by Jenna Kernan
One wore some kind of full head mask and both held rifles at the ready.
Selena glanced at him, said something to the gunmen and stepped into the truck’s compartment and out of sight.
Good move, Selena, he thought, hoping she would think to lie flat because that truck door would afford little protection from bullets.
As the distance diminished he saw that the pile of something beside the open door was most definitely a body, possibly two. He radioed for backup, shouting the code for a shooting and the location. Then he hit the brakes and turned the wheel so his SUV formed a barrier between him and the riflemen.
“Police. Drop your weapons,” he shouted.
The gunmen spun and raised their weapons at the same time the truck door swung open, sending the masked man staggering forward. Selena, evening the odds, he realized.
Gabe fired at the other man, taking him down. Selena now stood on the gate with a tire iron in her hand. He couldn’t shoot the second gunman without possibly hitting her. The second shooter recovered his footing and his grip on his rifle. Selena swung the iron down, hitting the barrel of his rifle so that it dropped. The shooter grabbed Selena by her long, loose hair, dragging her down. The tire iron clattered to the pavement as Selena fell against her captor.
“Let her go,” ordered Gabe.
“He has a pistol,” shouted Selena.
Her masked gunman gave her a shake and she gripped the hand that threaded into her hair with both of hers.
“Drop your gun or I kill her,” said her captor.
“Jason Leekela, you let me go before your brother finds out about this!”
Gabe knew Jason. He had arrested him more than once for possession.
“Let her go, Jason.”
But he didn’t. Instead he reached in his pocket and drew the pistol she had warned him about. Selena kicked at him. Jason staggered and Selena fell hard to her knees giving Gabe a clear shot. Jason lifted the pistol toward Gabe. Gabe fired.
Jason Leekela fell.
He landed facedown. Selena scuttled backward like a crab as Gabe came forward at a run. Selena sat on the icy road, knees drawn up to her chest.
Thank God she was safe, because he was going to kill her.
She was on her feet an instant later, throwing herself into his arms, burying her face in his coat. The familiar pull of attraction flared as her scent rose up in the icy air, like springtime in January. Still lavender, he realized. The scent was so familiar and still intoxicating, making him ache down low and deep. He drew her in, allowing himself one more full breath and the pleasure of having her arms around him again. In one hand he held Selena. In the other he held his gun.
He tried to pull her away, but she clung.
“Selena. You have to let go.”
She did. Stepping back, her cheeks wet with tears. “I’m sorry.”
That wasn’t going to do it. He had a sinking feeling that she’d crossed a line from which he couldn’t rescue her. He swallowed the lump that rose as he looked down at her forlorn, beautiful face. Why couldn’t he get over her? Why?
“Who is up front?” he asked.
“My dad and Matt Dryer. He shot Dryer and hit Dad really hard with his gun stock.”
“Dryer? The guy from DOC?”
Selena nodded. He ordered her to stand back by his vehicle, knowing he should cuff her, search her for weapons. But Gabe just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he retrieved the rifles and locked them in the rear of his unit. Then he returned to the gunman.
His pulse check told him he’d just killed two men. He glanced back at Selena who watched with wide eyes as she twisted one hand with the other.
“Dead,” he reported and then went to check on Dryer and Dosela.
Frasco had struggled to a sitting position. He had a gash across the top of his head, sending a steady stream of blood down his forehead. He blinked up at Gabe and wiped his eyes. Dryer lay facedown in broken glass.
He pointed at Frasco. “You armed?”
“No, sir,” said Frasco.
“Step back.”
Frasco struggled to his feet, using the door to steady himself.
“On the ground,” Gabe ordered Frasco. “Facedown. Don’t move until I tell you.”
Frasco stretched out, using his arms to keep his head off the pavement. Gabe hated to do this to her father, but it was that or frisk and cuff him.
“How’d you find us?” asked Frasco.
