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by J. Carson Black

  The woman, whose back was to Tess, stiffened. She straightened up slowly and turned to look in Tess’s direction. For a moment, Tess thought she’d been mistaken—was it a man? No, a woman.

  The woman gave her a long look and then turned away—a casual move that was anything but—and went back to work. But Tess could sense the woman was aware that she hadn’t driven on. Tess could imagine the woman sending feelers out into the air. Silly, but she didn’t dismiss it because so much of police work depended on instinct. Instinct had saved her life on more than one occasion.

  The strange thing was, the woman looked like a cop. She was clothed the way a male undercover cop would dress: she wore a knit polo shirt loose over the hips, jeans, and good athletic shoes. When the woman turned away, Tess saw the outline of a weapon on her hip, under the shirt.

  The truck was brand new. Tess memorized the temporary Arizona license sticker in the back window of the truck, then drove on, circling the block. She came back up the other street—Yucca. Now she could see the inside of the car wash bay from the other side. Everything was silhouetted against the hot glare of the sun, but Tess could see that the woman was standing in front of the truck now, watching as she drove past.

  Tess felt a jolt to her heart. Pure adrenaline, laced with fear.

  Something about that woman, the way she watched Tess drive by. It made Tess feel as if she’d dodged a bullet. When she reached the next stop sign, she realized her legs were shaking.

  BACK AT THE sheriff’s office, Tess ran the white truck’s temporary license number. The truck was new off the lot at Talbot’s Chevrolet in Clarkdale, Arizona. It had been sold to a Sedona company called “Sandstone Adventures.”

  Tess spent the next twenty minutes trying to run down Sandstone Adventures, but after checking several business directories, she found no such company. She called a friend of hers who ran a jeep tour out of Sedona.

  “Sandstone Adventures? Never heard of them.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I know every company in this town. I have to—they’re the competition.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  She called the dealership that sold the truck and asked to talk to the salesman. He was reluctant to divulge any information about a customer at first, but at last, he told her that the buyer wanted the truck for a company.

  “What did he look like?” Tess asked.

  “It was a she.”

  “Did she look like a man?”

  “Are you kidding? She was a real looker. Long blonde hair, pretty rich looking.”

  Could that be the same woman? The one who clearly enjoyed looking like a man?

  Tess knew what Pat would say: nothing there.

  But he hadn’t seen her in the flesh.

  “Anything else you can tell me about the woman?”

  “She had a kid with her.”

  Tess’s pulse quickened. “How old?”

  “I dunno. Eleven, twelve, maybe? Kid had a yo-yo. About drove me nuts. A distraction, you know?”

  It was her.

  By now, the woman and boy were probably long gone. Why would they stay in Paradox? Tess would keep an eye out for them, sure, but she wouldn’t go looking. She’d have no reason to pull them over. They had not broken any law as far as she could tell.

  Tess realized she was relieved.

  Chapter Ten

  Ten Minutes to Midnight

  THE COYOTES ON the bajada were yipping again. No matter how often Sheriff Thaddeus “Bonny” Bonneville heard them, their manic, high-pitched shrieks set his teeth on edge. Been that way since he was a kid.

  His coon dog, Ed, was waiting for Bonny to get up and walk down the hall to bed, but Bonny wasn’t ready yet.

  Bonny thought about Bajada County’s one detective, Pat Kerney, and the deputy. They worked well together. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Bajada County had two detectives instead of one.

  Bonny was surprised that Pat actually appreciated Tess McCrae’s help. Even a year ago, that would not have been the case. Although Pat was pugnacious as ever, Bonny had a strong feeling that his mind wasn’t on business anymore. Bonny thought he knew why. Pat’s priorities had changed.

  Bonny, himself a widower, knew plenty of friends who’d lost their wives. Most of them wanted to get married again, and usually did so within a year. They liked being married so much they wanted to repeat the experience. In Pat’s case, his wife didn’t hadn’t died. She’d left him. But damned if old Pat wasn’t desperate to get himself back into holy matrimony as soon as possible. He’d courted just about every woman in town, including the new deputy.

