Karen stared at her with huge eyes. “You mean I’ve found something important?”
“Girl, you buy up this patch of sand in the middle of who-knows-where, and Adam’s college fund will leave the latest Trump baby’s in the shade.”
Karen stood, robe fisted in her hands. “I never thought I could do anything great.”
“Depends on how you define great. For me that’s getting Tony out of a pit.”
The girl’s face blanked then brightened. “Yeah, him.” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry I want to help, but I can’t seem to … ” She pressed her palms to her temples.
“Stay here. Drink some of this water, but don’t guzzle a gallon, or you’ll risk copper poisoning. Come find me when your head clears. I’m going to look around for some way to get at Tony.”
Desi retraced her steps. When she emerged from the crevice, she looked back and shook her head. Amazing! Less than two feet from the opening, and it looked like nothing more than a crack in the sandstone. Her heart sank. If Karen had made this well-hidden discovery, she’d scoured the canyon for a way out. And if the young woman’s days of searching hadn’t found an escape, what made her think she could reach Tony in the pit, much less succeed in leaving this canyon where Karen had failed.
Her gaze swept the cliff line then halted above a tumble of boulders. What was that? She crossed the open space to the mound of rock. She wasn’t dreaming. Etched into the cliff face were shallow grooves at even intervals. Manmade, but old and weathered in a way that would take a long time in this dry climate. She followed the grooves upward as far as she could make them out. An ancient Anasazi ladder. Useless now.
Gladness gripped her. Why wasn’t she disappointed?
A picture came to her mind, and her heart tripped over itself. She clung to the side of the Tate Art Gallery building, fingers and toes jammed into too tight spaces. She smelled the brick. Tasted the desperation. Then the sensation of falling. Her stomach lurched.
She clutched her middle and plopped down on a boulder. Another shot at wall-climbing would be tempting God. Big no-no.
That was good, because she wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t walk through that horror again.
Tony jerked awake, and his body howled a protest. A long groan left his lips. Had a herd of elephants trampled him? He opened his eyes to darkness striped with slivers of light that pierced a covering above him. Where was he? What happened?
His mind scrambled to remember. He saw desert landscape fly past. A hill, rocks, and then a screech of twisting metal. Motorcycle crash. Very messy.
Des! Where was she?
“Desiree?” No answer. The sound of his voice communicated enclosed space.
The air was dry, stale, and hot. He smelled his own sweat. Tiny legs crawled across the skin of his wrist. Millipede. He yanked the arm away and pain raked through him. Dislocated right shoulder for sure. What else?
Breathing hurt. He ran his left hand up and down his torso. No blood beneath the shredded motorcycle jacket. He tried light pressure. “Aaaah!” He lay panting. A couple busted ribs. Maybe other things wrong on the inside. His gut burned.
That left his legs. He bent a knee and pulled one leg up, then the other. Both of them good to go, if only the rest of him would go with. Just the thought of moving his upper body hurt.
“Tony?” The voice filtered down from above.
His heart leaped, and pain shot through his rib cage. “Des?” The word came out a gasp. “You all right?”
“Better now that I hear your voice, but hon, I can’t get to you. You’re down in a kiva pit. I’ve searched this whole canyon, and there’s nothing—”
“Canyon? Take it easy, and tell me where we are.”
“I don’t know.” Her voice went thin. “A blind canyon in the desert. No way out except up. There are a few Anasazi dwellings in the cliff face, but this wasn’t a major settlement.”
She sounded discouraged, not at all Desiree. “Are we at the site of that O’Keeffe painting?”
“No, but if snatching us is part of Ham Gordon’s cult fantasies, we could be near it.”
He grunted. “Makes sense Gordon’s behind this. He’s still on the loose, and I knew he was dirty.”
“That and just plain nuts.”
“No argument here, darlin’. So if there’s no way out but up, maybe they get in by helicopter.”
“Fits with what Karen told me.”
