* * *
“We’ve got company on our seven.” Chris’s gut twisted into a Gordian knot.
They were twenty minutes into Maddie’s circuitous route toward the Greyhound bus station near the river, and they’d just chanced hopping onto a freeway to make time. One second they were cruising along in cop-free traffic, and Chris had started to believe they might make their goal without incident. The next moment, he glanced over his shoulder and caught the sun’s rays glinting off a set of bubble lights atop a sedan creeping up on them in the left lane.
“Roger that,” Maddie said. “Do you think they see us?”
“Not yet, but that could change as soon as they get closer.”
“I’m taking the next exit. Either we’ll get lucky, or we’ll land in a car chase that stands a strong chance of ending badly for us. You ready?”
Chris tightened his seat belt. “I don’t know that we have a choice. It’s ready-or-not time.”
The tick-tock of the turn signal echoed through his head like a countdown toward disaster. Maddie eased the car onto the exit ramp as if gliding on butter. She was a stellar driver. If anyone could make this unusual vehicle all but invisible, she could. They turned onto a busy side street with no sign of the police cruiser on their bumper.
“We made it!” Chris sucked in a full breath then spurted a laugh.
“Don’t count your chickadees yet, buckaroo. I need to see no police activity on our tails for the next five minutes before I’ll breathe easy.”
“Negative Nelly.” Chris offered a lopsided grin.
“Cautious Cassandra would be more accurate, Bubble Boy.” She answered his grin.
Chris chuckled. “Let’s hope my bubble doesn’t get busted then.”
“I can agree with that. Change of plan. It’s taking too long to reach the main Greyhound terminal. By now, the place is probably crawling with cops, since any type of public transit would be seen as a potential destination for us. Fliers with our mugs plastered on them might already be posted all over the airport, taxi stands and car rental places, too. Not that anyone would need to see a flier to recognize your famous face.”
Chris snorted. “Fame is one thing. Infamy is another. Who knows? Maybe we’ve made the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.”
“If we don’t find a way to clear our names soon, we will.”
“What’s the new plan?”
“Remember that down-at-the-heels truck stop on the edge of the city where a few of us stopped last year to recon for the upcoming mission?”
“I remember their outstanding biscuits and gravy.”
Maddie chuckled. “Just like a man. Connecting memory to his stomach.”
“A harmless and effective masculine quirk.” Chris grinned. “Are we going to hitch a ride on an eighteen-wheeler or just leave Ginger to be found so they’ll think we did?”
“We’ll do whatever seems best at the time. But if we hitch a ride, we don’t want the driver to know he has passengers.”
“That’s what I like about this being on the run—loads of spontaneity.”
“Think of it as ad libbing. Might make more sense to you that way.”
Fifteen minutes later, they reached the outskirts of the city, and the sprawling gas station, truck wash, fix-it garage, and greasy spoon restaurant with the great biscuits and gravy came into view. The interconnected, metal-sided buildings perched on a stretch of dusty plain flanked by desert on the far side and the Rio Grande River behind.
“This isn’t far from the paper factory.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Maddie’s response was terse, discouraging further conversation. She wore her high-alert expression, gaze devouring the layout. If so much as a gecko escaped her notice, he’d be stunned.
Chris’s mouth watered involuntarily as she turned the nose of the Oldsmobile into the massive parking lot. Fat chance they’d wander inside for a meal, though his morning biscuit had long dissolved from his insides. Hunger was the least of their problems.
The tarmac was occupied by long rows of semis, a few with their diesel engines chugging. If they wanted to vamoose, they shouldn’t have a big problem finding transportation that would pull out soon and take them to who knew where. Destination might not matter at the moment.
“I’m going to park on the far side of the restaurant,” Maddie said. “It’s a better place to abandon a car than out front.”
“Go for it.”
They left the cover of the semis and pulled around the corner of the restaurant. Maddie’s sudden mash on the brakes threw Chris against his seat belt. He gaped at the sight before him. If he’d tried to imagine the worst disaster they could encounter, he wouldn’t have come close to this one.
Half a dozen assorted law enforcement vehicles poked their bumpers toward the side of the restaurant—a couple of Smokies, two sheriff’s vehicles, a Texas Ranger pickup and a city police cruiser. Had they happened on a cop convention, or was this a hot spot for coffee and donuts? Maybe the local law enforcement community agreed with him about the biscuits and gravy. Whatever the attraction, a state patrolman stood by the door of his vehicle, staring straight at them. Then he ripped his radio from his belt.
Maddie threw the Oldsmobile into Reverse, spitting loose rocks up under the chassis. The hairs on the nape of Chris’s neck stood up. The pop-pop-pop was too close
to the sound of gunfire to suit him—not when they might be the targets of real bullets very soon. Maddie cranked the wheel, and Ginger performed a skidding about face, then rocketed out of the parking lot. Sirens were already starting to wail in their wake.
“We’ve been through plans A, B and C.” Chris gripped the edge of the armrest. “Have we got a plan D?”