“You were spotted on Route 60. Then I saw the tracks on the turn.”
If not for the fresh snow, he might have missed them and Selena might be dead. That thought made him cold all over. Gabe moved to check Dryer.
“What happened to him?” asked Gabe, motioning to the DOC officer.
“They shot him in the chest is what.”
Gabe did a visual and saw no wound. Then he opened Dryer’s jacket and tore open his shirt, sending buttons flying in all directions. What he found next surprised him. Dryer had been wearing body armor and the shot that should have killed him had been stopped by the vest.
Dryer groaned and his eyes fluttered open. Gabe had never caught a bullet in his vest, but understood it hurt like hell. Dryer winced. Gabe couldn’t tell if he was fully conscious.
Gabe got right to the point. “Mr. Dryer. Frasco Dosela. You are both under arrest.”
“That’s what you think,” mumbled Frasco. Then it almost sounded as if he laughed.
Gabe could not believe he was arresting Frasco Dosela again and on the day of his early release. He knew that his next arrest would likely be Selena and his heart squeezed in pain. This was the second time she had put him in this kind of position.
Chapter Five
His second in command, Detective Randall Juris, was the first on the scene followed closely by Gabe’s youngest brother, Kino. Both ran without lights or sirens.
Juris pulled to a stop and exited his unit with gun drawn.
“Clear,” said Gabe, and Juris holstered his weapon.
The detective paused at the rear of the truck and massaged his neck with one hand as he regarded the two dead bodies. Then he glanced to Gabe. Juris was in his midforties and had worked as an extra in several Western movies. His rugged good looks and classic Indian features had softened with age and the expansion of his middle, so he now seemed a little too top-heavy to ride a horse. As a detective, he no longer wore the gray shirt and charcoal trousers of a patrolman. Today he was in jeans, boots and a fleece-lined denim jacket.
“Where you want me?” he asked.
“Take him.” He motioned toward Frasco Dosela.
Juris ordered the bleeding, older Dosela up and he made it to the front fender of the box truck unassisted. Juris searched him, cuffed Dosela’s hands before him and led him to the detective’s unit. Juris retrieved a towel from his trunk and offered it to Dosela with a warning.
“Don’t bleed on my upholstery,” he cautioned, as he put him in the backseat.
Dosela pressed the towel to his bleeding head with both hands.
Kino left his unit and stopped beside Selena. Kino was nine years Gabe’s junior, newly married to a Salt River woman and was a two-year veteran of the force, so he still wore the patrolman’s uniform, including the charcoal-gray jacket that had the tribal seal on one shoulder and the police patch on the other. Unlike Gabe, Kino wore his hair long and tied back with red cloth as an homage to their ancestry. But they shared above-average size, athletic frames and a calling to serve their people through law enforcement. Kino’s ready smile was absent today as he looked to his chief for direction.
“Keep an eye on this one,” Gabe motioned to Dryer. “Tell me if he stops breathing or comes around. And radio in an all clear.”
“Ambulance?” asked Kino.
“Take too long. We’ll transport.”
Kino took over the watch beside Dryer.
Gabe took hold of Selena’s elbow and led her to the front of her truck. Before he could question Selena, Juris reported that he had found two quart-size plastic baggies that appeared to contain crystal methamphetamine.
Gabe’s heart sank still further at this news. Drugs. Selena was transporting drugs in her box truck. And she was driving. He glanced to Selena and met her gaze. She dropped her chin. He’d never seen anyone look more guilty in his life.
He spoke to Juris but never took his eyes off Selena. “Thank you. Give us a minute, please.”
Juris retreated.
“Selena?”
She reached for him and he stepped back, widening the space between them. She wasn’t going to grab his weapon or pull some other stunt. He needed to start treating her as any other suspect. But he couldn’t. Not Selena.
He felt sick to his stomach.
Her eyes flashed back and forth, reminding him of a cornered animal. He noted the speed of her breathing and lifted a brow in worry.