“Karen? She’s here?” Tony struggled onto one elbow, ribs screeching. A drop of sweat from his forehead stung his eye. “I’m going to … groan … stand up. See how close I am to the top of the hole.”
“It’s twelve feet down if it’s an inch.”
“Can you remove some of the covering?”
“I can try” The words were listless. “But I think you’re stuck.”
What was with her? His Desi never said never. He heard digging and grunting. Dirt splatted his jacket. He edged away and came up against a wall. Above, a patch of light grew. Careful maneuvering brought his body into a sitting position against the side of the kiva. Desi was right. Climbing out of this thing wasn’t an option. Even if he could reach the lip, which he couldn’t even with a running leap, he was capable of neither the leap nor pulling himself out.
“That’s good, Des. You can stop.”
Her face appeared in the opening. “I could lower myself over the edge, and then jump the rest of the way. I want to hold you.” She cleared her throat. “I mean, I want you to hold me.”
“Nothing I’d like better, sweetheart, but you don’t need to be trapped down here, too.”
“What’s the difference between being trapped down there or up here?”
Des, snap out of this. “Up there maybe you can find a way to escape and go for help.”
Her head disappeared. No sound, and then a little sob. “Des, talk to me.”
“I found a place the Anasazi used to climb in and out.” Her shadow covered the opening, but he couldn’t see her. “They must have been little like me, small feet and hands. But it’s impossible. The finger- and toeholds have weathered. Maybe they’re even crumbling. Besides, I have a sore ankle.”
So that was it. She felt guilty for not being superwoman. “It’s okay, hon. If you say it’s impossible, it is. I trust your judgment.”
“You do?” Her face reappeared. “You could’ve fooled me.”
Now there was his fierce Desi.
She scowled down at him. “I didn’t dare tell you why my toe was sore when you picked me up for the White House bash, because you would’ve had a fit. I was doing a human fly on the side of a skyscraper. Not on purpose. It just happened, and there I was—in a situation with no Tony to save me. Just me and God, and He got me through in time for our date. How’s that for divine protection?”
The burn in Tony’s middle heated up. “How am I supposed to respond to that? You’re up there. I’m down here. And why are you telling me now?”
The spunk drained from her face. “I just wanted you to know that I could get through situations without … Never mind. Stay here. I need to think.”
Stay here? Where did she think he’d go? “Des?” Silence. The hole showed nothing but sky.
Hissing through gritted teeth, Tony worked himself to his feet. He swayed and steadied himself against the wall with his good arm. His injured arm dangled, aching.
She was gone, stuck with life-and-death issues bigger than she was. The cruds who put them in here could arrive at any moment, and he couldn’t help her.
Some cat burglar she was!
Desi stared up at the cliff face, heart fluttering. Each gouged-out hand- and toehold mocked her. Foolish Anglo, ancient voices taunted. You cannot go where we went. We were agile. Our feet had wings. Our fingers the strength of talons.
Desi climbed the rock pile that led to the base of the cliff-ladder. She fitted her hands in the highest holds she could reach. Lifted a foot and put it in the crevice. Then the other foot, ignoring her complaining ankle. Her cheek p
ressed against the warm rock. She could do this. She must.
Up a notch. Hand. Hand. Foot. Foot. Hand up, but slipping on grit. The arm flopped down, and she cried out as she fell and lay crumpled against a boulder, breathing in, out, staring straight ahead. Something stared back at her.
Not something—someone! The eyeholes of a skull gaped at her.
Desi screamed and scrambled back until she hit a rock. She swallowed her heart back into her chest. Whoever that dead person had been, the bleached remains couldn’t hurt her. She crawled back to the cracked and grinning skull. No other bones lay where she could see. Scavengers must have carried them off, leaving this testimony of a climber who never made it.
And she couldn’t make the climb either. Foolish to try. Darkness swelled inside her. She hugged her knees as Karen had done on their first meeting. May as well dress her in a robe of sacrifice, too.
“I give up.” She put her head in her hands.
Hurting and nauseous, Tony slid down the wall of the ancient kiva. He cradled his injured arm between his bent legs and his chest.