“This is more like plan Z,” she said, gaze straight ahead, jaw and cheekbones jutting.
“This is nuts! You’re heading toward the paper plant?” Chris ground out. “What are we going to do—ram through the front glass doors and demand to know where the drugs are?”
Maddie’s lack of response stabbed a shaft of ice through his middle. What was this woman planning? She’d better let him in on it.
“If you’d—”
“Wait!” She showed him the palm of her hand.
Chris ground his teeth together.
She threw the Oldsmobile into another gear and revved the vehicle up the grade that led to the ridge where they’d staked out the plant. He looked over his shoulder. The law enforcement vehicles had lost a little ground, but they weren’t far enough behind to ditch them. And sure not on this narrow road that offered no side streets for miles. Trees and brush crowded them on either side.
Maddie whipped the Cutlass around a dogleg turn, slowed and stopped in the middle of the road. The cop vehicles were out of sight, but not out of sound. They were gaining by the second.
She gazed at him, calm purpose in her eyes. “Get out.”
“No.”
Her hand wound around his, and the steel in her gaze softened. She leaned close and pressed tender lips against his. “Do you want to know the truth, Mason? I’m losing the battle against my attraction for you.”
Her touch, her words bumped his heart rate up another notch, if that were possible. He reached for her, but she pulled away—not far, but far enough.
“Trust me.”
He nodded, the ability to speak crushed beneath a boulder weighting his chest.
“Get out and take cover in the brush beside the road. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. No matter what you hear. Do it now, or we’re both goners.”
As if he’d somehow detached from himself and was watching someone else go through the motions, Chris opened the car door. Pain sizzled up his body as he levered himself out onto the pavement, but the sensation seemed light-years distant and of no consequence. If it wou
ld take them to safety, he’d carry Maddie in his arms a hundred miles on his bum leg. Not that she’d let him try.
Midafternoon heat roared up from the tarmac and thrust him into an instant sauna, but a chill shook him from the inside out as he limped into the brush. What was Maddie planning? Something she didn’t dare tell him.
Ginger’s engine roared. Chris glanced over his shoulder, and the car was speeding away. Sirens were closing in. He ducked down and lay flat against an incline behind a huddle of bushes. Cop cars whizzed past him in quick succession, throwing waves of dry heat onto his back with their passage. Ginger had already disappeared around a turn, but there was no chance Maddie could escape. Her pursuers would have radioed ahead. She’d meet roadblocks sooner rather than later.
Was she doing the reverse of what he’d suggested earlier—letting herself be caught so he could escape? Not such a great plan, considering his injury. How would he even manage to hobble back to the truck stop, much less stow himself away in a semi? And where would he go? Maddie was the clandestine operative, not him.
Did she actually admit she was developing feelings for him? Despite his stoutest resolve, he could say the same where his own heart was concerned. Where did that leave them if they never got the chance to explore the possibilities? He slammed a fist against the side of his knee and paid with a snarl of pain from his ankle.
A horrendous screech of twisted metal and shattering glass pierced the sirens’ wails. The sound echoed up from the gorge beyond and below him. Chris’s whole being turned to brittle frost.
“Nooooo! God, please!”
The words rasped from his throat as a vision flashed before his mind’s eye as clear as anything he’d ever witnessed with his outward senses—Ginger airborne over the low cliff that fronted the Rio Grande. Had Maddie pushed the car beyond its limits, missed a turn and plunged through the flimsy barrier onto the bank below?
Shuddering, Chris buried his face in hot, acrid soil and cried out to God.
TEN
“Are you praying or talking to yourself?” Maddie settled onto the sun-baked ground next to Chris.
His head jerked up, and he devoured her with his gaze. “You!”
She blinked at him. “Yes. Last time I checked I was me.”
“You’re alive.” A medieval knight waking up in the twenty-first century couldn’t have spoken with greater amazement.
“I am.” She grinned fit to split her face.
Chris scowled blacker than last night’s storm. His arm snaked out quick as thought and snatched her to him. Her face was mashed up against a pleasantly broad and sturdy shoulder and his masculine scents of soap and sweat filled her nostrils. She wriggled against him, but he crushed her all the tighter.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again.” His stern words blew hot in her ear.
Maddie managed to nod against his chest, and his grip loosened. She lifted her head and gazed into his eyes. Had the subtle crow’s-feet at their corners deepened since last she saw him? She was lucky his hair hadn’t gone white from trauma like his sister’s had done.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “There wasn’t time to explain my plan or argue with you about the risks.”
He grunted darkly. “Maybe you could take a moment now and enlighten me? I thought you’d gone over the cliff into the river.”
Maddie’s heart twisted, and she lowered her gaze. “I bailed at the last second. Now the cops are busy recovering the wreck of the car they think we both occupied, and we have a small window of time to slip away.”
“You ditched Ginger? Your brother’s car? You really ditched her.”
Maddie nodded, her throat too full of loss for further speech. A strong finger lifted her chin, and the blue of Chris’s eyes pulled her deep into their welcoming embrace. He bent his head, and his mouth touched one corner of hers then the other.
