by Rebecca York
CHAINED
A Novella
By Rebecca York
Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York
Published by Light Street Press
Copyright © 2011 by Ruth Glick
Cover design by Earthly Charms
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
More Decorah Security Series Books
by Rebecca York
AMBUSHED (a short story)
DARK MOON (a novel)
DARK POWERS (a novel)
HOT AND DANGEROUS (a short story)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
PRAISE FOR REBECCA YORK
ABOUT REBECCA YORK
BOOKS BY REBECCA YORK
CHAPTER ONE
Isabella Flores pulled open the kitchen door and stopped in her tracks. The house felt wrong. Come to that, it smelled wrong. The familiar scents of the empanadas she’d cooked the night before and the cleaning solution she used on the floor still hung in the air. But they were overlaid by the smell of sweat and stealth.
Moments ago she’d been prepared to fall into bed and sleep for the next eight hours, after an exhausting shift on the surgical floor at Phoenix General Hospital.
Instead, she backed out the door and started running, not toward the car she’d just left in the driveway but into the alley.
A blast of noise followed her, and she felt a bullet whiz past her head.
“Cristo. Don’t let her get away,” a harsh voice shouted.
Two hombres. Waiting in the dark for her.
She’d hoped she was safe living in this quiet, middle-class neighborhood, but she’d always been prepared for the worst. She kept two bags packed, one in the trunk of her car and the other in an SUV, hidden down the block.
She leaped the waist-high chain link fence of a neighbor’s yard on the other side of the alley, rolled into a flower bed, and lay with her heart pounding, praying that the men hadn’t seen her vanish into the shadows.
As two sets of heavy footsteps pounded toward her, then sprinted past, she let out the breath she’d been holding.
But she couldn’t stay here. When they didn’t find her, they’d double back. Which meant she had only minutes to make her escape.
Staying low, she ran toward the front of the property where she’d taken refuge, then crossed five front yards, keeping as close to the buildings as possible.
When she ducked into the passage between two houses, frantic barking stopped her. She turned to face a large German shepherd that bared enormous teeth in warning.
Ignoring the show of aggression, she spoke in a low, soothing voice. “Herman. It’s just me. Isabella. You know me. Come on, boy. Give me a break.”
To her relief, the dog licked the hand she held out.
“Good boy. That’s a good boy,” she praised him as she opened the gate and eased inside, where she crossed the yard and headed for the alley again.
If the dog’s barking brought the men who were hunting her, maybe his fangs would slow them down.
With a sigh of relief, she slipped inside the garage she’d rented on a cash only, no questions asked basis.
In the darkness, she raised the main door, wincing when the mechanism squeaked.
“Almost there,” she whispered to herself as she slipped behind the wheel of the SUV.
As she pulled into the alley, she thought she was in the clear, but one of the gunmen leaped into her path, his dark features illuminated by a street lamp. She didn’t recognize him, but she knew who he must be. One of the hired thugs who worked for General Lopez, El Jefe, who held the Central American country of San Marcos in his iron grip.
Eight years ago, her father had dared to write exposés about the general and circulate them secretly. When Lopez had found out who was behind them, Papa had been forced to flee the country with Isabella.
They hadn’t even been safe in the U.S. After an assassination attempt, her father had hired a highly recommended company, Decorah Security, to protect them and help them establish new identities. Her last name wasn’t even the same as her father’s. She’d used Flores since college. And she hadn’t even seen Papa in two years.
But the general’s men had tracked her down.
She’d heard Lopez was in trouble back in San Marcos. Was he making a last-ditch attempt to silence any enemies?
Ducking low, she pressed on the accelerator, heading straight toward the gunman.
At the last second, he leaped out of the way. But after her car barreled past, she saw him in the rearview mirror, raising his gun.
Before he could fire, Herman charged through the gate that she hadn’t locked—taking the thug to the ground, his savage snarling and the man’s screams ringing in her ears.
“Dios, don’t let him shoot the dog,” she prayed as she barreled down the alley.
She drove for two miles, weaving a random course through the neighborhood. When she judged she was far enough from home, she pulled in back of a gas station and sat behind the wheel, struggling to control the shaking that had overtaken her.
She had escaped. Now what? She couldn’t go back to her little rental house. Or to the police. The general had a reputation for paying off the authorities. For all she knew he had done that now.
After making sure no one was watching her, she climbed out of the car and retrieved the overnight bag locked in the trunk. In it was a small automatic pistol, which she placed on the passenger seat beside her.
Then she pulled out her cell phone and risked a call to her father.
The phone rang once, twice, four times.
“Jorge Arroyo aqui.”
