Rae sprinted through the desert, dodging between hostile bushes and past razor-sharp pillars of cacti, ignoring the stab in her head and the cramp in her ribs. Thorns clawed her legs. Ocotillo spikes pierced the skin on her arms. She stumbled, trying to stay on her frantic feet, and sharp rocks scraped the skin off her knees.
A different gunshot echoed on the raw mountains and across the darkening desert, louder and deeper, like cannon fire.
No dirt sprayed Rae that time. They had missed, but they were shooting at her with bigger guns, which meant they would be more accurate and have a longer range.
Shouting echoed behind her.
Rae jumped up and lurched toward the deepening desert shadows, only thirty yards ahead of her now. With every running step, slanting rocks twisted her ankles. Cholla spines stabbed through her flimsy shoes, and the barbs worked into the soles of her feet.
The sun dropped, and the shadows reached for her as she raced toward them.
Another bellow blasted from that huge gun, and then more shouting behind her.
Damn, she wished that she had a gun to shoot back. She could send all those bastards running for their cars, but all she could do was run away.
Rae risked a glance back while she ran and stubbed her toe on a pyramid of red rock, nearly falling.
The men weren’t looking in her direction but were diving into the SUVs to chase her. Sunset glared from their windshields like wildfires.
Finally, Rae reached the shadow of the mountains, and she stumbled again and slammed into the ground. Hot blood from her head splattered her face. She licked her lips. Iron taste stained her tongue.
Engines roared and reverberated on the mountains behind her as the SUVs spun their tires, spraying gravel and grit.
Rae hunkered down behind a boulder, hiding.
Their engine growls echoed off the mountains and sounded like trucks were all around her. The SUVs might be racing toward her or speeding away. She covered her head with her arms.
The mountains’ shadows deepened as the sun fell. The air temperature dropped. Sweat soaked her blouse from the hot church and then her sprint through the desert, and the dry air sucked the warmth away from her skin. Rae started to shiver, but she tucked her knees in tighter and held on. Hiding might keep her alive. If she could outwait them, she could survive in the desert and get home.
Surely her mother wouldn’t turn her away.
The pain in her head hammered in time with her pounding heartbeat, and the SUVs thundered all around her, louder.
The First Baptist Church had been trolling for a way to throw her out for years, ever since she had had that blowout with Pastor Stoppard. They had only suffered her presence long enough to gather reasons to do it with a clear conscience. Pastor Stoppard railed against modern women every time she went home, glancing her way during the sermon.
The creosote bush beside her smelled like fresh tar and stung her nose. The jagged granite boulder scraped the skin over her spine where the desert thorns had torn her blouse.
Her disfellowshipping had been inevitable. She had been the only one blind to it.
But she hadn’t been blind. She had been moving away for years, going home for shorter and shorter visits, slowly moving out into the world, and becoming the type of person who shalt do whatever the hell she wanted.
What she wanted most was A Ray of Light. Autism had stolen those kids away from their mothers and families and everyone who loved them. She was going to gather a posse and break those kids out of their prisons one brick at a time.
And she wanted Wulf. Of all the things in her worldly existence, as much as she wanted that dreamed-of clinic for autistic kids, she wanted Wulf, too, but he had decided to leave.
If she got away, when she got away, she would find a way to open her clinic. Sitting here behind the boulder while men shot at her stripped all the worldly distractions away from her.
She would find a way to build that clinic.
Even though her heart would break when Wulf left her.
A tear traced a cold line out of her eye and down the side of her face.
The cold rock behind her sucked the warmth from her back. The chill shook her bones.
Twilight passed, and she shivered, freezing, in the cold desert night.
If she got out of this, if she got back to college, she would free. Freedom suddenly seemed like a blessing to be snatched up and guarded. If she survived this, she would be free of the slavers, free of stupid white bonnets, and free of the insane things that the church insisted that she believe.
Her blood-soaked hair stiffened.
Engines. She heard truck engines snarling in the dry desert air.
Definitely closer.
Rae knotted herself into a tight ball on the hard dirt and tried not to breathe.
