Dana Mentink - Killer Cargo

Maria felt her remaining energy ebbing, like a balloon leaking helium. “I’m the victim here. I lost my plane because I trusted the wrong person.”

His face remained impassive. “That’s quite a story you told me. I’ve never heard one like it.”

“Well, it’s true, every word.” Her anger rose to the boiling point. “Who do you think you are, anyway? You don’t have the right to interrogate me.”

The glint in his eyes was dangerous. “Actually, I believe I do. You are a stranger who crashed a car that doesn’t belong to you in my creek. I’ve got only your story that bad men are after you to retrieve something you say you don’t have.”

She opened her mouth for a retort.

“Stay put until I get back,” he said.

She straightened. “Maybe I’ll be running along, too.”

A hint of a smile revealed a small dimple in his cheek. “You’ll stay put.”

Dana Mentink lives in California with her family. Dana and her husband met doing a dinner theater production of The Velveteen Rabbit. In college, she competed in national speech and debate tournaments. Besides writing novels, Dana taste tests for the National Food Lab and freelances for a local newspaper. In addition to her work with Steeple Hill Books, she writes cozy mysteries for Barbour Books. Dana loves feedback from her readers. Contact her at www.danamentink.com.

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If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

—John 8:36

To my sister, best friend and superb editor, and to

Emily Rodmell and the folks at Steeple Hill,

for taking a chance on me.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

The phone shrilled, slicing through the patter of rain. With clumsy fingers Maria fumbled through her backpack to find it. “Hello?”

Silence.

“Is anyone there?”

A sudden crack of thunder left her ears ringing. “I said, is anyone there?”

Still no answer, but Maria heard, barely, the sound of breathing. A man’s breathing.

The hair stood up on the back of her neck. “Who are you? What do you want?”

Click. The phone went dead in her cold hand. Fear bubbled through her body until she shook it away. Now was not the time to let her imagination run amok. It was just a wrong number. Someone would be along in a minute.

Maria peered out at the view from her plane’s front window. Scrubby trees and boulders hemmed in the remote landing strip on either side. She had killed the engine to preserve the meager fuel supply and had spent the past hour anxiously watching an approaching storm that now hurled branches and leaves across the tarmac.

She checked her watch. Where could they be?

The only hint of civilization in this forgotten airport in the wilds of Oregon was a tiny metal shed in the distance. There was no trace of the people that were supposed to meet her and transfer the pet supplies to their vehicle. The idea had been to drop the cargo, collect the paycheck, refuel and fly back home. Now as she continued to scan the landing strip, she felt her plan slip away like fog in the sunshine.

Her foot tapped a nervous rhythm on the floor as the rain tapered off slightly. Though she didn’t feel very hopeful, she decided to check the shack to see if someone had left a message.

Maria unstrapped her small frame from the seat and pulled on her windbreaker. Easing the door open, she climbed down. Immediately the wind grabbed her black hair and sent it flying in all directions. She skidded on the slippery asphalt.

Still no sign of people.

Goose bumps prickled to life on her neck. “Get moving, Maria,” she scolded herself. The moment she left the shelter of the plane the storm intensified. A strong wind buffeted her and overhead a crack of thunder shook through the clouds. She had barely enough time to scramble back on board as the lightning let loose with a horrible sizzle.

Heart thumping, she flopped back into the pilot’s seat. Great. If the men were running late before, they’d be slowed down even more now. Feeling the need to move, she ducked into the back. Bags of dog food, buckets of kitty litter and boxes of rawhide chew strips were secured in neat stacks. Every square inch was filled with all that a happy pet could require.

Martin Shell often hired her to transport goods from his pet supply business and occasionally to carry along a crate or two of his prized honey. The pay was good. Two hundred dollars at pickup and eight hundred more when the delivery was signed for.

Money. When had that item become so high on the priority list? Right about the time she sank every last dime into purchasing her beloved plane. She would be paying off that one-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar loan until the day she died, but it was hers, as long as she made the payments, and she was free to fly wherever she wished, even to remote corners of nowhere, free to make her own way.

Rain slammed the sleek white sides and glass canopy of the airplane as thoughts chased each other around her head. Why would anyone send a shipment of pet supplies to the boonies? How many pet stores could there be in a place where even the people were few and far between?

She pulled her wet hair into a ponytail and crouched next to her only passenger. The miniature bunny on the rear seat regarded her through the mesh sides of his cage. His tiny eyes looked as though they’d been ringed in mascara. He was no bigger than a meatball sandwich. The small cage was a crude affair, a wood crate with a few slats missing, chicken wire stapled over the space and an aluminum pan to catch his droppings. A metal strap nailed to the top served as a carrying handle.

“You’re not exactly flying first-class. I wish I had something to give you, little guy.”

The bunny shook his head, sending the long white ears flapping. He took a half hop toward her and fell over.

Maria gasped, looking anxiously through the slats. “What happened? Are you all right?”

The animal righted itself and Maria saw the cause of the mishap. He only had three legs. Where the left front one should be was a small fuzzy stump. Then she read the handwritten tag on the top of the cage: Snake.

“Uh-oh. I don’t suppose they named you Snake?” That was highly unlikely. “Oh, man. You’re born without a leg and you wind up lunch for an anaconda. Where is the justice in that?”

The rabbit turned its gaze on her and hunkered into a tight ball. Its fuzzy sides trembled, the pink dot of a nose quivering. Did those eyes really have a sheen of desperation in them or was it another set of eyes she remembered? With a shudder, she got up and looked again at the contents of the cargo area, noting with displeasure that her plane was beginning to smell like a bowl of chicken-flavored Alpo.