Race to Rescue

TWO

Booker shoved his hands into his pockets and forced his voice into as pleasant a tone as he could manage. “Hello, Anita. Did they find Drew?”

She gaped at him. “How did you…?” Her attention was diverted by the big dog that trotted over and inclined his head for a scratch.

“Heard it from a bank teller. Pays to know where the action is in this part of the world.” He saw the fatigue and worry on her face vanish behind a mask of self-control. Ace basked in her gentle touch. Clearly the dog didn’t have as good a sense of character as he’d thought.

Anita bent down to scratch Ace behind the ears. “Hi, boy. I’m glad to see you. Looks like you’re getting around pretty good.”

Booker shoved his hands in his pockets as the dog stared at her with devotion in his eyes.

The tenderness in Anita’s voice disappeared as she straightened. “They haven’t found Drew. I’m not sure they’re devoting enough manpower to his case.”

“I’m sure you told them so.” He didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm.

She opened her mouth to answer and stopped, as if she couldn’t find any words that would work.

She was never short on words, he thought, and the look of uncertainty on her face nagged at him. He let the silence linger for a while. “I hope they find him. He’s a good guy.”

“I didn’t know you two were friends.”

He allowed himself a slight smile. “He took some pictures in my mine tunnels at your request, remember? I showed him around some spots on my neighbor’s ranch, too. We talked for a bit while he was doing the shoot.” She remembered all too well; he saw it by the tightening of her mouth, the self-righteous set to her chin. She’d used the pictures as part of her bid to persuade the town council to deny him the right to work the mine on his property. What had Leeman given her in exchange? A feature in his magazine? A nice donation toward her research? It still stung, but what hurt more was the way she’d trampled his heart in the process, as if he had meant no more to her than a stranger. Had he actually told her he loved her? It seemed unreal now. And had she stood there dumbstruck and then turned away without a word? He’d convinced himself they could have something special, but he’d learned the hard way it had all been gut-wrenchingly one-sided. Dumb cowboy, dumb mistake.

Anita cleared her throat. “Well, anyway, I’m going to search until I find him, police or no police. I was headed over to the magazine, but I hit a snag.” She gestured to the car. “Someone flattened my tires.”

He wondered how she’d managed to make an enemy already. Whoever it was had left him to wrestle with an uncomfortable decision. Should he walk away, let her beg a ride from someone else, abandon her like she’d done to him? Something about the lift of her chin and the tiny tremble in her full lips tugged at his heart. There was a carefully controlled desperation in her that called to something deep inside him.

Deal with it, Booker. You don’t have a choice and you know it. He couldn’t leave a lady stranded, even if it was the last lady he’d ever want to see again. “I can give you a lift over there, if you want.”

Her face pinked, eyes flicking up and down the dusty street as she considered. “Um, well, thank you. It’s awfully nice of you to do that for me.”

He pulled his keys from the pocket of his faded jeans. “It’s not for you. It’s for your brother.”

She grabbed her purse and followed him to a battered Ford pickup. Ace followed right behind, tail wagging.

Booker stepped ahead of her to wrench open the passenger’s door and felt a flush infuse his face as his shoulder brushed hers. “Got hit. Door sticks.”

She climbed up onto the cracked leather seat while he fired up the engine. He could smell her enticing fragrance, a faint whiff of vanilla that made his head swim. How did she manage to smell so nice in the desert heat? He concentrated on cranking up the air conditioner. Drive, Booker. Get the job done and get this lady out of your life.

As they pulled onto the road, she examined the neat, hay-scented interior and the plastic bin on the floor filled with maps. “Are you planning a trip?”

He didn’t divert his gaze from the front window. “Something like that.”

They drove the five miles in silence toward the last place on earth Booker wanted to be.

The buildings along the main street were old, wood-sided structures. The tallest was the post office, covered in a cracking layer of off-white paint. A small church advertised a summer camp, and a few children splashed in a wading pool under the shade of a gangly mesquite tree. Booker waved at a man unloading sacks of grain at Pete’s Feed and Supply.

