Taking the Heat
“Are you happy now?” he asked once they were headed toward Coolidge.
Hadley didn’t look at him. “Happy about what?”
“Your little visit to the warden.”
“He tell you about that himself? Or did Hansen?”
“It’s no secret, if that’s what you mean. And it was foolish as hell.”
“I did what I thought I had to do. I don’t have to explain myself to any of you.”
“Oh, yeah? You’ve been here a week. Not long enough to know the death house from the health center, yet you’ve already been to see the warden. What you did sure didn’t help Tucker any. You like where you’re going, Tucker?” he asked. “You glad Officer Hadley here came to your rescue?”
Tucker said nothing. He’d wondered what this transfer business was all about. Now he knew. He had Hadley to thank, because she was green and idealistic enough to think she could make a difference.
He glowered at the back of her head, but he couldn’t really hold it against her. Not after she’d risked herself more than once to help him. Going to the warden had probably been the gutsiest move of all. Didn’t she know that?
“Tattling doesn’t go over very well with the boys, I gotta tell ya,” Eckland was saying.
“If you’re going to give me Hansen’s survivor speech, don’t bother,” Hadley responded. “He’s already done the honors. ‘It’s only the weak who have to worry, the young, the old, the fairer sex,”’ she said sarcastically. “Frankly, I think his material’s a little dated.”
“You should listen to him. Your life might depend on it sometime.”
Tucker heard the subtle threat in Eckland’s voice and wondered if Hadley had picked up on it. If so, she didn’t say anything. She sat staring pensively out her window while Tucker considered the very real possibility that the guards might somehow punish her for trying to help him. The thought made something in his gut tighten, something strangely possessive and faintly reminiscent of emotions he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
GABRIELLE COULD HARDLY keep her eyes open. They’d been driving through the monotonous desert for nearly three hours and the motion of the car, as well as the hum of its tires, was lulling her to sleep. It didn’t help that Allie had woken her several times during the night. Gabrielle had been so stressed about making this trip, she couldn’t sleep well to begin with.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She just had to survive the day. Then she’d be home with David. He’d arrived late Sunday afternoon as promised and was with Allie now, which was a comfort. She knew he’d take excellent care of their daughter.
Glancing at her window, she fought the pull of sleep by studying Randall Tucker’s reflection, a habit she’d established almost from the moment they’d left the prison. She told herself she was checking to make sure he wasn’t trying to get loose, but deep down she knew she was worried about his hand. At Eckland’s insistence, Tucker still wore cuffs as well as chains. His hand had to be hurting terribly.
If so, he gave no indication. He hadn’t spoken since they’d left.
“How’s your hand?” she asked at last, turning to face him through the metal screen. Because of the way he’d acted, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t ask about his injuries again, but she couldn’t resist. “You okay, Mr. Tucker?”
He was gazing out the window, a hard, impenetrable expression on his face. After a moment the full intensity of his blue eyes shifted to hers. “Would it make any difference if I said no?”
Eckland chuckled, the coarse sound saying it wouldn’t, but Gabrielle ignored him.
“It might,” she said.
“You saying you’d take them off?”
“I’m saying I could loosen them.”
For a moment Tucker simply looked at her. From his tough, belligerent attitude, she doubted he’d admit to needing anything, but he surprised her with a slight nod.
“Are you in a lot of pain?” she asked.
“What do you think?” He scowled and turned back to the window.
“Pull over,” she told Eckland.
Eckland ignored her. Signaling, he switched into the fast lane to pass a slow-moving U-Haul.
“Did you hear me?” she pressed.
“I heard ya,” he answered. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna listen.”
“We should check his hand. He hasn’t been out of this car in three hours. Even an unbroken hand would hurt at this point.”
“Then let it hurt. He made his bed, and he can lie in it. That’s what I say.”
Gabrielle had expected this kind of response, but she refused to settle for it. A man was in pain because of Eckland’s petty meanness, and she planned to do something about it. “What are you going to tell them at Alta Vista when we show up with an inmate whose hand is swollen to twice its normal size?” she asked.
“I’m gonna to tell ’em he’s a mean sonuvabitch who won’t quit fightin’, that’s what. That broken hand has nothing to do with me.”
