Authors: Ginna Gray
By sunrise they were twenty miles out of Bakersfield, heading toward Barstow. Erin sipped her coffee and made half-moons in the Styrofoam cup with her fingernail, watching the sky fade from black to gray, then deepen into dusky blue as a warm glow lit the eastern horizon. The colors changed quickly, bleeding one into the other, each growing darker, more intense. Pale yellow became pink, then rose, and finally a molten orange-red. Against the brilliant display, the arid mountains stood out in sharp relief, their rims lined with silvery gold, their slopes abstracts of amber-bathed ridges and deep purple shadows. A moment later Erin caught her breath as shafts of sunlight shot out over a low peak and beamed across the valley floor like giant spotlights, the golden rays hazy and luminous with dust and rising mist.
She glanced at Max to see if he had noticed, but he was staring at the empty highway ahead. With a shrug, she reached into the sack on the seat between them and extracted a sweet roll. Neither had wanted to stop for breakfast. Instead, they had picked up the rolls and a thermos of coffee at an all-night convenience store before leaving Bakersfield. Erin took a bite and chewed thoughtfully.
She felt... strange, a churning mass of raw nerves and emotion. Fear and worry were all mixed up with longing and desire and that sweet, tight ache of euphoria that comes with falling in love.
And guilt. Oh, yes, there was guilt. She hadn't expected this sharp, urgent attraction. Didn't want it. Lord, things were enough of a muddle without her falling for Max.
But want it or not, there it was. Feelings, she was discovering, paid no heed to common sense or whispers of conscience.
Covertly, Erin studied Max out of the corner of her eye. His face was somber and set, a tiny frown creasing his brows, and, unhappily, she assumed he was still chewing over their argument. A second later he proved her wrong.
"Drugs."
Erin jumped at the unexpected pronouncement. "What?"
"Drugs. I'll bet that's it."
"What are you talking about?"
"I've been trying to figure out what we're dealing with. I think we can safely assume that someone is using my company for some kind of illegal activity. Smuggling, probably, since we import goods from all over the world."
"And... and you think it's drugs?"
"Yeah. That would be my guess."
"Why?"
"Because these people are obviously into something very lucrative and very risky." Max shot Erin an assessing look. "Something big enough and dirty enough that they're willing to commit murder to keep from getting caught."
Dear Lord, was that what Elise had stumbled upon? Drug-runners? Corrupt, amoral people who would do anything for money?
Fear coiled in the pit of Erin's stomach. With sickening sharpness, she felt again the shock and horror of that moment when they had shot at her, the mindless, gut-wrenching terror.
She shuddered and dropped the half-eaten sweet roll back into the sack, her appetite deserting her.
"I...I suppose you're right," Erin said weakly. "It makes sense."
"God knows the opportunity is there. And the cover. What I can't figure out, though, is if it is drugs, how do they get by customs inspections undetected?"
"It must be sealed inside something. Maybe..." Erin waved her hand vaguely. "Maybe in a hollow chair leg. Or in a false bottom on a vase or pitcher. You import those kinds of things, don't you?"
"Yeah, but they have dogs that can sniff out drugs even in a sealed crate. Also, everything is x-rayed during customs inspection."
"Then maybe you're wrong," Erin said hopefully. "Maybe we're misreading this whole thing."
Max gave her a pitying look. "Erin. Your sister witnessed a crime serious enough to send her running for her life. And remember, these are people who cut brake lines and shoot at you in broad daylight."
Erin's heart gave a little leap at the blunt reminder of how close she had come to being killed. She flashed him an annoyed look, but after a moment her shoulders slumped. "I know, I know. I guess I was just hoping it would be something not quite so... so... vile.''
"Crimes usually are, sweetheart," Max said softly.
Erin sighed and took a long swallow of the coffee, hoping its warmth would settle her nerves. Mulling over his theory, she stared pensively out the window, oblivious now to the beauty of the morning.
They rode in silence for several miles until a horrifying thought occurred to her, and she turned to Max. "If it is drug smuggling, those men could be connected with organized crime!"
"It's possible, but I doubt it."
"Why?"
"Because it doesn't fit. Their usual method when they want to make use of a company is to take control of it and put one of their own people in charge."
A picture of Sam Lawford's emotionless face flashed into Erin's mind, but she guiltily pushed the image away. "I see. Well, I hope you're right."
It was a comfort. A small one, to be sure; nevertheless, it made her feel a bit better to think they weren't up against an entire army of men like those two in San Francisco.
After finishing her coffee she tossed the empty cup into the trash sack and turned sideways on the seat. "If these people are using your company to smuggle goods, then they probably work there."
"Yeah. That's occurred to me." A muscle clenched in Max's jaw, and his voice grated with bitter anger.
"Did you get a look at those men who shot at us?"
"Just the one closest to me. The driver." He glanced at her with a hard, crooked smile. "At the time I was too busy hotfooting it out of there to study him in detail."
"What did he look like?"
"Early to mid-thirties, medium brown hair, clean-cut looking. But I didn't recognize him. As for the other one, I caught a glimpse of pale hair, but I didn't see his face. He did seem older, though, and... I don't know... I got the impression that he was a big man."
The description nudged a memory, and when it clicked, Erin's eyes widened. "Max, when I arrived at Global Tuesday, there was a man on the loading dock. He stared at me strangely. He was big and burly and had white-blond hair."
"That would be Floyd Shulman, our warehouse foreman." Max frowned, his expression thoughtful. "He logs all incoming and outgoing shipments, which means he's in the perfect position to intercept contraband."
"What do you know about him?"
"Not much. Sam hired him about two years ago."
"Sam?"
