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“Uh…three, maybe four days, I’m not sure.”
“Do you have a cell phone number?”
“Yes, but would you allow me to get in contact with her first? She’s going to take the news about Allen hard. She’ll blame herself for his death and she’s already under a load.”
“Yes, all right,” Broyles said. “But as soon as you contact her, please have her call us.”
“Will do,” Mynton said.
He hung up the phone, then flipped through his Rolodex for Sonora’s cell phone number.
* * *
By noon, Mynton had left three messages on Sonora’s cell without receiving a call back. He was worried and frustrated by his inability to reach her, but he knew that, if she was okay, she would eventually return his call. It was fifteen minutes to one when he left the office for a lunch meeting.
* * *
After riding all night and stopping for a few hours at a motel, it was close to sunset when Sonora mounted the Harley and got back on the road. The setting sun was at her back as she rolled out onto the interstate.
The night promised to be clear. The first star of evening was already out and although the air was swiftly cooling, the heat of the pavement was still a force with which to be reckoned.
The power of the Harley carried Sonora swiftly down the highway. She rode with the confidence of a seasoned biker. Just before the last of the light faded away, Sonora signaled to change lanes, then glanced in the rearview mirror. The last thing she expected to see was the outline of a horse and rider up in the sky, following at her back.
Startled by the sight, the bike swerved slightly. She quickly regained control and then ventured another glance. This time, she saw nothing but a scattering of clouds.
Rattled, she curled her fingers tighter around the handlebars and focused on the road ahead.
It was nothing but clouds in an odd formation—no way had she seen a ghost rider.
No way, indeed.
* * *
Miguel Garcia was ticked off. He’d beaten Buddy Allen senseless and still wasn’t any better off than he’d been when he’d walked into the apartment. Either the man didn’t know, or he’d rather die than tell where Sonora Jordan had gone. All he’d gotten from his visit to Allen’s apartment was a photo of Sonora. He’d seen her driver’s license photo, but it did not hold a candle to the one Buddy had in a frame. Miguel stared at the image, eyeing the copper-colored skin and straight black hair. Her eyes were dark and almond shaped, her lips full with a twist that could be read as sensual or sarcastic.
Miguel had to admit that Sonora Jordan was beautiful. But beautiful or not, she’d killed Juanito and helped put Enrique in prison and for that she would pay.
Before he’d left the neighborhood, he’d done a little investigating, spread a little money around and learned that Buddy Allen used to have a Harley parked near his pickup truck, but that he’d ridden away on it about five days ago and come back in a cab. After that, he’d drawn a blank.
Once he got back to his hotel room, Miguel made a call to Jorge Diaz to see if he had any contacts in Phoenix who could hack into computer systems. Jorge had given him a name. Toke Hopper. It turned out to be a good one.
At Miguel’s instructions, Toke hacked into the Arizona DMV and discovered that the missing Harley actually belonged to Sonora Jordan, not Robert Allen.
Since Miguel had already been to her apartment and seen the amount of accumulating mail dropped through the slot in her door, he was guessing that she’d already been gone for a few days. He’d been puzzled by the fact that her car was still in its parking place, and assumed she’d taken a plane or a bus out of Phoenix.
Just to make sure his guess had been right, he had Toke check the passenger lists of airlines and buses for the past week. To his surprise, Sonora Jordan had not used either to leave the city. The only thing missing besides Sonora herself was the Harley. If she left town on it, he had no way of knowing a destination.
He decided to go back to her apartment and look again. Maybe he’d missed something before that would make sense to him now.
He paid off the hacker and drove back to Sonora’s apartment building, then walked in like he owned the place. It was quarter to eleven in the morning and most of the residents were at work. No one challenged him as he rode the elevator up to her floor and picked the lock on her door as he’d done before.
Once inside, he began going through papers, looking for something—anything—that would give him a clue as to where she’d gone. Thirty minutes later he was no closer to an answer than he had been when he came in, and was ready to give up. He was on his way out of the kitchen when he accidentally dropped his car keys. As he was picking them up, he noticed something on the floor underneath the island. He got down on his hands and knees and pulled it out.
