by Cindi Myers
He still didn’t say anything, but his head came up, and she could tell he was listening. “Why are people so interested in those little cactus, anyway?” she asked. “I wouldn’t pay a quarter for one.”
“Everything is worth what people will pay for it,” the Russian said. “People will pay a lot of money for all kinds of cactus. I have made much money over the years, selling them what they want.”
“What does any of that have to do with me?” Sophie asked.
The icy look he gave her made her want to throw up. “Some people will pay money for girls, too,” he said. “You do what I tell you, or I might decide to sell you to one of them.”
She swallowed hard. “Is that why you kidnapped me? To s-sell me?”
He kicked a rock, sending it careering and bouncing across the rough ground. “Why can’t you be quiet?”
She stuck her chin out. She wouldn’t let him see she was afraid. “Because I want to know. Why can’t you just tell me?”
He lunged back toward her. She tried not to flinch, but she couldn’t help it. “Do you know how to make someone do what you want them to do?” he growled.
“H-how?”
“You take something of theirs. It causes more pain than if you broke their knees or cut off their hand. If you choose the right thing to take—the right person—then you will have them completely under your power.”
His words made her feel cold all over. “Who are you trying to control?” she asked. If he said Metwater, she would scream. She wasn’t his, no matter what anyone else said.
The Russian narrowed his eyes. “Don’t pretend to be stupid, when I can see you are not. Your brother is a federal agent who has been following that idiot, Werner. Werner is too stupid to recognize him for what he is, but I can spot the police from two blocks away.”
“What do you want from my brother?” she asked.
“I want him to go away. Tell his superiors he knows nothing about me. He can arrest Werner if he likes, that useless cheat. He thought I was so stupid I couldn’t see he was keeping most of the profits from the cactus for himself, even though I did all of the work of finding the buyers and selling to them. I took all the risk, yet he expected me to be happy with the scraps he threw to me.” He spat in the dirt.
“If Werner is the one you’re mad at, why not kidnap him?” Sophie asked.
“Because he could still be useful to me. He is trying to make a deal with the leader of that commune you live in—that so-called Prophet. He wants this ‘Prophet’ to tell all his followers to collect the cactus for Werner. If they agree to this arrangement, I can step in and take over. Then maybe I will get rid of him.”
“Did you kill Reggae?” she asked. Her throat hurt, thinking about the dead man. He had always been friendly to her, and the way he tried so hard to get Starfall to notice him was kind of sweet. “Why? He never hurt anyone.”
“I wanted Werner to know that I meant business by going after one of his workers. If he didn’t turn everything over to me, I would kill everyone close to him, until he was all alone. And, finally, I would come for him.” He smiled an awful, cold expression that made Sophie’s stomach hurt.
He straightened and glared down at her. “Your brother will come after you, no?”
She nodded. Of course Jake would come after her.
“You’d better hope he does,” the Russian said. “If he doesn’t, I will kill you. Even if you are a smart girl.”
* * *
JAKE SPED INTO the lot of the motel, parked behind Werner’s rented SUV, blocking it in, and stormed up to the door of Werner’s room. He pounded on the door, rattling it in its frame. “Open up, Werner! If you don’t, I swear I’ll kick the door in.”
“Who...who is it?” The German’s voice quavered.
“Someone you don’t want to cross,” Jake said.
The chain rattled, and the door eased open. Jake grabbed the German by the throat and shoved him back into the room, kicking the door closed behind him. He forced Werner’s back against the wall. “Tell me where the Russian is camping. Your ‘friend,’ Karol Petrovsky.”
Werner’s pupils dilated, and his skin was the color of mashed potatoes. “I... I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Jake tightened his hold. “He has my sister, and I need to know how to find him.”
Werner muttered something in German that might have been a prayer. “Where is he?” Jake demanded.
“I don’t know for sure. I only suspect.”
Jake released his hold on Werner and shoved him onto the bed. “What do you suspect?”
Werner rubbed his neck. “Why do you think I know where he is?”
“That day I caught you in my camp—you were looking for him, weren’t you?”
Werner’s face drooped, making him look much older, and he nodded. “A mutual acquaintance had told me he was in the area.”
“What is he to you? Your friend? Your partner?” Jake shoved his hands in his pockets. He couldn’t let his temper and his worry over Sophie get the best of him. He had a job to do, and that meant keeping his cool.
“Not my friend!” Werner shook his head, adamant. “We were partners at one time—business partners.”
“But you aren’t now?”
“No. We had a disagreement over how profits should be divided.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
“Months ago. Six months ago. I don’t want to talk to him. Not ever again.”
“Yet you were looking for his camp that day.”
“Yes. But that was before he killed that young man. And then he killed the man who was in the room next door.” He pointed to his left.
“How do you know it was him?” Jake asked.
Werner looked away.
Jake took his hands from his pockets and leaned toward him. “Tell me.”
“I saw him. I looked out the window and saw him. I thought he was coming for me. To kill me. But he went into the room next door instead.”
“Why? Why would he kill that man instead of you? Why would he kill that kid?”
