This could be my whole body, he reminded himself when the grisly task was done. I could be dead. I should be dead. But I’m not, because God chose to spare me.
“Lord, You’ve given me a second chance at life,” he mumbled. “You changed me here in this ditch. You took away something I thought I needed. Now give me what I really need, Father. Make me into the man You want me to be.”
Exhausted but unwilling to delay even a moment longer inside the wrecked rental car, Cole reached across his chest with his right hand and grasped his left wrist. He had so little strength left. His muscles were weak, his mouth parched, his nerves raw. Summoning what energy he could, he gave his left hand a jerk.
Blinding blue pain ripped through him as his smashed fingers tore loose from the metal that had pinched them. Agony scorched his arm, and his limp hand dropped onto his stomach. Snakes of searing torment coiled through his flesh, threatening Cole’s grip on his mind. He groaned and began to shake violently, the urge to retch welling up inside him like a tidal wave. Curling into himself, he clutched his wounded hand, the blood now pulsing freely.
Barely able to remain conscious, Cole pressed the two stumps against his belly to stanch the flow. “Help me, God,” he breathed, “help me, help me.”
Terrified he might pass out and drown in the putrid creek, he forced himself to begin the long, slow effort of pulling himself out of the wrecked car. First his head emerged from what had been the driver’s side window. He lay back and let the water trickle around his ears. Next he eased his shoulders out of the car, then one elbow. He rolled himself onto his side, grateful for the change in position.
Again Cole rested, cradling his trembling injured hand, wishing he could stop the bleeding, praying for strength. His wet jeans caught on a jagged piece of metal, and they tore as he worked his legs through the opening to the outside. His left ankle burned, swollen and throbbing. Lying prone in the creek bed, he blinked back tears as moonlight cast blue shadows across his bloodied shirt.
As sleep began to overcome him, Cole forced himself to remember Matt. His son needed him. And Jill. Where was she? What had happened to her? He couldn’t think it all through.
Now he reached out and grabbed on to a rock that protruded from the shallow water. Grateful for a handhold, he dragged himself with excruciating slowness onto the bank. Cars and trucks drove across the bridge overhead, just as they had for two days, never seeing the filthy man inching like a snail up the side of the ditch.
With his good hand, Cole clutched hummocks of green grass, a broken cinder block that jutted from the dirt, a piece of twisted root. When he couldn’t make himself move, he lay with his cheek in the dirt and tried to stay alert. But it wasn’t working. Lights moved around his head, shining on the embankment, making him dizzy. He fought the urge to vomit. The pain in his fingers numbed his brain and made his ears ring.
“Cole!” a voice in his head kept crying out. “Cole! Cole!”
He rested on the slope, wondering how much longer it would take to reach the road. Would he make it? Or would some kind of pain-induced insanity overcome him? He wondered if he was bleeding to death.
“Cole! Where are you, Cole?”
The voice was so clear that he knew it must be God calling to him from Heaven’s gate. But he couldn’t go. Not just yet. Matt needed him. He licked his lips. They felt like old, dry leather against the lump that was his tongue.
“Cole, please answer me!”
“I’m here,” he croaked. “Here, God. I’m here.”
“Cole! Where are you?”
Why did the Lord speak with a woman’s voice? That wasn’t right. It must be Anna, his sweet Anna beckoning. She wanted him…but Matt needed him more. Didn’t she know that?
“Cole, I can’t find you,” Anna cried. “Please talk to me again!”
“Here,” he said. His voice sounded like sandpaper. “I’m right here, Anna.”
“Oh, Cole!” Warm hands covered his back. A flutter of movement blocked the light. “Cole, oh, tell me you’re alive. Tell me you’re going to be all right!”
Instead of his wife’s soft brown eyes, Cole gazed into Jill Pruitt’s green ones, her face a pale apparition that hovered just in front of him. The streetlamp behind her transformed blond ringlets into a golden halo. But she wasn’t a heavenly being. She carried a flashlight and her tote bag. She was touching him and crying.
She was real.
