Dangerous Refuge

by Elizabeth Lowell

  At least I don’t have to worry about leaving prints, he thought as he began to search the room, because I don’t have any gloves on me.

  Just one more thing I didn’t think I’d need in Refuge.

  He didn’t know what he expected to find in the room, but anything was better than what he had now. There wasn’t enough sunlight left for a decent search, so he turned on every light in the place. The energy-efficient bulbs were slow, dim, and made everything a ghastly shade of greenish yellow.

  The bedspread was a tangled mess, sheets whipped around it like sails that had come unmoored in wind. It could have looked like that for a perfectly innocent reason. He and Shaye had all but attacked each other in their rush to get skin to skin, need to need, heat to heat. The memory was both beautiful and bleak.

  She should be here.

  If only I hadn’t left her . . .

  Don’t go there, he told himself. Think like a cop, not a lover, because a lover won’t do Shaye a damn bit of good right now.

  Since none of her clothes were tossed around the way they had been when he left, she must have gotten dressed before she disappeared. Even her jacket was gone. The furniture hadn’t been moved. There were stains on the carpet, but none of them was fresh.

  He opened drawers and found the courtesy pen and notepad undisturbed. He picked up the notepad, tilting and turning to catch the light, making sure that there wasn’t an impression left by any note she might have tried to write.

  The paper was unmarked. All the other drawers were empty. So was the closet. The bed was solid to the floor. Nothing was caught in the blackout curtains on any of the windows.

  No water was drying on the shower glass or splashed on the floor. Two of the washrags and towels were rumpled. He had used one set for a fast cleanup. Presumably Shaye had used the other. A wad of toilet paper in the trash can—

  Wait.

  I didn’t leave that. Did Shaye?

  When he prodded the toilet paper, he felt something solid beneath. He grabbed a strip of tissue to protect his fingers and preserve any possible evidence. If this was the kind of crime scene he was afraid it was, technicians would be trying to lift latent prints from every surface, even the unlikely ones like toilet paper.

  Gently he teased apart the wad of tissue until Shaye’s cell phone lay in plain view. The phone was off. The SIM card was gone.

  A combination of rage and fear flashed through Tanner, vaporizing the ice in his gut in the instant before he clamped down on his self-control. Shaye damn well deserved better than some hothead tearing around the landscape punching everything in sight.

  He forced himself to breathe calmly, but his mind still clawed like a caged animal.

  Nevada is a big, empty state. Lots of places to hide bodies.

  Too many.

  I could search for the rest of my life and—

  Vaguely he realized his hand hurt. He glanced down, saw his left fist beating methodically on the cheap wood cabinet like it was a punching bag. Slowly he forced his fingers to unclench.

  Use your head, he told himself savagely. You can beat the hell out of something later.

  The sound of a maid’s cart bumping along the cement walkway a story below focused Tanner. He strode out of the room, flipped the card to DO NOT DISTURB, and trotted down the stairs. He saw a young woman in jeans and a western shirt hauling trash from a room to the garbage section of her cart. She had the look of a pretty young mother with two jobs and not enough sleep. She probably had a gig as a cocktail waitress in the evening.

  “Room twenty-three,” he said, smiling and giving her plenty of physical space. Young maids were rightly nervous of being caught alone in a room by a strange man.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling. “I saw the service card out, and I’ll be up as soon as I finish here. Should only be a minute.”

  “No problem,” he said easily. “My woman was supposed to wait for me, but the room is empty. You notice anyone heading into or out of our room?”

  “I was outside taking a smoke by the Dumpster a little while ago. Saw two blondes and a guy almost your size, wearing fishing gear and a floppy hat to cover up what looked like a bald head. One of the blondes looked like a rodeo queen, all big hair and makeup and glitter on her tight shirt. The other blonde was the real kind, but she could have used some of her friend’s makeup. Real pale, you know?”

  Kimberli and Ace.

  Tanner’s jaw tightened but he nodded amiably. “I know them. They’re hard to say no to.”