Max shot her an exasperated look. "Now don't start that. Sam does most of the hiring. He doesn't like to travel that much, so mostly I make the contacts and do the buying, while he takes care of the domestic end of the business."
It seemed to Erin that the arrangement provided Sam with plenty of opportunity to set up a smuggling operation, but she refrained from pointing that out to Max. It would very likely anger him, and he wouldn't believe it anyway.
"I see. Did, uh... did Sam know him before?"
"No, I don't think so. Though, as I recall, Shulman did come highly recommended. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's not up to his armpits in whatever's going on. Good men have been corrupted by money before. I think it'd be a good idea if I call Sam when we get to Las Vegas and have him check on Floyd. I'd be interested to know if he was at work yesterday.''
Erin thought it was a rotten idea, but she held her tongue. While Floyd Shulman seemed a likely suspect, it was inconceivable to her that the shop foreman was the brains behind the whole thing. It had to be someone higher up in the company. Someone with inside knowledge who would know well in advance what was being shipped from where. Someone in a position like Sam's.
Tactfully, Erin tried to get Max to come to the same conclusion. All the way to Barstow, where they stopped to top off the gas tank and refill the thermos before continuing across the desert, she asked leading questions and dropped hints, but her efforts were futile. She didn't know if Max was being deliberately obtuse or if he simply had a blind spot where Sam was concerned.
Even so, she did not stop trying. The minute they were on the road again she returned to the subject.
"Max, there has to be someone in the office. The warehouse foreman can't be the only one. Now think. Who with access to the firm's records has the brains and the organizational talent, plus the gall, to set up something like this?"
For the next fifty miles, to her utter disgust, Max ticked off the names of people on the office staff, told her what he knew of each one's character and speculated at length on the likelihood of each employee's being behind the scheme. Not once did he mention Sam Lawford.
When done, he looked at her and shrugged. "I don't know. There are a few I wouldn't want marrying my sister, but as far as drug running, I can't imagine___"
He stopped abruptly, his eyes narrowing on the rearview mirror. "Erin." He said her name in a soft warning tone that sent a shiver down her spine and made her instantly alert.
"What? What is it?"
"Sweetheart, I don't want to alarm you, but I think we have company."
Erin twisted around. "Where? I don't see anyone." The road was empty both ahead of and behind them. Few people drove the desert during the day, they had learned from the gas station attendant in Barstow, and for miles it had seemed as though they were the only ones in the world.
"They dropped out of sight, but keep your eye on the road where it curves by that big butte. They should be coming around it any time."
She kept her gaze riveted to the spot. Her heart pounded, and her palms grew clammy. She barely managed to breathe. Silently, she began to count off the seconds. At eleven a dark blue Camaro came around the bend.
"Oh, dear God." Her eyes sought Max, wide and filled with fear. "How did they find us? They weren't following us last night!"
"I didn't think so."
Her frantic gaze went back to the car. It was about a half mile behind them, moving at the same steady pace. There were two people in the front seat, but the distance was too great for her to tell if they were men. Unconsciously, Erin dug her fingernails into the velour upholstery. "Maybe it's not them. There are probably thousands of blue Camaros on the road."
Max's gaze darted to the mirror again. "Well, there's one way to find out." He gripped the wheel tighter and pushed down on the gas pedal.
The speedometer needle eased up to seventy. Seventy-five. Eighty. The blue car grew smaller, the distance between them stretching out. Just when it began to look as though they would leave it behind, the other driver sped up.
"Here they come," Erin warned.
Grimly, Max tried to coax more speed out of the rented car, but even with the pedal on the floor the Camaro was still gaining on them. Max cursed viciously and struck the steering wheel with his balled fist. "Go, you piece of junk! Dammit, go!"
Sweet heaven, am I going to die in this godforsaken place?
Erin wondered, fighting a surge of suffocating panic as her gaze swept over the parched landscape.
There were no houses, no signs of life anywhere, just the empty highway before them and the endless, awesome desert. It stretched out in every direction as far as the eye could see, barren and bleak, unforgiving, veined with dry arroyos and dotted here and there with sparse vegetation that grew bent and hunched over in a futile effort to escape the merciless sun.
They could kill us and dump our bodies in one of those gullies, and no one would ever find us, Erin realized.
She shivered and jerked her gaze away from the desolate landscape. Frantic, she looked back at the trailing car, then turned to the front. Ahead, the highway danced drunkenly in the shimmering heat waves rising from the desert floor. It was empty to the horizon.
With only an occasional butte or flat-topped mesa rising up to break the feeling of limitless space, they were dwarfed by the vastness of their surroundings and seemed barely to be creeping across the great expanse of sun-bleached land.
"Can't we go any faster?" Erin cried. With unconscious body movements she urged the vehicle along, every muscle straining.
"It's wide open now," Max snapped grimly. "I'm just praying the engine doesn't blow in this heat."
"Oh, God." Erin clamped her hand over her mouth, but she could not contain the whimper that bubbled up in her throat.
Her skin was cold, yet even so, perspiration collected in tiny rivulets on her scalp and trickled through her hair. Her bright curls clung wetly to her neck and white face. Eyes wide, she stared at Max, trying desperately to think.
"That's odd." Max frowned at the rearview mirror. "They've slowed down."
Erin's head whipped around, and she stared at the blue car, her mouth hanging open. Her puzzled gaze met Max's. "Do you think they're having car trouble?"
He looked in the mirror again and shook his head. "No. No, they're maintaining a steady distance. Somehow, I've got a hunch___"
"What are you doing?" Erin cried when he let up on the accelerator.
"Testing."
Max kept watch on the rearview mirror. Their speed dropped steadily. Terrified, Erin looked behind them, and her eyes widened when she saw that the blue car was slowing also.