Finally she spoke, the words bursting forth in a harsh whisper. “You have to send Kino to my house. Someone.” She glanced about again. “Someone you can trust. Please, Gabe.”
Gabe could almost feel Selena’s panic. Her entire body trembled as she spoke.
“Please. Send someone to protect my family. Right now.”
“Protect them from what?”
She lifted her hands, gesturing wildly. “I don’t know. More gunmen. My dad said that if we didn’t do this, they’d hurt us. Gabe, please, if they find out you stopped us, they might...might...” She pressed her hand to her mouth as her eyes went wide with horror. She dragged her hand clear. “Tomas is in school. They might go there. Oh, Gabe. Help them.”
“Slow down, now.” He tried and failed to resist the urge to place a hand on her shoulder. She trembled beneath his touch, seemingly frightened to death. “Who threatened you?”
“I don’t know!” She clamped a hand over her mouth again, then let it slip. “Someone. My dad knows. Some Mexican gang. And Escalanti. He mentioned someone... Escalanti is his name. They need Apache transportation on the rez and we have to bring barrels. Some kind of barrels.”
Gabe’s mind flashed to his uncle’s request that he search for blue fifty-gallon drums.
“What kind of barrels?”
Selena threw up her hands. “What difference does it make? They might be headed there right now.”
“Selena, if you were threatened, why didn’t you call me?”
She slapped a hand over her eyes. “Because I didn’t want them to kill you, too.” She dropped her hand and gave him a beseeching look. “Please, Gabe. Send someone!”
He lifted the radio he kept on his hip. Selena batted at his hand and he retreated another step.
“Not the radio! They listen. Mr. Dryer said so to my father.”
Gabe lowered the handset. “I already used it to call for backup and signal the all clear.”
“Did you mention our names or Mr. Dryer’s?” asked Selena.
“No.”
“Please don’t.”
He clipped the radio back to his belt. Then he called Juris. The detective appeared almost immediately. “Call Officer Cienega and tell him to go out to Selena’s place in our unmarked unit. Don’t park where he can be seen but keep an eye on her family. Then send the closest unit to the high school. No radio contact. Tell them to use cell phones only. Finally get two units at each end of this road. No traffic in.”
“I’m on it.” Juris reversed course.
Selena’s shoulders sagged. “Thank you.”
He tried to ignore her watering eyes as he led her back to his vehicle.
“You carrying a weapon, Selena?”
She gave him a horrified look. “No.”
“I have to check.” He took no pleasure in patting her down. He had spent more nights than he cared to remember trying to figure how to get his hands on Selena. This had never been one of the possibilities. She was clean, as she had said.
He opened the door and she slipped in. He knew he should read Selena her rights, but he just could not summon the will.
“I’m under arrest. Aren’t I?”
He gave her a grim look. “Not yet. Wait here.”
He closed the door, knowing she now had no choice but to stay put. She was locked in behind the cage that separated his front and backseats, and the doors did not open from the inside.
Through the windshield, Selena cast Gabe a long look that seemed like regret.
Kino called to him.
“He’s waking up.”
Gabe headed over to the prison official.
Dryer now sat up, shivering in the thin nylon DOC windbreaker. Black Mountain had four seasons, something the rest of the Arizona residents couldn’t seem to remember. The wind made his pale skin blotchy and pink as a strawberry. His light blond hair had been clipped in a stylish cut, but strands of feathery hair now fell over his forehead. The man was muscular and fit, too fit for a guy who pushed paper for a living. But that wasn’t his only job, Gabe thought. He also arranged transportation from manufacturing to distribution. A bit of a drug-family middleman, Gabe thought.
“You frisk him?” he asked Kino.
“No. Not yet. He’s just coming around.”
Dryer still seemed dazed, judging from his out-of-focus stare. Blue eyes, Gabe realized. He looked like a weatherman or TV personality and stood out here like an albino puppy.