“Except for the fact that it was you who cuffed him. I’m sure it’s not going to reflect well on you when I mention that, along with the fact that there wasn’t anything wrong with his hand this morning.”
Taking his eyes from the road, Eckland gaped at her. “You know his hand was already broken!”
“I do? Too bad there isn’t a medical report to prove it.”
Eckland’s pupils narrowed into small pinpoints of black. “Are you threatening me, Officer Hadley?”
“Threatening you?” She forced a cool smile despite the tension wreaking havoc in her stomach. How had she gotten herself into this power struggle? She’d never wanted to get personally involved with the men she policed, never planned to get caught up in the kind of moral dilemma she’d been facing ever since Tucker’s fight. Like Officer Bell, she longed for nothing more than to do eight hours of work for eight hours’ pay. She had her own problems. But she couldn’t sit still any longer knowing how badly Tucker had to be hurting.
“I’m not threatening anyone,” she said. “I’m merely suggesting we pull over and loosen the prisoner’s cuffs so the staff at Alta Vista won’t be overly concerned. We wouldn’t want them to start an investigation, would we? If they find out what happened last week, a few heads are going to roll.”
“Yours will be one of ’em,” Eckland snarled.
“Mine might be the first, but I guarantee it won’t be the last,” she said softly, and she meant it. If she lost her job at the prison, there’d be nothing to stop her from going to the press with the story of Hansen’s behavior.
“I liked you when you started last week,” Eckland said, “but you haven’t done much to impress me since then. You’re treading on very thin ice, Officer Hadley. I suggest you watch your step.”
Gabrielle squared her shoulders and gave him a withering glare. “I suggest you pull over and let me loosen the prisoner’s cuffs.”
“Fine!” Nostrils flaring, Eckland slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the right. The sudden deceleration threw Gabrielle against her shoulder harness. She glanced sideways at him to ask why he was driving so recklessly, but before she could say anything, they nearly clipped the front of a car in the other lane. Eckland overcorrected and hit the opposite shoulder, which spun them like a carnival ride and left them facing an oncoming pickup.
Brakes squealing, the truck swerved, skidded and smashed into them. The hood of their car crumpled like an accordion. Gabrielle heard Eckland scream amid the crunch of folding metal. Tucker cursed and his weight hit the back of her seat as the impact tossed the car into a nearby gully.
For a stunned moment Gabrielle sat there, breathing hard. They’d crashed. Thanks to Eckland and his giant ego, they’d nearly died. Gabrielle knew she was alive, but she wasn’t sure she was still in one piece. She did a mental checklist of her body parts, searching for pain or injury, wondering if the absence of feeling meant something worse than the presence of it. Was she in shock? Had she been paralyzed?
She wiggled her toes and fingers and found them all in working order, but her knees had hit her chest. It soon felt as if someone had flung an anvil at it.
Still, she was going to be okay, she decided. What about Eckland—and Tucker?
Eckland was groaning and complaining about his leg. Gabrielle fumbled with her seat belt, trying to free herself so she could help him when she heard Tucker’s voice behind her.
“Hadley, get these damn cuffs off.”
His hand. His poor hand. She was shaking so badly she could barely unlatch her seat belt. “Are you okay?” she asked, twisting to peer through the metal screen.
Tucker’s door was smashed in and he was doubled over. She couldn’t see anything except the thick black hair on the back of his head. “Tucker? Are you hurt?”
He groaned. “Just get these damn cuffs off.”
“No, don’t do it,” Eckland said between clenched teeth. “Just sit tight. I’ll radio for help.” He shifted, reaching for the radio, and Hadley cringed as she caught a glimpse of his torn pants and the leg beneath, which was obviously broken. She imagined she saw the bone jutting through the skin and nearly threw up. The only way they were going to get out of here was in an ambulance, she realized. They already had one broken leg. Then there was Tucker’s arm. Had he sustained further injury? Was there anything she could do to help?
“What’s wrong?” she asked Tucker again as Eckland, panting through his pain, placed their distress call. “Do you have new injuries?”
He didn’t answer.
