Lonestar Homecoming (32 page)
Douglas. She remembered Jason telling her about the underground passages to Mexico tunneling this area. It was a dangerous place.
A shadow moved inside the small guardhouse and a man stepped out. He wore a revolver at his hip. Gracie put her hand to her mouth when Cid's cohort pulled out a gun and rolled down the window. She clutched Hope to her so the child wouldn't see and closed her eyes when a shot rang out. It was more than she could bear to watch. Cid's partner got out of the car and took the electronic opener from the guard's belt. Moments later the gate slid open and the car pulled through. Cid paused for the other man to get in, then drove to the ranch house.
“Not a word from you,” Cid said, opening her door. He dragged her from the seat. She turned to help Hope out, and he shoved Gracie away. “Zita will get her.”
Curling her hands into fists, she stood back while Zita pulled her daughter from the car and pushed Hope toward her. Gracie lifted her tired daughter in her arms.
“Go back to sleep, Hope,” she murmured.
The little girl relaxed in her arms, and Gracie shuffled the weight a little as she followed Cid to the house.The door opened, and a man stood silhouetted in the light from inside the house. Sam had aged. His dark head of hair was shot through with gray now. Lines etched the skin around his mouth. He'd suffered.
His eye shifted to Hope in Gracie's arms. “Is that her?” he asked, his voice trembling.
“Hi, Sam. Let's let her sleep for now. She's had a rough day.” Gracie stepped past him with her daughter in her arms. “Is there anywhere I can lay her down?”
Sam didn't take his eyes off Hope. “The first bedroom on the left in the hall was Jason's,” he said.
Gracie started for the hall, but Cid stopped her. “We're all staying together.”
“She's tired, Cid.You've dragged her halfway across the country today. She'll sleep and we can talk,” Gracie said, keeping her voice reasonable.
He hesitated. “I'll go with you.”
“Fine.” But her gut clenched.
She'd hoped to awaken Hope and tell her to sneak out the back door. Conscious of Cid's narrowed gaze, she entered the bedroom and laid her daughter on the twin bed covered with an Arizona Cardinals spread. Jason had made so little impact on her that it seemed to be a stranger's bedroom. She brushed a kiss across Hope's forehead before backing out of the room.
Cid pushed her toward the living room. Had he always been so aggressive? What possible joy could he get from shoving her around? Her jaw hurt from clenching her teeth so tightly. When she entered the living room, both Sam and Cid's partner were sitting in chairs pulled close to the sofa. Zita stood behind them. Cid directed her to join everyone. He sat beside her and kept the gun in his hand.
Sam leaned forward. “Look, just let them go, okay? You and I can do what needs to be done.”
“Yesterday we might have agreed, Governor,” Cid said. “But today is a day too late.You will do exactly as I say or they will both die.”
Wheeler nodded. “Whatever you want. Just don't hurt Hope.”
Another person who didn't know Cid might have believed him when he assured Sam they would all live if he did as directed, but Gracie saw the flicker in Cid's eyes. He had a plan, and it didn't include letting them walk away to report him to the authorities. She had to figure out a way to get Hope free.
“Here is how we will do this,” Cid said. “You will place a call to the warden at the prison and tell him new evidence has come to light and you are overturning the sentence of Lazaro Vargas. You will instruct the warden to turn him over to Teo, who will be waiting to pick him up. In the meantime, a truck loaded with guns is on its way here. When Vargas arrives, he and the truck will cross into Mexico unhindered.Then our business is over and we will be on our way.We will leave and never see you again.”
Vargas
. The man who had ordered Michael's death. “You'll kill us,” Gracie said flatly. “There's no need, Cid.We know if we tell anyone, the cartel will kill us. I won't say anything. Neither will Sam. Right, Sam?”
“I wouldn't do anything to endanger my granddaughter's life,” he said, twisting his hands in his lap. “You can count on me.”
Cid's eyes were as dark as the night outside and just as soulless. “When we are all safe, you will be free to go.”
Lies, all lies.
Gracie tried to signal Sam with her eyes to tell him to do something, anything to get Hope away, but he wasn't looking at her.
