“Tell me again where you were when you and Sophie were taken.” Carmen put her face very close to Starfall’s. She could smell the tomatoes the other woman had had for lunch and the coppery tang of sweat and fear. “Exactly where you were.”
“I don’t remember exactly.” Starfall looked over Carmen’s shoulder, at the other searchers who had assembled outside of Metwater’s camp to look for Sophie. Carmen had given Starfall a ride back to camp with her and Phoenix. “We were somewhere near where Jake was camped,” Starfall said. “There were a bunch of big rocks. And some of those cactus we were looking for.”
Carmen suppressed a groan of frustration.
“This place is crawling with rocks and cactus,” Simon, who was standing behind her, said. “And Jake isn’t here to ask where he was camping. Why is that?”
“He went to talk someone who knows the man who took Sophie,” Carmen said.
“Who probably isn’t going to tell him anything,” Simon said.
“I don’t know about that,” Evan said. “Something tells me Jake can be pretty persuasive when he wants to be.”
“You have to find her.” Phoenix stood with Daniel Metwater and some of the other women at the edge of the parking area where the searchers had assembled.
Simon turned toward Phoenix, but Carmen answered first. “We’re going to find her,” she said, with more conviction in her voice than she really felt. The Russian had already left two dead men in his wake. Why would he want to be burdened with a fourteen-year-old girl?
“Let’s get going!” Simon directed the searchers, who planned to cover the area in a grid pattern. Carmen stayed back in case Phoenix needed her. Starfall put a hand on her arm.
“I just remembered something,” Starfall said.
Carmen waited, saying nothing.
“We were really near that place where we were all picking berries the first day Jake came into camp with you,” Starfall said. “There’s this high point there that kind of overlooks the whole area. The Russian must have been hiding up there, watching us.”
Carmen felt a rush of recognition. She had a clear picture of Jake lying prone, field glasses focused on the little group of women and the girl, while she circled around to confront him, the first day they had met. He had chosen the perfect vantage point to surveil them—something the Russian must have realized as well. “Can you stay here with Phoenix?” she asked.
Starfall nodded. “Of course.”
“Thanks.” Carmen hurried to catch up with the searchers. They had set out fast and were already some distance ahead, traveling in the wrong direction. She would have to catch up to them, then waste time persuading them that she knew the spot where they should look.
She turned away and set out on her own toward Jake’s lookout point. He was only one man, with one girl. She was a trained officer, with her weapons, and a personal stake in saving the sister of the man she had fallen in love with. What men might offer in power she would make up for with finesse and determination.
Fifteen minutes of alternately walking and running brought her to the spot Starfall had described. She spotted a small trowel and a half-excavated clump of cactus beside it. The trail was easy to follow from there—two sets of prints in the fine desert dust, broken branches and disturbed rocks. Tracking them was so easy, Carmen knew the man wanted to be followed. He expected he would be found, which meant he would be waiting for her.
But would he expect a woman to come after him? Carmen asked herself. Probably not. Maybe she could use that to her advantage.
She slowed her pace, moving stealthily and keeping to cover. When she spotted the narrow box canyon shielded by a growth of trees, she stopped. The canyon would provide a perfect camp, with shelter from the wind, shade from the worst of the afternoon sun, perhaps fresh water from a spring or creek and, most important, only one way in or out. It was the perfect place to hide—and the perfect place to set a trap.
Instead of approaching the canyon directly, she veered to one side and began climbing up above it, working her way up the increasingly steep slope, stepping carefully to avoid dislodging loose rock. When something burst from the brush to her left, she had her weapon drawn and aimed before she could even process the thought, and stood, panting, heart pounding, her gun aimed at a startled mule deer, a trembling half-grown fawn at its side.
Shaking from the flood of adrenaline, she holstered the gun and watched as the deer ambled away. As soon as her legs felt steady, she set out again.
When the ground leveled out once more, she moved to the canyon’s edge and looked down. But trees and rocks blocked her view. If she was going to find the Russian’s camp, she would have to move lower.
She climbed down, keeping to the cover of trees and boulders, moving laterally as she descended, so that she moved further and further into the canyon. She estimated she had been traveling perhaps five minutes, when a flash of something pink made her freeze. She held her breath, waiting, and Sophie shuffled into view, her hands and feet shackled.