God, You leave me no choice. I give her into Your hands.
“Pssst. You awake down there?”
Tony looked up to see a woman looking down at him, face framed by long dark hair.
“You’re Karen Webb. Lots of people are looking for you. Me included.”
“Because you’re a friend of Desiree Jacobs?”
“No, because I’m an FBI agent.”
“Really? Cool.” She looked to both sides, then back at him. “I want to confess.”
Tony’s chuckle turned into a moan. “Be my guest.”
“I took a bunch of Anasazi artifacts and hid them.”
Tony’s heart sank. Desi was going to be disappointed, not to mention family members devastated. He stretched out a leg. “I’m surprised. I’d pretty much decided you weren’t in on the museum theft. Did you also club your accomplice a little too hard on the head?”
“What? No way! I didn’t take the things from the museum. I stole them from Hamilton Gordon, and he was hopping mad. Couldn’t do what he wanted with them.”
“You’re using past tense. Did he get the items back?”
Heavy sigh. “Last night when he brought you two in, he said they’d found ‘his property.’ “ She snorted. “Like he’s got a drop of Pueblo blood!” She hung her head. “I’m not surprised he found the stuff though. I didn’t have much time to stash them. Pretty worthless, huh?”
“I’d call it courageous but a little misguided—like someone else I know.” He shifted his arm into a less painful position. “Fill in the blanks for me. Gordon robbed the museum—”
“Not Gordon. He had someone do it for him. I doubt he even knew how it was done.”
“All right, he took custody of the goods after someone else stole them. Then you grabbed the artifacts from him where and when?”
“The day after the theft. If I let Gordon keep the things from the museum, he meant to do something bad to someone innocent … like Adam.” She stopped and bit her lip. “But if not Adam, someone else pure and fresh. I had to stop him. So after Adam went down for his afternoon nap, I watched until I saw Brent’s car coming toward the house, and then I ran out the back door into the alley and took off in our old rattletrap Honda. Drove up to Gordon’s new estate. He welcomed me in as a fellow believer, and I whipped out this pistol my daddy gave me when I was a teenager, grabbed the Anasazi stuff, and hopscotched off into the desert. Thought I could make it to friends of my father’s and disappear for a while. But then my car broke down, and Gordon’s dudes caught me, and here I am.”
“But they didn’t catch you before you hid the goods.”
“Right.”
“And why did you do all this instead of reporting Gordon to the police.”
“Who would believe me? Some crazy is going to kill and eat people using an ancient Indian ritual? Nope. But I knew right away who took the stuff and why. And it was my fault. I had to fix it.”
A piece of the dirt roof came loose and hit the floor near Tony’s foot. He coughed and wished he hadn’t. “How was it your fault?”
The girl stared down at him. “Guess I’d better get it off my chest. It’s not like anyone else is ever going to know. We’re due to be the main course of a sacred meal.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that Karen. We have the Lord Jesus Christ on our side.”
“The Lamb of God? He’s what got Gordon thinking about taking the body and blood to the next level. I figure he’s on Gordon’s side.”
Tony shook his head. “Not the empty fantasy Gordon made up. The real Jesus, the One you believed in when you married Brent and had Adam.”
Karen gave a strangled noise, and her head disappeared. The sound of running feet faded.
Way to go, Lucano. Chase her off just when the conversation is getting interesting.
Heat settled over him like an unwelcome blanket. Reality faded, and he drifted in a fog filled with pain and dread.
Dirt plopped onto his head. He sneezed and cried out, red haze filtering through his brain.
“Sorry.”
Karen. Tony’s eyes popped open. She stared down at him with a tear-streaked face.
“Desiree needs you. She’s sitting in the sun with her head in her lap. What do we do? She can get us out of here. I know it.”
“Your Inner Witness tell you that?”
“Forget about that stuff. I think … ” She let out a breath. “I think I quit believing when I found out what Hope did with the information I gave her. Now I don’t know what I believe. Jesus wouldn’t want me back anyway.”
