The Sheriff (22 page)

As the horses passed Pete, he lunged, catching one of the men off guard and pulling him to the ground. The big man giving the orders held up his hand to stop his men. All stayed where they were while the one closest to Cord put a gun to his head. He froze while the fight continued.

The man Pete fought was young and seemed inexperienced. Pete got two or three punches in for every one he took. A final uppercut to the younger man’s jaw had him out cold against the rocky trail.

Pete took a deep breath and wiped a little blood away from a split lip. A pistol was quickly pointed at the back of his neck, keeping him from moving.

“That was quite a show. The fight was good experience for my man and seemed only fair since he helped kill one of yours.” He gestured for one of the ATV riders to drag the unconscious man to his vehicle. “Useless to make a move. There are many of us. Too many to fight, I think.”

“No harm in trying.” Pete spit blood toward the man who had murdered Logan.

“I think Jimmy would disagree with you.”

“I will find you,” Pete growled with confidence but kicked rocks with his feet. The leader laughed.

It could have been encouragement for her or a threat to the man calling the shots. She didn’t know. His words gave her hope and she’d hang on to them as long as possible.

Both ATVs were started.

“If it were up to me,
amigos
, you’d never walk out of here. Not up to me today. Maybe next time.
Sí
?” He saluted Cord and Pete and put the ATV in gear with a jerk. “Take their phones.”

Pete and Cord had brought hand radios, which the armed men tossed to the ground and smashed. She looked at Pete as long as she could. She knew he was yelling, but she couldn’t hear his words over the ATV engines. Hoping above all else that this would end quickly and positively, she tried to get her bearings.

Then they were bouncing over rough terrain and all she could think about was hanging on for dear life. She barely had a grip on the edge of the seat with her hands tied. One good bump and she could be dead against the rocks.

They were on the north side of a state highway. So she doubted they’d be riding horses and ATVs all the way to the border. So where would they take her? They hadn’t scanned her for tracking devices and she could only pray they wouldn’t before they arrived at their destination.

And if they did?

Would she vanish like Sharon?

Chapter Twenty-Five

“They lost one of the signals twenty minutes in. Just lost the second.” Cord hung up the cell.

“Where? Where’s the last place they had her?” The look on the Ranger’s face told him he’d been instructed not to disclose that information. “Dammit, Cord. Tell me. You knew this was going to happen. We all did and we let her go through with it anyway. Stupid. I should have stopped her.”

“Take a minute. You tried to talk her out of it.”

“I didn’t try hard enough.”

“We’re to wait here. Burke and Beth Conrad are still missing.” Cord calmly pocketed the cell they’d picked up from his truck.

“Do you think they’re dead? We didn’t hear any shots. And if they’d wanted more hostages, why didn’t they take us?”

“Too much trouble, I imagine. Same as killing us would have brought too many law enforcement agencies in here to muck up their plans. We sit tight and wait.”

“No. Whatever’s happening is going down in Presidio. That’s what your informant said. You going to sit in the corner and accept your punishment or are you coming with me?”

“Now, hold on just one damn minute. We aren’t being punished. We’re part of a team.” Cord defended the task force.

At the moment, the only loyalty Pete felt was to Andrea. He’d promised her. He wouldn’t sit around and let that promise be broken by following orders. He’d already broken a couple.

“Well, this player’s tired of sitting on the bench.” He threw out the challenge, wanting the backup but willing to go alone. “You coming?”

Cord hesitated long enough to blink. “Yeah, I need my shotgun.”

“Dispatch,” Pete said into the microphone while he was waiting.

“Whatcha need, Pete?”

“Anyone heard from Hardy? I sent him on an errand and thought to hear back by now.”

“I’ll ask him. Be right back.”

And what if they were monitoring the police bands? “Peach, have him call my dad at the house.”

“You got it, Sheriff.”

Pete pulled out the tracking device he’d borrowed from the county. He’d been using it with Andrea since dropping her off the first day at the observatory. “Good, it’s still working.”

