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She shivered with dread. Right now her father had broken parole and she had helped him. But if she continued, she’d be a drug trafficker, just like her father.
If she didn’t, they’d kill her family.
“Let’s go,” he said.
She touched the gas and they lurched forward. Her father shot her an impatient look as they rolled in. Sammy gave them a friendly wave and closed the gate, then retreated to his office. Her father directed her to a series of abandoned tractor trailer beds. Some were rusty and dented. But now she noticed one that had an unusual addition—a stovepipe. The trailer in question sat tucked between several others, further hiding it from detection. The only other clue was the number of footprints and tire tracks in the snow. That trailer was getting a lot of foot traffic.
She couldn’t believe it.
“I bought our used flatbed here. I still owe Sammy almost nine thousand dollars,” said Selena, her indignation rising.
“You want me to ask for a discount?” asked her father.
“No. I do not. I want to go home.”
“And we will, right after we drive to Phoenix and back.”
“That’s six hours, you know?”
Frasco shrugged. “I brought sandwiches.”
As her father had warned, Department of Corrections officer Matt Dryer was there to meet them. He was the only one they saw. He left the center trailer carrying a blue plastic tub in two hands.
“That’s it?” asked Selena. “You don’t need a truck for that.”
“First run. Only a few hundred thousand.”
“Dollars?” she squeaked looking at the innocuous plastic storage tub.
Selena wondered how many years in prison that would translate to. Her father had enlisted Selena to make the runs because it was too dangerous for him to be out of the house so much and because she refused to involve Mia in this.
“You know there’s no end to it,” Selena said. “Once we start, they won’t let us quit.”
“Hush up now,” said her father and climbed out to greet the crooked DOC officer. He wasn’t even supposed to be on the reservation without an escort. No federal official was. Gabe had taught her that.
“You all set?” asked Dryer.
Frasco grabbed one side of the tub and the two disappeared from sight. Selena heard the truck doors open, close and lock. The drugs were now in her truck. She thought she might throw up.
Her father climbed in and moved to the center seat to make room for her new copilot. How much was Dryer getting to mix them up in this?
She thought of her siblings and put the truck in gear. They pulled out and had not gone a quarter mile when some idiot roared out of a blind drive right in front of them.
Selena’s heart rate doubled as she hit the brakes and narrowly missed broadsiding the other vehicle. The original color of the pickup before her was impossible to determine, as it had been rebuilt entirely of salvage, making it look like the Frankenstein of trucks.
Her initial blast of adrenaline receded, to be replaced by a prickling warning as her brain reengaged, signaling her that this was not coincidence. That truck had cut her off on purpose.
Their passenger must have reached the same conclusion because he shouted.
“Reverse it,” yelled Dryer and pulled a pistol from beneath his coat.
She reached for the gearshift as she gaped at this new threat and saw that the driver of the pickup was wearing a mask so that he looked like a man with a dark goatee, glasses and a black rubber hat.
The masked man was out of his truck. He pressed the rifle stock to his shoulder and aimed the business end at Dryer.
Selena had the truck in Reverse and moved her foot to the gas, but a second truck blocked her escape, pulling up fast and skidding to a halt at an angle behind her.
“Out!” yelled the masked gunman now advancing past his pickup to her right front fender and pointing his rifle at Dryer as he advanced.
Dryer threw open the door and used it as a brace to take aim with a pistol. Their attacker and Dryer both fired their weapons. Her passenger’s side window exploded and Dryer dropped to the ground in a shower of shattered glass. Selena glanced to the side mirrors and saw a second gunman approaching from the rear along her side of the truck as the masked gunman continued forward at a trot toward the place where Dryer had disappeared.
Her father lifted his hands in surrender.
“Out!” ordered the masked gunman, who now stood beside the open passenger door. Selena stared at the face that was not masked. She didn’t know which was more frightening, his rifle, aimed at her or the fact that he did not try to hide his identity. She had seen him before but did not know him.
A glance across the wide seat showed that Dryer was nowhere in sight.
Frasco slid across the seat and dropped to the ground as the masked attacker retreated a step. Selena heard the crunch of glass as she followed her father, sliding away from the unmasked attacker, across the warm vinyl and out into the cold air.
Dryer lay in a heap amid the shards of glass, looking as if he was just sleeping. Where was the blood?
“Move away from the truck,” the masked man said.
Something about his voice sounded familiar. She looked at his hands as they gripped the rifle, brown finger ready on the trigger. His skin was the same color as hers. Then she looked past the mask to the only thing she could see. His dark brown eyes. Also familiar. She glanced back to the yard of Leekela’s place. Sammy had a younger brother who had a build just like this and he was rumored to be an addict. Jason Leekela, she thought.
He came forward, rifle barrel swinging from her to her father. Her dad dropped and reached for Dryer’s pistol.
“No!” she shouted, drawing the man’s attention for just a second.
Then he swung the rifle around and struck her father with the wooden stock. Her father dropped on top of Dryer. Dryer’s pistol skittered on the icy pavement to within inches of her boot.
She did not make a move to touch it.
“Smart girl. Always were smart, Selena,” said the masked gunman.
Did he know her, too?
The second gunman had vanished. Was he waiting at the rear of the truck?
The masked gunman pointed the rifle barrel at the pistol at her feet.
“Kick that over here.”
She did and he retrieved it, tucking the weapon in the pocket of his ragged army-green jacket. She was sure now. She’d seen him in that jacket in town, looking gaunt, and his eyes had been bloodshot then, too. His brother’s dark double, the family’s cross to bear. She’d even felt sorry for him, but that was before he pointed a gun at her.
