Fatal Care (44 page)

Again she eyed the water bottle, her lips and throat so dry she could barely swallow. She picked up the plastic bottle and tilted it into her mouth, hoping for a drop or two of water to trickle out. The bottle was stone dry. She tossed it aside.

Joanna thought she heard something outside. A scraping sound not far away. Was it footsteps? Rocks falling? Or maybe some desert creature? Quickly she reached for a pointed stick she’d found outside the cave and waited motionless, her ears pricked. If it was a guard, she was dead. If it was an animal, she might be able to fight it off. She waited inside the suffocating cave. Minutes passed. The sound didn’t recur.

Joanna let the stick drop by her side, exhausted by the small amount of exertion. Dehydration was sapping all of her energy, and she knew it would get worse as the day went on. The blazing afternoon sun would raise the temperature another ten or fifteen degrees, and her fever was sure to increase as her infection spread. She would die of dehydration, the same way most people died who were lost in the desert. And eventually the dogs would find her body. Her decaying tissue would give off a powerful scent and attract them. But until then the dogs would continue to run in circles, chasing the trail of Joanna’s blood.

She smiled weakly to herself, recalling how she had outwitted the guards and dogs the night before. Somehow in the darkness she had found the cave and lain down to catch her breath. Her head came to rest on a desert plant or bush of some sort. It had a dozen or more stems with fuzzy flowers at their ends. Joanna quickly ripped off a half-dozen stems and went back into the desert to a spot that was at least a hundred yards from the cave. Her wound had stopped bleeding, so she reopened it and soaked each flowered stem with blood. Then she carefully placed the bloodied stems in a circle with a circumference of approximately fifty yards. She hurried back to the cave, just ahead of the barking dogs. For hours the sharp-nosed rottweilers ran around in a giant circle chasing the scent of Joanna’s blood. At dawn the barking and yelling had stopped.

But Joanna knew the guards would be back soon with fresh dogs that would again pick up the scent of her blood. And eventually they’d latch on to the smell of her infected wound. It would gradually fill up with pus and necrotic tissue, and that would give off a powerful odor. One way or another, Joanna thought miserably, the wound was going to kill her.

Joanna tried to think of ways to escape, but fever and dehydration had dulled her brain. Her thirst was so intense that all she could think of was water. She’d give anything for a glass of cool water. A picture of a frosted mug of beer flashed into her mind. So cold she could barely drink it. Jake was filling her mug with more beer. “I told you not to try it,” he was telling her. “Why the hell didn’t you listen to me?”

I should have listened. So stupid to try it. So stupid to fall right into a trap. Next time I’ll listen. If there is a next time.

Jake and the frosty mug of beer disappeared from her mind’s eye. Her thirst was so bad her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. Her thoughts went back to Jake, knowing she’d never see him again. Or her sister Kate. Or anyone else. It was over. She would die here.

Don’t give up! Don’t give up without trying!

Desperately she tried to focus her mind. But she was so tired and lethargic, and her eyelids felt so heavy. Maybe it would help if she slept for a while. Yes, she’d take a nap and get her strength back.

Don’t be stupid. If I go to sleep and stay asleep, I’ll just become more dehydrated and weaker yet. I won’t even be able to move. It’s now or never. But how do I escape? The first thing to do is leave the cave and find water. But where? Do I march farther out into the desert, or do I circle back to Bio-Med? Either choice is dangerous. And if I don’t find water in the desert, I’m sure to die. The blazing afternoon sun would kill
me in a matter of hours. I’d better wait for the cool of the evening. Yes, the evening would be better. If I become disoriented, I’ll have the North Star to go by
.

Joanna’s fever suddenly spiked. She was burning up, on fire again. Perspiration began to pour off her and soak through her clothes. She quickly unbuttoned her shirt and frantically fanned herself with the opened edges. But her temperature kept climbing. She couldn’t stand the heat any longer. On her hands and knees she crawled for the mouth of the cave and for the fresh air she hoped was just outside.

Then she heard it. The distinctive
put-put
sound of an approaching helicopter. She froze in place as the noise of the aircraft came nearer and nearer. Now it seemed to be directly overhead.

