Jack cut the headlights and turned off Rio Del Oro Loop onto the dirt track they had taken before. He passed the Para ranch gate and continued on.
“Watch it.” Cait reached for the dash as Jack braked to avoid a large animal that ran in front of them. “Stray dog.”
“Or a shapeshifter. One of Sonny Para’s witches.”
“Don’t joke about things like that.” Cait looked back. Among her Zuni relatives, witches were no laughing matter.
The track narrowed as it climbed the rocky hillside and faded to a goat path that meandered into the foothills of the Manzanos. At a fork, Jack took a trail that ran along the side of a hill overlooking the Para ranch. In meager light from a waning moon, he maneuvered the SUV around so it faced downhill, managing to bash the tail pipe on a boulder.
The engine turned off, they sat in silence. Cait felt a tingling sensation running through her body. They were at the mercy of anyone who saw them. Pale light glowed a quarter mile below on the Para compound.
Jack got out and took the night vision scope from the back of the SUV. He braced himself on the hood and dialed in the magnification.
A lone coyote sent up a series of short barks from a hillside above them. Other excited canids joined in a serenade.
Cait usually loved listening to their efforts, imagining pups imitating their elders. But this was no nature hike. The night was full of menace. Sonny Para’s killers might have heard them coming.
“See anything?” She stood by Jack and shifted from foot to foot.
“People moving around.” He glassed the area by the ranch buildings. “Hard to see around those trees. Wish we were closer.”
Cait was suddenly anxious to leave. The memory of sitting beside Jack’s hospital bed only a month ago hit her. She’d almost lost him then. What was she thinking, agreeing to this stakeout? Nothing good would come of it. She looked up. Pinpricks of stars completed with the high-wattage nighttime glow cast by the sprawl of Los Lunas and the Albuquerque metro area. She wanted to be anywhere else but there.
Headlights sparked on the flats to the west. A vehicle moved up Rio Del Oro Loop. Cait could hear the throb of a big engine coming closer.
Jack fixed the scope on a large truck rumbling down the dirt road to the ranch. The vehicle waited for the gait to open, then continued toward the house and outbuildings.
In a low voice, Jack told her what he saw. Men milling around beneath the trees, going in and out of the doorway of a big metal building. One approached the truck and spoke to the driver. Another stood back, equipped with an automatic weapon.
“This is where Para moved his operation.” He clenched his teeth.
“How fast can APD get a warrant to search the place?”
“That other warehouse search I asked for didn’t pan out. Spitzer’s going to think twice before agreeing to another one, especially coming from me.” Jack muttered a cuss word.
Cait dropped to her knees and leaned against the grill of the SUV. “So what do we do?”
“I don’t hear any dogs down there. I’ve got an idea.” Jack put the scope on the hood and adjusted his shoulder holster.
“No you’re not.” Cait felt an icy lump in her gullet. “I’m sure they watch the fence line. With cameras, men with guns, or both. Don’t forget that pickup that chased us this afternoon. They’ll be alert to anyone snooping.”
“Criminals are arrogant. They think they know it all, and get careless. If Para or his people thought someone was watching them, that truck wouldn’t have showed up just now.” Jack rubbed the small of his back. “I want to get close enough to see how many folks are down there and what they’re doing.”
She threw a hand up. “That’s suicide. You have no way of knowing what you’re walking into.”
“Of course I’m scared. I’d be an idiot if I wasn’t. But fear makes me cautious. I’m tired of tiptoeing around those monsters. My plan is to get a head count and a general idea what we’re up against. If I don’t come back in half an hour, call my boss, Mac Spitzer. I’ll be back before you know it, and we’ll get out of here.” Jack touched her shoulder. “It’s only a barbed wire fence. And they don’t know we’re here. Piece of cake.”
“You’ve accused me of being reckless in the past. Don’t do this. I won’t let you.” She had to stop him. Her legs felt wooden, her shoulders dragged down by a crushing weight.
“I’ll be fine. Keep track of me with this scope. Nothing’s going to happen. But on the odd chance it does, I added Spitzer’s cell number to your phone contacts list.” Jack touched his Glock again. “I love you. Don’t worry so much.” He gave her a quick hug before fading into the night.