Three feet behind the girl was the Russian, a long-barreled revolver in his hand. Carmen drew her own weapon and sited in on him. She would need to wait until Sophie wasn’t so close to him. Right now, it would be too easy for him to use the girl as a shield or even kill her before Carmen could react.
Sophie sat down on top of a blue and white picnic cooler. The Russian moved past her to a green nylon tent that was almost invisible in the underbrush. With the girl shackled, he had no fear of her running off. He was waiting for the searchers to come to them. Maybe they were why he had taken Sophie in the first place.
Or he wanted to get the attention of one particular searcher.
Daniel Metwater? Carmen shook her head. Though the Prophet was clearly terrified of the Russian, she didn’t buy Metwater’s story that he was the real target. If that was the case, why not go after Andi Mattheson who, as Asteria, lived with Metwater and was clearly closer to him than a fourteen-year-old girl?
That left Jake. It wouldn’t be the first time a criminal had tried to get to a lawman by threatening his family. But this time it wasn’t going to work. Carmen tightened her grip on her weapon.
After a glance over her shoulder toward the tent, Sophie stood and moved to the edge of the growth of trees where Carmen hid. She peered intently into the underbrush, and a smile transformed her face when she recognized Carmen. Still perfectly silent, she held out her manacled hands in a pleading gesture.
Carmen frowned. She didn’t have anything with her to remove or sever the shackles, which appeared to be made of metal. The Russian had definitely come prepared. They wouldn’t be able to run from him with Sophie hampered in that way. Their only hope was for Carmen to subdue him. She would have to catch him off guard and away from Sophie.
She motioned the girl back toward the cooler. Sophie frowned and didn’t move. Go! Carmen mouthed, but still the girl remained rooted in place.
“What are you doing up?” The Russian’s voice was loud, with a heavy accent. Sophie stumbled backwards and almost fell over. The Russian moved in behind her and took her arm, while Carmen retreated further into the underbrush. She didn’t dare try for him now, not with his hands on Sophie.
He led the girl back to the cooler and shoved her down once more. Sophie kept looking toward Carmen. Don’t look at me, Carmen silently pleaded. The Russian would figure out she was here.
She took a step back, thinking it safer to put extra distance between herself and the camp. She didn’t see the rock that moved under her feet, rolling down the hill and into the camp, sending her falling with a flailing of arms and a crack of branches.
Seconds later she was staring into the barrel of that revolver, pointed at her head. “Hello,” the Russian said, his tone light, almost conversational. “Drop your weapon, and stand up slowly.”
She did as he asked, gaze shifting between his eyes and the gun. Neither offered any comfort. The gun and the eyes were both cold and lethal. He made a grunting noise as she stood. “I recognize you,” he said. “You are the girlfriend. The other cop.”
She said nothing. What would be the point?
The Russian nodded and motioned her toward the camp. “You could be useful,” he said. “If your game-warden friend doesn’t respond to his sister’s distress to meet my demands, I can cut off your head and send it to him to drive the message home.”
* * *
WERNER DIRECTED JAKE to the forest service road where Jake had been camped. “We camped along in here last year, but I don’t remember exactly where,” Werner said.
“Why aren’t you camping this year?” Jake asked.
“Camping was Karol’s idea,” Werner said. “I prefer to stay in hotel. But he likes to pretend he is a pioneer outdoorsman. Plus, he is cheap, and camping like this is free.”
They set out walking, searching for some sign of Petrovsky and Sophie—or anyone else. “There was no one else camped here when we were here, either,” Werner said. “Karol liked that. It went along with his fantasy of being a wilderness explorer. He has a great fascination with the American West.”
“I heard he approached the Southern Ute tribe about raising cactus on their land,” Jake said.
“Except collectors don’t want farmed cactus,” Werner said. “The ones who will pay the most money—collectors in Japan and Germany—they want wild plants. I told you Karol is fascinated by the whole mountain man, cowboys-and-Indians thing. He thinks, because he isn’t from the United States, he really understands Native Americans. He thinks they will accept him as one of their own. I tried to tell him he was full of it, but he’s crazy. He gets an idea in his head and decides that it’s right and there’s no talking him out of it.”
