Chapter 14
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Scarlett had kicked the rifle against the baseboard under the window and confirmed the shooter was secure. She’d run full out all the way from the pump house and up the stairs before she tackled the woman. Her breathing was almost as fast as her heartbeat.
“What’s your name?” she demanded.
The woman glared in response with an outrageous amount of defiance.
“All right, Annie Oakley. Have it your way.”
Scarlett knelt with one knee between the shooter’s shoulder blades and the other on the floor. The woman was wiry, but stronger than Scarlett would have guessed. She bucked and squirmed and cursed like an old-fashioned wildcatter fighting a claim-jumper.
Out of patience, Scarlett pushed harder, putting more weight on the woman’s back until she eased up on her wild resistance.
Scarlett kept the weight on and waited her out. It took a while. The woman kept up the rage until she finally seemed to run out of fight. Scarlett figured it was a temporary truce.
“You done now, Annie Oakley?” Scarlett deliberately sneered in return. If she was going to restart the nonsense, it was better to exhaust her now while Scarlett still had the upper hand.
“Get off me.” Her voice was muffled while her face remained against the floor. “Get the hell off.”
“Everything under control up there?” Drake said into her ear.
Scarlett ignored the shooter’s ongoing tantrum. “Yeah. All good. She’s acting like a toddler. I’ll be bringing her down as soon as she wears herself out.”
“Copy that,” Drake replied.
The shooter appeared to get the message and calmed herself.
Scarlett shifted her weight onto her heels, but she kept one hand flat between the woman’s shoulder blades and brought her pistol around with the other. She showed her weapon and then held the muzzle against the back of the woman’s neck.
“You feel that?” Scarlett asked. “I’m not as good as Annie Oakley, but from this distance, I can’t possibly miss.”
The woman didn’t reply, but she didn’t start up again, either.
After a few seconds, Scarlett said, “Stand up slowly. We’re going downstairs. If you give me one ounce of trouble, Drake will carry you down. Not gently. Got it?”
She didn’t reply. Scarlett gave the pistol a harsh shove into her neck.
“I heard you,” she replied angrily.
Scarlett paused a bit longer with the gun in place. Then she rose and stepped back and kept the Glock aimed. “Get up.”
The woman rolled onto her side, got her knees under her, and pushed herself up against the wall. Her hands were securely tied behind her. She had to use her shoulder against the plaster for balance. The first time, she flopped to the floor. She made it to her feet on the second try.
Sweat had soaked through her shirt across the chest and under the arms. A rope of dust ran down one side of her face to the floor.
“Okay, Annie. Let’s go.” Scarlett made a point of waving toward the door with her gun.
At the doorway, the woman stopped abruptly. She turned her shoulder into the frame and drove her body sideways into Scarlett’s hip with everything she had left.
Scarlett caught the impact, took a half step to absorb it, and shoved the woman face-first into the doorframe. She held the woman in place until her point was made. “At this point, I could toss you out the open window. Definitely faster. Might be easier, too.”
The woman straightened, breathing loudly. After a long count she turned, walked through the doorway and reached the stairs.
Scarlett grabbed the rifle from the floor. She stayed two paces behind the woman, keeping the Glock aimed at the small of her back as they started down.
The stairs creaked under the woman’s boots. At the landing she slowed a moment, as if she might actually jump from here. Scarlett pressed the Glock into her spine and she started moving again.
She trudged down the last flight, through the dim hallway to the kitchen and out the back door into the relentless heat.
The woman glanced toward the ORV she’d left parked near the steps. Scarlett tapped her back with the pistol. “Don’t even think about it.”
Scarlett steered her around the south side of the house. The house provided not even a strip of shade, and they moved through the heat and out into more blazing sunlight at the front corner.
Annie Oakley came around the corner ahead of Scarlett and stopped when she saw the men.
Her gaze went to the pilot’s body first, scanned to Patterson at the open door of the Bell. Then she barely paused past Drake at the Sikorsky as if he wasn’t worth the time. Finally, her gaze settled on Flint.
Quickly, she pivoted to make a run for the ORV behind the house. Scarlett caught her by the back of the shirt and pulled her sideways and put her down in the dirt with a hand on her shoulder and a foot behind her ankle.
Annie Oakley landed on her side. She rolled onto her knees and tried to push herself up with her hands tied. Scarlett let her get there and then pushed her flat with a boot between the shoulder blades.