“Jill.” The word came out as a sigh.
Tears flowing, she bent and kissed his cheek. “Yes, Cole, I’m here. Thank You, God! Thank You for preserving his life.”
“My fingers are…are…I need a…” He couldn’t think of the word, so he pulled his mangled hand from under his stomach. “It’s…it’s…I need a…”
“Oh, no!” She cupped his hand in her palms. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital. Pedro, por favor—”
“No.” Cole forced himself up on one elbow. “Where’s Matt? Have to find my son.”
“Cole, you’ve lost a lot of blood. You’re dehydrated. Please listen to me.”
“Wrap them in a…a…” Why couldn’t he think of that word?
As he searched his mind, a second person appeared beside him, a man with dark eyes and a kind face. This time, fresh water trickled across Cole’s mouth and down his throat. Jill bandaged his fingertips with a handkerchief. That was the word.
“Bandage,” he uttered.
Jill and Pedro didn’t listen. Instead, they dragged him up the embankment, his injured ankle knocking against stones and scraping across the pavement. Then they heaved him into some kind of box. Jill crawled into the box beside him and settled his head on her lap. Pedro vanished into the darkness. After that, the box began to move, slowly sliding beyond the streetlamp and past a tree. Gaining speed, it flew along like a magic carpet made of old wood.
Cole knew this must be a dream. A vision of Heaven. Jill’s fingers threaded through his hair and her lips softly touched his cheek again and again. A cool breeze played across his chest, drying the wet shirt he had worn so many days. He noticed the stars, chipped ice across a deep blue blanket. And then, most blessed of all, came sleep.
“Tell me the whole story, Josefina,” Jill demanded into the cell phone at her ear. “I need to know what happened—every bit of it.”
Her voice sounded harsh—so much unlike her that Cole blinked to make sure who sat in the chair beside his bed. In the bright light slanting through a white curtain, he focused on the woman. She wore something he’d not seen in their days together—a pale yellow embroidered blouse, a light green skirt, sandals. The faint scent of perfume drifted near, and he enjoyed it despite the smell of antiseptic in the air.
Where was he, anyway? Cole turned his head. Ten beds marched in a row down the length of the room, each positioned directly beneath a window. At the far end, a woman in a white dress mopped the floor to salsa music from a radio. The only other occupant was a little girl sleeping in the bed next to Cole’s. An IV tube ran from her skinny brown arm to a bag of clear liquid.
“Well, I know he’s been there, Josefina,” Jill said, her pink lips moving against the phone. “So don’t even try to deny it. Do you want me to tell your employer that you’re keeping the truth from him?”
She glanced at Cole and rolled her green eyes.
“No, you’re not protecting him, Josefina,” she went on. “You’re withholding important information from his father and me—and that’s not right.”
Cole studied a mound of bandages on his stomach. What was inside it? His brain felt numb, as though he’d been drugged—and he wondered if he had. He didn’t hurt. Not much.
“Well, is he still there?” Jill asked. “Is he hiding out with you?”
While talking, she reached over and patted the bandaged lump, which turned out to be Cole’s hand. Surprised at this discovery, he began to remember something about a car accident and a piece of broken glass…and cutting off his own fingertips…and Jill coming to save him…and—
“Matt!” He lunged up in bed. “Where’s Matt?”
“He’s not in Mexico,” Jill whispered around the cell phone as she pressed on his chest and forced him down on the bed again. “He went back to the ranch, but Josefina won’t give me the whole story. She says she promised Matt she wouldn’t tell.”
“Give me that phone.” Cole reached for it, but Jill waved him away.
“Josefina, please,” she said. “We don’t even know where to start looking for Matt now. And you know his father is not going to give up—”
Cole swallowed, trying to read Jill’s expression.
“Yes, we all thought that about him,” she said, “but we were wrong. He loves Matt very much. I’ve never seen such love. He’s determined to find his son. He’s not going to quit searching until Matt is safely back home. Now, please—”
Jill’s mouth dropped open in astonishment at what Josefina was telling her.