“I'll make that call right now,” Sam said. He reached for the cordless phone on the table beside his chair, then grabbed for his pocket, but Cid waved the gun at him. “I have to look up the number of the prison,” Sam said.
Cid sat back again, and Sam pulled out his cell phone, then scrolled through it. He punched in the number on the cordless. “This is Governor Wheeler. I'd like to speak to the warden, please. I realize he's gone home for the day, but I need you to patch me through to his house. I'll wait.”
Gracie bit her lip. The die was about to be thrown, and she had no way of seeing how it could turn up okay for her and Hope. If only Michael were here. She glanced at Zita, who was biting her lip as well.
Then she turned accusing eyes to Cid. “Vargas is your father? You don't share the same name.”
His eyes gave a sullen flicker. “He never married my mother.”
“Is he the reason you got involved in the cartel?”
Cid paced to the window, then came back.“What does it matter?”
“Why do you let him use you this way?” Zita burst out in Spanish. “I do not know you anymore.”
“Shut up,” Cid answered her in the same language.
Zita waved her arms. “Never do you hear from him until a year ago, and you become a crazy man.This father's love is not worth earning. He is using you, but you are too stupid to realize, my brother.”
Cid's mouth worked. He turned his back on his sister and went to stand by the window. “We will wait in silence.”
T
WO HOURS LATER, HEADLAMPS SWEPT ACROSS THE ROOM FROM A TRUCK
rumbling by outside. Gracie tensed and scooted to the edge of the sofa cushion.Whatever was going to happen was about to start. Cid's cell phone rang, and he answered it. He spoke a few words in Spanish too softly for Gracie to hear, then closed it.
“Your
husband
will be joining you soon,” he said. “This will be faster and less painful than divorce.”
Gracie gasped and started to stand until he stepped to the sofa and shoved her back down. “This has nothing to do with Michael. Please, Cid, leave him out of it. He has two kids to raise.”
“He has no one to blame but himself. He should have stayed out of my business.” He glanced at his watch and spoke to Sam. “The warden said two hours.The time is past. I think you should call him again.” He motioned with his gun at Sam, who nodded and picked up the phone.
Gracie heard a cry from the bedroom. “Hope is awake. I need to go get her.”
Cid was watching the truck through the window. “Fine. Just hurry up.”
This might be her only chance. She had to save Hope and get help for Michael. She quickened her step and rushed toward the bedroom. She paused a moment to glance down the hall. Only bedroom doors. Maybe one of them had a sliding glass door to the outside. Or a window big enough to climb through. Hope wailed again, and Gracie hurried into the room.
Rubbing her eyes, Hope sat crying on the edge of the bed. “It's okay, honey. I'm right here,” Gracie said. She took Hope's hand and helped her from the bed, then leaned down and whispered in her ear. “We have to try to get away. Can you be very quiet, sweetheart?” Hope's tears dried, and she nodded.
Gracie lifted Hope in her arms and stepped to the doorway. “I'm taking Hope to potty. I'll be right there,” she called.
“Five minutes,” Cid barked.
Carrying her daughter, she stepped down the hallway and stopped at the bathroom door. She flipped on the light and the exhaust fan, then shut the door harder than necessary. Tiptoeing away, she went down the hall and peered through each doorway. The first two rooms only had windows that were too high for her to lift Hope through.The last one was the master bedroom, and it had a sliding glass door out onto a backyard patio.
She set Hope on the floor and held her finger to her lips. Careful to make no sound, she shut the door to the bedroom, then led Hope to the sliding door. On her first attempt the door didn't budge; then she realized she had to unlock it at the floor as well as the latch. Once it was fully unlocked, it glided open without a sound.
She led Hope through and shut it behind them. Moonlight relieved the darkness enough to show her the way along a flagstone path that wound past cacti and shrubs. If only she had keys to one of the vehicles surely parked in the three-car garage, but she and Hope had only their feet to help them escape. This ranch was miles from anywhere.They had no water, no food.There was a road but no place to hide along the barren stretch of asphalt. Her best chance of escape was to strike off into the desert, then wind back toward the road farther down and hope to find help. And she should pray.