It was nothing but a book. He had a difficult time speaking English and couldn’t read it at all, so he was definitely disappointed. He didn’t get interested until he realized the book wasn’t just a book, it was an atlas—a book of maps.
He was looking for a woman who’d obviously gone on a trip, so he started at the beginning and began turning pages one by one. About six pages in, he came to the page showing the map of the United States and found his first clue.
Someone had taken a highlighter and traced a path north out of Phoenix and into Oklahoma. The yellow line ended near a small town on the interstate called Henryetta.
He didn’t know how old the atlas was, or if the yellow line was from a previous trip, but it was simple enough to check out. Within minutes he was gone.
He made Flagstaff around four o’clock and immediately began flashing her picture around at gas stations and eating establishments. It took a couple of hours before he hit pay dirt.
He found an employee at a gas station who remembered a pretty woman wearing black leather and riding a Harley. When Miguel showed him Sonora’s picture, he confirmed it was her that he’d seen.
Miguel was congratulating himself on his detective work and thought about driving on through the night, but when he saw the gathering thunderstorms, he changed his mind. He got a room for the night and settled in, satisfied that he was on the right track.
* * *
Sonora was still rattled by her latest hallucination as she rode through Amarillo, Texas, but kept going.
She never knew when she crossed the Oklahoma border, but when the sun finally came up, she saw a sign on the side of the road indicating Clinton and Weatherford were only a few miles ahead. She’d never heard of Clinton, but for some reason, she knew Weatherford was in Oklahoma.
Just knowing that she was in the state fueled a sense of urgency she didn’t understand, but she was too weary to go any farther until she’d gotten some food and some sleep.
* * *
Adam Two Eagles had watched the sun rise, then fed his cat before making himself sit down and write checks to pay his bills. Some time today he was going to have to go into town and get groceries, but not for a while. The day was too nice to waste and he’d promised some families he’d go visit and make medicine for them.
And so the day passed as Adam made visits and answered a couple of phone calls for help from his cell phone. He worked without thought of what waited for him back home until it was getting late and he had yet to go to town and get his groceries. In a few hours it would be dark. He thought about waiting until tomorrow to go shopping and started to go inside his house, when suddenly the front door swung shut in front of him.
Startled, he stopped, opened it, then stood on the threshold and waited, expecting to feel a draft from an open window somewhere in the house.
He felt nothing.
The skin crawled on the back of his neck.
He turned and looked toward the horizon.
The sense of imminency was still with him.
“Okay,” he said softly. “I will go to town.”
Chapter 5
A man was in the motel parking lot cursing the flat he’d found on his car as a police siren sounded a few blocks over.
Sonora heard none of it. The air-conditioning unit near her bed was a buffer against the heat outside, as well as the noise. She slept deeply and without moving, until she began to dream.
* * *
She was surrounded by trees. The wind was rustling the leaves overhead. In the distance, she could hear coyotes. She was lost, and yet she wasn’t afraid. Something flew past her—most likely an owl. They were night hunters—like her. As soon as she thought that, she frowned. Why had she referred to herself as a night hunter? That made no sense.
A twig snapped off to her right.
Sonora froze. Something—or someone—was out there.
“Who’s there?” she asked, and then feared the answer.
Another twig snapped. This time from behind her. She wanted to turn around, but as always, she couldn’t move.
“Stop it,” she yelled. “Either speak up or get the hell away from me. This isn’t funny!”
Wind lifted the hair from the back of her neck as she curled her fingers into fists. It took a few moments for it to sink in that the gust of wind was past, but that her hair was still up.
She heard a sigh, then felt something brush the skin above her collar.
“No, no, no,” she moaned. “I want to wake up.”
“Not yet,” someone whispered.
Sonora shuddered.
“Shh, pretty woman…you are safe.”
“Oh, God, oh, God, I need this to stop. I’m waking up now. Do you hear me? I’m waking up now!”
