Eve was at a loss. She was completely unsure of who the driver behind the wheel of the approaching vehicle might be. If she remained standing in the middle of the road and waved the driver down and it was John Barr, that could be disastrous. But if she tried to hide, counting on it being John Barr, she might easily miss the only opportunity she had to get a ride to the park ranger’s station or borrow a phone.
She glanced around the immediate area where she stood and realized, however, that even if she chose the second option, she would not likely find a hiding place. There was not a piñon pine tree or juniper bush anywhere close. She figured that she could climb through the barbed-wire fence that marked off the ranches and move as quickly away from the road as she could, thinking that if it were John Barr, he wouldn’t be able to chase her in his truck since there was no open gate that she could see. He could certainly outrun her, though; she knew that. And she also knew that one shot from a rifle would make it to her even more quickly than a man running after her.
She remembered her ankle. She was in no position to run a footrace. Her entire foot was swollen, and even though she wanted desperately to take off her hiking boot, she knew that if she removed it, she would not be able to put it back on. The swelling would expand and the shoe would no longer fit. The pain and discomfort, however, were growing more and more intense.
She wasn’t sure how many miles she had to go to return to the intersection of Highway 55, a more likely place to get a ride or some help, or to Salinas, but feeling the way she did, she wasn’t sure she could go another three or four miles. She knew her only choice was to hope for the best, to stand by the road and gain the attention of whoever the driver might be. She made the sign of the cross on her chest, bowed, and waited. When she looked up, the vehicle was close enough to recognize, the dust pouring out behind it, the driver traveling way too fast on such a rough desert road. Eve started to cry.
It was a new BMW M3 sedan, Yas Marina Blue Metallic, TwinPower Turbo inline six-cylinder engine, delivering 431 horsepower and managing up to 406 foot-pounds of torque. It had a carbon fiber reinforced plastic construction and M carbon ceramic brakes. It had a state-of-the-art navigation system, Bluetooth mobile office, surround-sound system, and satellite radio. It was everything an automobile connoisseur could ask for. A person could use it for luxury drives to faraway destinations or for in-town business. Doctors drove it. Lawyers drove it. Successful CEOs drove it. And so did one police officer from the Santa Fe Police Department, and she knew this because she had been with him when he picked it out from the lot in Albuquerque.
Detective Daniel Hively was driving right toward her.
Eve dropped down onto the side of the road, the walking stick falling from her hand and rolling away, and she just kept crying. Even when the car braked in front of her, skidding and fishtailing past her a couple of hundred feet, all four doors opening, Eve could not stop sobbing.
“Evangeline, Holy Mother, Evangeline . . .” It was the Captain who was calling and who was having the hardest time exiting Daniel’s new car. “Holy Mother . . . would somebody please help me out of this ridiculous car?”
Eve’s weeping then turned to laughter as she watched her father pushing and pulling out of the passenger’s side. One of the men from the backseat who was walking in her direction turned around and walked back to assist.
“What on earth?” It was Daniel kneeling beside her. “You look terrible. You look like you’ve been in a train wreck.” He placed his finger beneath her chin and turned her face so that he could see her injuries better. He pulled down the collar of her shirt and made a terrible face. He placed himself right in front of her and stared into her right eye. “Can you see me?”
She cried and laughed and nodded, unable to form the words to answer.
“What on earth?” The Captain had finally made his way next to her, asking the same question as Daniel had asked. “Mother . . .” He leaned in. “Who did this to you?” he asked. “Who beat you like this?” And then he stood up and looked around. “Where’s my truck?”
Eve tried to catch her breath and was soon given a bottle of water by one of the car’s passengers, the detective from Taos, Lujan. She took a few sips.
She could overhear a call on a scanner being made by the other detective somewhere out of sight. He was asking for an ambulance, giving directions to their location. She heard him describe her condition, and even though she wanted to say that she had been this way for some time, that she had managed for hours, maybe days, he said it was an emergency and she let the assessment stand.
“What day is it?” she asked the men standing in front of her. “How long have I been gone?”
“It’s Sunday,” her father answered. “You left the monastery early Friday morning. Not a peep from you since then.” He shook his head. “You worried me to death, you know that?” He rubbed his chin. “And where the heck is my truck?”
Detective Lujan took off his jacket and gently placed it around her shoulders. “Give me your coat,” he said to Officer Bootskievely, and the other officer, finished with his call, took off his police windbreaker and handed it to him. Lujan placed it on her lap. “Take a few more sips of water,” he said, handing her the bottle. “But not too much.”
She did as she was instructed and started to feel a little better.
“Can you tell us what happened?” he asked, kneeling on the other side of her from Daniel.
“I was T-boned, just up the road,” she said and gestured with her chin. “I don’t know when,” she added. “I was hit on the passenger’s side and I guess when the impact happened, I slammed into the door and window.” She glanced down. “I think I’ve dislocated my shoulder and my hip is pretty shot.”
“Anything else?” He was checking her for broken bones, touching various parts of her body. When he reached her right ankle, she gasped. He rolled up her pants leg to get a better view and shook his head. “Looks broken,” he said.
He turned to his partner. “Where’s the unit coming from?”
“Socorro,” came the answer. “Should be here in thirty or forty minutes,” he added. “Unless they got somebody driving like Mr. Indy 500 here.” He threw out his thumb in Daniel’s direction, getting a smile from Eve.
“How did you know where I was?” Eve finally thought to ask. “How did you know to come out here?”
“Found your cell signal in Terrero. So we started there,” Daniel answered.
“Then a park ranger from up here at the monument called me this morning,” the Captain added. “She said you were out at the site night before last, and she waited a few hours but never saw you come back that way. She got concerned, she said, and the next day followed the dirt road she had seen you take. Saw signs of a wreck, she thought, but no cars. So she looked you up in Madrid, remembering your name and residence, found me, and well, that was that.”
“Have you been here all this time?” Daniel asked.
“I was taken down to some cabin.” She pointed behind her. “I woke up and . . .” Suddenly she remembered her friend. “Anthony’s there,” she said. “Anthony was in the cabin I was taken to and he’s sick. He’s been poisoned or drugged. You have to go down there to get him.”
Daniel turned to the other detectives and headed for the car. “You stay here,” he said to the Captain, who nodded in response.
“It’s Barr, right?” the Captain asked Eve. “He’s the one behind all of this? We found some pretty weird stuff in his house when we found your cell phone, and he seemed very strange when we talked to him this morning. He’s the killer, isn’t he?”
Eve was about to answer when they all noticed another vehicle flying down the road toward them. It was a white truck, one they all seemed to recognize. She heard Detective Bootskievely shout out, “It’s him!” and all three of the officers drew their weapons on the approaching vehicle. The Captain quickly jumped in front of her, blocking her vision.
She moved to see around him, and although Eve knew the truck was Barr’s, she noticed something else that was very surprising. She grabbed ahold of her father’s coat, pulling herself up from the ground, and started to yell, “Don’t shoot! Wait!”