by Reina Torres
A series of gunshots pushed the air out of her lungs.
“What-”
“You’re going to be the example I set.”
Someone moved past them and reached for the door. It opened a moment later, letting in a flood of blinding light.
There was enough of her vision left to see a large truck rumbled up to the doorway, a grotesque crunch said they’d probably destroyed some of her potted plants, but that was the least of her worries.
She could smell the sharp tang of blood in the air.
Chapter 10
With Edgar Fisk sitting sullenly in Ronald’s truck, Trace gave the younger man a strong slap on his back. “You feeling better now?”
Ron turned and gave him a nod. “Much better. I just… I just don’t know if I would have been able to handle him without you there.”
Trace narrowed his gaze. “What does that mean?”
Shaking his head, Ron looked over at the recalcitrant man in the truck. “He’s got history with you. He knew you weren’t going to let him get away. I think that’s why it went so well.”
He couldn’t suppress the smile that seemed to discomfit Ronald more than a little bit.
“What?” The game warden looked at Trace with a wary expression. “What did I say?”
“What would you say,” he let out a breath remembering the ‘olden days’ as he liked to call them, “if I told you that the first time I met Edgar, he was holding a gun on my training partner.”
Ronald’s expression was a mix of emotions. “What happened?”
“Well, Edgar used to drink heavy back then and Edgar’s beer goggles didn’t make people look better, he made them look like nightmares. My training partner talked him down. Got him to lower the barrel and take a seat on the tailgate of the truck.
“Got him to drink water from our canteens,” he narrowed his eyes at Ronald, “don’t say anything, boy. Well, when we’d gotten some water into him, he calmed down and he apologized by upchucking all over my boots. I guess you could say that we have a long and storied past together.”
“But you’re saying,” Ronald worked it out in his head, “that now that Edgar knows me… it might get easier.”
“Game warden!”
Trace tilted his head toward the truck. “I think you should go and see what he wants.”
Ronald looked more than a little hesitant. “You sure you don’t want to talk to him?”
“Game warden! I wanna apologize!”
Nodding, Trace gestured toward Ronald’s truck. “It’s your turn, Williams. Just keep your boots out of danger.”
Tipping his hat, Ronald walked off and Trace reached through the window of his own truck and grabbed his phone off the dash.
He was surprised he hadn’t had anything from Miranda. She might have been busy when they got back to the house but looking at the clock on his phone, he knew that Jun had likely gone home.
Something brushed against the back of his neck and a cold chill ran down his spine.
He dialed as he yanked his truck’s door open and dropped into the driver’s seat.
Miranda’s phone played the away message and then beeped.
“Darlin’, give me a call back. Hope you’re just sleepin’ or outside with Jun, but I just had the worst feeling. Call me.”
As soon as he ended the call, his phone started to ring and vibrate. It wasn’t Miranda, but it was Hayden and that didn’t do a thing to ease his worry.
It only made it worse.
“This is Trace.”
“Hey, Trace, Hayden. Tell me you’re with Miranda.”
Hayden’s normally bright tone held the edge of worry in it.
“No. I just called her and she didn’t answer. What’s wrong?”
He started his car up and started to drive, blowing past two other cars to get to the road first.
“We had a call of a body in a remote-”
“Fast forward, Deputy.”
She didn’t comment on his tone, just jumped into the heart of her call. “It’s the boy. He’s dead.”
Trace slapped the button that started his siren and stepped harder on the gas. “Details.”
“I’ve already sent Conor to the Rehab, drive safe.”
“Details, Hayden, please.”
He didn’t care that he’d all but begged her for information. When it came to Miranda, he’d get on his knees and crawl through broken glass and bleach if it came down to it.
“His throat is cut and he didn’t go easily, Trace. He suffered.”
“It’s not going to happen to her, Hayden. Not her.”
“We don’t even know if they have-”
His phone buzzed another incoming call and he swiped to answer when he saw Conor’s name on his phone. “You have her?”
“It’s a mess, Trace. Get here fast. Jun’s coming around, I need to-”
“See to him, get any information you can. Maybe we can track her phone.” His heart leapt at the idea, hope blossoming in his chest.
“Her phone’s here. A deputy found it inside with her purse.”
The thin thread of hope he was holding onto snapped. “Do whatever you can. Find any clues where they took her.”
There was a pause and then he heard Conor speak, a little distracted as if his attention was split.
“We’ve got some help,” Conor’s voice burst with a rush of energy, “FBI Agents Livingston and Bravo are near downtown. They’re going to pick up the attorney and get whatever information they can. I doubt they filled her in on everything they were planning to do, but if anyone can get information from her, they’ll do it.”
Trace felt his throat close up as he signaled to take the offramp. “Too slow, Conor. I feel like we’re going too slow.”
“Don’t think that way, Trace. If I know anything about Miranda, it’s that she’s a tough cookie. She’ll do what she needs to do, Trace. She’ll hold it together.”