“You can’t be tracking Andrea.”

“Nope. Do you think I risked getting shot in a fight I knew I couldn’t win? I planted a tracker on that guy, Jimmy.”

“You could have told us.”

“What’s the fun in that?” He switched the box on and watched for a light. Nothing. “If I had told anyone, Andrea would probably have found out. I didn’t want her to give it away. I also wasn’t certain you guys would approve. We need to get closer for it to pick up the signal.”

“Or they found it and got rid of it just like Andrea’s. The fight was risky.” Cord shook his head in disbelief.

“But worth it since my tracker still has a chance. Let’s get going.”

It would be the fastest he’d ever driven the sixty miles from Marfa to Presidio. Also one of the blackest nights until the full moon came up. He passed one other car, his flashing lights lit the fields on either side. They were taking a risk. Mainly him. Not with just the speed of the Tahoe...

“What if they took her somewhere else? I should have stayed in the mountains and tried to track them.”

“Don’t second-guess your decisions, Pete. You took a big risk dropping the pocketknife during the fight, then kicking rocks on top of it. If you hadn’t, we might still be waiting on Nick and Agent Conrad to untie us.”

“I was lucky they didn’t just shoot me.”

“If they’d planned to shoot us, they would have as soon as we got within range.” Cord glanced at his cell again. “Still no word from Nick.”

“He knows those mountains as good as either of us. The DEA agent’s horse looked pretty spooked. Probably took him a while to catch up.” Pete couldn’t put much thought into Nick’s problems. Every thought came back to getting to Presidio fast. A plan wouldn’t hurt, either. But he had nothing. “Do you think we should have stuck with tracking Andrea’s abductors?”

“Forget it. You couldn’t see a trail in the dark. They had horses and ATVs. Three each, three pairs or six different possibilities. Presidio is our best shot. We both know that.”

It was worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack. At least you had the haystack right in front of you. This time they had a town and all the surrounding area. Miles of border and no way of knowing which way the illegal goods were crossing. Guns into Mexico or drugs into the States. There’d be mass confusion with too many law enforcement agencies trying to call the shots.

“What are we looking for when we get there?” He knew it was a long shot. “Other than Jimmy’s jacket that I’m tracking?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Cord finally admitted.

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

*

A
NDREA
WAS
STILL
WET
. The men who’d abducted her had been prepared for any electronics that she carried. By dumping her in a barrel of water the tracking earrings her father had sent would be useless. They’d held her under until she’d almost passed out.

Afterward, the six men had split up. Their leader drove them both to an awaiting helicopter. They didn’t bother to blindfold her for the first part of the trip, so she could see all the terrain. They hadn’t crossed the Rio Grande, so they were still on the U.S. side of the border. That, at least, was something in her favor. The nearest town to the east would have been Marfa, but they flew south.

The only city or town that direction was Presidio. Once they landed they’d covered her eyes with a sleeping mask. She could see nothing but her feet. And there hadn’t been one clue about Sharon. Nothing had been mentioned.

Cord’s informant had been right. The undercover agent had been right. And Pete had definitely been right. She, on the other hand, had been terribly wrong. There was little hope that Pete or her father would find her. But hope was all she had...and her wits.

What could these men gain from her being here? Especially tonight?

Alone in a small metal room, no bigger than a storage crate, she could hear the low bass of a speaker. It wasn’t coming from the other side of the door as she’d first thought. It was behind her, through the wall. Vibrating. She must be close to the concert in Presidio.

Low lighting from a battery-operated lamp. Two chairs and a card table. It didn’t feel like a normal room. The low ceiling was made of the same material. She was in a storage container. Driving from Austin to West Texas, she must have seen hundreds of these containers transported by train.

If she could only get word to Pete. She didn’t know how much time had passed while sitting there. She’d counted every rusty plank of the container and knew how many rivets held it together. Her wrists were numb, still tucked behind her back in the folding chair. It made it impossible to rest her head.

