One Last Song (A Thomas Family Novel Book 3)

by Kristi Cramer

  ⋘⋆⋙

  “Water,” Kylie called, holding her hand out to Vera. “Please. He’s passed out.”

  Vera passed her the jug, and she splashed a small amount on Jax’s face, wiping at more of the dried blood. This time, he didn’t move.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Danica asked, wringing her hands.

  Kylie looked up at her and tried to remember the brief lesson her mother had given her about head injuries. “I don’t know. He’s definitely got a concussion, and between the lacerations on his face and the bullet wound in his side, I don’t know how much blood he’s lost. He needs to rest. If he doesn’t, he could suffer permanent brain damage.”

  She looked around at the small space they found themselves in. Danica had spotted the structure not far from where Jax had collapsed, and they’d dragged him to it. It had something to do with an oil or natural gas wellhead, but she didn’t understand enough about the industry to know exactly what the building was. The only thing she cared about was that it offered shelter, a place to get Jax out of the punishing sun.

  She shifted, trying to find a better position, but she refused to let Jax go. His head lay on her lap, and he looked more comfortable than the rest of them. She remembered his hand on her breast right before he collapsed. If it had been any other man, she’d have thought he was faking it just so he could cop a feel. But Jax was not just any man. He was her best friend, and the best man her age that she knew. She was more determined than ever to make sure they made it home safe.

  “Check outside,” she said. “Do you see anything?”

  Both Vera and Danica looked through the tiny, dirty window.

  “Nothing,” Vera said. “Maybe we can hole up here until dark. Surely they will have given up by then.”

  “I’m not counting on anything,” Kylie said. “I have a hard time convincing myself these people will just let us go knowing we can describe them to the authorities. Somebody needs to watch at that window every moment. If we see them coming, we’ll need some way to fight them off.”

  She looked around the room, not seeing anything in the way of weapons. Nothing but an empty worktop and a shelf with some binders that looked like instruction manuals or logbooks. No phone, no computer, not even a bathroom. Whatever this structure was, it wasn’t meant to house workers for any length of time.

  A second door led into another room, but Vera tried the handle and found it locked. “Should we break the handle, like we did the first door?” she asked. “I can get the rock....”

  “I don’t know. It made such a loud noise before. Sounds carry in the desert, don’t they? Do we dare risk it?” Kylie looked at the other two, and they shook their heads.

  Danica looked scared, but Vera looked determined. Kylie knew if that man and woman zeroed in on this place as their haven, it would come down to a fight. Kylie didn’t know how the three of them would be able to hold off two people who were surely armed and probably enraged by their escape.

  Jax mumbled against her, and she looked down into his face. That boyish face of the friend who had been there for her throughout her entire life. There wasn’t a single memory she held dear that he wasn’t somehow involved in. And while she had always playfully made fun of his all too apparent attraction to her, she had cherished it, knowing he was bound to outgrow it and see her as just a friend, the way she had always claimed to see him.

  “Jax,” she whispered. “Jackson Belamy, can you hear me?” He didn’t answer and his hand, clutched in hers, lay quiet. “Don’t you dare give up on me now.”

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Cody looked down at the tarmac as Dylan’s chopper descended on Roswell, New Mexico. Dylan had offered his help as a means of getting him there fast, but he’d had to file flight plans at the airport and fuel up the tiny Bell Ag-5 before they could leave.

  The delay had been maddening, but they’d made the flight in three-and-a-half hours, whereas Sheriff Jonas was still en route. They’d started out heading for Clovis, but a mid-flight phone call had directed them to Roswell International Air Center. They had to radio Clovis and update their flight plans, but that had just been a formality.

  Checking his watch, Cody saw it was just past noon, which meant it had been six hours since the sighting at the truck stop that morning.

  The RV could be anywhere by now.

  Dylan’s calm, professional voice sounded over the headphones. “While I secure the chopper, why don’t you check in with the car rental agent at the terminal? Then we’ll head over to the state police office.”

