Dana Mentink - Race to Rescue

“Too late, they’re up,” she said, flinging her arms around him and kissing his cheek. “Please help me figure out what happened to my brother. I know I’m the last person in the world you want to be with, but I’m asking, anyway. Please.”

The pressure of her body pressed to his made his head swim.

You’re in it deep now, Booker.

Anita let go of Booker and hastily slid to the other side of the seat. Her cheeks burned, but she could not ignore the heady feeling of hope that had sprung up inside her. Drew might be alive. Alive. She pressed her hands together and breathed a silent prayer. Please, Lord. Please don’t take my brother from me.

She opened her eyes to find Booker watching her. “We need to go to the Painted Cliffs.”

Booker arched an eyebrow. “What will that accomplish?”

“I don’t know, but my brother was headed there, according to Gershwin. He might have left some kind of a clue to his whereabouts, maybe spoken to someone about his situation.”

“There’s no one there to speak to. The police should handle the search.”

She tried to keep the impatience from her voice. “They’re busy with the crash investigation. Besides, my brother didn’t involve the police in whatever problem he was having. He must have had a reason.” She looked closely at him. “Do you trust the police around here?”

“Williams is okay.”

“How about Rogelio?”

Booker shifted on the worn seat. “He’s tight with Cyrus Leeman. I don’t trust anyone who buddies up to that snake.”

She jerked. “I wasn’t anyone’s buddy, if that’s what you’re implying. Leeman came to me on an environmental issue that happened to impact your land. I did my job, and so did he.”

“Yeah? So you think he’s just a great guy out to save the earth, huh?”

The anger in his eyes made her falter. “We did the right thing.”

“Glad you can sleep easy at night.”

Sleep easy? She’d not had a peaceful night’s rest since she left Rockridge. Thoughts of Booker and the dangerous feelings he’d awakened in her had made that impossible. She’d done the right thing, but the cost had been high. She looked at his profile: strong, proud, lined with fatigue and worry. What had her decision cost him?

She pushed the feelings away and took a deep breath. “I’ve got to focus on the here and now. I need to figure out what happened to my brother. Will you take me? If not, I’ll find someone else.”

He gazed at the brilliant blue of the sky. “It’ll take an hour to drive out there. Won’t have much time. We’ve got to head back before sunset.”

“What happens after sunset?”

He didn’t look at her as he pulled onto the road. “Desert comes alive.”

Anita tried not to dwell on Booker’s ominous warning as they headed farther away from civilization. She was a wildlife scientist, after all. Nothing in this desert would send her screaming for help. She busied herself checking her phone for any kind of message from her brother. Who would be after him? His salary was good, she imagined, but knowing her brother he hadn’t socked away enough fortune to tempt anyone. At times he didn’t even make the rent payments. He must have heard something, seen something. Maybe he photographed something he shouldn’t have?

She wished she had someone to discuss her wild theories with, but Booker remained silent. It was just as well. They should avoid anything that would rekindle old feelings. Remember Jack and what could have happened. Drinking, partying, making stupid choices that would have ruined your life if God hadn’t saved you. Don’t put yourself there again.

A massive saguaro cactus thrust prickled branches into the late-afternoon sunlight. In the spring, it had been crowned with showy yellow blossoms, a treasure for the bat species she’d been studying. Now it was bare of blooms, a patch of green against acres of chollas and creosote plants with their fuzzy seed capsules thrust out like fingers. There were no cars here, no tourists crazy enough to venture out into the sizzling nowhere.

Booker pulled off down a narrow path that she never would have noticed. It led to the mouth of a mesquite-lined wash on one side and a massive cliff rising up on the other. The cliff outline was broken up by piles of roughened rock that had broken away and tumbled down, leaving mountains of rubble dotting the ground.

He handed her a bottle of water and grabbed binoculars for them both. “There.” He stabbed a finger at a gap between the cliff and a massive rocky outcropping. “Good view from there. Let’s go.”

She followed him. The heat immediately soaked her in sweat and heated her face until it felt like it would burst into flame. Grateful that she’d remembered to wear a hat, she struggled to match his long strides.

They climbed the sandy cliff trail until they reached the gap. Binoculars ready, Anita scanned the view below. The Painted Cliffs, striped with shades of gold and pink, had earned their name. The recent rain made bits of mica glitter and shine as she strained to see any signs of human presence there.

Nothing.

The only movement came from a golden eagle that soared down to land on a jagged rock far above them. She sagged, head whirling. What had she expected? That Drew would pop up around some rock pile, a smile on his face? She groaned at her own stupidity. That was exactly what she had hoped.

Booker lowered his binoculars and looked at the sun sinking into a swirl of sherbet colors behind the cliffs. “We’ve got to go. Gonna get dark fast now.”

She nodded. “Okay. I just want to climb to that lower ridge there first. I’ll have a view of the whole place.”

He frowned. “Bad idea.”

“I’ll be careful. It will only take a minute.” She saw his jaw tighten.

“Really bad idea.”

“I’m familiar with the outdoors, Booker,” she snapped. “I don’t need your permission. As a matter of fact, why don’t you head back to the truck and I’ll meet you there?” She didn’t wait for his answer, instead spinning on her heel and charging down the path that spiraled toward the ridge. Keeping up a brisk pace, she covered a half mile of twisting path before she ventured a look back. Booker was nowhere in sight.

The rock walls rose up around her, muffling the sound of any approaching feet. It was indeed growing darker by the minute, she thought ruefully. Resolutely, she continued on one of two paths that now snaked downward into a shadowed canyon. She made another half mile before the trail widened into a sort of cathedral-like cave, ribboned with veins of color and illuminated only by the faint light that still shone through a crack of rock above her.

It was the kind of scene Drew would wait hours to shoot, until the light was perfect. Fear shook through her again. There was no sign of her brother here, just as there had been none at the crash site. If he was alive, why hadn’t he contacted her? Or the police?

The cave grew suddenly dark. Anita knew she had stayed too long. Skin prickled in goose bumps, she realized there was still no sound of Booker’s approach. He must have taken her at her word and returned to the truck.

Fine. I can make it back there by myself. She was so intent on picking her way across the floor of the rubble-strewn cavern, she did not hear someone fall in behind her.

A hand, hard and calloused, grabbed her and she was jerked backward off her feet. In a moment she was sitting on a patch of loose gravel, looking into the dark face of a man who held her mouth closed with one hand and kept an arm pressed firmly across her throat, pinning her to the rocky wall.

He slowly moved his arm away from her throat and a knife materialized in his hand. Her blood froze as he held it in front of her eyes. His voice was softly tinged with a Spanish accent. “If you scream, you die.”