“His passport? Are you sure? Billy’s passport, too? Oh my word. Well, where were they going? Tell me everything…. Okay, Josefina, just stay put there at the ranch. We’ll be back in touch as soon as we can.”
Cole edged himself up into a sitting position as Jill pressed the button to turn off the phone. “Where’s Matt?” he asked.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
“He took his passport.”
“I think he went to Amarillo to get Billy, and then…but I don’t know where he’d get the money for a plane ticket.”
“Matt has a credit card I gave him for emergencies.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Cole, why didn’t you cancel the card when Matt took off?”
“I thought about it,” he replied. “But Matt’s my son, and I figure he’s in a tight spot.”
“Oh, Cole, I’m afraid Matt’s planning to fly to France to look for Hector Diaz.”
Cole’s brain cells snapped to attention. He swung his legs off the bed. “Get my mother on the phone.”
“I’ve tried. She’s not at home, and I can’t locate her anywhere. I called the hospital and talked to her neighbor. Irene hasn’t heard a word from Geneva.”
“But those USDA men were supposed to guard them—”
“Phonies. They work for Agrimax. The badges…the whole bit…it was fake. I’m guessing the men in the Lincoln who were watching the house were with Agrimax, too—sent by the two guys who bullied your mother and her friend. When Keeling and his partner arrived in the Mercury, the two in the Lincoln went off duty. We surprised Keeling by confronting him, but he was ready with his cover.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Keeling sent two men to Mexico after us. He must have figured out right away that I had deleted the term paper from Matt’s computer, and I guess he assumed I’d made a copy and taken it with me. Once he knew that much, his job was just to stay put and hope Matt turned up in Amarillo. But Keeling believes he needs to get hold of Matt’s files, so we became a target.”
“You’re saying Agrimax followed you and me to Mexico?”
“Two men—Agrimax seems to put its security people in pairs—tracked us from the airport rent-a-car place and ran us off the road.”
“Why would they do that?”
“They think they need me. Those guys pulled me out of the wreck and didn’t touch you. They believed they could get the computer information out of me. Cole, Agrimax sees me as the way to get what they’re looking for.”
“What they’re looking for is my son.” He breathed in, trying to think clearly. “Did you give them—”
“Nothing. They held me at a house in a village somewhere near here and interrogated me for hours at a time. I refused to talk—I quoted Scripture at them instead.”
“Scripture?” His brows lifted.
“They hated that, especially the Beatitudes. ‘God blesses those who are persecuted because they live for God.’ That one really got their blood boiling.” She grinned. “Anyway, God sent a kind woman who helped me escape. That’s when Pedro arrived with his cart and brought Celia and me to this clinic.”
She pointed at the sleeping child on the bed next to Cole’s. Leaning forward, she whispered, “Celia has dysentery, and they’ve given her antibiotics and fluids. She’s going to be fine. I hope you don’t mind that I used your money to pay for her treatment. Your wallet was in your jeans. I have my tote bag, but the Agrimax men emptied it looking for the key, so I’m broke. Those goons never thought to look under the spare tire—so the USB key is safe. Good thinking, by the way. And I found my cell phone in the wreckage.”
She smiled, holding it up like a trophy. Cole shook his head, confused.
“Anyway, after we left Celia at the clinic, Pedro pedaled me around trying to find the car,” she continued. “But when we spotted it, I couldn’t find you—”
“Jill, are you all right?” Cole caught her fingers with his good hand. “Did those men hurt you?”
Her green eyes softened. “I’m all right. They weren’t kind, but they didn’t rough me up or anything.”
Still holding her hand, needing the human touch, he leaned back on his pillow again. A shower was in order. A toothbrush. A change of clothes. But he couldn’t think beyond his son.
“Jill, I can’t stay here. I’ve got to find—”
“Matt must have driven to Amarillo to get Billy,” she speculated. “From what Josefina told me, I’m nearly positive about that. Two things could have happened once he arrived there. Either Keeling captured Matt and took away whatever Agrimax has been looking for, or Matt and Billy escaped.”