The magazine headquarters was one of the more modern buildings in the town, with a neatly kept cluster of yucca shrubs in the front. Booker turned off the engine and shot Anita a look. He’d given her a ride. That was enough for one day, wasn’t it? “I’ll wait here.”

She hesitated. “Oh, would you come in with me? Just for a minute? I figure the more people who look concerned about my brother’s disappearance the better.”

With a sigh, he acquiesced. Ace hunkered down in the shade of a scrubby bush to wait for their return.

A blast of cool air greeted them as they checked in with a harried secretary who ushered them into an office that smelled of stale coffee and cigarettes. Booker squirmed in the chair, trying to figure a way out. A tall, lanky man with glasses and a head of curly brown hair came in. He was followed by Leeman, dressed in pleated trousers.

The curly-haired man smiled and shook their hands. “Hello. I’m Paul Gershwin, Drew’s editor. I don’t think we met last time you were here. I was on assignment in Europe. You know Cyrus Leeman, I understand.”

Leeman nodded at them, smiled at Anita and grasped her hand as he slid into a chair. “Lovely to see you again.”

Gershwin extended a hand to Booker. “I didn’t catch your name.”

Anita spoke up. “This is Booker Scott, he’s a…friend. Of Drew’s. We’re both concerned about my brother.”

He nodded. “Me, too. Drew’s kind of eccentric. It’s not unusual for him to take off for a few days, but I’m worried about that phone call you described to me.”

Anita leaned forward. “What was he working on?”

Gershwin opened his mouth to answer when Leeman cut him off. “Who knows? Your brother had a tendency to go off on tangents, if you’ll excuse me for saying so. He was likely to stumble on topics that interested him more than what we were paying him handsomely to shoot.”

She frowned, surprised at the angry tone from a man who she knew to be completely charming and self-possessed. “What are you getting at, Mr. Leeman?”

“I’m just telling you your brother is not good at following rules. He has been problematic since he came here six months ago.”

Anita stared at the editor. “Is that what you think, too, Mr. Gershwin?”

Gershwin took off his glasses and polished them on his wrinkled shirt. “He came through when it counted. Never missed a deadline. That’s all that matters to an editor.”

“Have you heard from him at all?”

Gershwin shook his head. “No. I was hoping you would say you’d talked to him again.”

“Only that one quick call, but it was a bad connection so I couldn’t understand what he was getting at. Please tell me where you think he was shooting. At least that’s a place to start.”

The editor handed her a photocopied map and pointed. “Somewhere around here. He was supposed to get us some shots about wind erosion. He said something about photographing a place southwest of here called the Painted Cliffs.”

Booker glanced at the map with a frown. “That’s no-man’s-land. Did he go alone?”

Leeman cleared his throat. “We have no idea. He never bothered to keep us apprised of his actions. We’ll certainly let you know if we hear from him. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have some layouts to look at.”

Anita stood. “Mr. Leeman, you don’t seem to have much regard for my brother. It’s almost as if you’re glad he’s gone. When I was here in the spring, you never once mentioned problems with Drew.”

“That would have been a betrayal of privacy, I believe, and, anyway, during your last visit we were concerned with saving an endangered colony of bats, as I recall.” He shot Booker a look of triumph before he gave Anita an apologetic nod. “To be perfectly honest, Ms. Teel, your brother didn’t fit in well here at Wild World. As a matter of fact, I intended to let him go after the erosion piece was done.”

Booker heard her inhale sharply. He couldn’t squash a surge of satisfaction. About time she saw Leeman’s dark side.

“And did my brother know that? That you were going to fire him?”

Leeman gave her a polite smile. “I have no idea. I’m sorry, I must get to another meeting. Trust me that we will provide the police with whatever help they require to find your brother.”

Booker trailed Anita out to the truck. She looked as if she didn’t know whether to scream or cry. Even Ace’s enthusiastic lick didn’t bring a smile to her face.

She shook her head. “They act like they’re happy he’s gone.”

“Leeman did, anyway.”

“He seemed like a different person than the man I worked with before.”

“Maybe you were too focused on your crusade to get a clear picture of him.”

