“If she is there, it’s vital that she’s rescued as soon as possible, don’t you think?”
Keeping the phone to my ear, I move from the kitchen and into the bedroom. I flick on the light and crouch down in front of the dresser. Pull the bottom drawer out and dig down beneath the sweatshirts and sweatpants and bring up my other gun.
It’s a SIG Sauer TACOPS 1911. A bit heftier than the P320 but this one has a five-inch barrel with an eight-round mag already loaded with .45 Autos.
Also buried under the clothes is a SOG Strat Ops automatic folding knife. It has a 3.5-inch steel blade that’s spring-loaded to release at the touch of a button.
I toss the 1911 and the SOG on the bed as I stand back up and realize the silence has gone on much too long.
“Are you still there?”
Leila Simmons issues a hesitant whisper.
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to pressure you, but I don’t think there’s anything to debate. You said yourself these men are dangerous. Hell, I saw one of them kill Juana last night. We don’t want that to happen to this other girl, do we?”
Saying we makes it seem more like she and I are a team, and that she can trust me. I don’t want to say you and make it sound like I’m accusing her of anything. Right now I need her on my side if I’m going to save this girl.
When Leila Simmons speaks next, her voice has lost the hesitation.
“No, we don’t.”
“We want to save her, don’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me, Leila. Tell me where to find her.”
Thirteen
Like in my dream, the night sky is dark and cloudless, but there’s no distant shimmer of lights from a city sitting a few miles away. And while there’s silence, it’s a true silence, the night alive with insects making quiet noises in the blue grama and buffalo grass. A light breeze blows through the night, skimming loose dirt across the ground and making the creosote bushes shiver.
Leila said an oil refinery, but that’s not quite true. It’s an oil field, but it’s an abandoned one. At least, it doesn’t appear as if the dozen or so oil derricks are in operation anymore. They stand frozen across the landscape, looking like giant metal beasts in the dark.
I move past one of the motionless derricks toward the shed.
I’m dressed in dark jeans and a black T-shirt and sneakers. Not my preferred tactical wardrobe for a mission, but it’s not like I have many other options. I especially don’t like wearing my sneakers; the tread is distinct and could be matched to my shoes later if things ever got to that point, which means I’ll need to dispose of them and get a new pair, which means an hour drive to the closest Walmart.
The SOG is clipped to my belt. The P320 is pressed against the small of my back, while the 1911 rests easily in my hand.
I haven’t held a gun in my hand this long in almost a year. There’s a familiarity to squeezing the grip—a sense of homecoming—that I’m not yet ready to accept.
The shed is larger than I’d pictured it would be. It looks to be a story and a half tall, like it could hold a truck or two or three. A large barn-style door in the front, a regular-sized door on the side. No windows.
I surveil the shed for a good fifteen minutes—crouched behind a bush—before I decide to make my move. So far I haven’t seen or heard anything that’s raised an alarm. If the girl’s inside the shed, she hasn’t moved or made any noise. Which means either she’s not there or she’s dead or asleep or she’s been tied up to the point where she can’t move.
According to Leila Simmons, the girl’s name is Eleanora. She’s no more than seventeen years old. She’s pregnant, Leila said, or at least she was the last time Leila saw her. Which was just a few days ago. Before Eleanora disappeared. Before Leila got word that Eleanora may have been abducted by those two ICE agents, and had been taken to this shed planted here in the middle of a dead oil field.
Leila started crying when she told me this, as if the realization of how she’d failed the girl finally hit her. She told me how she was sorry that she hadn’t done more, but that she was scared, and at one point I heard her husband’s voice in the background, asking her what was wrong, and Leila had quickly composed herself—I pictured her wiping at her eyes as she blew her nose with a tissue—and told her husband she would be off the phone soon.
The 1911 in hand, I start toward the shed. I walk slowly, quietly, but my sneakers crunching the dirt sounds like gunshots in the silence.