Slowly Joanna crawled backward to the rear of the cave and waited, hoping the sound of the helicopter would fade away. But it didn’t. The noise increased and decreased in a steady fashion. It took Joanna a moment to realize the helicopter was circling over the area where she had planted the bloodied stems. They knew she had to be close by.

Joanna felt ill all over. She was so weak she could barely sit up. She had to lie down. Her eyelids were so heavy she couldn’t keep them open.
Oh, God, please help me. Don’t let me fall asleep. Don’t let me die like this
.

But Joanna’s eyelids kept closing. As she drifted off she said the prayer she’d said a thousand times before as a child—

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep. . . .

The Los Angeles County police helicopter circled slowly above the desert, holding at an altitude of a thousand feet. Jake Sinclair carefully scanned the terrain below, searching with high-powered binoculars for any signs of life.

“Nothing,” Jake shouted over to the pilot. “I don’t see a damn thing.”

“Don’t just look for a person,” the pilot shouted back. “Look for anything that moves.”

Jake surveyed the desert again, but all he could see was sand and dunes and small hills. Off to the east he saw a ridge of low-lying mountains that marked the outer perimeter of the Bio-Med property. In front of the ridge was a large boulder with a shadow forming behind it. Everything was still. Even the sagebrush wasn’t moving.

“Nothing,” Jake reported, “Not a damn thing.”

Gradually the helicopter turned to the west and headed into the sun. The ground beneath them was red and gold and orange. The bright colors blurred out all details.

Jake took the binoculars away from his eyes and asked, “Is there any way to narrow down the search area?”

“It might help if you gave me more information on the person we’re looking for.”

Jake hesitated, not wanting to talk about Joanna or the case they were involved in. For now, the fewer people who knew the better. Jake didn’t want word of the Bio-Med mess or of Joanna’s disappearance to reach the news media. “She’s one of ours,” Jake said carefully. “She was investigating a case, and now she’s missing. We think she may be out here.”

“A she, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Does she know the desert?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, does she know how to find water and shelter? Does she know how to protect herself against exposure?”

“No.”

“Then we’ve got trouble.”

Jake quickly rethought his answer. “She’s not stupid. She knows enough to get the hell out of the sun.”

“It’s not just the sun,” the pilot explained. “It’s the high temperature and how you try to combat it. And the same goes for shelter. It’s not simply finding shelter, it’s finding the right kind of shelter.”

“Give me an example,” Jake said, totally out of his depth, just as Joanna would be.

“Let’s say you go into a cave and it seems cool at first. So now you’re out of the sun and you figure you got it made. Right?”

“Right.”

“Wrong,” the pilot went on. “If there’s no cross-ventilation and if the sun can shine into the mouth of that cave, the temperature will jump up and turn that cave into an oven. Then you’ll really start to sweat and get more and more dehydrated. And that’s what kills most people out here. Dehydration.”

The helicopter turned again onto a northeasterly course. Jake peered through the binoculars and saw hills and small mountains in the distance. “So, sometimes it might be better to stay under the ledge of a cliff rather than go inside a cave?”

“Sometimes,” the pilot agreed. “But if the wind starts up, you’ve got to get the hell inside. It can actually blow you away.”

The land below was flat and wide open. Jake saw tire tracks crisscrossing the desert floor. They were probably made by Jeeps from Bio-Med, Jake thought. But the vehicles were nowhere to be seen. No Jeeps. No dogs. No search parties. And that bothered Jake. Maybe they had already found Joanna’s body and left it out for the elements and desert creatures to work on for a while. That would make her death seem more natural, particularly with rattlesnake bites all over her. Jake shuddered, thinking what Joanna’s corpse would look like.

He focused his binoculars back on the tire tracks, trying to determine if there was any pattern to them. In some places they were crisscrossing. In others they formed half circles where the drivers had made U-turns. To his left Jake saw a small ridge where the tire tracks disappeared altogether. Then they started again, going in a straight line.

“To the north,” Jake shouted, pointing below. “Follow the tire tracks to the north.”