  “Your girlfriend didn’t look real eager.”

  “Any sign she was really unwilling? Last I heard, she was mad at them.”

  The maid shrugged. “She was on her own feet, not real happy but not fighting. Probably getting over her mad.”

  “You see which car they took?”

  “Old orange Bronco. I didn’t see where they went, because my break was over and I had to get back to work. Boss was driving into the parking lot.”

  He pulled out his wallet and gave her a ten. He knew what life working two jobs was like. “Thanks. And don’t bother with room twenty-three. We’re staying the night. She must have left the sign wrong-side out.”

  The ten disappeared into the woman’s front pocket. “A lot of people do. Boss is too cheap to have separate signs. You sure about the room? I don’t mind.”

  “I’m sure.”

  The woman stretched her back, stuffed an armload of sheets and towels in her cart, closed the door to the room she had just made up, and pushed the cart back the way it had come.

  Tanner watched her without seeing her, caught by the memory of Rua dead on his back in his bedroom, lit by the unearthly glow of the aquarium.

  Except it was Shaye’s face, Shaye’s body.

  He grabbed his cell phone, found August’s number in the memory, and called the deputy on his private phone.

  “What’s new?” the deputy asked. “Someone else drew second shift, so I’m off in thirty.”

  “Kimberli’s car is in the motel parking lot. The maid saw two blondes—one flashy, one natural—and a probably bald-headed man get in an old orange Bronco. Shaye’s cell phone was buried in the bathroom wastebasket. The SIM card is gone. Shaye promised she would be here when I got back from the wild-goose chase Ace sent me on to Reno. I’m assuming a hostage situation.”

  “Shit. Desmond, too? You’re certain?”

  “As much as I can be without having seen it myself. That enough to get the sheriff off his dead ass?”

  “Doubt it. He can come up with more objections than you have answers or time. Desmond is a big supporter. Besides, the sheriff is on his way to El Dorado County.”

  The sound of computer keys clicking came over the phone as August talked.

  “But,” the deputy said, “I outrank Mercer. I just upgraded the BOLO to a potential felony in progress. Then I’ll—damn, the other phone is ringing. Hang on. I’m not off the clock yet.”

  Tanner headed for Lorne’s truck and waited. He was getting in behind the wheel when August came back on the line.

  “SAR county coordinator got a call from a monitoring service. Seems that an emergency beacon used by one of our SAR people has been activated and is broadcasting.”

  “Search and rescue?”

  “Yes. The ID matches the beacon we issued to Shaye when she volunteered for SAR duty. It’s moving, so they can’t get a real fix on it. Can’t raise her cell phone, either, but after what you told me I won’t try anymore. Her beacon’s radio is on standby, so they can’t get through to her. Besides, everybody but the three-legged dog is—”

  “How close is the beacon?” Tanner cut in, starting the truck.

  “South and east of Refuge. Our nearest four-wheel patrol car is at least an hour away, more if they keep going toward tribal lands. Some of the dirt tracks out there need high clearance.”

  “What about a helicopter?”

  “Look to the west and what do you see?” the deputy asked.

  “Mountain
s and some clouds.”

  “One of those clouds is a lot of smoke in east El Dorado County, burning over the line to Refuge County. People have been cut off and burned out. Everything that can fly is already gone. SAR is scrambling to check on hikers.”

  Tanner had seen too many brushfires in Los Angeles County not to know what an uncontrolled fire meant, especially with population in danger.

  “Give me directions to the beacon’s location,” he said.

  August did, then listened as Tanner repeated everything back to him verbatim.

  “And do me a favor,” Tanner added. “If any speed teams are still working, keep them off my ass.”

  “What are you driving?”

  He described Lorne’s truck right down to the license plate.

  “Okay. You’ve just been deputized to pursue the BOLO. Leave your phone on. I’ll tell you if the locater changes direction.”

  “I owe you,” Tanner said, meaning it.