“What idea made him kidnap my sister?”
Werner looked more woeful than ever. “I am sorry, I do not know. I truly believe he is crazy.”
Jake might go crazy if anything happened to Sophie. Werner stopped at a pull-out alongside the road. “We camped in a place very like this, but I don’t know that Karol would come back to the same place. It was only a hunch.” He looked around them. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
“Let’s walk a little farther,” Jake said. They were very near where he had camped when he had first come to the area to look for his mother and Sophie. So much had happened since then—he didn’t even feel like the same man. He had had a mission then, but the mission had changed to one that was so much more important. He was still on the trail of a smuggler, but his sister’s life was at stake. He couldn’t make any wrong moves.
He studied the terrain, searching for anything familiar, and tried to put himself in the crazy Russian’s head. That’s what they had taught him in the military—think like the enemy.
Petrovsky would want a good position from which to hold Sophie but also a camp that enabled him to see anyone coming, without being seen himself. He was a fan of cowboys-and-Indians stories. Where had the cowboys always holed up? Jake’s store of cowboy lore was painfully small, but hadn’t there been something about Butch Cassidy and the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang making their camp in a box canyon? The Russian would like that—only one way in, and he could look out on the world from safety.
Jake pulled out the map they had brought along, spread it out and studied it. After a few minutes, he found what he was looking for. He put his finger over the squiggly line that outlined the box canyon. “That’s where I think he is,” he said.
“What do we do now?” Werner asked.
Jake folded the map and stuffed it into his pocket. “Come on.” He traveled away from the canyon, then circled back to approach it from the side. Behind him, Werner, hands cuffed in front of him, panted and puffed, occasionally stumbling and grunting, but the German made no protest. When they were at the rim of the canyon, Jake stopped. “Sit here and don’t make a sound while I check things out,” he said.
Werner’s face drooped. “At least remove the cuffs,” he said. “I will do whatever I can to help you save the girl.”
“I don’t take chances.” Jake moved toward the rim of the box canyon, crouching, and finally dropping to his stomach and crawling the last few yards. His hunch about this place had been right—someone had set up camp down below, with a tent tucked into the cover of trees, a campfire ring and various supplies scattered about. As he scanned the area a slight figure emerged from the trees—Sophie. She was bound hand and foot, her head down, shoulders slumped. The sight rattled Jake—it took all he had in him to push aside the rage and fear that threatened to crowd out everything else in his head. He had to keep it together if he was going to save her.
Another figure emerged from the woods behind Sophie. Carmen walked with her head up, her expression fierce, and Jake had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep back a roar of rage. He had expected to find Sophie here and had prepared himself for that. But seeing Carmen held prisoner touched something deep inside of him, a core need to protect the woman he loved, whatever the cost.
He hadn’t let himself admit he loved her until that moment. He had been on his own since he was a teenager. He didn’t need other people. He certainly didn’t need a woman. Yet right now, at the very core of his being, he needed Carmen. He needed her faith and trust in him, and he needed to be the man he saw reflected in her eyes when she looked at him with love.
He crawled back from the edge of the canyon, then stood and raced back to Werner. When he pulled out his knife, the German shrank back, wide-eyed, but Jake only cut the plastic cuffs, then pulled out the keys to his truck and pressed them into Werner’s hands. “Do you remember where I parked?” he asked. “Can you get back there?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Drive to Ranger headquarters. Let them know where I am.”
“You have found him?”
“Yes. Can you give the Rangers directions to this place?”
“Yes. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to keep an eye on him until you bring help.” He put a hand on Werner’s shoulder. “I’m trusting you on this. If you steal my truck and drive away without getting help, I’ll spend the rest of my life hunting you down.”
Werner nodded again. “I will bring help, I promise.”
“I’m counting on it.” He clapped the older man on the back. “Now go.”
As soon as Werner was out of sight, Jake moved back to the canyon rim. Stealthily, he dropped down, moving from the cover of rocks to trees to shrubs, until he was only a dozen yards above the trio in the camp and could hear them clearly. Then he settled in to wait for either the Rangers or the Russian to make a move.