Her dad and uncles could cut sign with the best of trackers. She didn’t know if Jim Bob had learned to cut sign or not. If he had, he could follow that trail she had bulldozed through the brush as easily as an ant following a scent line back to the nest. Running for her life had left no time for stealth.
She closed her eyes tight, trying to adjust her eyes to starlight so she could run again. Her head pulsed with pain.
In the dark, someone yelled her name.
The voice was too far away. It might be Jim Bob or the coyotes. When she breathed in, grit from the desert sand coated her tongue.
The rock under her cheek sliced her skin. Her shredded knees bled on the sandy dirt. Though her muscles rattled, she crunched herself into a ball.
“Reagan!”
The men were closer now. She couldn’t move. If she moved, they would see her. Once in the human traffickers’ power, she would disappear into that captive world. A sharp rock on the desert floor poked her forehead.
“Das ist her!” a man yelled.
“Yah, I see her!” another yelled.
They clattered through the brush toward her.
Rae tried to stumble to her feet, but pins and needles crawled like stinging centipedes up her legs. She staggered, holding the rock beside her, but she couldn’t run. Her hands shook.
In the thick darkness, men’s hands heaved her up to standing. Her head buzzed like a high-voltage line ran through it. Starshine drew thin, gray lines on pipes that the men had stuck in their faces like cyborgs.
She tried to claw her way free, but they propelled her toward a big engine growling in the night like an unseen dragon.
She wrenched her arm and broke the man’s grip. Cold touched her arms where the men’s hands had held her, and she stumbled into the dark.
Hands caught her again, and this time, a man’s arms swooped her off the ground.
She fought him, tearing at his hands and kicking him.
“Reagan!” His voice was hoarse but she knew him. “It’s me! Wulf!” His accent had become so strong that he said Vulf.
In mid-punch, she changed her swing and clung to his neck. Her whole body shook with holding him because she thought she was dead and he was gone. “They were traffickers! They tried to take me!”
“They were what?” Again, his w’s were lined with v’s, like a German count in a movie.
“Human traffickers. Jim Bob sold me to them. They were going to kidnap me, make me a prisoner and a prostitute.”
Wulf’s walk stuttered, like he had almost missed a step, but he didn’t drop her. Very quietly, he asked, “Slavery?” He drew out all three syllables.
“Yes. I would have disappeared. No one could have found me. I didn’t know what to do except fight and run.”
“I’ve got you now.” Wulf cradled her close to his chest, so hard that he was almost crushing her. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” Blood trickled down her neck. She clutched him tight with her tired, cold arms.
He carried her to the rumbling SUV and climbed into the back seat with her. The door slammed, but it was dark.
“Get the light on,” Wulf said into the dark.
“If the shooters are still here, the light will draw their fire,” another man in the SUV said.
“I can feel blood all over her. Do you see any vehicles?”
“No.”
Light blinded her.
Wulf wore a contraption on his face, and he yanked it off, leaving red lines around his azure-blue eyes and across his cheekbones. He untangled himself from her and examined her arms. He asked, “They shot you?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. Her voice shook in her throat. Two men, Hans and Dieter, peered over the back of the front seat at her. Red lines circled their eyes, so they had just stripped off goggle-things, too. “I cracked my head on the side window when I hit Jim Bob’s truck.”
“She is okay?” Dieter asked. “She is all right?”
Wulf continued walking her body with his fingers. Her clothes hung in shreds, and he shoved the tatters aside as he checked her skin. She just wanted him to hold her but he kept pulling away, so she tried to arrange the skirt so that Hans and Dieter wouldn’t see her underwear and white bra.
Wulf leaned her forward and ran his hands over her scratched back. He checked her neck and he parted her hair to look for bullet wounds on her head.
“She is all right?” Hans asked.
Wulf tapped a button on his mobile phone, and the screen glowed white. He waved the glaring light in Rae’s face and watched her eyes, checking for a head injury.
“She has a cut on her head,” Wulf said, leaning backward and wrapping his arms around her. “A bump and a cut. That’s all.” His arms tightened around her.