Cole shrugged. “A third scenario—Keeling’s holding Matt someplace, because the boy won’t give him what he wants. My son can be stubborn.”
“A chip off the old block.” Her lips softened. “I’m choosing to believe they got away.”
“And my mother? Where is she?”
“The boys wouldn’t abandon her at the house with those creeps. The three of them must be together.”
“That’s comforting. My mom, my son and his best friend are either being held and tortured somewhere, or they’re on the lam in who-knows-what-kind of a car. None of them can drive worth a flip, you know.”
She slipped her fingers between his and squeezed. “How are you feeling? You look pale.”
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Do you know where we are? Is there a car we can use?”
“You’re not listening to me, Cole. You need to eat. You need to rest your ankle and give your hand time to heal. Your fingers—” she grimaced “—the doctor at the clinic is concerned. He cut away the dead flesh and stitched you up, but, Cole—”
“What’s the name of this place?”
“We’re on the outskirts of Juarez.”
“Can you find us a car or something?”
“And just where do you think you’re going with a couple of amputated fingers and a sprained ankle?”
“I’m going home.”
She stared at him. “To the ranch…to work?”
Cole stroked his thumb across the back of Jill’s hand. To him, the idea that he would return to his ranch labors at a time like this was inconceivable now. But Jill could believe it. She had known the old Cole, the dry stump of a man whose whole life was his work. She hadn’t yet gotten to know the new fellow—the one who had reordered his priorities while lying inside a mangled car watching his fingers die.
“I’m going home to get my passport,” he said. “Looks like I’m headed to France.”
Jill’s eyebrows lifted, and her eyes sparkled as a grin spread from cheek to cheek. “Well, then…bon voyage!” With that, she leaned over and planted a big kiss right on his forehead.
Cole decided it definitely ranked among the most pleasurable kisses he’d ever had. Top ten, for sure.
Jill glanced in the rearview mirror once every five seconds. Possibly more often. She couldn’t help it. Memories of the rental car, the wreck, her interrogation,
and her escape haunted her as she drove across the silent New Mexico grassland. Sometimes she saw things—lights, a shape, a car edging too close to the centerline. She gripped the steering wheel and prayed.
Morphine still dulling his senses, Cole dozed beside her in the passenger seat of the car they had rented after an uncomfortable bus ride to downtown Juarez and a taxi across the bridge to El Paso.
How had all this happened to her? And what did God want her to do with it? She could hardly imagine spending tomorrow in her little house with her dog curled up near her feet as she wrote out lesson plans. What day was it, anyway? Monday evening. Good grief, she had prepared nothing for the substitute that day. What had her students done without her? And how would she ever manage the final weeks until school let out for the summer?
The beeping cell phone cut off her thoughts. She picked it up. “Hello?”
“Jill, hi.” It was Cole’s fiancée. Jill had talked to the woman a couple of times since the accident. “This is Penny Ames. Is Cole available?”
“He’s sleeping. I can’t wake him right now.” She paused and realized she ought to explain. “The doctor gave him painkillers for his hand.”
“So you’re still at the clinic?”
“We’re in a car. I’m driving Cole to his ranch.”
“I see. Well, listen, I’ve decided to take a couple of days off and drive down there. I’m not doing Cole any good just twiddling my thumbs here in Albuquerque. What time do you expect to get him home?”
Jill fretted over how much detail she ought to give on the cell phone. Josefina had told her a lot of information, and now Jill feared she might have erred in forcing the woman to spill the beans. A cell phone wasn’t exactly private communication. Had Agrimax been listening? Or was she becoming paranoid? It’s not paranoia when people are lying, shooting and kidnapping, she decided.
What if Agrimax knew Matt had gone back to the ranch? What if they’d heard Josefina talking about the passports? Even if Agrimax hadn’t overheard that call, its thugs might have tapped Penny’s phone or staked out her condo. But Jill realized she couldn’t evade the woman’s question entirely. Penny was Cole’s future wife, after all. She deserved to know something.
Fatal Harvest Page 17