  Cody nodded. He wanted to thank Dylan for going out of his way to bring him here, but he had already shrugged off the thanks too many times. His friend had maintained that Cody would do the same if their roles had been reversed.

  As quirky as Dylan could be, he was all business when it came to flying, especially when the mission was such a serious one.

  The second the skids hit the tarmac, Cody was out, ducking in the rotor wash, his hat clapped onto his head with one hand. The other hand grasped a small gym duffel—the only thing he’d been allowed to bring. Crouched over, he ran to the building and went inside to find the car rental agent.

  Forty-five minutes later, he and Dylan walked up to the tan, boxy building that housed the New Mexico State Police in Chaves County.

  Now that he was here, he wasn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t like the world had stopped just to focus on his missing daughter. There was no apparent command center, no bustling deputies, no pictures of his daughter on a whiteboard with clues. In other words, it was nothing like the scenes he’d seen on TV shows.

  Before he had a chance to wonder how to find out who was in charge of the case—or if there even was a case—a man in a dark suit approached them.

  “Mr. Buford? Come with me. There’s been a development.”

  Cody and Dylan exchanged glances as the man walked them back out the front doors of the building, where a familiar face awaited them.

  “Agent Sanderson,” Cody said, taking the hand the woman offered. Calliope Sanderson was professionally dressed in a dark gray power suit buttoned over a white blouse, dark gray slacks, and very sensible shoes. She was a woman whose powerful frame and piercing blue eyes demanded attention. “How did you get here so fast?”

  “We weren’t that far away.” The FBI agent glanced at Dylan, then continued. “We’ve actually got a command center set up at the Fairfield Inn, if you’ll accompany us there.”

  After another ten minutes, Agent Sanderson escorted them into a suite of rooms on the third floor of the modest hotel. This was more like what he’d been expecting. Agents hunched over laptops. A huge map of the state hung on the wall with pushpin markers dotted across its expanse. Photos that looked like stills from surveillance footage lined a corkboard, along with a list of names.

  Cody was ready to explode with all the questions he’d kept to himself, but he wanted answers now.

  “The state police have been busy this morning,” Sanderson said without any preliminary niceties. “One of their own was killed in the line of duty sometime around eight a.m. Officer Kilkenny was acting on a tip from that truck stop, the instance you phoned me about. He’d called in that he was pulling over an RV matching the description he’d been given. He didn’t wait for backup before he engaged the driver.” Sanderson’s flat tone suggested what she thought of that mistake. “By the time his backup got to the location, there was nothing. No RV, no patrol car. After scouring the area, he found Kilkenny.”

  Sanderson indicated a picture of a macabre corpse, recognizable as a cop only by the uniform. Cody clenched his jaw, but Sanderson continued.

  “The station tracked the patrol car and found it abandoned near Acme, burned to the frame. The dashcam was melted, but we’ve got our best techs trying to salvage the memory card. We’re not optimistic.”

  “What on earth is going on?”

  “Near as we can figure, Kilkenny had the right RV. They killed him, then ditched the patrol car, hoping
to throw us off the trail. Staties have had roadblocks up on both ends of Highway 70 since shortly after Kilkenny’s body was found, which was forty-five minutes after he called in the stop, but every RV they’ve stopped has been clean.”

  “So something happened between Clovis and Roswell,” Cody surmised.

  “Precisely. We’ve been monitoring police bands, but they’ve been concentrating their efforts near the burned-out patrol car.”

  “Do you have air support?” Dylan asked, earning looks from both Cody and Sanderson.

  Chapter Nine

  Janie shifted over in the seat as Tim returned from the bathroom and joined her in the booth by the window. She’d been staring at her phone, willing it to ring with good news, as silly as she knew that endeavor was.

  “Hey,” he said, and put his arm across her shoulders to pull her close for a kiss.

  She gave him a weary smile. “Hey.”