“Don’t be too sure about that. What did you tell Hope?”
She sighed. “The ditz came to visit me two days before the theft. Hadn’t seen her in a couple of weeks. We never hit it off, but there she was all sisterhood on me. Guess I was lonely, so I let her in. She cooed and gushed all over Adam. Kept calling him the perfect little lamb. The way she said it spooked me. That and the brochure she left about healing sacraments helped me put two and two together after I heard about the theft.
“At the time, I didn’t understand why her interest in Adam bugged me. But then she changed the subject and told me a bunch of confidential stuff about her job with the ministry. Made me jealous. The Reverend Romlin trusted her with everything, and this bigwig CEO Ham Gordon had an Inner Circle going, and she was in it. All I got to know at the museum was where the keys were to the display cases.”
“And you think that information helped the thieves get the artifacts?”
She lifted her chin. “It did.”
“I’ve got news for you, Karen. A computer virus disabled the alarm system, but the case that held the artifacts was smashed, not unlocked. They never touched the keys.”
The woman’s mouth dropped open. “So I didn’t help them get the artifacts?”
“Nope. But you shouldn’t have tried to handle the problem on your own.”
“I had to. This voice kept telling me it was my fault, and I had to make it right.”
“Any time you’re driven, not led, the voice isn’t God’s.”
“But I left my baby, my husband … ” She made strangled noises, shaking her long mane from side to side. “All for nothing.”
“Don’t run off on me again.”
Karen stopped shaking her head, but she didn’t look at him.
“We’ve got to help Desi. I want you to tell her something for me.”
She peeked at him between the curtain of her hair.
Tony made himself smile. Then he gave her his message for Desiree, some of the hardest words he’d spoken in his life.
A shadow fell across Desi, and she looked up. Karen had sand in her hair and dirty tear streaks down her cheeks, but her gaze was clear. A little copper water did the trick.
The young woman wavered a smile. “I came from Tony. He gave me some things to think about.”
Not just water. A stiff dose of Lucano practicality. G
ood for him. She looked away across the sterile valley. “You made your peace with Jesus?”
“Not yet, but I think I will.” She crouched to Desi’s level, her Pueblo features dominating the Anglo green eyes. “He told me to tell you something.”
“I’m listening.”
“He said to say it just this way, so act like this is him talking.” She closed her eyes. “Tony says, ‘I thought all the scary things that happened to you these past few days were to teach you to live more cautiously but now I see they were to teach me that I’m not your protector. God is. Whatever He tells you to do, do it. You’ll be fine.’ “ She opened her eyes. “That mean anything to you?”
Electricity washed through Desiree. Shackles she hadn’t known were there melted like ice on a sun-baked stone. Maybe she hadn’t missed God’s leading the past few days. Maybe there was still a purpose. She stretched out her legs and stood up. Lifting one arm and then the other, she reached toward the pale heavens. Every muscle tingled.
“I’m terrified, Lord, and You know I don’t want to do this. Can’t do it alone. So if I’ve messed up, and I’m not hearing You right, I’ll die. So what? At least I give my life trying to help Tony and Karen, not on some crazy man’s altar.” She lowered her arms.
Karen stared at her with eyes as big as silver dollars.
Desi smiled. “Let’s go get some of that bitter water. I need a drink before I climb a cliff.”
Twenty-one
Ten feet up, Desi paused. She puffed from her mouth like a woman in labor doing Lamaze. Only ninety more feet. Keep going. Her ankle ached, but the hand- and toeholds were sturdy. A little deeper would have been nice. Maybe they’d get better higher up. Maybe not.
Don’t think about that.
She moved up like a human spider on the wall. Thank goodness there was no wind. Another pause. Don’t look down. Not up either. A small laugh passed her lips. The look on Karen’s face when she said she was going to climb the cliff belonged in a museum. A few more puffs, and she went on. Sweat soaked her skin, her clothes. She blinked moisture from her eyes. Was she halfway yet?
Reluctant Runaway Page 27