The light flipped off, and Dieter started the SUV’s engine. In the dark desert night, by starshine, between the red floating afterimages of Wulf’s phone, Rae could just see Dieter jam something onto his head and over his eyes.
Rae let Wulf hold her tightly, even though she felt like she should pull away. She was still cold, still shaking. Wulf pressed her face to his shoulder, shielding her eyes, and the sultry gunpowder smells of sulfur and steel clung to his palm. His black suit coat was stiff with dust against her cheek.
“Still no vehicles?” Wulf asked.
“I don’t see any engine heat signatures.”
Wulf said, “Gentlemen, take us back.”
Rae peeked between Wulf’s fingers at his two security men, but she could only see their shadowed outlines in the green glow from the instrument panel. The SUV rolled forward in the dark and turned in a wide circle.
Wulf reached into his pocket for his phone and dialed ten digits with his thumb. Rae didn’t get a look at the glowing screen, just noted that he dialed it really fast.
He said, “Hello, Mayor Harding.”
The Pirtleville mayor was Rae’s uncle and one of the few who had defended her, even a little, in the church, though she was sure that it had been at Wulf’s direction.
Wulf said, “There’s been an incident. Mulligan tried to sell her to human traffickers as a prostitute.”
A tinny screech leaked from the phone.
“No, I’ve got her. She’s all right. There are two bodies to deal with.”
Wulf listened a moment as the SUV bumped through the dark desert. The blue glow from his mobile phone lit her arms. Deep red scratches streaked her skin. She was so cold that she couldn’t feel them.
“Just a moment.” Wulf did something to his phone, then recited a long series of numbers to the Mayor that Rae realized had to be latitude and longitude. “I’ll meet him there.” He hung up.
“Who is he sending?” Rae asked. Her throat hurt from croaking it out.
Wulf wrapped his arm around her again. “Evidently, his brother is the sheriff.”
Rae lay back in his arms. Wulf held her like he cared, and she blinked back tears. Just believe it, she told herself. Just for now. Just for a few moments because otherwise the world is too terrible and empty. “My uncle Vern is the sheriff.”
“Quite. That’s not incestuous at all.”
“Bloodlines more tangled than the Plantagenets,” Rae agreed.
This time, Wulf sighed. His chest whooshed under her ear. “How much do you know about me?”
“I know that you’re leaving me.”
His arms tightened around her, scraping the raw skin on her shoulders. She felt his lips on her hair.
The SUV coasted to a stop. Dieter said, “We are here.”
Rae looked around, but the dark surrounded the SUV and poured in all the windows, washing everything in black. The SUV’s engine died. In the silence, even the faint glow from the dash faded, and the night reached into the SUV and filled it up with darkness.
Wulf said, “Send the other SUV a half-klick away. We don’t want to look like an occupying army.”
Dieter stuck his finger in his ear and said something in a Germanish-sounding language.
Outside, something growled in the night and crunched the dirt, then the sound faded.
Rae asked, “Where are we?”
“Where I killed the two of them,” Wulf said. His deep voice was so flat that it caught Rae’s heart.
Wulf had killed them? He was guarded by Swiss mercenaries, and yet he had killed them? Because he was the sniper? “Who were they?”
“One unknown man, and your cousin.”
“Jim Bob.” Rae searched the dark outside the SUV, trying to see bodies on the dark ground, but she couldn’t see anything except the stars in the moonless sky above.
Oh, she didn’t know how this would play out. If he had shot two traffickers, her uncle might be able to make it go away, but Jim Bob was an American citizen and connected to everyone in the Border town.
Rae’s eyes were adjusting to the night. Starlight frosted the top of Wulf’s golden hair and illuminated the slash of his jawline. “Are you okay?”
His arms wound more tightly around her. “Fine.”
Ah, the four-letter F-word that shut down conversations. She had had enough psychology to know that one. Maybe he didn’t want to talk now, in front of his men, but his body clutching her told her that there had to be more. “We’re near my dad’s truck?”
“It’s right there.”
“Can I get my purse?” she asked.
“I’ll get it,” Hans said. His door clicked open and slammed, letting a puff of cold desert night air into the SUV.
