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TO ALLIE’S SURPRISE, Dr. Liz herself was sitting at the small wooden reception desk paging through a magazine when Allie entered. She saw Allie take a step and rushed to her side to help.
“Oh, my, what happened?” the doctor asked as she helped Allie into an adjacent room and boosted her onto an examination table.
“I slid down a hill. I assumed it was only a scrape, but my leg started getting stiff a few hours ago.”
“Let’s get you out of those pants.”
Allie giggled. “I haven’t heard that in a long time.”
Dr. Liz laughed. “Hey, I mean professionally. I’m not hitting on you or anything.” The doctor gave Allie an exaggerated wink, and they both laughed.
Allie watched as Dr. Liz put on a pair of gloves. The doctor had short blond hair brushed straight back and blue eyes. She was taller than Allie by a couple of inches and had a slighter build. The doctor was, in a word, classically beautiful.
Allie undid her pants and lifted her butt to slide them down. The doctor helped by removing Allie’s hiking boots, then gently took off Allie’s pants.
“Ouch,” Dr. Liz said as she got her first look at Allie’s leg. “That must hurt. Would you like something for the pain?”
Allie looked down at her leg and saw it for the first time since earlier in the day. The scrape she’d gotten was red and ugly, and the area from her mid-thigh to her mid-calf was swollen and discolored. She hadn’t realized how much pain she was actually in until that moment. “Yes, please.”
“Okay. And I’m going to have to take an X-ray of that knee.”
Disappointment appeared in Allie’s eyes. “No. We can’t be out of the competition.”
Liz gave Allie a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Don’t put the cart in front of the horse. Let’s see what the diagnosis is before we work on a solution, okay? Lay back and try to relax. I’ll be right back.” The doctor retrieved a bed sheet from a drawer of the table, folded in half, draped it over Allie, and rushed from the room.
Allie stared at the ceiling and sat back up when Liz returned with something that looked like a laptop with a robot arm connected to a rolling golf pull cart.
“What’s that?”
“Portable X-ray machine. Lay back, okay. Don’t move unless I tell you to.”
The doctor plugged in the machine, fired it up, and took several shots of Allie’s leg. She took a few moments to study the images, then adjusted the table so Allie could sit up. She rolled the machine closer to Allie and pointed at the pictures.
“The good news is, you didn’t break or fracture anything. The bad news is, you’ve got a moderate knee sprain.”
Allie opened her mouth to speak, but Liz held up a hand. “No, this shouldn’t knock you out of the competition, but we’ll have to keep a close eye on it. Let me get some things, and I’ll clean up your leg and stitch you back together.”
Allie’s eyes got wide. “I need stitches?”
“No. You don’t. It’s a phrase I use. A bad habit, considering most of the things I do for patients don’t involve stitches. Sit tight.”
Allie waited as Dr. Liz removed the X-ray machine and returned a few minutes later with several items on a rolling tray.
“You don’t have to watch this part if you get queasy. I can put your head back down.”
“No, it’s okay. I used to be a corpsman in the Marines.”
The doctor stopped and looked at Allie. “No. Really?”
Allie smiled. “Hospital Corpsman First Class. Of course, that’s a Navy rank, but I spent eight of my ten years assigned to a Marine unit, so I consider myself a Marine.”
“Wow. I’m impressed. Did you see any combat?”
Allie dropped her head. “I did, but I don’t like to talk about it.”
Liz smiled. “I understand. Let’s get this leg cleaned up. Are you allergic to anything?”
“No.”
“Good. I’m going to give you a shot of a general antibiotic and something for pain. There’s lots of nasty stuff you can pick up in the desert. So, you sit back and try to relax, and I’ll show you what a brilliant doctor I am.”
While Dr. Liz worked on her leg, Allie wondered what Drake was up to.
After Drake dropped Allie off and returned the UTV to the barn, he made a beeline for the town jail. The jail looked like he’d expect an old western jail to look. Wooden, one-story building, rusted iron bars in all the windows, and a sign with the word ‘JAIL’ in capital letters above the door.
When he stepped over the threshold, things jumped from old west to modern times in a heartbeat. The desk that Taylor Rae sat behind looked rustic enough, but beyond her was a wall that was made of glass, starting halfway from the floor to a foot below the ceiling. Through the glass, Drake saw a man surrounded by electronic equipment sitting with his feet on a chair and reading a Superman comic book.
“Can I help you?” Taylor Rae asked.
“I’m Drake Decker. I understand you wanted to speak to me?”
Taylor Rae stood and extended her hand. Drake took it and noted her strength when they shook.
“You’re...” Drake started.
“I know. I’m big. Trust me, I’ve heard it a billion times before.”
Drake agreed. She stood at least four inches taller than him, and although the desk hid her legs and a light jacket covered her torso, Drake could tell she was built of pure muscle and power. The sleeve on her jacket identified her as head of the security detail. The embroidered initials on the front suggested she preferred to go by T.R. instead of her full name. Her eyes were steel gray, and she wore her chestnut brown hair pulled back into a ponytail that rested on her right shoulder.