He didn’t say anything else, ending the call so he could quiet the doubts in his head. He needed silence to drown the worries.
Miranda was tough, but she was also a lone woman with a bunch of punks who were probably trying to make a name for themselves.
Killing one of their own?
They’d likely found out that he’d tried to warn Miranda.
He was a weak link who’d talked too much.
And they’d cut his throat.
Left him bleeding in the open.
Left him for the wild animals to-
Silence wasn’t helping. He reached out and flicked on the radio and heard the chorus of Watermelon Crawl. Memories of Miranda trying to draw him on the floor for the line dance clouded his vision.
She would hold on, but what were they going to do until he could get there?
“Hold on, baby. I need you to hold on.”
The scent in the back of the truck, closed in with the three dead deer that the men had taken from the rehab center in the midst of the afternoon heat of a ‘mild’ Texas day, was making her eyes water.
That was the story that Miranda told herself after every pothole and rut in the road.
It wasn’t the pain in her arms or the dull ache that had taken over in her knees.
It wasn’t the growing dread in her mind either.
No, not that.
Not when she knew that Trace was out there.
Trace would come for her.
She just had to-
The truck felt like it had been launched off of a sand dune and landed on just the front wheels.
A sucked in breath carried with it all of the scents of the closed in camper. Fetid clothes, newly dead deer, and the tang of blood in her mouth.
She’d be lucky if she didn’t empty her stomach soon.
She’d be lucky if she lived to regret it.
The grounds of Miranda’s rehab center were swarming with wardens, deputies, and even a handful of Texas Rangers.
It was an evidence gathering nightmare, but in the back of Trace’s head h
e wasn’t worried about a trial and conviction after this.
These men had taken one of their own and he didn’t doubt that they were all focused on the main idea of this hunt.
Bring Miranda back.
Everything else… was what it was. He didn’t care beyond holding her in his arms again. He’d give up everything else to get her back.
He wasn’t going to fail her again.
He pushed through the moving bodies and sought out the one person who he knew actually had a hope of helping him.
The man in question was sitting on the back of an ambulance arguing with the EMTs.
“Jun!”
The veterinarian stood and nearly made it a few feet before he pitched forward.
One of the EMTs gave Trace a pleading look, but the man was out of luck. Trace got to Jun’s side without a moment to spare and basically held him up by will alone. When Jun was his normal self they were about the same weight. Even if most folks might think that Japanese Americans were on the smaller side, those that were several generations in tended to be taller than what others might expect. Still, he’d know the Jimenez family and the Tottoris by extension for the better part of his life.
“Tell me what you remember.”
Jun tried to lift his head and winced with the effort.
“Just talk. I need your words more than your eyes, man.”
Jun started to nod and then stopped as a pained expression rippled across his features. “They hardly said a word to me! They came in the back door of the exam office. I’ve got no idea how they got back there. Maybe they jumped the fence. I didn’t even see a car or truck that was out of place.
“’Randa went into the house to change her clothes and I went out to start feeding, but I stopped in the exam room first.
“Someone punched me and it knocked me back into the table. My legs are still weak from that. They took my phone, told me to call her and make her come into the room.” He hung his head. “I said something stupid.”
“Don’t.” Even though Trace’s nerves were strung tight, he knew Miranda wouldn’t want her cousin to blame himself. “Don’t blame yourself. What happened next?”
“They already knew she was in the house and they knew she was coming. So, they opened the exam room door and dragged me to the front by the entrance.
“I didn’t think there was a chance in hell that she’d hear me warn her, but I had to try.”
Trace could almost see the situation in his head as he looked toward the exam room, wide open and flooded with light. “They knocked you out and left you so she’d come. She left her phone inside to come to you first.”
“Yeah,” Jun swallowed hard. “I’m guessing that’s what happened. But the next thing I knew, I felt her hand on my arm… pretty much everything’s a blur from there, but…”
“But? But what?” Trace knew he had to push a little. “Can you walk the room with me? Tell me if you can jog any memories loose?”
Jun’s jaw drew tight and he spoke through gritted teeth. “I’ll try anything to save her.”
One of the techs cleared the room when they walked up together and Trace kept them in the doorway to get a full look at the room.
Hugh Cafin gestured at the space. “We left everything where we found it and have all around and close up photos. It goes without saying that we’d like you to keep from touching anything with bare hands,” his look was on the veterinarian even though Jun didn’t seem to be listening.
Trace nodded. “I’ll see to it.”
Looking off to the parking lot teeming with cars, Hugh excused himself. “I’ll be over there when you’re done.”
Jun pointed at several spots on the floor. “I was there first. And then Miranda touched my arm, so she was there. There was… there was some arguing. Demands.” Lifting his head a bit, he looked off to the left. “They busted the medicine cabinet, but we don’t carry a lot because of the budget, so if they took anything it wasn’t much. But I can look it up in the records.”
Conor knocked on the back door of the exam room. “We’re checking through the enclosures. All of those look good, even that stork enclos-”
“The stork,” Jun pulled out of Trace’s grasp and got down on his hands and knees, “the stork…”
Conor stepped inside and gave Trace a look. “Is he okay?”