Her heart leaped when she heard him speak—until she realized it was his voice mail, asking her to leave a message. Which she didn’t do.
He hadn’t answered. But that didn’t mean he was dead, she told herself as she clenched the phone and pondered his fate—and her own.
She hadn’t been sure where she was going when she fled the gunmen. She’d only reacted to the immediate danger. Now that she had the luxury of making some plans, a strong conviction came over her.
At least for the next few days, she would hole up at El Cayado, the Shepherd’s Crook, the ranch outside Sedona her father had bought, using another assumed name.
It was where Decorah Security had housed them after her father had shot two hombres who had come after him. Two men. Like tonight.
She and her father had lived at the ranch for six months while they improved their English language skills and Decorah set up their new identities. She had taken the Flores name and gone off to college in the East, where she’d earned a nursing degree.
Her father had established himself as Jorge Arroyo in Denver, where he’d started writing a book about his life in San Marcos. He had never finished it, maybe because putting everything down on paper was too painful for him.
She hadn’t been to El Cayado since she was a teenager, but the ranch called to her now, with an overwhelming pull, which made her think that going there was the ri
ght thing to do.
Was that a logical decision? Or purely emotional? She hoped the former was true.
As she drove up U.S. 17, she risked one more call, where she left a message with her supervisor at Phoenix General Hospital.
“I’ve got a family emergency,” she told the nursing supervisor’s voice mail. “I can’t come in for the next few days.”
The lie made her chest tighten because she was pretty sure she was never coming back to Phoenix.
She switched off her phone, wondering if she should throw it out the window. In the end, she decided to keep it for an emergency. Probably that was safe as long as she didn’t turn it on.
The closer she got to the ranch, the more she thought of the past. Especially of Matthew Houseman, the Decorah agent who’d been assigned to protect her.
Maybe their relationship had started off as just a job for him, but it had developed into a shared warmth that neither one of them had been free to admit.
That hadn’t stopped her from longing for a whole lot more with him. Even though she knew it was impossible. She was a teenager, and he was her bodyguard.
But alone in her room at night, she’d had fantasies of running her hands through his dark hair. Of stripping off the cowboy clothes he usually wore and making love.
They hadn’t even kissed, but he’d taken her for rides in the red rock desert around the ranch and made sure she knew how to use a gun. And most evenings she’d listened to him strumming his guitar and singing out on the back patio.
She shivered as she remembered one of the songs, “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” about phantom cowboys chasing a herd of ghostly cattle they would never catch.
Her heart squeezed. She’d thought she could contact him when she was out of nursing school, but that hadn’t happened, because Matthew Houseman was dead. Killed in the line of duty five years ago.
She thrust the painful thought away. Matthew was gone, and maybe her father.
Two hours after her hair-raising escape, she reached the outskirts of Sedona, where she stopped at a shopping center and bought groceries as well as two large blocks of ice.
With the provisions in the car, she headed for El Cayado. Slowing along the two-lane highway, she looked for the access road that led off into the desert. When she spotted it, she unclenched the hands clutching the wheel and made the turn onto the dirt track.
It was a bumpy fifteen-mile ride, but finally she saw the outline of the low, adobe-style buildings.
As she pulled up in front of the house, she sighed, partly in relief and partly in anticipation. Something was waiting for her here, something that she could sense, just out of reach.
Still, it was strange to be back at the ranch. All alone.
What was it like inside the house? Hopefully it was sealed well enough to have kept the varmints out.
She stuffed the pistol into her purse, then opened the car door and stepped out, breathing in the desert air. It was fresh and clean, the way she remembered. And even on a summer night, it carried a slight chill. Which might be why she felt a tingle at the back of her neck. Or had she made a mistake coming here?
Quietly, she turned in a circle, scanning the ranch yard and the desert beyond. Moonlight silvered the stark beauty of the rocky landscape, and a canopy of stars added their twinkling light, but she could see nothing stirring among the buildings or in the desert.
She’d intended to carry a bag of groceries to the house; instead she left her provisions in the car and started up the walk, deliberately forcing herself not to run like a kid afraid of the dark.
She was halfway to the front door when a sound stopped her. It came from the grove of sycamore trees down by the spring. She turned in that direction, listening to the wind rustling the leaves. The noise started off barely audible, then increased as though a storm were gathering. But as far as she could tell, there was no wind anywhere else.
Suddenly the temperature dropped, increasing the prickle at the back of her neck, and the wind gathered in intensity, moaning in the trees, tossing the branches around with an unnerving rattling sound, building in power.
She had taken an involuntary step back when something invisible rushed toward her like a great raptor diving to capture its prey.