***
Cait rested the scope on the hood of the SUV. Closed her eyes and listened. When she looked through the lens, Jack was gone. Blended into the desert like an apparition. Then she saw movement by the fence. There he was. But she lost him after he scuttled under the barbed wire.
When Jack had left her, she’d dug her nails into her palms and squeezed her eyes shut. Now she calmed her breathing, considered his point of view. He was fed up with living on the run. She was, too. Lives disrupted, they lived in constant fear for their families and themselves. He was doing something bold, albeit reckless, by probing the enemy camp. He would be back soon, she told herself.
The night-vision scope gave an off-and on view of his foray. At one point he popped up by a large metal barn and turned, looking her way. Then he was gone.
She counted to a hundred. Recited a Zuni prayer her Auntie Alice had taught her, oh so many years ago when she was a preteen. She’d whispered the same words last year after Jerry Fleming had beaten her and left her to die outside a cave in the Ortiz Mountains northeast of Albuquerque.
Cait blinked and looked around. A breeze rustled through dry grasses. Her pulse spiked when she heard shouts from the ranch.
She focused the scope, made a sweep from one end of the buildings to the other. No Jack, no one else. But something was very wrong. She could feel it. Where was he?
There. A sob escaped her throat. A person was lying on a roof, peering over the edge at figures running below.
Had to be Jack. And they were looking for him.
She grabbed her phone, opened the contact list and stabbed at the link for Mac Spitzer’s number.
Jack’s boss picked up. “Yeah?” He was understandably wary of answering a call from a strange number.
Cait tried to stay calm as she explained the jam they were in. “Jack’s hiding on a roof. I’m afraid they’ll find him up there.”
“Don’t worry. Stay by the vehicle.” Mac ended the call.
She watched the ranch below and the open land to the west. Any minute now, she should see lights from law enforcement vehicles coming from Los Lunas.
Minutes ticked away. Jack might be dead by the time help showed up. Cait wished she had told Spitzer about the locked gate, which would delay rescue efforts.
She dug around the rear of the SUV, looking for something useful. Groaned in frustration. All she could find were flares. Maybe she could create a diversion so Jack could get away. But how? Sneak onto the property and throw a rock through a window?
The sound of a vehicle made her jump. Headlights emerged through the row of trees on the ranch drive and stopped at the gate. She could hear voices as the barrier swung open. Instead of turning toward Rio Del Oro Loop, a pickup turned in her direction. The truck headed up the track Jack had parked on, heading right for her.
Cait seized the flares and her waist pack. Fled like a scared animal. She crashed into cactus, tripped on rocks, and ran until searing lungs forced her to halt and wheeze for oxygen.
Behind a small rise, she snuck a look. Two men stood in front of the SUV’s raised hood. Disabling it, no doubt. One of them looked in her direction. Panic boiled up. Her bowels almost gave way.
She stumbled down the hill fast as she could. Her arms and legs were pricked with cactus spines, flesh scratched and contused. Hot tears of fear and pain blinded her. Jack was a dead man. Or about to be, after he was tortured to a pulp.
Behind a low ridge of pockmarked volcanic boulders, she curled up, heart beating so loud it drowned out everything else. The men would find her. It was inevitable.
***
Time passed. Minutes seemed like hours. Distant voices and the sound of a vehicle engine floated along the breeze. She sat up. The men were leaving Jack’s SUV and driving back to the ranch. They weren’t coming after her.
Then it hit her. Jack’s boss had called the Para ranch. He let them know that detective Jack Gallegos was hiding inside their compound, that his reporter wife was waiting on a hillside above. An ugly but unavoidable deduction.
She sat cross legged, elbows on knees, face in her hands. The grim reality set in that Jack could be beyond help and facing a terrible death.
Instead of immobilizing her, that realization spurred her to action. Anger burned away fear. No help was coming, that was clear. If she called 911, Spitzer would be listening in on the emergency channels. He’d direct the bad guys to her.