Anita jerked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He clamped his jaw together. A fight would only complicate things, distract them from getting the problem solved and her out of his life. He took a deep breath and stared out the window while the engine idled. “Nothing. I think we’d better go check out your brother’s apartment right now.”

Her eyes widened. “Why? What’s wrong?”

He swiveled his gaze to her face. “We need to figure out if Drew really did go to The Painted Cliffs.”

“Where is it, anyway? You said it was no-man’s-land.”

“It’s a place the drug runners use to ferry their stuff over the border.”

She gasped. “Drug runners?”

“Uh-huh.” He pulled out onto the main road. “If he’s there, he really is in trouble.”

Booker squelched an odd sense of foreboding as they made it to Drew’s apartment building on the edge of town. The setting sun was reduced to a few amber-colored rays, which painted the whole complex—a long strip of fifteen units strung together—in an eerie glow. Each unit featured a metal front door and the same striped awning over the dust-covered windows.

Booker followed her into the super’s office, the uneasy feeling growing with every minute. The tiny, birdlike woman was reluctant to hand over the key at first. “The guy’s a deadbeat. Hasn’t paid this month’s rent. I ought to hand the matter over to the police.”

“If we find Drew, you can collect that rent he owes you,” Booker reminded her.

Finally the lady gave in and handed over the key, promising to check in on them after her soap opera was finished. Anita grabbed it and hurried ahead of him to Drew’s door.

As it swung open, she gasped and stumbled backward against his chest. He squeezed her protectively for a moment, feeling her tremble as she regained her balance. Catching a glimpse of the apartment over her shoulder, he gently placed her behind him and entered. “Stay here,” he commanded.

Keeping as quiet as he could, he did a careful walk through the mess, checking every closet as he did so. He found her in the front room when he returned.

Her cheeks were flushed, eyes bright with fear and unshed tears. “What happened here?”

The small apartment had been completely ransacked. It had only two rooms; one featured a futon and a small worktable, and had an adjoining bathroom. The other was the kitchen. The entire place had been tossed and dumped. All the drawers were opened and upended on the floor. The furniture was overturned, and bits of splintered wood showed where the rickety frames had given out. Even the canisters of sugar and flour in the kitchen were emptied all over the linoleum.

There was no sign of Drew’s laptop or camera equipment, Booker noted as he quickly dialed the police and filled them in. An old Sports Illustrated cover served as a wall decoration: Michael Jordan smiling down on the room. Even that had been torn away from the wall at one corner. Somebody had been very thorough.

Anita prowled the small space, taking a sweatshirt from its spot over the back of the wooden chair and pressing it to her face. Tears glinted in her eyes.

Booker stopped dead, feeling his heart squeeze at the stricken look on her face. Part of him wanted to wrap his arms around her, and the other part, the other part wanted to run. He settled for putting a hand gently on her arm. “You all right?”

She dashed the tears from her cheeks and turned away from him. “Yes, yes, of course I am. Are the police on their way?”

He nodded. “They’ll be along when they can.” He held up a box of granola bars, empty except for one, and a lone water bottle. “I found these in the kitchen. If I had to guess, I’d say he packed up some supplies before he left. There’s a can of peanuts on the table, too, sort of like he couldn’t fit it into his pack.” He hesitated. “Any chance he went out for some recreation, target practice, maybe?”

“No. Drew hates guns. He could never bear to shoot my father’s pistol, even.” She sank down onto the futon. “What does it mean? Who would want to trash his place? Do you think he ran into trouble from the drug runners?”

“Doesn’t help to jump to conclusions. Let’s leave here before we disturb any more evidence, and then we’ll come up with a plan for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? I want to go look for him tonight. He might be hurt, or worse.”

“No.”

“No? Why not? I know you’re mad at me, but don’t take it out on my brother.”

“I’m not doing anything of the kind, Anita. Just listen for once.” Booker held up a hand and kept his voice level, meeting those intense brown eyes full-on. “We can’t go there at night, not without some prior planning. It’s just too dangerous, and Drew wouldn’t want you doing a fool thing like that.”

