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I
T WAS EASY.

Maybe it was too easy. Sam P. was watching a video. It wasn’t just any video. It was a sex video.

Max had seen a lot of disgusting sex, some of it on the highest levels and in the best Jacuzzis at the best addresses with the best sluts and cabana boys and the richest jaded old farts in the world, but
this
stuff was worse. It pitted arousal against the gag reflex, but Max had a highly developed gag reflex—he could turn it on and off like a spigot. The worst thing, Sam P. liked freak shows starring the desecration of innocents—be they animal, vegetable, mineral, or altar boy.

So Max didn’t mind jabbing the gun muzzle into the base of Sam P.’s testicles, even though, for one dizzying moment, he thought he’d lost the barrel in a funhouse mirror of wrinkles and folds.

Sam P. froze—not a jiggle. For a moment, the Other Max, the Max who played a Nietzsche-spouting nihilist in
Dystopia: The Second Epoch
(not his best performance; the whole thing depressed him for months afterward) took over and he felt his finger itch. He knew one squeeze would do it, blow this pathetic balloon of a man to kingdom come, send Sam P. zipping up into the atmosphere on a fart and a cry, and he stopped himself just in time.

“You’d better tell me everything,” Max said. “And if you don’t, I’ll shoot off one part at a time.”

Sam P. understood immediately.

When Max was done, he shoved Sam P. down into the dungeon with his nephew.

He kindly left them two bottles of water.

And the last of the Lunchables.

T
HE TRAPDOOR HAD
been modified—it could be locked shut with a padlock. Max wondered if Luther and Sam P. had kidnapped someone else before this. The idea sent a chill up his spine. Wouldn’t put it past them. He had found the key to the padlock easily enough—it hung from a hook on the wall just inside the outer door, which was unlocked. Next, Max went through the house—car keys, the video camera, Sam P.’s phone, what little cash they had, and their credit cards. He’d ditch the credit cards and use the money. He checked the video, and it looked good. He could upload it to one of the cell phones any time. Next, he needed transportation. He knew Corey would be back soon. He’d call out to his buddies, and when they didn’t answer, he’d think they were in the bomb shelter with Max. If a car was missing, they wouldn’t call the police. No, Corey would come looking for him.

Max had a choice: walk the three miles back to town and risk being seen, or take one of the cars, hit the freeway, and hope he had a good enough head start. From there, he could hide anywhere.

The first thing Max wanted to do was get to Gordon White Eagle. He wanted to find out exactly what White Eagle had done to him, how he’d screwed him up. He wanted the man to reverse what he’d done, if that was even possible. Then he’d settle with Jerry and Talia.

He took the gun from the small of his back and hefted it. He’d never been into weapons all that much, but had to admit this one felt good. He pictured pressing the muzzle into Gordon’s handsome tanned temple. Imagined suggesting Gordon find a way to restore him to the person he was before.

And he would ask Gordon who the guy in the shower cap was.

Chapter Seventeen

T
ESS HAD THE
Bajada County Sheriff’s Office break room to herself. No one was using the computer, so she sat down at the desk and looked up the Desert Oasis Healing Center again. The first time Tess had looked at the website, she’d seen references to “sandstone adventures” in several places. Whoever wrote the copy for the site was fond of the description. She clicked on each section and reread them.

“As you are drawn closer to the powerful force field of the magical sandstone formation known as the Flying Saucer Vortex, the most potent vortex of the area, you will discover the healing power of Celestial Vibrations. From the act of traversing the magical red rocks you will experience the feminine energy of our own unique brand of sandstone adventure.”

Tess winced. She wasn’t an English major, but she knew bad writing when she saw it.

So what did this mean? Nothing, by itself. But taken together with the woman and the boy, it seemed likely that they were the ones who’d purchased the truck from Talbot’s Chevrolet.

Tess glanced at the tabs on the top of the healing center’s website and noticed that the Desert Oasis had a gift shop. She decided to take a look. Besides healing crystals, New Age music, shaman prayer sticks, and expensive handbags, there was a section for kids: plush toys, puzzles, expensive baby duds, and T-shirts emblazoned with “The Desert Oasis Healing Center,” over a red rock vista. (Even though the red rocks of Sedona were almost twenty miles away.) Among the gifts was an official Desert Oasis yo-yo.

The boy had a yo-yo. The car salesman at Talbot’s Chevrolet had told her that.

Tess was now 99-percent certain that the woman and the boy had been the ones to purchase the truck for Sandstone Adventures, and that Sandstone Adventures was a fabrication of the Desert Oasis Healing Center.

Why hide the purchase of a truck? Why did the woman dress up and wear a wig?

Something
was going on.

Tess had that bad feeling—what her ex-husband, who’d worked SWAT in Albuquerque, called his “Spidey sense.” She had a strong Spidey sense about the woman and the boy.

The limo Hogart was driving when he tried to pick up Max Conroy was leased by the Desert Oasis Healing Center.

She tried the Desert Oasis Healing Center again and asked the operator if she could be put through to the man at the top—Gordon White Eagle.