  Tess McCrae had put paid to that in a hurry. Rare ability, to shoot a guy down and be able to work with him the next day.

  Ed whined, then lay down on the floor, inconvenienced but patient.

  “In a minute,” Bonny said to the old dog. He punched in the home number for Harry McCrae, a sergeant with Las Cruces PD in New Mexico. Harry answered on the first ring.

  “How’s my niece working out?” Harry McCrae asked.

  “Oh, she’s fine,” Bonny said. “Remind me again what happened in Albuquerque?”

  “Not much to tell. She found her husband in bed with a young woman and got mad, is all.”

  “Way I heard it she trained her gun on them.”

  “That’s what she testified to.”

  Bonny was silent.

  “She’s not like that,” Harry said.

  “I know.” “Hair-trigger” wasn’t a term Bonny would use for his star deputy. He didn’t even know why he was bringing it up. He and Harry’d had the selfsame conversation when he’d thought about hiring her eight months ago. “She threw the gun out the window?”

  “It hit the window and cracked the glass.”

  “Misfired, as I recall.”

  “Nobody was hurt.”

  “Still.”

  “What is it you’re getting at, Bonny? You regretting bringing her on board?”

  “No, that’s not it.” Might as well give it voice. “I’m thinking of making her detective tomorrow. Am I doing the right thing?”

  No hesitation at all: “If you have the good sense God gave a goose, you’ll do it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  MAX AWOKE IN the middle of a conversation. It took him a moment to realize the conversation was not in his head, but nearby.

  His head ached. He wanted to sit up but was afraid if he did, he’d vomit. So he lay there like an aching tooth, eyes squeezed shut. The conversation went on in his head, or around his head, or a few feet away.

  “Look, Corey, I said we’d split it three ways. What more do you want?”

  Max recognized the voice. Luther, the motel clerk. His host.

  “Just sayin’, it don’t work out, who’s gonna be takin’ out the trash?”

  “There’s no risk. It’s not like he’s some bum we picked up off the street. They’ll pay through the nose to get him back.”

  “I’m the one’d be taking the risk. More risk, more remuneration is all. I can’t see you doin’ it. I’m the guy who risked my ass in Tikrit.”

  “And I appreciate that, I really do. But we’re splitting it three ways. That’s only fair. Wait a minute.”

  Max heard a scrape, the sound of boots on concrete. The air stirred above him, vile breath in his face. “You awake, Max?”

  “He’s waking up?”

  “Max, you awake, buddy?”

  Play dead.

  “You’re not fooling me,” Luther said. He dashed some cold water on Max’s face.

  Max opened his eyes. It hurt to open them. Luther’s face loomed like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon, and his breath smelled like the lining of a birdcage.

  Max squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. Dizziness followed. He was in a vortex, spiraling down inside the blackness.

  After what might have been minutes—or it might have been hours—he was awake again.

  “Maxie, oh, Maxie! Wakey uppy.” />
  Max opened one eye.

  “That Coca-Cola has one hell of a kick, doesn’t it, man?” Luther said sympathetically.

  “What was in it?” Max said, realizing his voice was slurred.

  “Rohypnol.” Luther went out of Max’s line of vision and came back with a wet rag. “Look at all this puke! Can’t take you anywhere, I swear.” But his tone was merry.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You’ve been kidnapped.”

  “I was, um…” Wished he could talk better. Wished he had better vision too. Something was wrong, spatially. Objects in relation to one another were larger or smaller than they appeared. Like Luther’s giant moon face, floating in and out of his airspace.

  “Don’t worry, be happy,” Luther said, squeezing the rag into a bucket on the concrete floor. “This should all be over in a wink. No harm done.”

  “The vomit?”

  “No. The kidnapping. You’ll be snug as a bug in your bed with the lovely Talia before you know it.” Then he climbed up the fixed ladder on the wall, knocked on the ceiling, and disappeared through a trapdoor.