  He brought his mouth close to her ear so he could speak in low tones that wouldn’t carry across the room. “I just overheard the Belamys arguing. He said something about Jax that confused me. Said the boy is no good, wasting his time chasing after tail instead of looking to the future. What’s that about? From what I’ve seen, Jax is a good kid.”

  Janie thought a moment, trying to think of how to explain a complicated relationship. She stayed close and kept her voice low, too, although it was hard not to give in to temptation and let her lips press against Tim’s jaw instead. “Wayne works over at one of the feedlots off Highway 27, south of town. He thinks the kind of ranching we do at the Lazy J is old-fashioned, a waste of land and resources, and unnecessarily dangerous. He wanted Jax to work with him.” She dropped her voice to mimic Wayne’s condescending tones. “Said being a cowboy was fine while he was still in school, in that it built character and all, but now he’s a man. He should be earning a man’s wages and starting a home and family, not living in a bunkhouse with a bunch of guys.”

  “I don’t know. I think I make pretty good wages,” Tim said. “And saving money instead of buying a house right out of school is smart.”

  “Right. Wayne thinks the financial trouble we had after Momma’s cancer was because the ranch wasn’t performing. The truth is, we do pretty well in the specialty markets. Now there’s blowback starting over the whole GMO issue, and people are going to really catch on that grass-fed Angus wins over feedlot meat a hundred ways from Sunday. Wayne was raised to think that feedlots are the future, traditional ranching is somehow backwards and inferior, and because Momma is the way she is, it’s for hippie organic granola crunchers who are stuck in the past.”

  “What’s that got to do with Jax not being a good kid?”

  She sighed. “It’s partly my fault, I guess. Kylie and I fall squarely into that ‘crunchy’ box Wayne doesn’t think much of. Momma was a true hippie, so a lot of it rubbed off on us. He’s a tough guy, and doesn’t believe men should show weakness or feelings. The Thomas family, even my father, believes there’s strength in being connected with our emotions. So the fact Jax has made it no secret about being sweet on Kylie has rubbed Wayne the wrong way. He thinks Jax can’t possibly be a man while he hangs around us, hoping Kylie will turn her head.”

  “Ah. My dad was the same way, I guess. He worked every possible minute in the steel mill, and when he wasn’t there, he was hollering at Tom, Mitzi, and me about how lazy we were and that we’d never amount to anything. Is it surprising we ended up the way we did?”

  “Ended up? May I point out that you could say you’re only just getting started?”

  Tim smiled and landed a kiss on her cheek. “You know what I mean. I’m glad Jax has had your family as an alternative example of how to be in life. That old-fashioned mindset has some positives, but it really has to be tempered with some common sensibilities.”

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Jax came awake with a start and tried to sit up, but gentle hands and his aching head kept him down. Confused, he looked around the darkened room. He lay on the floor, his head cushioned on something firm but soft.

  “Kylie?” he mumbled, unable to keep his eyes open very long.

  “I’m here,” she said, and he wondered at the tone of relieved surprise he heard in her voice.

  “What happened?”

  “Shh. Drink first.” He felt hard plastic against his lips and he drank when the liquid reached his parched mouth.

  Too quickly, it was removed.

  “Sorry, hun. We don’t have much water.”

  Cool fingers brushed his forehead and down along his cheek. If he didn’t have this nagging feeling he’d forgotten something, it would have been heaven. He scrunched up his eyes, trying to remember. Confused images of strangers and the world tilting around him assailed him, but refused to clarify.

  “Was there a crash?”

  “Yes. It’s good that you remember.”

  “I remember crashing in the desert.”

  “Do you remember anything else?”

  He frowned. “Gunfire? And running.” Opening his eyes, he found Kylie’s face hovering over his, a sad smile on her lips.

  “I’m afraid it’s going to come back to you in pieces, so let me fill in the gaps.” She briefly told of the events following the fair, then said, “You drove off with the RV, but wrecked it. I think we’re in New Mexico now, hiding in some kind of well shack, waiting for dark.”