She looked down at her tightly clasped hands and he wondered if she was going to listen to reason.

“I guess you’re right,” she said finally. “I’ll rent another car in the morning and go then.”

“Never mind that. I’ll take you.” He was surprised that the words spilled so readily from his mouth.

She blinked. “Why would you do that?”

Yeah, why would you do that, Booker? He gritted his teeth. Because I’m completely insane, he wanted to tell her. Out of my mind to get involved with you again, when the smallest memory of you still makes me crazy. He understood the anger she kindled inside him, the hurt. What he couldn’t wrap his mind around was the strong need that rose in his gut, the need to protect her, in spite of everything.

He cleared his throat and pointed to a small cardboard box next to the television. “Because your brother also packed those.”

Anita read the printing on the box aloud.

“Techshot Pistol Cartridges. Low Recoil.”

THREE

The nicest hotel in Rockridge happened to be the only one in that small town. Anita tried to ignore the feelings of déjà vu that plagued her as she checked in. The room was clean, painted in soothing shades of green, and the bed was relatively comfortable. Nonetheless, Anita slept only in fits and starts, waking several times fighting off a feeling of terror. The question kept burning at her. What was Drew doing with a gun? Where had he gone, and why hadn’t he called her again? Who destroyed his apartment?

The possible answers terrified her even more than her questions. The only island of comfort was Booker, and that scared her, too. She finally dragged herself out of bed after sunup and into a hot shower before calling the rental car company. There was no way she would allow Booker to become her personal taxi service. She’d told him so in no uncertain terms. She couldn’t get close to him again. She wouldn’t allow herself to.

She sat staring at the phone. While she lingered in a cozy hotel room waiting for the rental car company to get her a replacement, what was happening to her brother? Fear drove her to the window. The sky was an iron gray, layered thick with angry clouds.

The helplessness of her situation swelled inside her until she thought she would burst. She settled for throwing her shoes at the door. They cracked into the metal with a satisfying thwack.

A soft knock followed the thwack. “Great. Now I’ve got the neighbors mad at me.”

She opened the door to find a startled Booker on the other side. He wore his customary worn jeans and T-shirt with a Windbreaker thrown over it. A Cardinals baseball cap caught the first few drops of rain.

He looked uneasy. “Something hit the door.”

She forced a calm tone. “It was nothing. The rental car company is bringing me a car sometime later today. Like I told you before, you don’t need to take me anywhere.”

He leaned his weight on one hip, crossed arms accentuating his wide chest. “Figured I’d give you my cell number in case anything came up.” Without meeting her eyes, he handed her a crumpled piece of paper. His calloused fingers touched her hand, and she felt the strength of hard work and long days.

When he looked away at the clouds that massed on the horizon, she sneaked a glance at his profile. His face was tanned as ever, chin square, hair unruly where it curled out from under his cap, just as she remembered. There was a subtle difference, she noticed; deep shadows under his eyes and an unfamiliar haggard look.

A tender feeling stole over her. Don’t get sappy, she reminded herself. You did that before, and it almost distracted you from your duty.

Booker had needed to realize that mining brought nothing but hardship, especially for the delicate creatures on his ranch. She felt a sliver of guilt that she’d hurt him in the process. With a jolt, she realized she’d been staring.

He cleared his throat. “Not my place, but don’t go looking for Drew on your own.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not a helpless female.”

His smile was bitter. “Oh, I know that all too well.”

She forced her chin up. “Thanks for your concern, but it isn’t necessary.”

He looked at her, eyes searching hers as though he was looking for something he had left.

She tried to think of something, anything, to say, but Booker turned away, mumbled a goodbye and took off in his truck.

She watched him go. A strange thought danced in her mind. If he wasn’t so stubborn, would things have turned out differently between them?

No, Anita. You two are incompatible species. You walked away at just the right time, for once, like you should have done with Jack. If only she’d had the strength to walk away from him, maybe her confidence wouldn’t be so trampled. She closed the door and headed back to the phone, redialing the number Sergeant Williams had given her for the local Department of Homeland Security, aka the Border Patrol.

