arrived, Joanna Brady was all that stood between him and possible freedom.
What had set him off? she found herself wondering. He had seemed so reasonable when she talked to him in the hospital. According to Father Michael McCrady, Morgan had followed her advice and had been in touch with Burton Kimball about retaining him as a defense attorney. What, then, would have provoked him into going on a suicidal rampage in which he had attacked two of her deputies?
None of it made sense, but then it didn’t have to. Someone who would take the law into his own hands—someone who would resort to murder in the first place—couldn’t be thought to be long on logic. As Joanna steered her way up that twisting mountainous road, she took some small comfort in the realization that she wasn’t the only one who had been fooled by Hal Morgan’s protestations of innocence. Father Michael McCrady had been, too.
Rounding a particularly sharp curve where one massive five-ton boulder balanced on top of another, she had to jam on the brakes to keep from rear-ending the Buick. Lights out, it was stopped in the middle of the roadway. Too late, she realized this had to be a trap. Hal Morgan was waiting for her, knowing she, too, would have no place to run.
Switching off the engine and dousing the lights, she ducked down on the seat and waited, breathless, for the barrage of gunfire she knew had to come. While Joanna’s heart pounded in her throat, the seconds ticked slowly by. There was no sound, no sign of movement from the other vehicle. By then Joanna had her Colt in her hand, ready to return fire if necessary. But none came. Finally, with agonizing slowness, she raised her head. Expecting a bullet to slice into her at any moment, she nonetheless raised herself far enough to peer out over the dash.
As far as she could see, the darkened vehicle was empty. Still expecting a trap, however, she scrambled around until she could reach the switch on her side-mounted spotlight. Turning it on, she sent a blinding beam of light in the direction of the Buick.
With both the inside and outside of the vehicle brilliantly illuminated, there was still no sign of life anywhere around the Buick. Cautiously, Joanna rolled down the driver’s window on the Blazer. Immediately her nostrils were assailed by the acrid odor of burned oil. It smelled as though the engine had lost oil and eventually seized up. If so, that would account for why the Buick was stopped in the middle of the road. No doubt the driver had simply bailed out and headed off into the wilderness.
“Mr. Morgan,” Joanna called, relieved that there was no audible tremor in her voice. “We know you’re here. Come out with your hands up. That way no one else will get hurt. Mr. Morgan?”
Holding her breath, Joanna listened for an answer. None came. Nothing.
“Mr. Morgan,” she called again. “Where are you?”
This time there was an answer, but not from a voice. Instead of coming from the surrounding woods, there was a muffled thumping noise that seemed to come from the vehicle itself.
Straining her ears, Joanna cautiously opened the door to the Blazer and set one tentative foot on the grainy pavement.
“Mr. Morgan. We’re here to help you. Come out with your hands up.”
Once again, she heard the thumping noise. This time she was sure that the sound was coming from the vehicle, from somewhere inside the Buick. Keeping herself half hidden behind the scanty cover of the car door, Joanna wondered what she should do. Walk forward until she was close enough to look in the window? Even as she framed the question, she knew that doing that without proper backup could be fatal.
“Mr. Morgan,” she called again, pleading this time. “Give yourself up. Come out with your hands up. We don’t want to hurt you.”
Now, though, in addition to the thumping, there were muffled cries as well—the grunting, indecipherable groans made by someone desperately trying to communicate but unable to speak. For the first time Joanna considered the possibility that in the process of bolting from the motel, Morgan might have taken someone else prisoner as well. Father McCrady maybe? Someone from the motel—a maid or, perhaps, a fellow guest?
The very thought made Joanna’s knees go weak. The thumping came again. More urgently now. Whoever was in the trunk wasn’t there of his or her own volition. So where was Morgan? Was he out in the woods somewhere waiting for Joanna to show herself, or was there a possibility that he, too, remained hidden in the Buick? Maybe he had been injured somewhere along the way. Meanwhile, where the hell was her backup?
The pounding came again, but along with the pounding, there was something else as well—a dimly flickering light that hadn’t been there a moment before. At the same time she saw the light, she smelled smoke—the pungent odor of burning vinyl. The front seat of the Buick was on fire. Whoever was locked in the trunk was about to be burned alive. There was no time to weigh her own safety against the life of the prisoner in the trunk. Nor could there be any question of waiting for backup.
Racing forward, she flung open the door to the Buick. The whole front seat was aflame by then, from the floorboard back. She punched the trunk release, but nothing happened. With her heart sinking in her chest, she realized that the trunk-release wires that ran under the dash must have already melted.
Spinning around, Joanna holstered the Colt, darted back to the Blazer, and wrenched open the back door. A moment later, her grasping fingers closed around the crowbar she kept on the floorboard under the seat.
It only took a matter of seconds for her to reach for the crowbar, but by then, when she turned back to the Buick, the whole interior
of the vehicle was engulfed in flames. There wasn’t a second to lose.
Returning to it, she stood for a moment before the closed trunk, trapped in indecision. If she battered the keyhole in, would that release the latch and open the lid? Or would she be better off trying to pry it open?
In the end, that’s what she decided. Shoving the business end of the crowbar as far as she could under the trunk lid, she used every bit of strength she possessed to pull on the crowbar. The stiff sheet metal gave a little, but not enough. Not nearly enough. The lock still held firm.
The fire was burning hot enough now that she could feel the heat of it against her face. Another frantic set of pounding, weaker now, came from inside the trunk.
Please, Joanna prayed, leaving God to fill in the blanks. Please!
Feeling as though her arms were going to burst with the strain of it, she pulled a second time. And a third. On the fourth, when the lock finally gave way and the lid popped open, she almost plunged headfirst into the trunk herself.
The smoke was in her eyes and nose. She could barely see, but she could feel. Dropping the crowbar, she reached blindly into the trunk. Her hands closed around a pair of trouser-clad legs. Partway up the legs, her fingers encountered a knotted rope. The victim in the trunk was lying on his side, trussed and facing the backseat. He was breathing the hot noxious fumes that were pouring into the trunk.
Still panting with exertion, Joanna tried grasping the man around the waist. He was too big, too heavy. She couldn’t budge him. “You’ve got to help me,” she yelled at him. “I can’t do it alone.”
But there was no response. The fumes had done their work. Bracing her shoulder under him, Joanna finally managed to raise him a few inches off the floor of the trunk when she heard someone behind her.
“What the hell…!” Dick Voland exclaimed. “Hollicker, come quick!”
Joanna had never in her life been so glad to see someone.