Of course, he was unavailable.

T
ESS CAUGHT
P
AT
just as he was getting off the phone. He’d been working for months trying to get evidence on a guy suspected of battering his own father. “Yeah, what’s up?” Pat was always in a bad mood when it came to that case.

“I told you about the woman I saw at the car wash.”

“Yeah, you had a bad feeling about her and her kid. So?”

Tess filled him in about the woman and the boy, how they’d bought a truck for a company called “Sandstone Adventures.”

“Sounds like a tour, like one of those jeep or white-water tours. Where was this, Sedona?”

“The dealership’s in Clarkdale.” Tess handed him the name and phone number for Talbot’s Chevrolet in Clarkdale.

“You really got a thing for this gal,” Pat said. “All she did was wash her truck at Joe’s.”

“She might be involved with those guys who tried to kidnap Max Conroy.”

“Oh? And you came to this conclusion how?”

“I think she works for the Desert Oasis Healing Center. They rented the limo those two guys were in.”

He looked at her skeptically. “You have anything else besides that?”

“Sandstone Adventures doesn’t exist. Not as a company in Sedona. And she wore a disguise when she bought the truck.”

He leaned forward. “Now
that’s
interesting. What do you mean, disguise?”

She described the woman and the boy.

Pat said, “I think I’ve seen her around. Kind of spooky looking?”

“That’s her. But when she bought the truck, she was dressed up. Dress, heels. She wore a wig. And the boy was with her.”

Pat said, “Tell you what. I’ll talk to my pal at Yavapai County and see what he can find out.” He stood up. “Later, though. Right now I have to see a man about an assault and battery.”

M
AX HAD TWO
cars to choose from. Sam P.’s vintage Cadillac, parked out front with a “4Sale” sign in the window, or Luther’s ride, an ancient Saturn. Max chose the Saturn. It wouldn’t attract attention like Sam P.’s car would. He’d come out through the kitchen door, which opened out onto a carport with four bays separated by spindly posts. Across the carport, he heard a washing machine running inside the storage room attached on the opposite side. The Saturn was closest to the storeroom. He stood by the driver’s side, sorting keys.

That was when he heard a car engine. Loud, muscular—Corey’s Chevelle SS.

Max crouched down behind the hood of the Saturn, close to the back wall of the carport. He pulled the 9 mm from behind his back and checked it. Just in case.

The muscle car pulled into the bay closest to the kitchen door on the opposite side, engine reverberating. Max duckwalked around to the Saturn’s passenger side, keeping low. He expected Corey to get out and go into the house through the kitchen door. When Corey was inside, he’d take off in the Saturn.

Corey let the Chevelle roar one more time before shutting down. Max eased up and peered through the windows of the Saturn as Corey’s driver’s side opened.

After that, it all went to hell.

Corey must have caught sight of him through the car windows, because he whirled and stared across the roofs of the Chevelle and Saturn. For a second Max froze (his mind screaming, move-move-move!) but everything stood still, and although he had the gun leveled across the roof in a two-handed grip, he could barely feel the trigger guard. He might have yelled “Freeze!” but he wasn’t sure because his throat felt locked up and there didn’t seem to be any sound. But his finger must have moved of its own volition—he realized he’d fired over the roof of the Saturn—and everything abruptly exploded in dust and noise. With the gun’s kick, adrenaline took over, cascading down through his chest. He kept his finger on the trigger and shot half the magazine.

Corey ducked, then popped up and shot across the car so quickly that Max felt the bullet zip by his ear before he heard the sound. His reflexes were slower—it took him almost a second to get down, the sting to his ear a shock. He clapped his hand to his head. No blood. Still amazed at how quickly Corey reacted—was still reacting, because suddenly a hole blasted through the passenger window of the Saturn above him, glass flying.

Choices: get into the storeroom and close the door, crawl under the car, or shoot back through the window. He shot through the window. Indiscriminately.

Blind.

Corey screamed.

Max heard a bang and a thump.

Max didn’t wait to see if Corey was hit or faking. He was running on pure instinct now, and that instinct was screaming for him to get away. He threw himself headfirst into the storage room and scrambled behind the wood frame. And that was when his brain hit the slow-motion button. He flashed on a hot afternoon eating Sonoran hot dogs in a Tucson eatery with a cop who had worked with him on a picture, the cop saying that if you were in a firefight you looked for three things: cover, concealment, and an escape route. The flimsy plywood of the storeroom would offer no such cover, but it would conceal him.

Close enough.

He crouched by the edge of the door. The cop had also told him always to stay low when hiding. Most people emptied their weapons at the face or the upper body.

The last thing the cop had told him: shoot first, and shoot to kill. Max followed that advice, shooting at the cars, a good three or four shots. Had to resist emptying the weapon from pure adrenaline overload.

Then he got down again.

Nothing.

Nothing since the scream.

Had he killed Corey? Was Corey lying out there dead, or injured? Max remained in place. It was unbearable in here. The washing machine ground on. Wished he could stop it, wished he could listen to the silence. For the sound of movement. But with the washing machine he could hear nothing.