“Doesn’t he need a flashlight?” Rae asked.
“He’s wearing night-vision equipment,” Wulf said.
“You guys sure pack for an emergency, NVGs and sniper rifles.”
“One never knows what will happen.”
“What else are you guys carrying?”
Wulf’s shoulder under her face shifted as he shrugged.
The SUV’s front door opened and shut, and Rae’s purse landed in her lap. In the absolute dark, intermittent green light glowed through the open top. She found her phone by the blinking light that seemed like a strobe inside the bag.
Texts. She had three texts.
One from Craigh, her cousin whom she had promised to marry if they were both still single at forty: Yep, they shunned you. Jerk-offs. Supper at my place tomorrow? Want you to meet your replacement: Kat.
One from her cousin-roommate Hester: I’m sorry. I tried to stop my mom from doing that.
One from her brother Ezekiel: Momma wont stop cryin. Dad s forbiddin hr frm speaking ur name. u need anything? ride 2 dorm?
Well, it seemed that she still had at least some contact with her family. Rae should have known that Craigh wouldn’t give a hoot about the disfellowshipping. Ezekiel’s and Hester’s texts surprised her. She didn’t want them to get in trouble, but her heart lifted for a moment. The church couldn’t excommunicate the whole next generation, could they?
She supposed they could.
She stuffed the phone back into her purse.
The night flickered lavender around the SUV, and then the purple glow separated into red and blue whirling lights atop a police SUV bouncing over the desert.
Dieter flipped on the SUV’s headlights. The police vehicle corrected its bearing toward them.
“Do you think it is advisable to admit involvement to the police?” Dieter asked.
“They were modern-day slavers. Shooting them was a service to this country.”
“Then you could be in trouble at home,” Dieter said. “The 1927 law.”
“Being a mercenary requires payment.” Wulf’s sarcastic tone suggested Dieter had made a joke. “Been reading that law closely, have you?”
“Point,” Dieter said.
The police SUV rolled to a stop beside them, briefly illuminating the inside of the vehicle. A high-speed pursuit engine growled under its hood.
“Stay here,” Wulf said, untangling himself from her to get out.
She didn’t want to be alone. “He’s my uncle. I might be able to help.”
Wulf glanced at her shredded clothes. He took off his suit coat and handed it to her.
She wrapped the jacket around her body, shoving her arms into the sleeves. The soft cloth smelled like Wulf: manly, musky, a little spicy like cinnamon tea, and a whiff of the sultry, smoky scent of gunpowder.
Wulf stepped out of the SUV and handed her down. The night chilled her through the jacket, and she drew it closer around her. She could smell him all around her.
Wulf withdrew his hand, and Rae raised her arm to block the glare from the police vehicle’s flashing lights.
A man emerged from the police SUV. His skinny legs hit the ground first, and he heaved his pot belly out the door. “Is Reagan Stone here?” he called out.
“Here!” She didn’t recognize him because she hadn’t seen her uncle Vern Harding since before she went to college. He had gained a lot of weight. She hoped he was all right.
Sheriff Vern Harding trudged around the two bodies that lay in the SUVs’ crossed headlight beams, shining his big police flashlight over them and into the desert. “Yep. Who shot these two?”
“I did.” Wulf walked over to him.
Dieter and Hans shifted back and forth, looking at each other and then back at the Sheriff. Rae edged closer to them.
Sheriff Harding looked Wulf up and down. “You in charge here?”
“Yes.”
“And these men are?” He pointed back to the two staff members.
“Dietrich Schwarz and Hans Werner, my associates.”
“I see.” Sheriff Harding wrote on a notepad he carried. “Well, let me do the due diligence and run your plates.” He lumbered over to his SUV and leaned in, typing the license plate numbers into the vehicle’s computer. He frowned at the result, then leaned out of the SUV and squinted at Wulf.
Hans muttered, “Here it comes.”
Rae wondered if she should dive for cover or prepare to explain herself. Wulf seemed at ease, standing with his hands tucked his pockets and surveying the slice of desert lit by the SUVs’ headlights.