Yes, they were still aware of her brother’s situation, including the break-in. Someone would call her.

Later.

Though the wall of clouds was intensifying, Anita felt if she didn’t move, her body would simply explode. She pulled on the only jacket she brought—a thin, purple nylon affair that could roll up small enough to fit in a pocket—and made sure to take her satellite phone.

The air held a tinge of humidity, the clouds seeming to press on her with a great weight. There was nothing close to the hotel, nothing but a tiny gas station with a mini-mart attached. Sucking in a determined breath, she headed through the buffeting wind.

The whisper-thin man behind the mini-mart counter shot her a curious look. His tufts of white hair gave him a clownish air. “Morning. Help you with something?”

“I’m just here for a few supplies.” Scurrying down the nearest aisle, she gathered a handful of sundries: bottled water, trail mix, a couple of apples and a box of Oreos. If she was going to be on the verge of panic for a while, the Oreos would definitely help. She lugged the supplies to the counter and pulled out her wallet.

On impulse, she showed the clerk the picture of Drew. “I’m looking for my brother. Have you seen him?”

He slid on a pair of bifocals and peered at the picture. “No, ma’am. I’m sorry to say I haven’t.”

Her heart fell. “It was a long shot. Thanks, anyway.”

He added a folding umbrella to her pile with a wink. “I think maybe you’re gonna need this. On the house.”

She thanked him and turned to go when her eyes fell on a stack of leaflets. Booker’s smiling face was printed on the top, under the words Living Desert Tours. She shoved one into her pocket and stepped into the swirling wind, her thoughts whirling around just as erratically. Opening the umbrella and avoiding the water that had puddled on the pavement, she jogged back to her hotel room.

Her upper torso was the only part that escaped being drenched. She peeled off the wet clothes, pulled on a robe and spread the paper out on a cracked table, worn and ringed by countless cups of coffee.

Looking to experience the desert in a whole new way? Call Booker Scott at Living Desert Tours. Half-day and full-day trips. Lunch included.

She read the paper twice more. Why was Booker hawking desert tours? He was a cattle rancher with his hand in the opal-mining business. How much time did the man have? And more important, why did thoughts of Booker seem to fill up her mind at every opportunity? She crumpled the paper and threw it in the garbage.

A half hour later, after a lunch of trail mix and cookies, Anita’s nerves threatened to burn right through her skin. The police had no updated information on her brother’s whereabouts.

“We’re pulling in volunteer deputies to help with the search, Ms. Teel. An officer is taking prints and pictures at your brother’s apartment. We’ll call you if we find anything at all.”

She hung up and watched the hands of the clock creep inch by painful inch. The piece of paper Booker had given her materialized in her fingers. “I can’t call him.” The very idea made her cringe. After their troubled past, how could she ask him for help? She had no right.

The thought of being in the truck with him again sent an odd shiver down her spine. It was not an altogether unpleasant sensation.

She shook the thought away and grabbed the phone. Her brother was counting on her. She could not, would not, let her pride get in the way.

He answered on the second ring, his voice low and husky. “Booker.”

“It’s Anita. Look, I’m really sorry to bother you but—”

“It’s fine.”

She took a deep breath. “I need to go to the cliffs, where Drew was headed.”

There was a long silence. “I was afraid you were gonna say that.”

Twenty minutes later, Booker suppressed a sigh as he jumped out of the truck and wrenched open the passenger side for Anita. Why was he dropping everything to run to her side? Because it was the right thing to do, to help a person in need, he told himself, like he’d done when Mrs. Whitley from church needed her cat dislodged from where it had gotten wedged behind the Sheetrock. So what if it was inconvenient and time-consuming? It was still the right thing to do. He risked a glance at her delicate profile. He’d never had these crazy feelings in his stomach while helping Mrs. Whitley, that was for sure.

Redirecting his thoughts to the foolhardy mission he’d undertaken, he eased the truck onto the main road and headed for the highway. Raindrops pattered the windshield. “Storm coming today. Not a great idea.”

“The rain has tapered off from this morning. I’m sure it will be all right. I want to get a sense of the place he was headed, that’s all.”