“Actually, I was going to confirm that you were the security chief.”
“Oh. Yes, I am. Have a seat.”
Taylor Rae sat, and Drake settled into the seat in front of the desk.
“Can I call you Taylor Rae?” he asked.
“You could, although I prefer T.R., or some around here call me chief, but I’m trying to squash that too. I’m not big on titles.”
“What questions do you have for me?”
T.R. opened a desk drawer and pulled out a legal pad. She flipped a couple of pages, folded them over the top, and set it down on her desk.
“Why didn’t your partner come in?”
“She had a fall this morning. I dropped her off at the doctor’s office.”
“Tell me about how you found the Colliers yesterday.”
Drake took a breath and recounted the entire adventure. After ten minutes, he stopped speaking and looked across the desk. T.R. stared at Drake, tapping her pen on her pad. She put the pen down and leaned back in her chair.
“I have to admit, that was a pretty thorough report. You don’t tell it like a civilian.”
Drake blushed. “Okay, I’m busted. I was in the police force for eight years.”
“I could’ve guessed that. What did you do?”
“Patrolman for four years. Detective for the other four.”
“Why did you get out?”
Drake pointed to his stomach. “I was on scene late at night at a homicide case when a couple of gangbangers wanting payback drove by and sprayed the area with bullets. I caught two in the stomach and one in the leg. The leg wasn’t so bad, but the belly wounds almost killed me.”
T.R. winced. “So, what did you do?”
“After I got out of recovery, I switched to a career in marketing. I found the benefit of that change is not one person has ever shot at me while I was making a commercial for cat food.”
T.R. laughed. “No, I suppose not.”
T.R. turned in her chair and looked into the other room. The man in there had the comic over his chest and was in the middle of a nap.
“He looks busy,” Drake said.
T.R. swiveled back around. “It’s better that way. That’s the radio room and I keep someone in there at all times when there are players out in the field.”
Drake nodded. “That’s a good idea. Have you gotten many calls?”
T.R. frowned. “Actually, only two, and you’ll never guess who they came from.”
Drake pointed his index finger at himself.
T.R. nodded. “You got it, detective.” She leaned forward in her chair and dropped her voice to a hair above a whisper. “I don’t think what happened to the Colliers was an accident. In fact, my guess is someone out there tried to get them out of the way to get a leg up on the prize money. I’m hoping we can partner up here — unofficially, of course. You can keep an eye on things out there in the field, and I can work it on my end. What do you think?”
“Why not use some of your own security detail?”
T.R. waved his question away. “They couldn’t handle it. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all good people, but they don’t have the background. The closest one to a real investigator I have is a dropout from the police academy.”
Drake thought about it for a moment. “What do you want me to do?”
“Like I said, keep your eyes open. Let me know if you see anything out of the usual, or if you come up with a lead suspect or two. In exchange, I’ll share any information with you I have.”
Drake nodded. “Sounds fair.”
“We need to keep it on the down-low, though, only between us.”
“Why?”
“First, if people know, that may make you a target. Second, if you come out the winner of the grand prize, I don’t want people to assume that you had any inside information about the competition.”
“Makes sense.”
“So then, we keep this to the two of us. You shouldn’t even tell your partner.”
Drake shook his head. “Nope, you’re wrong there. Whatever I know, she knows. She’s retired military, so you can trust her. Allie is also one of the smartest people I’ve ever known and often picks up things I don’t. She can be an asset to the team.”
T.R. considered it for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, but that’s it. No one else, other than the three of us, got it? No other competitors, no staff at Cacheland, including Bruce and Andy, okay?”
“Okay, deal. What can you tell me about the Collier’s UTV? Randy seemed to think another team rammed into it. Did you check that out?”
“He said the same thing to me. I checked all the other UTVs last night and other than some scuffed tires, lots of dust, and one broken taillight, there was no other damage to any of them.”
“Any chance some other vehicle from here hit them? Like a pickup truck or something?”
“It’s possible,” T.R. said, “but I can’t say for sure. Every vehicle here is a working vehicle and has their share of scrapes and dents, regardless of how much Travis tries to keep up with the repairs.”
Drake rubbed his chin and scratched his neck. “What I hear you saying is we haven’t started yet, and we’ve already hit a dead end?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Maybe this will help.” Drake picked his lunch bag off the floor and placed it on T.R.’s desk.
“What’s this?”
“Remember, I called in earlier about team orange’s vehicle being disabled?”
“Yeah. I heard it come through and we got Travis right on it. Why?”
“I think someone deliberately punctured their gas tank. They couldn’t call for help because they lost their radio, so I had to call in on ours.”
“So?”
“So, about a half mile from where they were stranded, we found this.”
Drake grabbed the bottom of the bag and lifted it. The smashed radio and the broken-off parts tumbled onto the desk blotter.
“Is this what I think it is?” T.R. asked.
“I believe so. Do you have any way to check it’s theirs?”
