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Internal Affairs had nailed the cop Jake had spoken to. Jake had finished his current assignment and then, because he couldn’t trust himself, he’d turned in his badge.
He’d been unable to erase the face of a mother protecting her child while he’d sat there doing nothing.
And now here she was, renting an old cabin. Angela had planted something in the dirt in front. From a distance it looked like shrubs. The curtains were new and colorful. Two bright red outdoor chairs sat in the yard.
Jake had thought protecting forests would be a way to give back but not endanger anyone. He’d been wrong. There were just as many criminals in the wilderness as there were in the city. More, maybe.
Like the Rubio family.
Miguel Rubio had returned home just this morning after being gone two full days. According to Rafe, the man had been with another woman in Adobe Ridge, a small town not even an hour away. Jake wondered if Judy, the mother of his children, knew. She’d not left the house in two days, not even to let her little boy play in the sun.
Come to think of it, Jake had never seen Billy playing out front.
Jake really should be watching the Rubio cabin instead of Angela’s, wondering how, of all places, she’d found her way to his turf.
Angela Taylor. He needed to think of her as Angela Taylor.
Witness protection usually worked and, by all accounts, Angela had followed protocol. She’d eliminated contact with all family and friends, and she and her twin sister had made a totally new life.
They’d chosen a lifestyle completely different from the one in their previous lives and memorized personal histories with nothing personal about them. Marena had changed her appearance and lived as a single young mother who never dated and whose consistent was taking martial arts classes.
And now she’d changed it again. Her hair was straight, no bangs, and it cascaded down her shoulders. She wore little or no makeup. An emerald-green cowl circled her neck. She was probably an inch shorter than he was.
He knew her story by heart. Still dreamed it.
He’d blown their cover.
Guilt had him gripping the binoculars tighter. Luckily, watching her, he could tell she didn’t even limp. Amazing what a prosthetic leg could do. His fault, though. All his fault.
That fateful day she’d gotten off work and picked up her two-year-old daughter from day care. She’d been riding the bus home, completely innocent, not doing anything foolish.
Until the meth-head had reached for her daughter.
When they’d crossed paths, Jake was an idealistic undercover police officer living the life of a high school gang member.
Today, halfway through his thirties, he still carried a gun—only one—but the emblem on his shirt identified him as a forest ranger instead of a cop. Lately he wasn’t sure if he could save people from themselves. His main job was to give directions, check permits and to grouse at hikers who thought it sane to enter his wilderness without alerting anyone of their whereabouts.
Speaking of whereabouts...
He scanned the area. Angela had finished preparing her trash for pickup and was now uncovering her bougainvillea bushes. Unaware she was being watched, she did a little skip dance.
“Go back in,” he whispered. Please.
Years ago Miguel Rubio had run a meth lab. Jake remembered that bust. The Rubios had lost two children to foster care. Jake didn’t know if they’d tried to reclaim them. Billy had been born after Miguel got out of prison and returned to Judy. He should be taken away, too. But “just cause” hadn’t been proved. Jake was only a forest ranger in a garbage truck, but he was hoping to stumble on evidence he could take to court.
The Rubios seldom came out front. They lived their life clustered inside or out back where only a low-flying plane or someone trespassing on foot could witness their activities. For the past two weeks their broadband activity had tripled. Something was going on. A police officer in Adobe Hills, a nearby community, had first alerted Jake. Hikers had watched two men load a dead bear into the back of a pickup. That was three weeks ago. With the right permits, that wasn’t a problem, but it wasn’t bear season. Jake’s best friend, Luke Rittenhouse, had called four days later. A tourist family from Idaho had found a baby bear in Jake’s wilderness area and had brought it to Bridget’s Animal Adventure.
“These weren’t clueless tourists,” Luke had said. “They observed the bear for a long time and realized it was alone and helpless.”
The door to the mobile home opened and the child, Billy, walked out and went down the five steps to the yard. He held a small, stuffed giraffe and turned to see if anyone had followed. He was so very small for four.
Jake watched as Judy Rubio, standing at the door, pulled her cell phone from her purse and talked into it. The expression on her face was haunted. Maybe she did know where Miguel had been the past few days.