  Max stared at the ceiling where Luther had disappeared, wondering if he was still dreaming. It felt like a dream—surreal.

  He had to shake this. Had to get his mind back, now. If he really had been kidnapped, he should figure out a way to get out of here. He concentrated his gaze on one object after another until they began to make sense, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle filling in.

  The room was claustrophobic. Faded turquoise walls curved like the insides of a culvert. Max was lying under an army blanket on a cot. Nearby, a bottle of water and some Lunchables sat on a card table. A large pipe snaked along one wall, ending in an ancient metal box. He noticed that the trapdoor in the ceiling once had a handle, but it had been sheered clean off.

  He was in a bomb shelter.

  HALF AN HOUR later, Max was still a little unsteady on his feet, but he made it up the steel ladder to test the door. He pushed hard, then pounded on it with a fist. Felt around to see if there was a secret catch, but the whole thing was out in the open—no frills. With the handle stripped off, there didn’t appear to be a way out. They must have fixed it so it would lock from above. Even if he overpowered Luther, Luther had to have someone above to open the trapdoor.

  Which meant there had to be at least two people guarding him. Luther, and the other guy, Corey.

  Max wasn’t worried about his own ability to overpower Luther. Flabby and uncoordinated, Luther would be no match for a man who worked out six days a week and rode a motorcycle to unwind. Max had been schooled in the martial arts, firearms, and hand-to-hand combat.

  So, yes, Max could incapacitate Luther. He could hold him hostage. But would that be a game changer? What would Corey do if Max took Luther hostage? Max remembered the conversation between Corey and Luther. Corey was a former soldier. He would likely have no compunction about killing Max.

  Or, he might just bolt, leaving both of them in this fallout shelter to die of thirst and starvation.

  The key was to get them to take him out of here.

  He was tired. He sat down on the cot and stared at his feet, willing the otherworldly feeling he’d had for so long to go away. Had to get the Rohypnol out of his system. He opened the bottle of water and downed most of it, along with half the Lunchables.

  And felt better immediately. Clearer in his head. The proposition that he might be buried forever in a bomb shelter concentrated his mind.

  Max needed to center himself. He went over what had happened to him in the last few weeks. He remembered the day in Jerry’s office at CCM when he got the ultimatum, and the argument that followed. He’d been hustled down to the garage, bundled into an Escalade, and driven to a jet on the tarmac at LAX. Remembered the private airstrip in Arizona, the jovial kid with an Australian accent who’d greeted him. The ride in the stretch Hummer to the Desert Oasis Healing Center.

  The Desert Oasis Healing Center was like 1940s Morocco. In the healing center’s restaurant, Casablanca’s “As Time Goes By” was piped in from hidden speakers. The waiters wore fezzes, and cabana boys waved palm fans over the swim-up bar. Unfortunately, the bar didn’t serve alcohol.

  Great food, beautiful people, clean and courteous attendants. The Desert Oasis offered the usual rehab fare—the one-on-one counseling, the support group meetings, and seminars. The seminars lasted for hours. That was the worst, because they wouldn’t let anyone leave their seats to pee. They had to wait for certain breaks, and the bathrooms had only four urinals and a lot of desperate people—he’d seen one man who hadn’t made it. Ashamed and angry, the man sat down on the sidewalk and cried.

  But not Max. He held it. He even joked about it. Now, he said, he knew how women felt at concerts.

  The seminars were ongoing. Not rigorous, pretty much standard, except for the denied bathroom privileges.

  Still.

  Max had been unaffected by his previous two stints in rehab, but this one…

  Something had happened to him. It was there beneath his conscious mind, like an underground stream. Moments of terror. His vision obscured by dots of light, especially when he awoke in the mornings. He suffered from vivid hallucinations. Sometimes the man in the rowboat, sometimes snarling wolves intent on ripping him to pieces, sometimes an evil knight on a big horse, swinging a mace. And sometimes just blackness and a feeling of doom. Fortunately, the hallucinations were fading. The more he walked the earth in the real world, the more they receded. But he sensed they were just around some corner of his mind, waiting to jump out at him.