* * *
CARMEN WORKED TO keep her expression calm and impassive as the Russian talked on and on about first one subject, then another. She had met his type before—give him a captive audience, and he would recite the history of the wrongs that had been done him. Since she was Native American, a member of another oppressed group, she was supposed to sympathize.
Beside Carmen, Sophie sat very still. Carmen worried the girl was in shock. She hadn’t said a word since they had returned from a short trek into the woods, where Petrovsky had allowed them to relieve themselves, Carmen standing as a shield for the girl. When the Russian turned his back for a moment, Carmen tried to catch Sophie’s eye. She gave her a look that was meant to be encouraging, but the girl didn’t respond.
“The people in the United States still see Russia as their enemy,” Petrovsky said, turning back to them. “They look at every Russian as if he is a criminal, and they don’t want to do business with me.
“Your people—” he pointed to Carmen “—they are different. They are outsiders, too. I think we could do business. I have experience they could use. I know how to get back at the Americans who have taken advantage of us for too long.”
Carmen could have pointed out that the Southern Ute were not a bunch of naïve savages but successful businessmen and -women in their own right. They didn’t need to take revenge on anyone. But arguing with the Russian wouldn’t gain anything. She needed to stay in his good graces and watch for the opportunity to flee with the girl.
“My stomach hurts.”
The sudden outburst from Sophie startled Carmen and cut off Petrovsky in mid-sentence. “What?” he barked at her.
“My stomach hurts,” she said. “I have to go to the bathroom again.”
“No!”
“Please!” She doubled over, hugging her stomach. “I have to.”
“Do you think I am stupid?” Petrovsky asked. “If I let you go off in the woods again, you will try to run away.”
“No, I won’t,” Sophie said. “I promise.”
Carmen studied the girl. Something in her tone didn’t ring true. Petrovsky was probably picking up on that. She was a terrified fourteen-year-old—Sophie gave her props for trying. But what had prompted her sudden acting job?
A flicker of movement in the bushes over Petrovksy’s shoulder caught her attention. Someone was up there. No wonder Sophie had felt the need to cause a distraction. “I think she’s telling the truth,” Carmen said. “You’d better let her go.”
“Please let me go!” Sophie wailed.
Carmen squeezed her hand, both to signal that she should tone down the overacting and to distract her from looking behind Petrovsky, where Jake was visible through the trees, moving stealthily toward them. But he still had a ten-yard gap of open space to cover to reach them.
“What are you looking at back there?” the Russian demanded. He drew his pistol and whirled, just as Jake stood and aimed his own weapon.
Carmen pulled Sophie down on the ground beside her, out of the range of fire. She heard a barrage of shots—maybe three or four—and the grunt of someone who had been hit. “Jake!” Sophie cried.
Carmen looked over her shoulder in time to see Petrovsky take aim at a large tree Jake must be using for cover. The Russian was hurt, blood running from his left shoulder, but the hand holding the weapon was steady. Sophie tried to break free of Carmen’s grip. “We have to help Jake,” she sobbed.
Petrovsky glanced back at them. When his eyes met Carmen’s, she felt the cold of them clear to her heart. She pulled Sophie behind her and started backing toward the cover of the trees, even as the Russian swung around and aimed at her.
The shot went wild, the report of the bullet merging with the sound of the shot that brought him to his knees. He toppled over, dead from the bullet Jake had fired. Jake emerged from behind a boulder, the smoking weapon still in his hand. Carmen tried to walk toward him, a sobbing Sophie clinging to her, but her legs didn’t want to work. She could only stand in place while he came to her, and the three of them embraced.
“I was going to wait for help,” he said into her hair, between kissing it and stroking her shoulder. “But I couldn’t be sure anyone would come, and I was too afraid to waste any more time.”
“I knew you’d come.” Sophie looked up at him, tears still streaming down her face.
“I wouldn’t leave you.” He wiped her tears away with his thumbs. “I won’t leave you ever again.”
She nodded and buried her face against his chest. He shifted his gaze to Carmen. “I won’t leave you, either,” he said. “If you’re willing to let me stay.”
“Just try to get away, Soldier Boy,” she said and kissed him, the kind of kiss that said more than words and promised a lifetime of such kisses.