“Mommy, I'm thirsty,” Hope whispered.
“I know, sweetheart. I am too.” She didn't dare start into the desert without water in August.
Leading Hope by the hand, she approached the back of the barn. She heard a horse inside shuffle and whinny. Of course. The horses. She could get much farther on a horse. If she had the courage to ride one. Glancing at her daughter, she knew there was no other way.
“This way,” she whispered.
She tried the back door to the barn and found it unlocked. Stepping inside, the scents of hay and horse assaulted her noses, and she nearly changed her mind. Hope clutched at her hand, and Gracie found the strength to move forward. First she got her daughter some water, then Gracie drank too. She saw no canteens around, but there was a half-empty water bottle. She refilled it. It might not be the most sanitary thing, but it was better than no water at all in the Sonoran Desert.
“Hold this for me, sweetheart,” she said. Gracie's breath began to come in short, laboring pants as she approached the horse. A bridle hung on the stall, and she grabbed it, then stepped into the pen with the sorrel mare.
“Easy,” she murmured when the mare shuffled.
Gracie slipped the bridle into place, then led the horse from the stall. Hope hung back, but Gracie motioned her forward, then lifted her onto the horse's back. The sorrel stood still for her, and she thanked God for it. When she led the horse through the rear of the barn, she heard shouts from the ranch house.
“They know we're missing,” she said. Holding the reins, she climbed the wooden fence of the corral, then slid onto the horse's back behind Hope. “Hold tight, honey,” she said.
She dug her heels into the mare's side and urged the horse into a canter away from the barn. Going in this direction, the barn would hide their silhouette, at least until someone came this way.
The night air should have felt refreshing, but Gracie couldn't stop shivering. She clung to the reins and rode like a sack of feed on the horse's back until her childhood training began to take over.Then the ride smoothed out, and her shudders began to ease. They reached a stand of paloverde trees, and she stopped the horse long enough to gaze back toward the ranch. No hoofbeats came to her ears, just the distant shouts from the house. She and Hope were far enough away now that they couldn't be seen from the house. Facing forward again, she glanced around the empty desert.With only the stars to guide her, she had only a vague idea of where to find the road. Better not to go there yet.Their silhouette atop the horse would be easier for the arriving cartel to spot.
She strained to see some twinkle of light, some indication of another dwelling in this wilderness, but she saw nothing but endless night. She and Hope were alone out here. No, not alone. Not now. God was here. Gracie started north, praying she could intercept Michael in time.
Lights from the road approached. Maybe her prayers were about to be answered. She urged the horse to a gallop. The wind lifted her hair. Another few feet and she could see who was in the truck. She heard a voice.
“Mommy, I smell oranges,” Hope whispered.
“So do I.” Before she had time to turn away, the truck stopped and a man waved a gun at them.
She turned the horse's head, but bullets slammed into the sand by the horse's hooves. The mare snorted and reared. Gracie clutched Hope, but they both went sailing into the air.
M
ICHAEL PUT DOWN HIS BINOCULARS
. “T
HERE'S A BIG TRUCK OUT FRONT
.
I can't see into the house.”The two men stood on the road by the lane that led to Governor Wheeler's ranch.
“She might not even be there,” Rick warned.
“If she's not, I don't know where to look next,” he said. “I'm going in.”
“What about your backup? Weren't they supposed to be here?”
Michael glanced at his watch. “Yeah. Half an hour ago. Maybe I'd better call Estevez again.”
A voice spoke out of the darkness. “That won't be necessary.” Gravel crunched, then a figure stepped onto the road. Israel Fishman held a gun in his right hand. It was pointed at Michael. “Estevez had to inform me to mobilize help, of course. He's safe at home, assuming I've sent men to rescue you. He's much too trusting.”
The moonlight illuminated Fishman's grim stare. Michael glanced from that stern face to the gun, then back. “Not you. I thought you were one of the good guys.”
“I am. Most of the time. Sometimes it pays to look the other way.” He moved closer. “In fact, it pays
very
well.”
“Did you turn your back on Phil too?” Michael had to ask, even though the answer stared at him in the form of a gun's bore.