“Stay down.” Her cheek was against the dirt. Dust had settled into the sweat on her face.
“You want to run, run.” Scarlett kept her boot where it was. “Mildred’s Corner is fifteen miles east. Nothing else closer in any direction. You won’t make it three miles before the heat takes you. Which will make it easy for the vultures.”
The woman didn’t answer. Her gaze was on the dirt in front of her face.
Flint was at the open door of the Bell with Patterson. He had finished dressing the grazing wound on Cody’s arm and was packing the unused gauze back into the kit.
Drake was checking the Sikorsky for damage.
The Bell’s pilot lay where he’d fallen. Flies had already found him.
Flint came over from the Bell. He assessed Scarlett and the woman in the dirt.
“Pilot’s dead,” he said to Scarlett and Drake. He turned to Patterson. “Your wound is an outside graze on the meat of your upper arm. You might need a tetanus shot, but you’re okay.”
“We’re burning daylight. What are we going to do here?” Drake asked.
“Let’s get her secured for transport and get in the air before we’re any deeper in whatever this is,” Flint said.
Patterson objected. “She killed Dale for no reason. We call the sheriff.”
“Why are you here?” Flint asked.
Patterson’s attitude shifted from righteous anger to something else.
“You followed us from Langford, didn’t you?” Scarlett said. He didn’t confirm or deny.
“Fact is, we were lured out here. We don’t know why. Now we’ve got a wacked out female to deal with who also killed your guy,” Flint stared at Patterson. “What’s that sound like to you?”
“Sounds like you’re being set up,” Patterson replied.
“Sitting here waiting for a deputy from the county seat with a target on us doesn’t sound all that smart to me,” Flint said. “But you can do that if you want. You came out here on your own. Maybe nobody’s hunting you.”
Patterson didn’t answer.
“There’s the rest of it too,” Flint nodded toward the shooter. “A deputy puts her in the back of a cruiser, whatever she knows goes with her into county lockup. Whatever else she is, she’s the only part of this whole thing we can control.”
“And what about Dale?” Patterson wasn’t quite ready to give up on his friend.
“Wrap him in whatever you’ve got in the Bell and lay him in the back. I’ll fly you back to Langford. You can report it from there,” Drake said. “Flint can fly the Sikorsky. He’s good at it.”
Patterson looked at his friend’s body. He wasn’t convinced.
“Cody, we’re leaving. You can’t fly the Bell. You’ll be stuck out here with Dale. Let us help you,” Scarlett said reasonably.
“You killed my friend. Why?” Patterson stared at the shooter.
She flashed an angry scowl in response. She turned her face back to the dirt.
“Cops will be asking me. I can shade you as a cold-blooded sniper without a second’s hesitation,” he said. When she didn’t reply, he added, “Texas has the death penalty. Your life is over.”
“He was coming for me.” She practically spat the words in his direction. “He had a gun. I had to shoot him first before he killed me.”
Patterson cocked his head as if he’d heard it all before and her reply was insane. “He didn’t even know you existed.”
“You don’t know what he knew.”
Patterson looked at Scarlett and shrugged as if to say he couldn’t reason with a lunatic.
“We’re going. While we still can,” Flint said. “Let’s leave her here. She was here when we arrived. We don’t owe her anything. We’ll send the locals to pick her up after we’re gone.”
“Okay.” Scarlett gave the shooter a hard nudge with the toe of her boot. “Unless she gives a reason to take her with us. Let’s start with your real name, Annie Oakley. Who the hell are you?”
She spat the dirt from her lips. “Theresa Moreno.”
Scarlett took her boot off her back and crouched down beside her. She kept the Glock loose in her hand but ready. Flint was still beside her.
“Wrong answer. Theresa Moreno is dead.” Scarlett spoke close to her ear. “Which I’m sure you know. Did you kill her, too?”
She started to answer and then stopped herself.
Scarlett’s voice stayed low. “Try again.”
She shut her eyes. The sweat ran down through the dust on her temple.
“We’re out of time.” Flint looked across the yard. “Drake, get her backpack. I dropped it by the barn door.”
Drake trotted toward the barn while Flint climbed into the pilot’s seat and began to spool up the Sikorsky.
“Come on.” Scarlett reached down and dragged Annie Oakley to her feet. She gave her a shove toward the Sikorsky.
The woman looked around, wild eyed. “He said you’d leave me here.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t,” Scarlett said, giving her a hard shove toward the helo.