She closed her eyes, counted to ten and then opened them, expecting to be anywhere but in a forest, in the dark, with a stranger at her back.
“Why am I not awake?” she moaned.
“Because we are not done,” he said softly.
“Then show yourself, damn it!”
There was a long moment of silence. Sonora waited—uncertain what would happen first. Either he would disappear, or she would wake up. Then suddenly, her hair was laying against her neck once more, and she thought she heard him whisper something near her ear. She wasn’t sure. It could have been the wind, but she thought she heard him say, “As you wish.”
She closed her eyes.
“Look at me.”
Panic hit her like a blow to the gut. Be careful of what you ask for, she thought.
“Woman. Look. At. Me.”
His voice was firm, but she was no longer afraid.
She took a deep breath and then opened her eyes just as a cloud blew over the moon. In the dark, all she could see were his eyes, looking down at her and glittering like a wolf.
So he was tall.
She felt his breath upon her face, or maybe it was just the wind.
“Do you see me?” he asked.
The wind blew the last of the cloud away from the face of the moon, and he was revealed to her in the moonlight.
It was a stunning face—a face that appeared to have been carved out of rock—all angles and hard planes—except for his mouth. It was full and curved in just a hint of a smile. When he saw that she was looking at his lips, she saw his nostrils flare.
“I see you,” she said.
“Then come to me,” he demanded.
* * *
Sonora woke up just as someone fell against the outside door of her motel room. She heard a burst of muffled laughter and then the sounds faded away.
“Oh, God, what is happening to me?” she whispered. “Am I going insane?”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and looked for the digital clock. It was either broken or unplugged, because the digital readout was dark. She turned on a light, then glanced around for her watch. She didn’t see it, tried to remember when she’d looked at it last and failed.
“Great,” she muttered, then stumbled to the window. It was still daylight outside.
She glanced back at the bed and then frowned. There was no way she was going back to bed and chance resuming that dream. It was too unsettling. Without giving herself time to rethink the decision, she hurried to the bathroom. The sooner she got cleaned up and dressed, the sooner she could leave.
She didn’t know for sure where she was going, but that hadn’t stopped her yet. If she admitted the truth, she hadn’t been in control of her life since that day in Tijuana when she’d fallen flat on her face and into what she could only describe as a parallel world. From the time she’d left Phoenix to right now in this strange motel room in a state named for the Native Americans who peopled it, she’d been led by something more powerful than anything she’d ever known before. As confused as she felt, she had come to believe that something—or someone would continue to lead her in the right direction.
As she was dressing, she remembered she’d been going to call her boss. She took the phone off the charger and made the call to the Arizona headquarters of the DEA, but when she was put through to Mynton’s office, he was gone. Frustrated, she left him a message saying that she was okay and she’d call him later.
Within an hour, she was back on the Harley with the sun at her back, trusting in a force she could not see.
* * *
Franklin Blue Cat was asleep in his favorite lounge chair on the back porch. The disease he was battling and the medications he was taking to fight it often left his body feeling chilled and old beyond his years. Shaded from the sun and with the breeze in his face, he reveled in the heat of summer.
Although he was still, his sleep was restless, as if his mind refused to waste what little time he had left. In the middle of a breath, pain plowed through his body, bringing him to an immediate upright position and gasping for air. He struggled against panic, wondering if he would be afraid like this when his last breath had come and gone, then shoved the thought aside.
He believed in a higher power and he believed that when his body quit, his spirit did not. It was enough.
He glanced at his work in progress and then pushed himself up from the chair. For whatever odd reason, he had a compulsion to finish this piece before he was too weak to work.
Once up, he decided to get something to drink before he resumed carving. He was in the kitchen when he heard a commotion outside in the front yard. He hurried onto the porch. At first, he saw nothing, although he still heard the sound. Puzzled, he stepped off the porch, then looked up.
High above the house, an eagle was circling. Every now and then it would let out a cry, and each time it did, it raised goose bumps on Franklin’s arms.
“I see you, brother,” Franklin said.
The eagle seemed to dip his wings, as if to answer, “I see you, too.”
