Chapter 35
C allie didn’t look back as she made her way toward the figure, cataloging the few details she could glean from a distance. Male, solid build, around five foot ten, and dressed all in black, including a black beanie.
Her feet hit the ground in a muted rhythm, the packed sand giving little as the grains ground against each other. She didn’t bother keeping her movements silent. There was no way to hide her pursuit. Unless her prey never bothered to look back—and had bad hearing—he’d know she followed.
The man who emerged from the shadows of the scattered trees moved with the ease of an athlete but not the grace of a runner.
His feet hit the ground hard with each choppy stride he took, reminding her of a crab.
Maybe not the most appropriate thought given the fact that Joe had been shot, and she was pursuing a man across the desert when she had no legal authority to do more, but there it was.
The scent of desert sage whirled around her as she passed a thicket of the scrub brush.
As lovely as the scent was, it reminded her that she was in unfamiliar territory.
If the man kept to the road, she’d have a chance of taking him.
If he turned to the canyons, though, she’d be as lost as a kid in a mirror maze.
Forty feet behind him, her long legs ate at the distance.
Habit had her wanting to call out, “Stop, FBI,” but she swallowed the impulse.
A pang of remorse teased her mind for the tool she no longer had in her toolbox when it came to catching criminals.
But there was also something freeing in not having to follow so many rules.
She had no intention of going vigilante, but if she didn’t identify herself or she used unusual methods to capture the man, it wouldn’t matter.
Not to any potential arrest or conviction.
She didn’t slow her pace as the man approached the point of decision, toward the resort or away from it. In her heart of hearts, she knew what he’d pick. There were no cars on the road, no one waiting to pick him up.
He turned left. Toward the canyons.
She grimaced at the thought of chasing him through the desert. On the bright side, it was too cold for snakes. At least she didn’t have to worry about taking that kind of wrong step.
He disappeared between two towering sandstone monoliths, and she slowed her pace. If he chose to wait inside, she’d be a sitting duck the moment she stepped into the opening. Not a role she had any interest in playing.
The distant sound of a siren drifted to her in the wind. She had no idea how far the hospital was, but fingers crossed, Joe would be on his way soon.
Dropping her pace to a walk, she hugged the rock wall, making her way toward the canyon. They hadn’t hiked this particular one, but there’d been a map of the area in the reception and as she inched closer to the opening, she plucked her memory for any details.
Not one of the major or wide ones, more like a large crevice than a true canyon, it snaked south and east for several miles.
She paused at the edge of the sandstone mountain that rose sharply from the ground. Tilting her ear toward the opening, she listened for any signs of her quarry as she returned her mental energy to the puzzle of where he might be headed.
A breeze on the cold side of cool pressed her thin shirt against her sweat-dampened body, reminding her that getting lost in the canyons would be more than inconvenient. She didn’t think it was cold enough for hypothermia to set in, but she didn’t want to test that theory.
The crunch of sand and gravel traveled down the canyon, bouncing off the sides in an eerie echo. The man was moving away. Which meant he wouldn’t be waiting to get the drop on her.
Decision made, she peeked around the corner.
Seeing no sign of her target, she eased into the space.
As the sirens grew louder, she scanned what little she could see.
Cast in shadows by the two mountains, entering the snakelike canyon felt like walking into a room that only had a tiny night-light tucked behind a sofa.
Darker than dim but light enough to see outlines of shapes in her peripheral vision.
The temperature dropped as she made her way deeper into the narrow canyon. In some spots, if she held her arms out, she’d touch both sides.
With her gun in one hand, she set the other along the sandstone, using it to guide her path. At least the glorified crevice curved and turned, giving her some semblance of cover.
A thump, followed by a grunt and the sound of a rock skidding across the dry ground, stopped her. The man, still on the move, had tripped. But where was he going?
Again, her mind went to the map she’d viewed but not studied.
She recalled seeing several side canyons, narrow offshoots from the already narrow primary one.
Many went nowhere, either ending in centuries-old rockslides that blocked the way or narrowing to the point where the two sides met to form a single mountain again.
But not all. Her shoulders drew back. One of the canyons ended at a river.
One of the deeper bodies of water, not a shallow creek.
A river that ran west and, if she recalled correctly, passed close to the road that eventually wrapped around the north edge of the resort, where the shooter could have been dropped off.
All doubts about his professional status vanished. They were dealing with a man who had a partner and planned ahead. Someone who ensured he had more than one escape route—either back north from where he’d come or south by way of the river, then back to the road.
Someone paid to do the job and do it right.
Her thoughts touched on Joe, but she didn’t let them linger on the question of whether he’d survived. The sirens had stopped, and all she could do was hope they’d made it in time.
She slipped around the outcropping she’d stopped behind and continued east. With her eyes adjusting to the darkness, what had been little more than dark, looming shapes gained detail. Picking up her pace, she stepped over rocks half buried in the ground and navigated the uneven terrain.
Another grunt and stumble had her turning right at the next offshoot canyon. She couldn’t recall the details of the map well enough to remember if it led to the river, but since the man she hunted had turned that way, she followed.
Then drew to a stop.