The Sheriff shut the vehicle’s door and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed a number, peering at the computer screen as he did so. He spoke for moment, looked thoughtful, and then tapped his phone.
Rae’s nerves crackled. It shouldn’t be taking this long. He shouldn’t have to call anyone.
Sheriff Vern Harding got out of the car again, slamming the door. With his bloated belly and skinny limbs, he looked like an upright tarantula.
He ambled over to Wulf. “All right. Why don’t you all tell me what happened?”
“From our vantage atop the ridge,” Wulf gestured carelessly into the dark behind the police truck, “James Mulligan,” Wulf pointed to the motionless body on the left, closer to Rae’s dad’s truck, “dragged Reagan Stone out of the passenger’s side of the pick-up truck, and then two additional SUVs arrived. Men emerged from the SUVs. There was arguing, and Rae ran across the desert, that direction. When she ran, Mulligan shot at her with a handgun. The other, with a rifle.”
The Sheriff looked around Wulf to Rae. “They tried to shoot you in the back?”
Rae nodded. Weren’t they supposed to get a lawyer before talking to the police, even if it was her uncle?
Sheriff Harding shook his head, clucking, and traced Rae’s footprints out into the desert with his flashlight beam, then played the light over the broken branches where she had run, cutting sign. He came back, crouched on his boot heels, and sniffed Jim Bob’s and then the other dead man’s hands, wrinkling his nose. He let the body’s hand drop back into the dust. Sheriff Harding asked Wulf, “And then what happened?”
Wulf pointed south again. “I shot them from that ridge to stop them from shooting Reagan.”
The Sheriff turned and shined his flashlight into the dark. “Jacob’s Ridge, back there? ‘Bout half a mile?”
“The one with the boulders,” Wulf said.
“Nice shot.” He leaned to the side to see Rae again. “Is that what happened?”
“Yes, sir. They were human traffickers. Jim Bob sold me to them. I ran, and they were shooting at me.”
Sheriff Harding shook his head. “That’s it, then.”
“That’s what?” Wulf asked.
“That’s it. You folks clear out of here. Won’t do to be discussing this with anyone.”
Wulf raised one eyebrow and glanced back at Rae. He asked the Sheriff, “Should we come to the police station to sign statements tonight or tomorrow?”
“Nope,” the sheriff said. “That wouldn’t do at all. Jim Bob, here, got himself involved with some sordid types. That other body must be his business partner. Seems some unsavory things were going on here in Pirtleville. I imagine some of them will come out, now that Jim Bob got what was coming to him.”
Wulf said, “One more thing, Sheriff.”
“Yeah?”
Wulf sounded entirely nonchalant when he said, “The ones who got away, I want their names.”
“Sure thing.” The Sheriff opened his SUV door and hoisted himself into the cab. He grinned at Rae with a white, straight smile. “This just another unsolved murder in the desert among rival drug and trafficking gangs. I’ll send the coroner out here to mop up. Evening to you all, Reagan,” he looked right at Wulf, “Mr. Dom.”
The police SUV drove into the night, back toward the highway.
Rae’s knees wobbled. Hans caught her because he was closest. “Fraulein!”
Wulf was beside her, and he helped her to her feet.
She said, “I can’t believe all that. That sort of stuff is not supposed to happen, even down here.”
“It was certainly interesting.” He helped her back to the SUV and into the back seat. Dieter and Hans clambered into the front seat. Wulf scratched one of his eyebrows and shook his head. “I think your uncles may have just used me.”
Rae didn’t believe conspiracy theories. She fastened her seat belt around her scratched and battered body. A headache streamed from the left side of her skull. “They couldn’t have set all that up.”
“I don’t credit them with orchestrating a nefarious plan. However, I think Mulligan may have threatened your uncle the Mayor with exposure, and they were glad enough to be rid of him that we have even escaped paperwork. Quite agile of them.”
Dieter cranked himself around in his seat and asked, “To the hotel or back to the house?”
“The hotel, please.” Wulf wrapped his arms around Rae again. “A five hour drive would not be in our best interests tonight.”