“Leave him be! Help’s on the way,” Eckland grunted when he got off the radio.
She ignored him. Help could take an hour or more. Wrenching her door open, she rushed around the car. At least Eckland was free. At least he could move, to some extent. Tucker was still chained, couldn’t use his hands or his legs.
The back door required all her strength to open and creaked loudly as she pulled it back. Hunched over, his wrists still locked in his lap, Tucker barely moved but she could see his hand. It was black and blue and so swollen she couldn’t see the metal of the cuff anymore. And his face, when he finally looked at her, showed glassy eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, fumbling with the ring on her belt for the key that would release him.
“Hadley, don’t you dare, dammit,” Eckland said, but he was in too much pain to do more than curse.
A thin sheen of sweat was popping out on Tucker’s forehead and he’d closed his eyes as though he didn’t have the strength to speak.
“I have to. I can’t stand to leave him like this,” she told Eckland, unlocking the cuffs and kicking herself for not loosening them sooner.
Tucker cradled his hand in his lap and sucked in an audible breath. For a moment, the gray tinge to his skin grew worse. Gabrielle thought he was going to pass out, but he surprised her by grabbing her forearm and pinning her beneath him.
“What are you doing? Don’t make things any worse for yourself,” she cautioned, the terror of what he could do finally dispelling the dazed confusion caused by the accident. “You heard Eckland call for help. They’ll be here soon. Just sit back and relax.”
Eckland growled Tucker’s name, threatening and swearing at him, but Tucker didn’t answer. Suddenly alert and quick-witted as a cat—and seemingly oblivious to any kind of pain—he used his left hand to search through her keys and unlock his belly chain and leg irons. Rolling over her, he held her down with one knee while he recovered the handcuffs, locked her right hand to the screen between the seats and got out of the car. Then he scanned the horizon—and started running.
CHAPTER FIVE
HE WAS ESCAPING. Gabrielle couldn’t believe it. She used what little room the cuffs allowed to stand outside the open door of the car, where she could watch Tucker cross the deserted highway. Once he reached the other side, he started jogging into the desert as blithely as though he’d planned the whole thing. Jogging! He was jogging!
“Damn you, Tucker,” Gabrielle muttered, even angrier with herself because she’d let him fool her. This was what her compassion had brought her. An escaped convict, an injured guard, another disabled vehicle with God only knows how many people inside—and the burning desire to bring Tucker back, regardless of anything else.
Eckland managed to meet her hand with his keys, and she unlocked herself. It took some doing and by the time she was free, Tucker was well on his way.
Should she go after him? She glanced at Eckland, then the other car, and decided she’d better attend to the injured.
Eckland was swearing a blue streak, but his condition hadn’t worsened. The truck, which had rolled at least once, was still partially on the highway. The windshield hadn’t shattered, but it was cracked into a spiderweb Gabrielle couldn’t see through. A peek in the side window, which was still intact, revealed two occupants—a middle-aged woman driver and a man who looked to be in his early twenties. The driver had hit her face on the steering wheel and cut her lip. She was bleeding, though not profusely, and the man was rubbing a knot on his forehead where he’d banged into the windshield or dash. They were both luckier than Eckland.
Gabrielle helped them out and away from the truck, got a first-aid kit out of the patrol car for their use, and lit some flares to warn other motorists to slow down. Then she stood off to the side to wait for the ambulance.
But the sight of Tucker’s retreating figure, growing smaller and smaller as he made his way up the mountain closest to the road, taunted her. If she let him get very far into the desert, they might never find him. The Mexican border was only fifty miles or so to the south. He could slip across and easily disappear….
If he made it to the border. Chances were better that he’d die of dehydration long before he reached Mexico. He was injured, had no water, and they were in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, one of the hottest, driest places in all of North America. Temperatures this time of year often reached one hundred and twenty degrees. Though Gabrielle wasn’t sure exactly how that would translate into surface heat, she knew the ground would be a whole heck of a lot hotter than the air, probably one seventy or one eighty degrees.
What was Tucker thinking? That he’d rather die than go to Alta Vista?
Evidently.
Telling herself she’d worry about Tucker later, she walked back to see if there was anything she could do for Eckland, but he didn’t want her company.