Assured that his mother was nearby, Billy started running, stumbling a bit, but clearly happy to be outdoors and free.
Alert, Angela stopped what she was doing. Wise woman, Jake thought. She walked up the path to her cabin. She probably knew better than to get involved with neighbors, and she certainly wouldn’t want them to be curious about her, either.
A poacher could make about four hundred and fifty dollars selling black-market bear parts. The price on Angela’s head was equal to about a thousand bears. Neither Judy nor Miguel Rubio would hesitate.
About ready to head for the road, Jake started to set his binoculars on the seat just as he noticed a dark blue Cadillac pass in front of his truck.
A Cadillac? Here? He put the binoculars back to his eyes. Mud on the license plate covered part of the numbers. Jake could only make out JD2.
Billy was all the way to the road. His mother still stood half in and half out of the door. She glanced at the road, probably because she’d heard the car, and then dropped the phone into her purse. She didn’t move.
“Billy, get back here!” she called.
Angela paused at the steps leading up to her cabin.
Jake looked back at the Cadillac. Billy was heading for the passenger-side door. Jake could see a puppy’s head sticking out the window, and he watched as Billy reached for the animal.
Stranger Danger paled when faced with the allure of a puppy, especially to a little boy.
Then, the puppy disappeared back into the car.
Jake dropped his binoculars, started the engine and drove the garbage truck their way. Billy’s mother stood on her porch shouting at the Cadillac.
Unbidden, the rhyme about “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me” popped into Jake’s mind. What kind of mother would just stand there?
Angela didn’t hesitate. With unbelievable speed she crossed her yard and was at the edge of the cul-de-sac before Billy’s mother could take a breath between curse words. At that exact moment the Caddie’s passenger grabbed Billy, yanked the boy up and began pulling him through the window. Billy’s legs were starting to disappear into the car.
Jake turned into their cul-de-sac. Angela leaped, Tarzan-style, and managed to snag Billy’s left foot. And her with one leg! She somehow managed to edge the boy out of the car a few inches.
Briefly.
His shoe came off, sending Angela tumbling to the ground and freeing the vehicle to execute a doughnut, complete with burning rubber, before coming face to face with Jake’s garbage truck. Blocking their way.
The car paused momentarily then headed for the third neighbor’s dirt lawn.
Angela’s feet didn’t seem to touch the ground as she rounded the garbage truck. She grabbed the Cadillac’s back passenger-door handle, her black hair flying behind her, and yanked.
It was locked.
“Hit the ground!” Jake shouted to her as he exited his truck and ran toward the Cadillac.
The vehicle slowed; Angela held on with one hand while frantically trying to get hold of the front passenger-side door with the other.
One thing about the kidnappers was clear. They were definitely after Billy but not willing to risk Angela’s life.
“Hit the ground now!” Jake shouted, stopping right next to the Cadillac.
Angela hit the ground, rolled out of Jake’s way and then jumped back up. The front passenger’s mouth opened to a silent “Oh.” Jake couldn’t see the driver, but the driver must have seen him. The engine only had time to rev once.
Jake shot the back tire and made it to the side door. Billy’s legs were still hanging out the window; one shoe on, one shoe off.
The kid was screaming.
The driver had a gun but couldn’t find his shot with Billy in the way.
Billy, however, wasn’t being raised by the Cleavers. Survival was instinctive. The moment his shocked captor loosened his grip he pushed himself out the window.
Angela jumped up, lunged Billy’s way and caught him. Both of them hit the ground hard and rolled away from the car even as the driver finally found his mark and pulled the trigger.
Instinctively, Jake lunged for cover behind the Rubios’s garbage container. The bullet went through it and struck Jake in the chest.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_92bb6422-071e-5725-b54a-45d78b1d295c)
ANGELA’S EVERY INSTINCT screamed run. Run now!
The driver of the Cadillac obviously listened to the same screaming instinct. With screeching tires, one very flat, it tore up the dirt in the mobile home’s yard. Next, it hit the right rear bumper of the neighbor’s old blue truck as well as the side of the garbage truck before it hobbled away from the scene of the crime. The driver obviously needed the thick glasses he wore, she thought in passing. The two men inside didn’t bother with a backward glance.