This crevice was much narrower and straighter than the one she’d left. With few places to take cover, she could feel the breeze from the river she spied a hundred yards ahead of her. And see the man she sought.
A night owl screeched through the canyon, the beat of its wings echoing in the night. She ducked, startled at the sound, and shards of sandstone exploded from behind her. Ignoring the sharp sting of the debris hitting the back of her neck, she flattened her body behind a small outcropping.
A beat passed, and she peeked around the corner. Another shot hit the sandstone beside her face. She jerked away, but more debris found its mark, and she stifled her reaction as tiny shards bit into her cheek and forehead.
“Having fun?” she called out.
A beat passed. “Not really, no. I hate the desert. Too fucking dry. Bad for the skin and all,” came the reply. She couldn’t tell his age from his voice, but he didn’t sound either old or young. Based on the way he moved, she’d put him in his thirties or forties.
“They have a nice spa at the resort,” she pointed out, wanting to hear him talk.
“Too fucking rich for my blood,” he replied. There it was again, a tiny accent on his second f-bomb.
“If you can’t afford a spa treatment here, then whoever is paying you isn’t paying you enough.”
“Ain’t that the truth. But there’re other perks,” he said, confirming his professional standing.
A trickle of blood slid down her neck, and the faint sound of a small motor drifted on the breeze. A boat arriving to pick him up.
“You didn’t manage to finish the job, though. We’re still standing. And Joe, well, you heard the sirens.”
The sound of the motor grew louder in the silence that followed.
Then her chatty killer heaved a sigh. “I won’t much regret it if Joe lives.
Never thought that order was a good one.
I do regret missing you and your soldier, though.
Years out of the service and he still has the reflexes of a fucking cat. ”
She eased forward and chanced another look.
She could no longer see the river from where she stood tucked behind the thin outcropping, but she had a view of most of the canyon.
And the hitman was nowhere to be seen. Taking another chance, she darted across the small space to the next outcropping.
Like the one she’d left, it didn’t give her full coverage, but it protected the important parts.
She was rewarded with another shot, only this one missed by enough that the sandstone shrapnel fell short of reaching her.
“Your employer isn’t going to be happy,” she said, wiping a thin trail of blood from her cheek.
He chuckled. “You’re right about that. But a body doesn’t get into this line of business without having backup plans and plans to back up the backup plans.”
His employer would be pissed that he screwed up, pissed that she and Gabriel would be on notice now.
But in all fairness, he wasn’t yet a liability.
Other than the sound of his voice and the fact that he ran like a crab, she hadn’t seen any details that would allow her to identify him.
His failures that night were a black mark against him for sure—you didn’t miss three hits (assuming Joe lived) without consequences—but it wouldn’t be career-, or life-, ending.
“Well, it’s been real, Special Agent in Charge Calypso Parks, but I have a boat to catch.”
The shot he fired had its intended effect, and she pressed herself hard against the sandstone at her back, its rough and uneven edges digging into her skin. Ignoring the pain, she darted forward. Just in time to see the man fall out of sight.
She hesitated. Was there a cliff that dropped into the river? Or would her quarry pop up again and take one more shot at finishing her off?
Then the boat engine roared to life and began moving downstream, answering her question.
Her toe dug into the earth, and, using it like a starting block, she surged forward.
If she reached the riverbed in time, she might get a shot off—maybe disable their engine and draw the attention of whatever local law enforcement Gabriel had called.
The hitman’s weapon had been all but silent. Hers was not.
With her focus on the end of the canyon, she missed a rock embedded in the packed earth right in her path. Her toe caught the edge, and momentum did the rest. No mere stumble, she plowed into the earth.
Pain reverberated through her knees and up her thighs.
Her palms burned against the packed sand.
The rest of her body followed, hitting the ground, the momentum pushing her forward a foot or two.
Her sturdy shirt held, but grit and rocks dug through the material, scraping along her stomach.
Her chin bounced once before she managed to bring her arms down and protect her face.
Her movements stopped as abruptly as they started, and she lay on the ground, too stunned to feel the full extent of the damage.
She tried to take a steadying breath but couldn’t pull the air into her lungs.
Panic clawed at her, insistent and powerful, and for a brief second, she considered what it would be like to die in the desert.
Only Gabriel wouldn’t let that happen.
She wouldn’t let that happen. At that thought, her head cleared. She let the panic wash over her, not fighting it, not making it more than what it was—a feeling—and focused on one thing at a time.
Breathing first. She inhaled slowly, though not deeply, and air filled her lungs.
She didn’t think she’d broken a rib, only that she’d had the wind knocked out of her.
Once that truth settled, she calmed her body and continued breathing.
By the fourth breath, she managed to push up on her hands and knees, then roll to a sitting position.
Silence greeted her. No sound of an engine drifted from the river. Her hitman had escaped.
Letting her head fall back, she looked up at the thin line of sky and stars visible between the sides of the canyon. An owl, maybe the same one as before, swooped overhead.
Defeat rolled through her body. She didn’t question whether it was warranted or not, she just let it settle on her shoulders.
Her aching shoulders.
With another deep breath, she curled her legs underneath her, then pushed herself up. And started the long walk back to the resort.