“Stay the hell away,” he growled. “You’ve done enough.”
“Are you bleeding anywhere?” she persisted.
“My leg’s broke. That’s it. Nothing we can do but wait.”
“You don’t seem to have a back or neck injury. If it would make you more comfortable, I could probably help you out of the car.”
“I don’t want your help. I don’t want to be touched.”
“Okay.” Gabrielle took a deep breath. At least she’d tried.
When she rejoined the people from the truck, the man was using some gauze to help the woman stanch the bleeding on her lip. Gabrielle could tell from their exchange that they were mother and son, but they weren’t particularly interested in speaking to her. She didn’t have much to say, anyway. Other drivers were stopping to see if they could help, creating a diversion. And she was too busy flogging herself for letting Tucker escape in the first place.
Raising a hand to shade her eyes from the bright morning sun—which promised to raise temperatures even more by midafternoon—she watched Tucker’s progress through the haze of heat that shimmered all around him, making him look more like a mirage than a flesh-and-blood man. Though he was moving slowly now that he had to climb, he was nearly halfway up the first rocky mountain, which was probably a mile and a half away. Every step he took made Gabrielle grind her teeth in frustration. Soon he’d be out of sight, and then…and then there was no telling what would happen to him.
She remembered the pain in his eyes, knew he couldn’t have faked that as easily as he might have exaggerated his moans and grunts, and made the only decision she could live with. She might be responsible for Randall Tucker’s escape, but she wasn’t going to be responsible for his death.
Hurrying back to the car, she found Eckland, ashen-faced, head back, eyes closed. But the moment she ducked into the open passenger-side door and started rummaging around, he sat up and glared at her.
“What are you doing now?” he asked.
“I’m going after him.”
His brows knitted and anger flashed in his eyes. “You’re what? Are you nuts? It’s got to be over a hundred degrees already. You’ll get heatstroke inside an hour.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what, damn you?”
“He can’t survive.”
“You’re still worried about Tucker?” He winced and stared down at his leg.
“He could die if I don’t bring him back.”
“And you could die going after him. You could get lost, run out of water, get bit by a rattlesnake or—”
“I’m taking the gallon of water I brought and leaving you with yours,” she said, cutting him off because now that she was heading into the desert, there wasn’t any point in giving Tucker more of a lead. “I’ll have someone come and sit with you to answer the radio, in case—” she licked her lips “—in case you pass out or something. Help will be here soon. Try to hang on to that.”
She checked the magazine in her semiautomatic Glock 9 mm, then slid the warm metal nozzle back into her hip holster. She was trying to save Randall Tucker’s life, not take it, but if he attacked her…
She swallowed hard and chose not to think about what might happen if he got the better of her. The vast desert, the scorching sun, the scorpions and snakes would probably get her first. But that thought wasn’t much of an improvement over the last. Not with Allie waiting for her at home.
Thank God, David was there.
“I’d stay here with you if there was anything I could do,” she told Eckland as she gathered what food and water she had, “but there’s nothing. You said it yourself.”
He’d closed his eyes again while she was talking, and this time when he spoke, he didn’t open them. “Don’t do it.”
Trying to think of a way to carry the cumbersome water jug, which would prove heavy after a while, she grabbed her giant black leather purse that often doubled as a diaper bag. “I have to.”
“Why?” he rasped. “What’s one Randall Tucker, more or less? Our prisons are full of filthy murderers like him.”
Gabrielle remained silent long enough that he finally opened his eyes. “He’s out there because of me. And respect for human life might be the only thing that separates us from them.”
“Then you’ll be dead.”
“Maybe,” she said, and slipped the strap of her purse across her body so she could carry the water on her back. “But I’ve got the gun and food and water. He’s hurt, and he has no water, nothing. Why not show a little confidence and have a car waiting for me just in case I manage to bring him back?”
“Right,” Eckland said with a hoarse chuckle. “I’ll have a hearse parked right by the side of the road.”
TUCKER COULDN’T BELIEVE his eyes. He’d known the police would come looking for him eventually. But he’d never imagined Officer Hadley would strike out after him on her own. Evidently she wasn’t only an idealist. She was a reckless fool. He had good reason to risk his miserable life; she did not.