I circle the shed. The only thing I find is a rusting generator on the other side, though it’s doubtful the thing even works.
The door on the side is closed, its wood weathered, just like the rest of the shed. Like it was built fifty years ago and hasn’t been repainted since.
There’s a padlock on the large door, but there isn’t one on the side door. There is a latch, where a lock would hold the door in place, but it’s empty.
I push the door open and immediately step to the side, aiming the 1911 at the darkness within.
Nothing happens.
Nobody wearing a cowboy hat or blue polo steps out of the dark with a gun raised.
I pause a beat, listening to the silence inside, and soon I hear it.
A muffled noise. Like somebody trying to cry out. Only they can’t because something’s over their mouth.
I slip the penlight from my pocket and flick it on. Shine the beam through the doorway.
A green compact tractor sits inside, a large mower deck hooked to its back, but that’s it.
That muffled noise continues, more frantic now.
I move forward, hesitantly, and sweep the penlight’s beam as I step inside.
Besides the tractor, there’s other equipment that means nothing to me—steel barrels and other supplies, the place rank of oil and gasoline—but then the penlight’s beam focuses on the source of the muffled noise.
The girl sits on a wooden chair near the back of the shed. An entire roll of duct tape looks to have been used to hold her in place. Duct tape around her ankles and around her legs and around her middle and her shoulders, as well as over her mouth.
I make my way toward her, not hurrying but moving at a steady speed as I sweep the penlight around the rest of the shed to ensure there are no other surprises.
When I reach her, I sweep the penlight back and see that she’s most definitely pregnant. Looks to be almost eight months along.
“Eleanora?”
The girl momentarily falters from trying to shout past the duct tape. There’s surprise in her dark eyes, like she didn’t expect me to know her name. Then she nods, eagerly, and tries to speak through the duct tape again.
“Leila Simmons sent me. My name’s Jen.”
I stick the end of the penlight between my teeth to keep the beam on Eleanora’s face while I use my free hand to peel the tape from her mouth.
The girl releases a half sob, tears now fleeing her eyes.
“Gracias. Gracias. Gracias.”
Her voice is too loud, and I take the penlight from my mouth and tell her in Spanish to be quiet.
The girl says in Spanish, “Please untie me—please!”
I intend to—I even bite down on the penlight again to use my free hand to unclip the SOG from my belt—but before I press the button to release the blade I pause again. Go very still. Hold my breath.
Eleanora says, “What are you doing?”
I jerk my head back and forth, the penlight’s beam going left to right across her face, but the girl doesn’t seem to get my meaning.
She sucks in air to ask the question again, but by then I’ve pressed the duct tape back over her mouth.
Her eyes go wide, and she tries to shout again through the tape.
I clip the SOG back on my belt, take the penlight from between my teeth, and lean in close to the girl to whisper.
“Quiet.”
The girl goes silent, confused, and I whisper again as I flick off the penlight, shrouding us in darknes
s.
“Can’t you hear that?”
The girl’s still silent, making it even more possible to hear the approaching sound of an engine and tires crunching dirt outside.
“Somebody’s coming.”
Fourteen
The vehicle stops. Its engine shuts off. Two doors open.
I don’t see the men step out—not from where I am in the shed, having shut the side door so we’re enveloped in darkness—but I imagine it’s the two from last night. The driver has on the same cowboy hat, the badge still displayed proudly on his belt.
A murmur of voices outside—the men conferring—and then the sound of boots scuffing the dirt as they approach the shed.
It could be the police or FBI, following up on Leila’s call, but it’s doubtful. It could be a nearby rancher, or the person who owns this oil field, come to check the equipment. I didn’t notice any alarm system, but maybe something got tripped. Still doubtful. It seems Occam’s razor applies best here—whatever is the simplest explanation is probably the right one, hence the men outside are the same ones who killed Juana last night.
One of the men jiggles the padlock on the large door, while the other shuffles over to the side door.
The one closer to the side door calls out.