“Mom. Mom. Mom.” Billy ran to his mother, who was still on the porch. She hadn’t moved since the whole thing began.
Great, Angela had no choice. The man had been trying to help and may have been shot because...
Angela didn’t want to think about why.
Blood was slowly spreading across the garbage man’s shirt. The embroidered white name badge read Albert; the look in the man’s eyes read Pain.
It was Jake Farraday from Sunday night.
“Pain is good,” Angela assured him. “It’s when you don’t feel anything that you have to worry.”
He didn’t look convinced.
As if to prove his point, blood stained his name badge red. His lips moved and Angela caught the merest whisper of, “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. You saved the little boy. Take it easy.” She unbuttoned his shirt and saw a neat hole, nothing huge, on the right side of his chest just below the nipple. Using the shirt, she pressed it against the hole to stop the bleeding.
“Is he going to die?” Billy’s mother asked from the porch.
What was wrong with the woman? How could she just stand there? This man had saved her son’s life!
“No,” Angela said quickly as she scooted closer to the man. She wished she knew what else to do. She shouted to Billy’s mother, “Did you call 9-1-1?”
The woman looked around as if afraid someone would overhear before answering, “Nine-one-one doesn’t work out here.”
“Then call the police or fire station or something! Don’t just stand there! This man just saved your little boy.”
The woman took Billy by the arm and tucked him beside her. “I’m sorry. I can’t get involved. This was all a big misunderstanding. Please...”
Angela wasn’t sure exactly what the “please” was supposed to imply. Luckily the door on the mobile home opened and Ted Dilliard, a man Angela had seen only twice, came running out, hunkered down next to her and said, “I called the sheriff’s office right when they started pulling the little boy into the car.”
Angela had researched the neighborhood before moving in. The cabin where the woman lived was owned by a man in his eighties. She’d been hoping for a retiree; instead she got the worst kind of neighbors.
They’d more than proved that today.
An internet search had revealed that the third dwelling in the cul-de-sac—a mobile home—had been rented for the past ten years by Ted Dilliard, a divorced computer programmer who, for the most part, kept to himself. She wanted to ask him where he’d been after he’d called the police, when she and Jake were battling for the boy, but he was here now, and that had to count for something.
“Hey, fella.” Ted was all business and seemed to know what he was doing. “You breathing all right? Your lungs hurt?”
Jake nodded.
“Already blood loss is slowing,” Ted said. “That means it missed the heart and any major pulmonary vessels.”
Angela could hear the wail of sirens in the distance. Good, she needed to go inside to check on Celia. That girl could sleep through a tornado!
Without meaning to, she moved her fingers to the lock of limp, dark hair that fell across his forehead and into his eyes. He was perspiring. Arizona was hot, and it wasn’t every day a man took a bullet while picking up trash.
“Billy,” Jake whispered.
“He’s all right,” Angela whispered back. “You saved him.”
His eyes locked on hers and again he tried to say something. All that came out was “Wanted save you.”
The ambulance skidded to a stop behind the garbage truck, and both Angela and Ted were urged to take a step back.
She saw Jake glance around, looking frantic, until he locked eyes with her. His eyes were deep brown, like melted chocolate. The next moment he seemed to relax.
“He’s having trouble breathing,” said one of the paramedics. It was more an order than a statement. Just before the paramedics moved and blocked her view, Angela saw Jake Farraday’s eyes slowly close.
He no longer looked in pain.
He looked dead.
But he wasn’t, a young police officer assured her some minutes later when taking her statement and her description of the passenger. He even went so far as to point out the garbage container now set aside for evidence. It apparently had something inside that had slowed the projectile. The police officer’s words, not Angela’s. All she could think was that the bullet hadn’t slowed enough.
Even as Angela answered the questions, she tried to figure out why a forest ranger would be doing garbage duty wearing a shirt not bearing his name.
“I’m brand-new here,” Angela told the cop. “We moved in one week ago. I don’t know anybody.”
The cop wanting descriptions and asking her questions already seemed to know the answers. Angela wished she could ask a few, but no way did she want to bring attention to herself. When she was finally allowed to go back into her cabin, she paced.
They needed to leave.
But this had nothing to do with her.
And she needed to find Marena.
