Meryl Sawyer - Better Off Dead

A busy signal.

Panic curdled her blood. What was going on? She was an expert on statistics and knew the odds of the emergency line and the local FBI office both being busy were astronomical.

Someone knew what she would do and had deliberately blocked her access to those numbers. She couldn’t imagine how, but she had to get away. Without her purse, she had no money, no ATM card, no credit cards. No gun.

Nothing.

She didn’t dare go to her condo where she kept an emergency stash. If they were clever enough to block the phone lines, they would know where she lived.

She could phone the police, but it would take a lot of explaining and calls to the U.S. Marshal’s office before her story could be verified. The hit team would expect her to do this. They might even be waiting near the station. One sniper shot and she would be in a black bag.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a beam of light swinging back and forth. The flashlight was far down the type of narrow unpaved street that made Santa Fe so quaint. She saw the hulking shape of the man in the shop, methodically searching the bushes. If she ran, he would see her.

Her only choice was to climb the adobe wall as quietly as possible and drop down the other side onto the adjacent street. Like most adobe walls in the historic area, this one had been crudely made by the Native Americans who had been used as slave labor by the Conquistadors. Over time it had weathered and had several holes where the adobe had deteriorated.

She jammed the toe of her sandal in an indentation part-way up the wall. Bracing on that leg, she boosted herself upward. She managed to grasp the top of the wall with the tips of her nails. Heaving one leg skyward, her foot caught the top of the wall.

The broomstick skirt made it nearly impossible to scramble to the top. After two tries, she was lying flat on top of the ancient adobe wall. The light was so close now that the man holding it would hear her if she dropped down the other side.

A pickup with a bad muffler and a radio blaring music from a station in Juarez rumbled up the street. Pachucos—bad boys—out looking for trouble. She waited until they were closer, almost upon the man with the flashlight, then she plunged off the wall.

Thump! She landed on her side and rolled. Starting at her shoulder, a sharp, punishing jolt of pain seared through her body. Shuddering in agony, she pulled her feet under her and lurched upright. The pachucos’ music was still blaring, and she forced herself to run, knowing the noise she made couldn’t be heard.

She breathed through clenched teeth. With each pump of her lungs, a stab of pain told her a rib must have broken. She couldn’t lift one arm above her waist. Her shoulder might be broken. Sweat gushing from every pore, breath coming in ragged painful spurts, she willed herself into a fast walk. Running was out of the question.

It was only a few blocks to Romero’s house. If he would give her some money and lend her his car, she could drive to Phoenix. There she could call WITSEC or the FBI field office. The hit team would expect her to head for the airport, but she wouldn’t be that stupid.

What would she tell Romero?

Camino de las Animas—the soul’s way—was an unpaved narrow street with sprawling haciendas. Romero’s house was at the far end. She spotted the wrought-iron lantern shining at his front door. Like a beacon the light sent a burst of adrenaline through her. Somehow she broke into a sprint.

She charged through the arched adobe gateway and up the steps of the hacienda built almost two hundred years earlier. Cringing with pain, a wild story for Romero forming in her brain, her world suddenly pitched from side to side, then halted with a mind-numbing jolt.

The front door was wide-open.

“Romero,” she cried out before she could stop herself.

What if the woman was inside? It had been a man with the flashlight. He couldn’t have beaten her here. More important, how did they know about Romero?

Zachary bounded out of the house. The soft lantern light revealed fresh red blood on the retriever’s paws. A suffocating wave of terror enveloped her like a vision of hell.

“Please, please,” she whispered, “don’t let them have hurt Romero.”

Common sense said to run, but she refused to desert her friend. She tiptoed into the house and was met with dead silence. A single lamp was on in the living room Romero had so meticulously decorated with furnishings from the Spanish Colonial period.

The only sound was the click-click of Zachary’s nails against the tile floor. The aroma of blue corn enchiladas filled the air. She inched forward. Each ragged breath brought white-hot pain from her ribs.

In the dining room, she called out, “Romero, are you there?”

No answer.

She rounded the corner into the kitchen. Sprawled on the floor in a puddle of blood and bloody pawprints, Romero’s dark eyes stared up at the ceiling.

“Oh, God, no!”

She staggered forward and fell to her knees, scraping them on the tile. Someone—it had to be the woman—had slit Romero’s throat. Anger like invisible lightning arced through her.

Why? Why? Why?

Why kill an innocent man? It was incomprehensible. She knew Rutherford and Ames were responsible. Corporate piranhas, they let nothing and no one get in their way.

In a heartbeat the anger drained from her. They had more money, more resources than she did. They were able to get around WITSEC. What could she possibly do?

“Come and get me,” she called out. “I’m ready to die.”

It was true. She’d been living in hell for over a year. Tyler had married another woman. She couldn’t see her sister or niece, her only family. The way things were going her purgatory seemed endless.

Now this.

A kind, wonderful man had befriended her. He’d paid for his trouble with his life. She hoped the woman hadn’t tortured him somehow before she put the blade to his throat.

Tears sparkled on her lashes, and then blurred her vision as she waited to die. Seconds passed. The house was eerily still except for the low hum of the refrigerator. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. With a broad swipe of his tongue, Zach licked her face.

This could mean only one thing. The woman was searching for her elsewhere. They may have thought she had car keys in her pocket or had gotten a ride or that she had gone to the police station.

Hang on, she thought. Those bastards had money and would kill anyone who got in their way, but she had something more important. Truth was on her side. She had to get away and live to testify.

She reached over to close Romero’s eyes. To his left, hidden by the shadow from the kitchen table was a message scrawled on the cabinet in blood.

Lindsey

Kill

me

“What?”

The woman must have dipped Romero’s finger in his own blood. The bile rose up in the back of her throat. She prayed the poor man had been dead by then.

There was a purpose to his death, she decided. They’d slit his throat to frame her for his murder. Why, when they wanted to kill her? It took a second for her to realize the killers hadn’t a clue where she was, and they wanted more manpower in finding her. What better way than to have the police after her, as well?

“I’m sorry,” she told Romero’s lifeless body. “I knew better than to make a friend. Forgive me.”

With her fingertip she gently closed Romero’s eyes. She kneeled beside him and said the Irish Blessing just as she had when each of her parents had been lowered into their graves.

May the road rise up to meet you,

May the wind always be at your back

May the sun shine upon your face

The rains fall soft upon your fields

And, until we meet again,