“Over here.”
The one playing with the padlock leaves it be and hurries over to his partner.
A moment passes, and then the door pushes open, and I can see the man in the cowboy hat from last night standing just outside. He has a gun in his hand, a flashlight in his other hand.
I’m stationed on the other side of the tractor, crouched behind the overlarge wheel, the 1911 aimed at the door. From this angle, I have a clean shot at the cowboy. A slight squeeze of the trigger, and it’ll be lights out. But if I do that, I’ll alert his partner, and I don’t like the idea of his partner being outside while I’m trapped in here with Eleanora. Best to wait until they both enter, take the two of them out together, one after the other.
The cowboy doesn’t enter. He stands at the threshold and sweeps his flashlight through the room. I have to duck when the beam comes my way, and I close my eyes for a beat, steady my breathing, my heartbeat.
That’s when Eleanora can’t contain herself any longer, and lets out a frightened cry.
It’s mostly muffled by the duct tape, but at once the flashlight beam jerks in her direction.
The cowboy says, “Holy shit, there she is.”
There’s something about how he says it—almost with surprise—that makes me frown, but before I can think too much about it, the cowboy steps inside.
His partner doesn’t.
He says, “Let me see if I can get that generator going.”
The partner drifts away. I track him from the sound of his footsteps on the dirt outside the shed, and I consider firing at him through the wood. At least the cowboy is already inside; I could easily pivot and take him out, too. But it’s still near pitch-black, and I would be aiming at the cowboy’s flashlight which isn’t a reliable target.
Better to wait for the lights to come on, if that’s what’s going to happen. For the partner to step inside so I’ll have both of them in one place.
The cowboy doesn’t wait for the generator. He moves forward, the flashlight beam trained on Eleanora’s face.
She has her eyes closed, flinching at the bright light, and she’s sobbing again, the tears falling down her face, and the cowboy murmurs as he approaches her—“Don’t worry, darlin’, we’re gonna take real good care of you”—and the way he says it, the smarmy tone of his voice, makes me squeeze the 1911’s grip so tight I’m afraid I might snap it in half.
I won’t let the cowboy place one finger on Eleanora, I decide, but I can’t do anything until his partner joins him in the shed.
The cowboy’s close to her, his voice going even lower.
“You ever get fucked by an American? A whole hell of a lot better than those wetbacks you’re used to back home.”
Outside, the partner cranks the generator’s starter cord—once, twice—and it’s on the third time that the thing roars to life and a few dim bulbs in the shed’s ceiling begin to flicker on.
The cowboy pauses, tilts his face up to the ceiling, and lets out a whistle.
“That right there—that’s a sign from the good Lord Almighty. He approves of what we’re about to do to you.”
Eleanora keeps sobbing, but her eyes are open now, wide in terror, and it’s her eyes that give me away.
They shift, just slightly, enough for the cowboy to turn to find me running at him, the 1911 in my right hand, the opened SOG in my left, and the cowboy spins and fires at me right as I fire at him. His shot goes right over my head, but I hit him in the shoulder, send him reeling to the side. I want to take him out before his partner enters the shed, but his partner’s already at the door, his gun drawn, and fires at me a second later.
I twist and fire three shots at his chest. He’s wearing a light green polo shirt, and three red flowers bloom just below his neck.
I turn back to the cowboy, but he’s already coming at me, his gun aimed at my face.
I dip back just before he fires, readjust for a head shot, but he swats the 1911 from my grip, sends it clattering to the ground. I still have the SOG, though, and I toss it to my right hand as I step toward him, grabbing the knife with the blade pointed down and slicing him across the stomach.
The cowboy grunts and backhands me across the face.
I stumble back, the SOG still in my hand, and plan to step toward him again when I realize the distance between us—no more than five feet—isn’t enough for me to reach him before he pulls the trigger.
I dive to the side, in front of the tractor, as the cowboy fires off several rounds.