Sitting back with a lop-sided grin that warred with the painful wince of his eyes. “She took it. The GPS tracker.” Gesturing at the metal tray and other items on the floor. “We’re still waiting for them to send us the new tracker so we had the old one here in the office. On that tray.” His eyes scanned the floor. “She probably put it in her pocket or something.”
Trace grabbed him under the arm and lifted him to his feet. “Do you know how to track it?”
“No, the program didn’t give us that information, but I could call.”
Conor was already dialing his phone. “Go ahead and try, but I’ve got someone who we’re going to need once we get the information, so let me call- Hey, Beth? This is Conor, yeah. I need your help.”
There was something to be said for different methods of torture. Laying in the stifling heat was bad enough. But stale blood and decomposing flesh in humid heat?
She doubted she’d ever forget the stench.
And every time a fly touched on her bare skin she flinched.
The men had left her alone for the most part, but she could hear what they were saying. And even though her last name was Jimenez, maybe they took one look at her and thought she wouldn’t understand.
When they were caught, she was going to be an excellent witness.
She wasn’t despairing as much as she was angry and getting angrier by the minute. They’d killed the boy that had come to warn her.
Slit his throat.
Left him to die alone in the weeds.
She didn’t think they were going to do that to her. Something else? Sure! Miranda just didn’t know what.
Or when.
But as long as she was alive, she could be a witness to everything they’d said.
Expectation of privacy was out the window. They’d dragged her along with them.
Egotistical bastards.
All of their big plans for drugs? Well, she could say that they had big plans, but they’d trip themselves up sooner or later. Trip over those big swingin’ dicks they kept talking about.
There were just too many moving parts for these guys to keep track of, especially if they were wont to get themselves high. And by the smell of the air that managed to wedge itself into the covered bed of the truck, they were going to be a foot or two higher in an hour.
They were gathered at the Wardens’ Office getting everything ready when the door opened up.
“Damn.”
Conor moved to walk with Trace, but Trace gestured for him to stay where he was.
George Jimenez walked into the office with his mouth set in a grim line. “Trace.”
“Sir,” Trace met him halfway across the office, his hand extended.
Miranda’s father took his hand and gave it a solid shake. “What’s the news?”
Trace had to hand it to the man. Outwardly he was calm, reasonable, but he knew the elder Jimenez was holding it all in. There was strain pinching at the corners of his eyes and a tightness in his jaw.
Even the normal tan that spoke of years in the sun and his Hispanic heritage was wan and ashen.
“We’ve got a direction, sir.” He wasn’t sure what else to tell him, but he saw in the other man’s eyes just how much he needed any bit of hope. “Miranda and Jun were… are rehabilitating a stork and they had to remove the GPS tracker. The tracker was missing when we got there and Jun thinks she took it with her.”
George nodded his head slowly. “Yes. Of course, she would. She’s always been a smart girl.”
“Top of her class at the Academy, sir.”
Trace could see the others bustling about the office, getting things prepared to leave, but he had anot
her few moments. He looked up and saw the way George was looking at him.
“You know, son. When you were fresh out of the academy, I took you on to train you in the field. I knew with one look that you were going to be a fine warden. And you proved me right, in every way.
“And the first time we had you over for dinner Miranda couldn’t stop staring at you across the table. My wife saw it and to this day she tells me I only missed it because I’m a man and willfully ignorant of such things.
“But she was right, too. She told me that someday Miranda would make her mark on you. I’m choosing to believe that’s true.”
Trace let out a soft, helpless breath. “I love her, sir. Love her more than I can say. We’re going to get her back and then I’m going to do everything I can to get her to be in my life as long she’ll have me.”
“You’ll have to find her first, son. Once you’ve got her back you can worry about other things. Just bring our girl home.”
He heard the finality of the man’s words and understood them. There were very few things he had to worry about in their future. All he had to do was get her back and see that these men are punished for their crimes.
“We’re getting ready to converge on the area where the GPS tracker is transmitting from. You’re retired, but I would be honored to have you with us if you would like.”
The tiniest spark was visible in her father’s eyes. “If I go with you, I wouldn’t stop at cuffs and incarceration. I’d gut them and leave the entrails for the coyotes and the dogs.
“Thank you, son, but no thank you. I’m going to her house to wait with my wife and Jun’s family. You’ll let us know when to expect y’all home.”
Lifting his head, George met the eyes of every warden in the room, and the whole office went silent in acknowledgement of not only the man and his service, but the shared fear and determination that connected each and every person.
They were going to get their family back.
That’s all that was left to do.
Chapter 11
Miranda had never been one to be able to fall asleep in a tense situation. Even when they were on stake outs at night she could stay awake for hours past what would have been the normal end to the work day, but breathing in the fairly heavy cloud of smoke that worked its way in through the slight opening in the window of the camper top, that was a different thing.