The pilot guided the helicopter northward, descending to an altitude of five hundred feet.

Jake kept his binoculars fixed on the tire tracks. They disappeared briefly into a cluster of mounds and dunes before beginning again, straight ahead, on a northeasterly course. Then the tracks stopped in the middle of nowhere.

Jake motioned to the pilot. “I need to get a better look at the tracks. Can we go down a little lower?”

The helicopter slowly descended to two hundred feet and hovered over the tire tracks. Now Jake could see animal tracks as well. He guessed they were made by the rottweilers. But unlike the tire tracks, the animal trail was circular. The animals had run around in a giant circle, approximately forty yards across.

“Let’s take it down,” Jake yelled over. “I want you to land to the south of those tire tracks.”

The helicopter slowly descended and touched down near a cluster of dunes. Jake waited for the rotors to come to a stop, then got out and hurried over to the end of the tire marks. Then he moved ahead slowly, watching each step until he picked up the animal trail.

“There,” Jake said, pointing out the tracks to the pilot. “Those are dog tracks.”

“Big dogs,” the pilot commented.

“Real big,” Jake agreed, again thinking it was probably the rottweilers. He followed the animal tracks as they gently curved around in a giant arc.

“They were circling something,” the pilot surmised. “Maybe moving in on their prey.”

Jake shook his head. “Attack dogs don’t circle their prey. They come right at it.”

Jake continued on slowly, following the dog tracks, his eyes glued to the ground. He kicked aside a small rock, then another, but saw nothing. Just ahead he spotted a long stem from a plant lying on the ground. But there were no plants or bushes nearby. As he reached down for it, he saw the bloodstains on the stem and the furry bud attached to it.

Jake walked on, faster, his eyes still riveted to the ground. He came upon another blood-soaked stem, but this one was sticking up in the desert soil. Jake broke into a run, his gaze never leaving the curving trail of animal tracks. Ahead of him was another bloody stem and then another and another.

“She’s here!” Jake called out, stopping to catch his breath. “She’s here!”

The pilot rushed over. “What have you got?”

“These,” Jake said, and showed him the blood-soaked stems. “She planted these stems in a giant circle. The dogs must have spent half the night chasing their own tails. That’s how Joanna got away.”

The pilot’s eyes narrowed. “Got away from what?”

“Some people who want her dead.”

The pilot studied the stems briefly. “If that’s her blood, she didn’t get far.”

“I know,” Jake said somberly, thinking this much blood didn’t come from a scratch. Joanna was bleeding and she was hurt. Her first instinct would have been to find cover, maybe to rest and somehow stop the bleeding. Jake glanced around the desolate area. There was no place to hide except in the low-lying hills to the north. Jake pointed at the foothills. “That’s where she’d be.”

The pilot rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Those mountains stretch for miles, and they’re full of crevices and caves and canyons. If she’s in there, she’s going to be tough as hell to find.”

“We’ve got to try and we’ve got to do it quick.”

The pilot nodded. “Let’s go back and organize a search party.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Jake told him. “I want you to go back and get me a tracking dog. A bloodhound would be best.”

The pilot looked at Jake oddly. “He’ll just end up running in a circle, following the trail of blood.”

“I know a way around that.”

“Like how?”

“Like you landing upwind from the animal tracks when you return.”

“I still think a search party would do better,” the pilot advised.

“Just get the damn dog,” Jake said tersely. “And get back as quick as you can.”

The pilot reached in his back pocket for a plastic bottle of water and handed it to Jake. “Keep in the shade as much as you can.”

Jake turned and headed for the foothills a hundred yards away. The sun was high in the sky and blazing down, the desert floor so hot Jake could feel the heat through the soles of his shoes. Again he thought about Joanna and how badly she must be hurt. All that bleeding had to make her weak. On top of that she was stuck out here where the temperature had to be a hundred and ten. It would take a miracle for her to survive.

Jake hurried on, scanning the ground for more blood, but finding none. Of course not, he thought to himself. She had to stop the bleeding until she got into the hills. That way the dogs would have no scent to follow except for the circle of blood-soaked stems. But was she smart enough to stay alive out here?