  It occurred to him now, imprisoned in this underground chamber, that whatever it was had been implanted in him. Into his brain. Hypnosis, maybe. The confusion, the holes in his memory, the unreasoning fear, the desire to climb to the highest place he could find and throw himself to his death.

  And Max himself had walked right into this. He could have flown back to LA. He could have confronted Jerry. He could have divorced Talia and called off the adoption. It had all been keeping up with the Joneses, anyway, a photo op for Talia. The baby was probably better off in Africa.

  If he’d done any of these things, the world wouldn’t have come to an end. But instead, he’d hitchhiked down the freeway and buried his wallet somewhere in the desert.

  He’d done stupid things, all to avoid his own pain. An impossible task, since whatever happened to him remained unfathomable.

  At least now, he had something physical to fight. He had an opponent to outwit.

  For the first time in years, Max got mad.

  Really, really mad.

  Chapter Twelve

  A COUPLE OF hours later, the door to the bomb shelter opened and Luther climbed down, his movements ponderous and timid.

  Max sat up on his cot and watched him.

  Once on solid ground, Luther bounded toward him. “How’s it goin’, bro?”

  “I’m OK.”

  “Excellent! I see you’ve partaken of the repast we left you.” Luther pulled up one of the folding chairs and sat in front of Max, their knees almost touching. “Thought you’d want to know how all this is going down.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “We’re going to need your wife’s phone number.”

  Max didn’t react.

  “And we’re going to want you to talk to her. If you could tell her we have you at an undisclosed location, and all we want is two million dollars, and we’ll return you safe and sound—that would be marvelous. You think you can manage that?”

  “No.”

  “No? Wrong answer. What if I put a gun to your head? How’d you feel about that?”

  Max shrugged.

  “Because we mean business. This is not a game. You are in a bomb shelter. We could seal it up and nobody’d ever be the wiser. You’d die alone. I hear starvation is a terrible way to die. No one would ever know where you went. Depend on that! So if you want to go back to your movie star life, your beautiful wife, you need
to cooperate. You do see that, don’t you?”

  Max stared Luther in the eye until Luther’s good eye wandered.

  Luther cleared his throat. “Well?”

  “Call her yourself.”

  “But you’d have to talk to her! She’d have to know it was you.”

  Max crossed his legs. “I’ll give you her phone number, but I’m not talking.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s the deal.”

  “All right, all right. Give me the number.”

  Max did.

  Luther leaped to his feet—amazingly quick for a plump man. He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture. “Didn’t think of that, did you?”

  Max stretched out on the cot and closed his eyes. “Honestly? I would have been disappointed in you if you didn’t.”

  TEN MINUTES LATER the trapdoor opened and Luther came back down the steps.

  “How’d it go?” Max asked.

  Luther’s face looked pastier than usual, and he had that thousand-yard stare screenwriters were always putting into their screen directions. He sat on the edge of Max’s cot, his chest sinking into his stomach like a collapsed balloon.

  “You reached her?” Max asked.

  Luther nodded.

  “So what did she say?”

  Luther stared at his hands. “She said, and I quote, ‘You can keep him.’ And then she hung up.”

  Max pursed his lips and blew out a breath. “I was afraid of that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Well tell me! This is a business transaction I’m trying to do here.”

  “It starts out like any other story. Boy meets girl. They fall in love, they marry—”

  “Would you please cut to the chase?”

  “OK. She hates me.”

  “That’s not what I read in the tabloids. I did my homework, you know. Say, I know what you did. You have a phone I don’t know about and told her what to say. Is that it? Do you think this is a game?”

  “No game. She hates me.”

  “Look, I told you, I know the whole story. I know about your first divorce. I know you remarried—I read it in Vanity Fair. This time you had a new appreciation for each other, a deeper love…”