“Madeleine Jerrard,” he murmured. “You are the bravest woman I know... Check that. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
Something huddled and lonely in Maddie’s depths unfurled before the simple power of his affirmation. It would be so easy to surrender to the feelings for him that grew like Virginia creepers and clung to her heart in spite of her best efforts to exterminate them. She had to remember there was no future in love unless trust could also be declared. Her brother always told her she was stubborn beyond belief. Maybe he was right. So far, Chris had seemed to play square with her, but someone from within camp the night of the attack had to have transmitted their location to the cartel. It still made sense that the only other survivor of the carnage was that person.
Please, Dear Lord, could there turn out to be some other explanation?
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, “before the authorities figure out that we weren’t inside Ginger when she lost her reckless bid to defy gravity.”
She helped Chris struggle to his feet.
“Your arms are all scraped and scratched,” he said.
She shrugged. “One of the consequences of performing a rolling dive from a fast-moving vehicle.”
“Are you hurt elsewhere?”
His concern feathered warmth through her chest. “Nothing serious, but let’s just say that most of me will soon turn not-so-pretty colors.”
Shaking his head, Chris muttered something she didn’t totally catch about daredevil stunts giving him a heart attack. Suppressing a smile, Maddie gathered his arm around her shoulder, and they moved off down a deer track through brush and mesquite. At every step, the hiss of his breath between his teeth tore at her heart. They needed transportation, and he should have professional medical care. Yeah, right. Like they could stroll into any urgent care center and walk away without metal bracelets snapped onto their wrists.
“Leave me,” Chris said twenty minutes into their trek. “I’m done.”
Maddie didn’t argue. He’d lost enough moisture from heat and pain to dehydrate him. She let him ease down onto a rock in a narrow cut near the base of the hillside. He slumped, gripping his knees with his hands, and his breath rasped in his chest. From below, the whoosh of occasional traffic from a narrow county road reached their ears, but their location was out of sight of travelers.
“Sorry...I’m such a...drag on you,” Chris puffed. “Go on...without me.” His blue gaze lifted to hers, and he straightened his shoulders.
“And leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere? Not a chance, Mason.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Do me a favor...call in my location to the feds. They’ll collect me fast enough. At least...I’ll have food, water and medical care while you hitch that ride to Timbuktu. I mean it. Leave the country if you must in order to be safe and go on with your life.”
Maddie pressed the back of her hand to Chris’s forehead.
He pulled away, scowling. “What?”
“Just checking to see if you might be delirious from fever.” She planted her hands on her hips. “We’re a team until this is over, one way or another.” Lips pressed tight together, Maddie performed mental calculations. “If I’ve got my bearings correctly, there’s a convenience store about a mile east of here. Settle in under some shade, and I’ll be back within the hour with the first two items on your wish list—food and water. I’ll even wrangle some form of transportation if I can.”
Chris snorted. “And while you’re doing that, I’ll noodle up an idea that will expose the bad guys and make us heroes instead of heels.”
“You do that.” She wagged a finger in his face and offered him a jaunty grin—better than allowing him to see the despair that kneaded her gut.
* * *
For at least a half hour after Maddie left him, Chris fussed and stewed over their situation and how his injury hampered their mobility. Slumped in the shade of a boulder, he picked up small rocks and chucked them at nearby
swatches of mesquite. He might feel better if the brush was some portion of Jess’s anatomy or his mystery bodyguard. That pair and everyone connected with their drug-running scheme needed to be taken out of business permanently.
Gradually, his mind turned to the snatches of conversation they’d overheard during the conspirator’s clandestine meeting at the paper plant. What had Jess meant about a golden opportunity and the fourth? Fourth what? Was it a number? Or maybe a date. The Fourth of July! The holiday would be upon them in two weeks. Is that when they planned to move a drug shipment across the border? Come to think of it, that foghorn bodyguard’s remark about the cops being distracted and run ragged dovetailed perfectly with a Fourth of July smuggling operation. Holidays stressed the manpower of law enforcement agencies in dealing with out-of-hand celebrations, extra traffic and the usual assortment of accidents that occurred when people gathered in masses or handled dangerous items like fireworks.
The few words Maddie and he had overheard that night told a fairly complete story. Who was smuggling the drugs into the country: Fernando Ortiz’s cartel operatives and their accomplices on this side of the border. When the drugs were coming in: midnight on the Fourth of July. As well as where they were being received: the Rio Grande Paper Plant with its built-in distribution center.
Chris sighed. If only his recorder hadn’t taken a bullet. Without the recording, Maddie and he had no proof to give to the authorities, even if they knew who they dared approach without setting themselves up for assassination.
The distant bay of a dog arrested his thoughts. Breath snagged in his throat. Of course! The cops had figured out that the smashed vehicle that went over the cliff was empty, and now they’d brought in a hound to track the fugitives. With his bum leg, Maddie hadn’t been able to drag him far. At the most, he had minutes until he was apprehended. Maybe that was for the best.
Betrayal on the Border Page 11