The door opened and in marched an unusual man. Unusual because he was tall, well-dressed in a very expensive suit and had white-blond hair. His hair among all the darker Hispanics in the city would stand out. He smoothed it flat before clapping his hands.

“Come now, don’t tell me that no one cut your hands free.” A guy appeared with a knife.

Who claps their hands for the hired help? But that’s how he acted...as if everyone around him was beneath him. So far beneath him he didn’t give any direction to the men who’d abducted her, just facial expressions that shouted to everyone.

“Who are you?”

“You may call me Mr. Rook.”

A comfy armchair was brought in for him to use. Then a glass of wine. Andrea would have settled for a sip of water. Her mouth was so dry she’d seriously thought about sucking some of the water out of her shirt. Then she remembered the dirty barrel they’d tossed her inside.

Mr. Rook sat and sipped his wine while one of the hired help cut her restraints. A sigh escaped from her as she massaged life back into her arms.

“There’s no reason to think about trying to leave. My men surround this little box. No one will hear your screams because of the concert. And no one will trace you to our little town on the border since we got rid of anything on your person.”

“I...” Her hoarse voice sounded ancient. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

“Yes, you think your incompetent sheriff will find you like he promised? We’ve taken every precaution to make certain he doesn’t. And this time tomorrow, you’ll be secured in my home away from home so I can make a longer-lasting deal with your father.”

“And where’s that?”

“You’ll find out when the time comes.” He sipped his wine again and didn’t look the least bit rushed.

The crate door opened and a beautiful blonde in a tight-fitting leather skirt and jacket joined them. She slid a phone across the table without a word. Mr. Rook held it to his ear and locked eyes with Andrea. Her spine and body shivered. The polite captor had disappeared. Hate and disgust oozed from him.

“I have your daughter. Speak, Andrea.” He didn’t switch the speaker on. She could barely hear her father’s voice asking if she was okay.

“Can you hear me, Dad? I’m fine after my short trip. You were right—”

The woman cut her off by pressing three fingers against the base of her throat, choking her. Andrea jerked away, finally knocking the woman’s grasp loose. She missed Rook’s instructions for her father while coughing and trying to get her breath back.

He placed the phone on the table. “Time to get started.”

The woman left.

“Start what?” She searched the small opening, but the door quickly closed. She couldn’t see a thing except the woman walking down the stairs immediately at the door. “What are you really doing?”

The man stood, slapping her left cheek. “Tie her up and store her in one of the containers.”

Andrea averted her face and watched through the hair hiding her eyes. The blond man spoke well, wore the suit well. She remembered what Pete said how most criminals forgot the shoes. This man’s shoes were old but expensive and well-kept. His nails were well manicured like a businessman’s.

There would be no answers from Rook. Just like the man who had brought her here had no answers.

Two men in green alien heads blindfolded her, grabbed her arms and then hauled her out the door. They kept her tight between them, dragging her about fifty yards before throwing her into another dark container. Was it strange that they hadn’t hurt her? At least not yet?

Once the door was bolted shut, it was blacker than the blindfold she’d removed. She was stuck unless Pete found her. Her father’s hands were tied because of national security.

She had to have faith in Pete. She did.

The confidence that Pete would find her was the strangest thing she’d ever experienced. It was more than just attraction. She admired his kindness, his humbleness. She especially admired—maybe even envied—his relationship with his father and how he was determined not to ruin him.

The darkness didn’t seem as dark. She was surrounded by wooden crates probably filled with guns heading to Mexico. Her father and his men would be watching for a truckload of drugs headed north. Not a cargo container filled with guns going south.

She climbed to the top of the stack to wait.

Pete would be there. She just hoped it was soon.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Pete and Cord followed the tracking blip to the outskirts of Presidio. If they could find the man he’d fought with in the mountains, they might find Andrea. They were close. He’d been stopped about half a block from them for a while.

“Our chances are slim to none this is going to work.” Cord adjusted the shoulder strap holding his weapons and slipped into his jacket.