  “Stuff it. Shaye is worth getting fired over. She’s one of the good people. Find her. I’m taking a radio and following as soon as Mercer arrives and I can swap my patrol car for my own truck.”

  Tanner left the motel parking lot so fast he made marks on the old asphalt.

  Thirty-nine

  Baby, I gotta pee,” Kimberli said. “The bumps are really shaking things up.”

  “We’ll be stopping just above the tree line. If you’re feeling modest, you can use a tree for cover. Otherwise, go beside the car.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said.

  “You see any toilets out here?” he asked. “Think about something else. You’re not the only one with a dime bladder on a bumpy dollar ride.”

  Kimberli gave him a look, but didn’t say anything. She kept on driving, but more slowly now, trying to avoid bumps.

  Shaye looked beyond the Bronco. Far beyond. The desolation was complete. Way off in the Sierra Nevadas to the north and west, a fire was burning, making its own dirty cloud. The rest of the sky was clean except for contrails like fingernail scratches over the twilight, still too bright for a moon or stars. The fair-weather clouds were gone except to the south, where a wild storm cell was sweeping over the land.

  But not here. Here there was a dry wind sucking moisture from everything, despite the almost-evening coolness outside. The land itself seemed unfinished, as if whoever created it had sketched only the outlines of what would come before giving up and abandoning the project. The remaining mountains were the bones of creation shoving through the land’s thin, brittle skin.

  In the high summer, being out here without water meant a day or two of survival if you found shade. In the sun, you could measure your life expectancy in hours. Even after the introduction of automobiles, the Emigrant Trail had claimed more than its share of travelers. The first person Shaye had ever gone on a SAR mission for had been out in the same kind of country she was seeing now.

  Prospectors, mustangs, and wiry range cattle had left a spiderweb of scars on the thin-skinned land. Unlike the Sierra Nevadas, there were few springs in the rumpled, low mountains along the eastern edge of the valley and almost no running water during the summer. The only signs of humanity were the rutted dirt road ahead and a scant handful of windmills drawing water for range cattle lower down in the valley. More of the windmills were abandoned than still functioning. This was hardscrabble land, inhabited by little but jackrabbits, sagebrush, rattlesnakes, and wind.

  It was also a dangerous land, with risks deeper than the obvious dryness and lack of cover. Old-time and modern prospectors alike had walked away from useless mines without covering the holes or fencing around them, leaving behind death traps for the unlucky or unwary.

  Shaye understood the risks because she had been on three SAR missions in areas like this. At the bottom of an unmarked mine shaft, she had seen her first body. She knew others went undiscovered, unknown, lost.

  She was terrified she would be one of them.

  We’ll be stopping just above the tree line.

  Behind and below them, there was no dust lifted off the dirt road by speeding tires, no sign of a moving vehicle, nothing but the slowly, slowly fading light and the increasing coolness of a desert headed toward the cover of darkness.

  Is the beacon transmitting? Shaye asked silently. Is anybody listening?

  Does Tanner know I’m gone?

  They were coming up across the steep range of hills that would be called mountains if they were east of the Rockies. They had passed several dirt tracks leading to water or forgotten mines or even abandoned homesteads. They might have crossed into tribal holdings. Without a GPS reading it was impossible to tell. Out this far, few people bothered to fence the great dry lands of Nevada.

  Even if Shaye managed to get away and hide, there was nowhere to go. Without the Bronco and its SAR beacon, she was as good as dead.

  I wish I could talk to you, Tanner. Hold you. Feel the tightness of your skin over your chest. Smell the heat of you. Hear your heart against mine in passion and in peace.

  The tree line was less than half an hour away, unless the road got worse. Then it would take as long as it took.

  “Go north the next chance you get,” Ace said.

  “North?”

  “Left,” he said. “Don’t you know where the sun sets?”

  “Of course. It goes behind the big mountains beyond Refuge. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “God,” he muttered, “it’s a wonder you don’t get lost in the Conservancy’s tiny parking lot.”

  Silently Shaye agreed.