Gabe snapped the cuffs on him. Then he and Kino assisted Dryer to his feet. The man swayed.
Gabe patted him down, beginning with his shoulders. He quickly found an empty shoulder holster and a hip holster that was not empty. He relieved Dryer of his phone and an automatic pistol with a sixteen-round clip, tucking the weapon in the back of his waistband. Gabe suspected that the gun Jason Leekela had brandished belonged to this man.
“Any more weapons?” he asked Dryer.
Dryer groaned.
Gabe’s search reached his hips.
“You got anything sharp in your pockets?”
“No.”
“Where’s your ID?” asked Kino.
Dryer snorted in a humorless laugh.
“I don’t carry ID when I’m working undercover,” said Dryer.
Gabe’s eyes narrowed. Any federal operations on his reservation had to be cleared with his office. Kino looked to Gabe for direction, their gaze meeting for an instant before Gabe turned back to Dryer.
“Who are you?” Gabe asked.
“I’m with DOJ.”
Department of Justice. But of course he had nothing to back up his claim.
“Boy, you better not be,” said Gabe.
“Well, I am.”
Gabe stared at Dryer, who now stood with his hands cuffed behind his back. His jacket and shirt dangled open, revealing his body armor and the empty holsters.
“You hear me?” said Dryer. “I’m a special agent.”
Juris joined them, standing beside Kino to watch the unfolding developments.
“You believe him?” asked Juris.
“Easy to check.”
“Does Dosela know?” Juris asked Dryer.
“I sure hope so. I recruited him.”
“What about Selena?” asked Gabe.
Dryer gave him an odd look. “She doesn’t know I’m DOJ. Too much risk.”
“For you or her?” asked Gabe.
Dryer shrugged. “Less who know the better.” He gave the three tribal officers a gloomy look.
“You going to tell her? Or should I?” asked Gabe.
“Doesn’t matter. I got to tell her something.” Dryer
looked toward Selena and then he directed his attention to Gabe. “She’s in because her dad told her that they’ll kill their family if she didn’t drive.”
“Another lie?” asked Gabe.
“That one is true. These guys are animals.”
Gabe resisted the urge to shove Dryer up against the car for dragging Selena into this.
Instead of falling in with criminals, Selena seemed to have done something more dangerous. She had fallen in with their hunters.
He glanced back at the vehicle where she waited and met her gaze. The urge to go to her was so strong he had to brace against it.
Gabe lifted the radio from his hip.
“No. No. You can’t use the radio or I’m made. Nobody can know about this.” Dryer scanned the scene. “Tell your guys to block traffic. A miracle no one has been by yet.”
Not really, thought Gabe. He already had a man stopping traffic at both ends of this circular drive from Route 60. This little side road led only to the junkyard and then back to the highway. Nobody was coming down this road unless it was from the junkyard some half mile beyond his unit. The miracle was that Gabe had seen the box truck’s tracks at the first turnoff from the highway.
“Hey, did you call an ambulance?”
“It’s in Black Mountain. Take another thirty or forty minutes,” said Juris. “We can transport you and Frasco to the medical center. Be quicker.”
“What did you call in over the radio?”
“Ten seventy-one,” said Gabe.
“Shooting,” said Dryer. “That’s okay. We have to make something up. But we have to get the truck out of here. Sammy Leekela cannot see this robbery attempt and we still got to make the delivery,” said Dryer and swore. “Two years’ work.”
Gabe wasn’t moved. Now he was pissed. “Next time, maybe tell us you’re operating on our land.”
“Yeah, right.” Dryer lifted his joined wrists. “Cuffs.”
“Stay on until I have confirmation.” He wanted to punch him for involving Selena in this. “Who is your supervisor?”
Dryer provided the name and number. Gabe saw Dryer seated in the rear of his brother’s unit but left the door open. Then he gave Kino the information Dryer had provided.