“Now, open the truck.” He motioned her to walk before him. Would he shoot her?
The fifty-foot walk was the longest of her life.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asked.
“Do you?” he replied.
“Jason, what is Sammy going to say when he finds out his own brother is robbing his shipment?”
She heard him halt and turned to glance back at him. The rifle barrel dipped.
“How did you...? Never mind. He won’t find out.” His shoulders heaved as he released a whine. “Damn it, Selena. I didn’t want to have to kill you.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_fe3d8c7c-de0d-5f02-8b8e-e3105d3146fd)
Selena’s skin went cold. Not from the snow that pelted her in tiny stinging droplets, but from deep inside as she realized that Jason was just sick and wounded and crazy enough to kill her.
“Why don’t we go see your brother?”
“No!” he shouted. “He’s never going to know about this. He can’t. Now get going.”
They reached the loading doors where the second gunman waited. She remembered seeing him at Sammy’s junkyard but could not recall his name. So Sammy’s brother and employee had decided to steal from him, but off grounds. Did they really think Sammy would not figure this out?
“Hurry up,” said the junkyard man, adding a second rifle to Jason’s, and this one was aimed at her face.
“Open the truck,” ordered Jason.
Her mind grasped and rejected several ideas as she stepped up onto the fender, but instead of an escape plan it provided the name of the second gunman. Oscar Hill. Selena lifted the latch that released the lock. Maybe they would just take the tub and leave her. She opened one door. Maybe they would kill her the minute they had the shipment.
Jason peered inside. “Where is it?”
That’s when Selena saw it, a white SUV, no lights, closing fast.
Gabe.
* * *
GABE CRESTED THE rise and spotted a battered pickup parked close to the rear of Selena’s box truck. The side door of her truck was open and something lay on the ground on the passenger side. A second pickup had the box truck pinned from the front. Selena was in the process of opening one of the two hind doors as he closed the distance. Between her and the pickup, stood two armed men.
In emergencies Gabe sank into a kind of animal brain, acting and flowing with the situation. But not this time. This time his heart thumped and his skin tingled with a feeling close to panic, because the men pointed their weapons at Selena.
One wore some kind of full head mask and both held rifles at the ready.
Selena glanced at him, said something to the gunmen and stepped into the truck’s compartment and out of sight.
Good move, Selena, he thought, hoping she would think to lie flat because that truck door would afford little protection from bullets.
As the distance diminished he saw that the pile of something beside the open door was most definitely a body, possibly two. He radioed for backup, shouting the code for a shooting and the location. Then he hit the brakes and turned the wheel so his SUV formed a barrier between him and the riflemen.
“Police. Drop your weapons,” he shouted.
The gunmen spun and raised their weapons at the same time the truck door swung open, sending the masked man staggering forward. Selena, evening the odds, he realized.
Gabe fired at the other man, taking him down. Selena now stood on the gate with a tire iron in her hand. He couldn’t shoot the second gunman without possibly hitting her. The second shooter recovered his footing and his grip on his rifle. Selena swung the iron down, hitting the barrel of his rifle so that it dropped. The shooter grabbed Selena by her long, loose hair, dragging her down. The tire iron clattered to the pavement as Selena fell against her captor.
“Let her go,” ordered Gabe.
“He has a pistol,” shouted Selena.
Her masked gunman gave her a shake and she gripped the hand that threaded into her hair with both of hers.
“Drop your gun or I kill her,” said her captor.
“Jason Leekela, you let me go before your brother finds out about this!”
Gabe knew Jason. He had arrested him more than once for possession.
“Let her go, Jason.”
But he didn’t. Instead he reached in his pocket and drew the pistol she had warned him about. Selena kicked at him. Jason staggered and Selena fell hard to her knees giving Gabe a clear shot. Jason lifted the pistol toward Gabe. Gabe fired.
Jason Leekela fell.
He landed facedown. Selena scuttled backward like a crab as Gabe came forward at a run. Selena sat on the icy road, knees drawn up to her chest.
Thank God she was safe, because he was going to kill her.
She was on her feet an instant later, throwing herself into his arms, burying her face in his coat. The familiar pull of attraction flared as her scent rose up in the icy air, like springtime in January. Still lavender, he realized. The scent was so familiar and still intoxicating, making him ache down low and deep. He drew her in, allowing himself one more full breath and the pleasure of having her arms around him again. In one hand he held Selena. In the other he held his gun.
He tried to pull her away, but she clung.
“Selena. You have to let go.”
She did. Stepping back, her cheeks wet with tears. “I’m sorry.”
That wasn’t going to do it. He had a sinking feeling that she’d crossed a line from which he couldn’t rescue her. He swallowed the lump that rose as he looked down at her forlorn, beautiful face. Why couldn’t he get over her? Why?
“Who is up front?” he asked.
“My dad and Matt Dryer. He shot Dryer and hit Dad really hard with his gun stock.”
“Dryer? The guy from DOC?”
Selena nodded. He ordered her to stand back by his vehicle, knowing he should cuff her, search her for weapons. But Gabe just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he retrieved the rifles and locked them in the rear of his unit. Then he returned to the gunman.
His pulse check told him he’d just killed two men. He glanced back at Selena who watched with wide eyes as she twisted one hand with the other.
“Dead,” he reported and then went to check on Dryer and Dosela.
Frasco had struggled to a sitting position. He had a gash across the top of his head, sending a steady stream of blood down his forehead. He blinked up at Gabe and wiped his eyes. Dryer lay facedown in broken glass.
He pointed at Frasco. “You armed?”