  The pout on Kimberli’s face took on a wary, almost pinched look, but she smoothed it out and smiled at him. “We both know you’re the smart one and I’m the one people like being around. No need to be mean about it.”

  Ace didn’t answer.

  Kimberli concentrated on driving so as to avoid the bumps that made her full bladder whine.

  No one talked as they crept up toward the dark line where there was enough water for trees to survive the dry summer.

  “Go left,” Ace finally said.

  “There isn’t a—” Kimberli began.

  “Just do it. There are old ruts. Follow them.”

  She turned on the high beams, ignoring his muttered protest.

  Shaye didn’t point out that it was easier to spot the track in the twilight without using the high beams. She was happy for Kimberli’s inexperience in backcountry. Anything that slowed them down was fine with Shaye.

  The Bronco was barely doing five miles per hour. Unless the driver shifted to low range, the engine would stall out soon.

  Or they could run out of gas short of Ace’s destination.

  Shaye didn’t mention that, either. If nobody had noticed that the gas gauge hadn’t changed, she wouldn’t point it out.

  “Faster,” Ace said. “It’s not nearly as bad as you think.”

  Her face tight and her hands clenched on the wheel, Kimberli goosed the accelerator—and nearly high-centered the Bronco on a roadside rock.

  “Not that fast! Jesus, don’t you know how to drive?”

  Saying nothing, hands clenched in grim determination, Kimberli returned to creeping along at barely a walking pace. This time Ace didn’t object, even when she stalled out and had to start the engine again.

  Too bad the ground isn’t soft, Shaye thought grimly. She would get us stuck in a second. Then we’d have to walk wherever Ace wants to go.

  She looked ahead and wondered where her grave would be.

  On either side of the Bronco, the boulders increased in size, crouching like beasts. The light hung on with the stubbornness of life itself while shadows pooled in ravines that grew steeper the higher they went. Slowly the forest was increasing around them, dark trees sucking the radiance out of the sky.

  Carefully, Shaye’s hand crept toward the door handle. A little bit darker and she just might have a chance of getting to cover before Ace could stop her.

  Something flashed at the cor
ner of her vision. Metal.

  A gun.

  “This is my in-town gun,” Ace said casually. “Just a .22, but it gets the job done. So relax and stop thinking about opening the door and making a run for it. Nothing out there anyway but a hard way to die. I’ll make it easy for you, though. No fuss, no muss, no pain.”

  “Is that what you wanted, Kimberli?” Shaye asked. “Accessory to murder one?”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” the other woman snapped. “What do you want everyone to do—crawl off and survive on welfare? No thanks twice. I was raised like that and I’d rather be dead than do it again.”

  “You’ll get your wish.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kimberli said, looking at Shaye.

  “Watch the road!” Ace ordered.

  At the last instant, she jerked the wheel and just missed a boulder that had been lurking in the shadow of the headlights. The track pitched down into a forested ravine. Boulders gleamed everywhere like giant bones.

  “Do you really think Ace is going to let—” Shaye began. Pain flashed behind her eyes, followed by a few moments of light-headedness.

  “I told you not to snipe at Kimberli while she’s driving,” he said, his voice as emotionless as the gun that had rapped her head. “No more talking or you’ll die now, here, the hard way. I’ll smash your kneecaps and your elbows and leave you for the vultures.”

  Kimberli sighed and shook her head. Her attitude was that of an engineer at a séance—no real belief in the topic at all. Or else she was too terrified to believe, because that meant things were real and she really didn’t want to know about it.

  Shaye stopped talking. Unlike the other woman, she believed that Ace meant every ugly word of his threat.

  Silently Kimberli concentrated on driving down the unraveling track, while Ace watched them both like the killer he was.

  Forty

  Tanner swerved around a moldy yellow Volkswagen covered with peeling stick-on daisies. He slowed only when he approached the faded sign indicating a crossroad. The road he turned onto was still paved, but it was as worn and patched as the motel’s parking lot had been.