So why weren’t Para’s men looking for her? Because they expected her to run away. They’d sabotaged the SUV and would be looking for her if she tried to walk out along Rio Del Oro Loop.
Cait tipped her head back. Counted the stars tracing the Big Dipper, one of the easiest constellations to find. Night skies had always stilled her fears, quieted internal turmoil about this and that problem. Her Zuni ancestors had looked to the heavens for guidance. The crisis she faced— a loved one in peril—might have tormented a Pueblo woman hundreds of years ago.
Only one thing to do. Attempt the opposite of what Para and his crew expected. But she needed a good plan. The best place to cross the fence was far from the main buildings. Once she got close, it would be difficult. The compound, dimly lit when Jack snuck in, blazed with exterior lights turned on to flush out an intruder.
For what felt like an eternity, she studied the layout below. There was a main residence, a low sprawling stucco affair, mostly hidden by trees. Away from the house were three large metal buildings surrounded by a tall chain link fence. Two buildings were side by side, separated from the third by a fenced paddock area.
The lights of another vehicle lit up the dirt track from Rio Del Oro Loop. A late-model sedan passed through the ranch gate, turned down the tree-lined drive and came to a stop by the metal buildings. Voices carried up in the compound, then faded into the nighttime quiet.
A distant cough made her look back at Jack’s SUV up the hill.
A tiny firefly glow sprouted by the vehicle. The glow waxed and waned. Puzzled, she squinted and stared.
The spark reappeared only to fade away. Then it dawned on her. Someone was smoking, waiting for her to return. The smoker couldn’t resist lighting up; his habit had given him away.
She started toward the compound below. Took her time, pausing often to look for trouble. She stayed low and kept a barrier of brush between her and the buildings ahead.
Finally she made it to the barbed wire fence. Wiggled under it without getting snagged. From there, she crawled into a small gully that snaked toward the buildings.
The sandy bottom was littered with broken glass and aluminum cans gleaming in the moonlight. She concentrated on moving quietly. Men were yelling at each other as she got closer. If she couldn’t see them, maybe they wouldn’t see her. She kept to one side as the wash became shallow and wider.
Her foot caught on something and she pitched onto her stomach. As she lay in the sand gasping for breath, a deep, throaty reverberation filled the air. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she buried her head in her arms.
The otherworldly noise rose and ebbed. Then quiet descended. The land seemed to hold its breath. She heard nothing, no yelling or talking, no coyotes singing, not even a whisper of a breeze.
This inexplicable sound seemed like a manifestation of the evil emanating from the ranch. She didn’t believe in shape shifters and witches, although she’d admonished Jack for joking about them. But she did believe that malevolence was a force to be reckoned with.
Slowly she raised up and looked over the lip of the wash.
Two slant-roofed metal buildings sat side by side about fifty feet away, separated by a darkened alley. A twelve-foot chain-link fence blocked off the alley from the wash and an expanse of desert. An open area beyond separated the buildings from a third structure.
The closest buildings were about twenty feet high, each with a ladder that ran from ground to top.
Jack must have ran up a ladder to get on a roof. She could climb up and see if he was still trapped on top. But if someone heard her climbing the metal rungs, she would be caught in no time. Better to stay on the ground and scout in the shadows.
This end of the compound seemed deserted. She quelled her fright and sprinted toward the back of a building. Looked around the corner.
A van was parked close to the building. She tiptoed to the driver’s door and looked inside. The vehicle was empty, but the interior gave off a strong, musky odor.
She skirted the building and continued along a tall chain-link fence that enclosed an open area and connected to a third building.
Hinges creaked as a door swung open in the far structure. A man exited as another figure swaggered up, spat on the ground and cursed.
She hid behind the van, covering her mouth to quiet panicky breathing. The cursing man was bald, medium height, thickly built and tattooed. Jack had shown her photos of Sonny Para; here he was in the flesh.
He threw his head back and cackled at someone inside the building. “Welcome to hell, cop. I’m gonna love watching you get eaten alive. You’re going to beg me to kill you. Then I’ll catch that girl of yours and have some fun with her.”
Someone inside the warehouse yelled back at Para. Cold fingers seized her heart. Jack. They had him.