Pausing in the shade of a rock overhang—the only shade for miles, it seemed—he watched her approach, and felt his mood darken. The initial surge of exhilaration he’d felt at obtaining his freedom had staved off some of the pain in his hand, but now the throbbing surged up his arm and through his whole right side until he thought he might pass out. Battling the dizziness, he mentally pulled himself away from that void, and started climbing again. He had to reach Landon. He couldn’t care about what happened to Hadley.
Climb. He wasn’t going to let her drag him back to prison under any circumstances.
Climb. Her welfare wasn’t his problem.
Climb. Breathe. It was steeper now. His foot, shod only in thin-soled, prison-issue tennis shoes, slipped, and he nearly went down. He barely managed to keep his balance, but even the concentration required to make the ascent couldn’t banish Hadley from his mind.
Stop it! Eckland and the other guards can worry about her. There’s the ridge. That’s it. One foot in front of the other.
After all, she was one of them.
Focus. Shove the pain away. Ignore the heat. One more step…
He imagined Landon calling to him, just at the top of the next rise, and then the next, and that made the going easier. “I’m coming,” he promised. “I’m coming for you, buddy. You can depend on me. I won’t let you down. I won’t ever give up. I won’t…ever…”
He had to stop to catch his breath. Though some mountains in the desert rose eight thousand feet, this wasn’t one of them—thank God. Still, it was difficult climbing with the use of only one hand, the sun robbing him of all moisture.
At least the pain was starting to ease now that the cuffs had been off long enough to allow his blood flow to return to normal. But the figure following undauntedly in his footsteps, slowly closing the distance between them, dragged at him like a lead weight.
Why didn’t Hadley turn back? What did she think she could do, even if she caught up with him? Especially now that they were so far from the highway? He didn’t even know where he was going, just somewhere, anywhere, the first small town, outpost or ranch where he could call his brother or Robert, his old business partner, for help. He could wind up lost or dead before he made contact with the outside world, and so could she. Nothing but sun-baked earth and low shrubs—creosote bush and white bursage, the two most drought-tolerant plants on the whole continent, with a few cholla and columnar cacti thrown in—surrounded them on all sides and certainly didn’t provide much to navigate by.
“You’re crazy, you know that, lady?” he said into air so dense with heat he could scarcely breathe. “What’s one more felon mean to you? Go back to the thousands waiting for you at the prison. Go back to the riots and the homemade-knife fights and the gangs, and leave me the hell alone.”
He forged on, determined to forget the slight figure trudging through the barren valley below him. She wasn’t going catch him. She’d live or she’d die. It made no difference to him. He wasn’t expected to care one way or the other—and he wouldn’t. He didn’t care. She was a guard, the enemy, almost a stranger to him.
She is also a woman, with a child at home, his conscience answered. A woman who wouldn’t be where she was if not for him. And she was one of the only people who’d shown him any compassion since the day he was accused of murdering Andrea.
The memory of Hadley wiping the blood from his lip flashed through Tucker’s mind, and he imagined her standing over him again, her hands on his face. Only this time she was tilting up his chin to give him a drink of water….
Thirst so powerful it nearly brought him to his knees swept through him. The dryness of his throat made it difficult to swallow, and he feared it wouldn’t be long before he dropped like a stone. Then what good would he be to Landon?
He had to get some water—and there was only one place to find it. Maybe he was fortunate Officer Hadley had followed him, after all. She might prove his salvation once again.
Reaching the top of the mountain he’d been scaling, he hid behind a rock outcropping that rose like a spire into the broad cloudless sky and leaned against its solid mass to wait.
The minutes ticked by, slowly. He felt her coming close, knew she’d pass the same way he’d come. She hadn’t deviated a step from his path so far. He doubted she’d change now. She felt too confident, toting that pistol that was about to do her no good.
The thought that he’d be taking something she needed just as badly as he did sent a flicker of guilt through Tucker, but he knew it was only a shadow of what he would’ve felt before prison had turned him into the man he was. He ignored it. Landon needed him. And without her precious jug of water, Hadley would be forced to go back.