“He must have seen me talking to them. He thought they were working for me. That is how they do things, these Russians that he associates with. They attack people close to you first, to send a warning. They want to make you so afraid that, by the time they get to you, you will do anything they ask.”
“What does Petrovsky want from you?”
“He wants to take over my business.”
“What business is that?”
Again, Werner’s gaze shifted away. “It does not matter.”
“It does matter.” Jake leaned toward him again so that the German leaned back on the bed. “You’re illegally exporting cactus from the United States to Europe, including a number of endangered species.”
“They are only little cactus,” Werner protested. “And there are so many of them. What difference does it make to you?”
“Then you admit that’s what you’ve been doing here?” Jake said. “You were paying people like the young man who was killed to collect the cactus for you?”
“What if I was? Who are you to care?”
Jake pulled his credentials from his pocket. “Officer Jacob Lohmiller, US Fish and Wildlife.” He shoved the wallet back into his pocket and took out a pair of flex cuffs and grabbed Werner’s wrist. “Werner Altbusser, you’re under arrest.” He recited Werner’s rights and confirmed that Werner understood them.
Jake braced himself for a struggle, but the German merely slumped onto the bed again. “I am ruined,” he said. “I was ruined before you came here. Karol is taking my business. I will be lucky if he doesn’t take my life.”
“Tell me where to find him, and I’ll lock him up, too,” Jake said as he fastened the cuffs. “If you get lucky, you can work a deal to
testify against him.”
This idea seemed to bolster the German’s spirits. “I will tell you what I know,” he said. “But I don’t know if it will be any help. Who did you say he has taken?”
“My sister. She’s fourteen years old.”
Werner’s eyes widened. “That is bad. Very bad.”
“Tell me where he is. Where is his camp? Is it near where I was camping? Is that why you were looking there?”
Werner shook his head. “I never found it, but I was looking there because last year he insisted I bring him with me on my collecting trip to the United States, and that is the area where we camped. I thought he would go back there because it was familiar to him.”
“Come on.” He pulled Werner with him toward the door.
“What are you doing? Where are you taking me?”
“You’re going with me to find Sophie.”
“But I told you—I don’t know where Karol is.”
“Then you had better hope you get lucky.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Tell me again where you were when you and Sophie were taken.” Carmen put her face very close to Starfall’s. She could smell the tomatoes the other woman had had for lunch and the coppery tang of sweat and fear. “Exactly where you were.”
“I don’t remember exactly.” Starfall looked over Carmen’s shoulder, at the other searchers who had assembled outside of Metwater’s camp to look for Sophie. Carmen had given Starfall a ride back to camp with her and Phoenix. “We were somewhere near where Jake was camped,” Starfall said. “There were a bunch of big rocks. And some of those cactus we were looking for.”
Carmen suppressed a groan of frustration.
“This place is crawling with rocks and cactus,” Simon, who was standing behind her, said. “And Jake isn’t here to ask where he was camping. Why is that?”
“He went to talk someone who knows the man who took Sophie,” Carmen said.
“Who probably isn’t going to tell him anything,” Simon said.
“I don’t know about that,” Evan said. “Something tells me Jake can be pretty persuasive when he wants to be.”
“You have to find her.” Phoenix stood with Daniel Metwater and some of the other women at the edge of the parking area where the searchers had assembled.
Simon turned toward Phoenix, but Carmen answered first. “We’re going to find her,” she said, with more conviction in her voice than she really felt. The Russian had already left two dead men in his wake. Why would he want to be burdened with a fourteen-year-old girl?
“Let’s get going!” Simon directed the searchers, who planned to cover the area in a grid pattern. Carmen stayed back in case Phoenix needed her. Starfall put a hand on her arm.
“I just remembered something,” Starfall said.
Carmen waited, saying nothing.
“We were really near that place where we were all picking berries the first day Jake came into camp with you,” Starfall said. “There’s this high point there that kind of overlooks the whole area. The Russian must have been hiding up there, watching us.”
Carmen felt a rush of recognition. She had a clear picture of Jake lying prone, field glasses focused on the little group of women and the girl, while she circled around to confront him, the first day they had met. He had chosen the perfect vantage point to surveil them—something the Russian must have realized as well. “Can you stay here with Phoenix?” she asked.
Starfall nodded. “Of course.”
“Thanks.” Carmen hurried to catch up with the searchers. They had set out fast and were already some distance ahead, traveling in the wrong direction. She would have to catch up to them, then waste time persuading them that she knew the spot where they should look.
She turned away and set out on her own toward Jake’s lookout point. He was only one man, with one girl. She was a trained officer, with her weapons, and a personal stake in saving the sister of the man she had fallen in love with. What men might offer in power she would make up for with finesse and determination.
Fifteen minutes of alternately walking and running brought her to the spot Starfall had described. She spotted a small trowel and a half-excavated clump of cactus beside it. The trail was easy to follow from there—two sets of prints in the fine desert dust, broken branches and disturbed rocks. Tracking them was so easy, Carmen knew the man wanted to be followed. He expected he would be found, which meant he would be waiting for her.