“No problem.”
T.R. pulled the blotter toward her, then looked closely at the radio and jotted down the last four digits of the serial number onto her legal pad. Drake watched through the window as she went into the radio room, pulled a binder from a shelf, and compared the number on her pad to a page in the binder. She slipped the binder back into position and left the room. The napping man never stirred. T.R. returned and sat down in her chair.
“Yep, it’s theirs. I assume you didn’t handle it?”
“No, I didn’t touch it. I was hoping you could pull some fingerprints from it.”
T.R. shook her head. “Great idea, but I don’t have the technology here. I’d have to run it over to the county sheriff’s office. Even if we did get prints, it’s not like I have everyone’s fingerprints on file here to compare them to.”
“Sorry, yeah, you’re right. I guess I got a little overzealous there,” Drake said.
“Don’t worry about it. It was a great thought, and maybe it will come into play later.”
T.R. used her pen to push the radio back into the lunch bag, stapled the bag closed, then stashed it away in her bottom desk drawer.
Just then, the door opened and Allie hobbled in, wearing a large compression bandage and walking with a cane.
Drake scrambled to his feet and went to her. “Allie! Are you okay? Come in here, sit down.” Drake guided her to his chair, and she sat.
“The doc says it’s just a sprain. I’m supposed to do ice and elevation, keep the compression on until the swelling goes down, and use this stupid cane when I need to. That’s it. No big deal.”
Allie turned to the security chief. “I assume you’re Taylor Rae?”
“Please, call me T.R. I guess since you’re here, can I ask you a few questions?”
Allie nodded yes, so T.R. referenced her legal pad and asked the questions while Drake stood against the wall and stayed out of the way.
After Allie finished telling her tale, T.R. looked past Allie and directly at Drake. “I see what you mean about her.”
Allie turned around. “What does she mean?”
Drake smiled. “I’ll tell you later. Are you done with us for now?”
T.R. nodded. “Sure, but let’s keep in touch with each other.”
“Sure. Come on, Allie, let’s get that knee on ice.”
Drake helped Allie to her feet and escorted her across the street to the hotel.
“You want to go up to your room, or hang out in the parlor?”
“What time is it?”
“Almost five.”
“Parlor. We’ll stay there for an hour, then head over to the restaurant for dinner.”
Drake agreed and helped Allie into the parlor. She sat on the couch, and Drake propped her leg on some pillows and got a bag of ice from Heather at the front desk. While Allie sat on the couch, rested her leg, and paged through a book, Drake amused himself by shooting pool. A smile came to his face when the Beasley brothers appeared.
“Hey Ben, hey Brandon. What’s going on?”
“We’re just headed over for dinner,” Ben said.
“How about a quick game?” Drake asked.
Ben and Brandon looked at each other and communicated in the secret telepathy that twins seem to share.
“Sure. I’ll play,” Brandon said. “Rack ‘em up.”
Drake collected the balls and loaded them into the triangle while Brandon picked out a cue.
“What happened to you?” Ben asked Allie.
Allie closed her book and set it beside her. “I did my best Jack and Jill impression and tumbled down the hill.”
Ben smiled. “Let me guess, the one with the pyramids?”
“How’d you guess?”
He smirked. “I had a minor problem with that one myself. I slipped and tore the pockets right off the back of my jeans as I slid on my butt all the way to the bottom. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just a minor sprain. Nothing that should hold me back. I’ll be good tomorrow. How did you guys do today?”
Ben frowned. “Not too well. It would really surprise me if we didn’t come in dead last. Neither one of us is good with a compass, and that lack of skill really cost us today.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it. Still got three days to come in second place.”
“Second place? You mean first.”
“Oh, no. I’m going to win. You’ll have to accept first runner-up.”
Ben grinned. “You know, I wouldn’t mind losing to you one bit.”
“Do you know who came in first today?” Allie asked.
An unnatural cracking sound came from the pool table, followed by Drake with a swearing spasm that he probably meant to keep internal. Ben and Allie looked at him, so he shrugged and apologized.
“I don’t know for sure, but scuttlebutt around the hotel is that it was the red team, same as yesterday,” Ben said.
“What’s the deal with those guys?” Allie asked. “Have you talked to them at all?”
“Just a little. Will and Julius. Married guys from Seattle? Boston? I don’t remember, exactly, but they’re from somewhere between those two places. They seem nice enough, but they don’t speak much. I can tell you they’re super competitive and, in their minds, they’ve already spent the prize money.”
“So, they’re the team to beat, huh?”
“Yep. That’s what everyone’s saying.”
“Son of a biscuit-sailor!” Drake yelled.
“What do you think that was about?” Ben asked.
Allie smiled. “That one’s easy. Drake lost.”
A few seconds later, Drake and Brandon joined Allie and Ben.
“What was the deal with the biscuit-sailor?” Ben asked.
Drake took a sudden interest in the carpet. “Brandon beat me.”
Allie winked at Ben. “Told ya so. Come on fellas, let’s go get some dinner.”