Although she saw nothing, she felt the force of the wind like a solid wave that would have knocked her off her feet, except that it held her fast. It felt like giant hands were on her, one clamping her shoulder. The other locked around her neck, choking off her breath so that she couldn’t even scream.
The unseen attacker lifted her off her feet, pushing her backwards in a rush of chilled air toward the stable behind her.
She braced for teeth-rattling impact.
CHAPTER TWO
Just before Isabella slammed into the adobe wall, whatever held her in its grasp halted her backward rush. She was suspended in the air for long seconds until the force lowered her gently to solid ground again.
She sagged against the wall, dragging in blessed air, sure to the marrow of her bones that she had escaped death.
For an eternity she heard nothing except the sawing of her own breath in and out. Then a new sound came to her. Like a voice carried on a summer breeze. Or whispered by a phantom.
“Isabella?”
She went very still, wondering if the roaring in her ears was from the rushing of her own blood.
“Isabella?” This time she was sure she heard her name, but she saw no one.
“Yes,” she breathed.
She was alone out here in the desert, but who had spoken?
Was it really a ghost, like before?
She’d been six when Nana Maria had died back in San Marcos. Her grandmother had been bedridden for six months, and there was nothing the doctors could do for her. Isabella sensed her parents’ relief when the long ordeal finally ended.
She loved Nana very much, and they’d been close, but nobody took her to the hospital for visits, and she never got a chance to say good-bye.
She was so sad about that.
After the funeral, when people came to the house, Papa carried her up to her room and put her to bed, leaving a lamp lighted on the dresser.
She was lying under the covers when she felt a presence in the room.
“Is someone there?” she called in a quavery voice.
Peering into the dim light, she saw her granny standing at the end of the bed looking down at her with a smile on her face. The last time she’d seen Nana Maria, the woman had been lying in bed, sick and in pain.
“Nana, what are you doing here?”
“You called me.”
“I did?”
“Yes. And I heard you.”
“I thought you were dead.” She tipped her head to the side, staring at the beloved figure. “You were so sick. You look better now.”
“I am dead, nina,” she said in a low voice. “And I am better.”
Isabella tried to puzzle her way through that. “How can you be better if you’re in your grave?”
“The pain is gone. And I am at peace.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you one more time. And to warn you.”
“Warn me?” She took her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Some hard things are coming.”
“What things?”
“I can’t tell you. But they won’t last forever.”
Before she could ask another question, Nana Maria disappeared.
She never told anyone about that incident, but she never forgot it either.
“Nana?” she whispered now, wondering if this was another visit from her grandmother.
Yet this hadn’t been the same thing. Not at all.
Nana hadn’t touched her. Tonight, the wind had come rushing at her like an attack force and had subsided faster than it had started.
On shaky legs, she tottered back to the car, leaning against the door as she looked around.
She must be so off balance that she was makin
g things up. Yet she knew that something strange had happened out here. And when she turned, she could see the marks where her feet had scraped across the ground as the unseen force had dragged her toward the stable.
She looked up toward the sycamore trees. They were absolutely still now. But she thought she heard the strains of music coming from that direction. A tune she couldn’t quite make out. So faintly that she wasn’t sure she really heard anything.
“Who’s there?” she called in a shaky voice.
No answer.
“What are you?” she tried.
The branches gave a little shake and then went still again as though nothing had ever happened.
She should leave this place.
No. She wasn’t going to let the wind or anything else scare her away. She had come to El Cayado because it was safe. She had to believe it was. Whatever had grabbed her had meant her no harm. Yes, it had attacked, until it realized who she was. It was as though the presence in the wind wanted to protect this place—and her.
That was the only thing that made sense.
Sense! She laughed, fighting hysteria. She couldn’t make sense of what had happened. Better to rely on her feelings.
Snatching up her overnight bag she carried it to the porch. Then she went back for the groceries.
She’d also brought a flashlight, which she clicked on and shined at the deadbolt lock.
The key was in her purse. Once she’d unlocked the door, she stepped quickly inside and shined the beam around the front room. It illuminated woven native rugs and the sturdy wooden frames of the Mission-style furniture.
She had expected the air to be stale or musty, but it was as fresh as if she and her father had left yesterday, not eight years ago.
With her bag in her hand, she walked down the hall to the bedroom she’d slept in as a teenager.
Her bed was covered with a large sheet of plastic. She folded it up and laid it in the bottom of the closet, then pulled linens from the dresser drawers and made the bed.
Still using the flashlight, she carried the groceries to the kitchen. When she and her father had lived here, they’d used a generator for several hours a day. With it off, there was no electricity at the ranch, but she carried the milk and eggs out to the springhouse, then went back to the car for the ice.