But would he expect a woman to come after him? Carmen asked herself. Probably not. Maybe she could use that to her advantage.
She slowed her pace, moving stealthily and keeping to cover. When she spotted the narrow box canyon shielded by a growth of trees, she stopped. The canyon would provide a perfect camp, with shelter from the wind, shade from the worst of the afternoon sun, perhaps fresh water from a spring or creek and, most important, only one way in or out. It was the perfect place to hide—and the perfect place to set a trap.
Instead of approaching the canyon directly, she veered to one side and began climbing up above it, working her way up the increasingly steep slope, stepping carefully to avoid dislodging loose rock. When something burst from the brush to her left, she had her weapon drawn and aimed before she could even process the thought, and stood, panting, heart pounding, her gun aimed at a startled mule deer, a trembling half-grown fawn at its side.
Shaking from the flood of adrenaline, she holstered the gun and watched as the deer ambled away. As soon as her legs felt steady, she set out again.
When the ground leveled out once more, she moved to the canyon’s edge and looked down. But trees and rocks blocked her view. If she was going to find the Russian’s camp, she would have to move lower.
She climbed down, keeping to the cover of trees and boulders, moving laterally as she descended, so that she moved further and further into the canyon. She estimated she had been traveling perhaps five minutes, when a flash of something pink made her freeze. She held her breath, waiting, and Sophie shuffled into view, her hands and feet shackled.
Three feet behind the girl was the Russian, a long-barreled revolver in his hand. Carmen drew her own weapon and sited in on him. She would need to wait until Sophie wasn’t so close to him. Right now, it would be too easy for him to use the girl as a shield or even kill her before Carmen could react.
Sophie sat down on top of a blue and white picnic cooler. The Russian moved past her to a green nylon tent that was almost invisible in the underbrush. With the girl shackled, he had no fear of her running off. He was waiting for the searchers to come to them. Maybe they were why he had taken Sophie in the first place.
Or he wanted to get the attention of one particular searcher.
Daniel Metwater? Carmen shook her head. Though the Prophet was clearly terrified of the Russian, she didn’t buy Metwater’s story that he was the real target. If that was the case, why not go after Andi Mattheson who, as Asteria, lived with Metwater and was clearly closer to him than a fourteen-year-old girl?
That left Jake. It wouldn’t be the first time a criminal had tried to get to a lawman by threatening his family. But this time it wasn’t going to work. Carmen tightened her grip on her weapon.
After a glance over her shoulder toward the tent, Sophie stood and moved to the edge of the growth of trees where Carmen hid. She peered intently into the underbrush, and a smile transformed her face when she recognized Carmen. Still perfectly silent, she held out her manacled hands in a pleading gesture.
Carmen frowned. She didn’t have anything with her to remove or sever the shackles, which appeared to be made of metal. The Russian had definitely come prepared. They wouldn’t be able to run from him with Sophie hampered in that way. Their only hope was for Carmen to subdue him. She would have to catch him off guard and away from Sophie.
She motioned the girl back toward the cooler. Sophie frowned and di
dn’t move. Go! Carmen mouthed, but still the girl remained rooted in place.
“What are you doing up?” The Russian’s voice was loud, with a heavy accent. Sophie stumbled backwards and almost fell over. The Russian moved in behind her and took her arm, while Carmen retreated further into the underbrush. She didn’t dare try for him now, not with his hands on Sophie.
He led the girl back to the cooler and shoved her down once more. Sophie kept looking toward Carmen. Don’t look at me, Carmen silently pleaded. The Russian would figure out she was here.
She took a step back, thinking it safer to put extra distance between herself and the camp. She didn’t see the rock that moved under her feet, rolling down the hill and into the camp, sending her falling with a flailing of arms and a crack of branches.
Seconds later she was staring into the barrel of that revolver, pointed at her head. “Hello,” the Russian said, his tone light, almost conversational. “Drop your weapon, and stand up slowly.”
She did as he asked, gaze shifting between his eyes and the gun. Neither offered any comfort. The gun and the eyes were both cold and lethal. He made a grunting noise as she stood. “I recognize you,” he said. “You are the girlfriend. The other cop.”
She said nothing. What would be the point?
The Russian nodded and motioned her toward the camp. “You could be useful,” he said. “If your game-warden friend doesn’t respond to his sister’s distress to meet my demands, I can cut off your head and send it to him to drive the message home.”
* * *
WERNER DIRECTED JAKE to the forest service road where Jake had been camped. “We camped along in here last year, but I don’t remember exactly where,” Werner said.
“Why aren’t you camping this year?” Jake asked.
“Camping was Karol’s idea,” Werner said. “I prefer to stay in hotel. But he likes to pretend he is a pioneer outdoorsman. Plus, he is cheap, and camping like this is free.”
They set out walking, searching for some sign of Petrovsky and Sophie—or anyone else. “There was no one else camped here when we were here, either,” Werner said. “Karol liked that. It went along with his fantasy of being a wilderness explorer. He has a great fascination with the American West.”