I rise up on one knee, pull the P320 from the small of my back, flick off the safety.
The cowboy calls out, “You cut me, you fucking bitch!”
Using the tractor for cover, I glance over at Eleanora, her eyes wide as she watches the two of us.
The cowboy shouts again.
“Fucking bitch!”
“You called me that already.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
I hold the SOG in my left hand a beat before tossing it toward the rear of the tractor.
The cowboy, holding his bleeding stomach with his left hand, tracks the knife with his eyes but not with his gun. He keeps that aimed toward the front of the tractor, from where he expects me to jump out. He’s not a total moron, it appears, so I have to hand him that, but he’s still one step behind. Because I don’t go toward the tractor’s front or back—I go over, using the metal step to jump into the seat, the P320’s sight trained right on the cowboy’s face.
His head snaps back an instant after I squeeze the trigger. He stands there for a second, his gun in one hand, his other hand pressed against his bleeding stomach, and then falls to the ground.
Standing tall in the open cab of the tractor, I spin to confirm both the cowboy and his partner are indeed dead, and then I drop to the ground and retrieve the SOG and the 1911 and hurry over to Eleanora.
I peel the duct tape from her mouth, cut her free from the chair, help her to her feet. Her first impulse is to hold onto me, sobbing. I step away from her, and motion at the door.
“Let’s go.”
Her eyes are still wide, taking in the dead bodies, and she looks at me, her face ashen, her mouth agape. But she doesn’t speak, just nods her head, ready to follow me anywhere.
I scan the shed again. Focusing once more on those metal barrels. Thinking about the stench of oil and gasoline.
I tell Eleanora to go outside. She’s scared, shaking, but finally she waddles toward the open side door. Once she’s gone, I check both men’s pockets. I find their wallets, check their IDs. Light green polo is named Samuel Mulkey, the cowboy Philip Kyer. Kyer has his badge clipped to his belt, while Mulkey has his in his pocket. Both badges look legit. Which somehow makes it even worse. The
re’s nothing more disgusting than a corrupt cop. And here are two of them.
Both men also have cell phones. Mulkey has some nicotine gum packets, but Kyer still hasn’t given up the habit. He doesn’t have any cigarettes on him—those are probably in the car—but he does have a lighter. It’s a fancy one, too, stainless steel with his initials engraved on the side.
It takes me five minutes before everything is set, and then I step outside into the fresh air.
Eleanora hasn’t gone far. She stands there, her arms crossed, trying to keep herself warm. She’s only wearing shorts and a T-shirt and sandals, not the most ideal outfit for the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.
I take my first look at the car parked in front of the shed—the same sedan from last night—and then I take Eleanora’s arm and steer her toward the field of frozen oil derricks—and my car parked in a field two miles away.
We’ve gone maybe two hundred yards before the fuse I’ve set finally catches. The shed starts to burn, and the fire hits the cluster of barrels in the corner. The ground shakes with the explosion. It’s louder than I anticipated, and I’m worried it’ll draw attention much quicker than planned, so I keep my hand on Eleanora’s arm and whisper to her in Spanish to hurry, hurry, hurry.
Fifteen
Leila Simmons is already at the rest stop by the time we arrive, and the moment we park beside her, she opens her door and jumps out.
The rest stop has no exterior lights—not even a single lamp—but the half moon provides just enough light to see she’s wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. Probably the first things she managed to grab after my phone call.
Leila leans down to see the person in the passenger seat, and as soon as she confirms it’s Eleanora, her eyes go wide as her hands shoot to her mouth. The next moment she rushes forward to open Eleanora’s door, reaching out to touch the girl’s face, like she can’t believe it’s truly her.
A flurry of Spanish ricochets back and forth—Leila asking Eleanora if she’s all right, if she thinks the baby’s okay, if she’s hurt, and Eleanora doing her best to answer before Leila lobs another question—and all the while Leila helps Eleanora from my car and walks her to the Jetta.
Holly Lin Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 53