  Once again, he tried to sit up, but Kylie held him down. “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I remember?”

  “You hit your head in the accident. You’ve got a goose egg on your forehead, and probably a concussion. It’s hard to know how bad it is, but since you have some memories....” Her voice caught for a moment before she went on. “I’m hoping it isn’t too bad. You’ve been sleeping for at least three hours, and that can only help.”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to sleep with a concussion?”

  “You can sleep, but we’re supposed to wake you every four hours to make sure you still know who you are, what day it is, and where you are.”

  Jax checked his memories. “I’m Jackson Belamy, I think it’s Monday, and we’ve been kidnapped.”

  “Yep, that just about sums it up.” That voice was vaguely familiar. Jax looked over at the speaker, a red-haired girl sitting against the far wall. She had her knees pulled up and her chin resting against them—a pose all too similar to the way they’d been tied up. Her tired eyes had a vacant, haunted look.

  “You’re Vera, right? And she’s Danica?” He indicated a girl intently watching out the window. “You’re right. It’s coming back to me now.” All the gritty moments he’d rather forget, like getting fondled in the back of the RV. He shuddered, then looked back at Kylie. “We’re waiting for dark because...?”

  She shrugged. “Because it will be cooler, and we’ll have less chance of being spotted in the dark.”

  “But we don’t really know where to go, do we?”

  “I figure we can keep an eye out for a house or something with lights, see if we can get to someone who has a phone we can use to call for help. That dead cop means the authorities surely know something has happened, so maybe they’re searching by now. We only made it about two miles from the RV, but hopefully it’s far enough away that the bad guys won’t come looking for us. We haven’t been able to hear any cars, just the occasional plane, and a helicopter.”

  “What kind of planes?” Jax asked. “Isn’t there an Air Force base in northeastern New Mexico?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The planes looked military, but they were pretty high up, so I don’t think any base is nearby—not close enough to walk to anyway,” Vera said.

  “And the helicopter?”

  “Small and moving fast, definitely not searching.”

  Jax sighed, then reached for Kylie’s hand. “Help me sit up,” he said. “Please.”

  She nodded and helped as he strained to sit up, guiding him until his back was against the wall beside her. His temple throbbed,
and he reached a hand up to feel the huge bump on his forehead. “Goose egg, my ass. That’s an ostrich egg,” he said in amazement.

  Kylie laughed, a strained sound that choked off before it convinced him. “If it were that big, I’d be way more worried than I already am.”

  At the window, Danica jumped, then looked down at Vera. “I think I see something,” she whispered. “Something’s moving out there.”

  ⋘⋆⋙

  Maria cringed at the thought of the body that was sure to be burned by the conflagration behind them. They’d left the cop car burning in the ditch. The shrubbery around it caught fire and engulfed the whole gulley in flames before they’d even gotten back to the Good Samaritan’s pickup.

  They were slowly driving back the way they’d come, searching for signs of the RV trying to hide off the main road somewhere. Alan was silent, his focus sweeping back and forth on either side of the highway. Whenever other traffic approached, he pulled off the highway, even though it was four lanes divided, and let the other cars go by.

  She didn’t dare question him. His thunderous expression promised she’d get no good response out of daring to ask.

  Finding the RV was critical. They hadn’t been foolish enough to openly travel with picture ID, but there was a hidden compartment containing fake travel documents for the purpose of getting across the border. That meant there was potential for their identities to be compromised.

  Then there was the liability of the “merchandise” talking to the authorities and describing their abductors. Also not acceptable.

  Finally, there was the loss of their primary objective—the Buford girl. Finding her had taken considerable effort, and their boss would be livid to learn she’d slipped through their fingers. If nothing else went right, capturing Kylie Thomas, daughter of the rat, Cody Buford, was essential. Failure was not an option.

  She was pretty sure Alan knew that, but she wasn’t brave enough to ask and make sure. Somehow, without getting herself shot for her trouble, she had to reinforce to him that shooting at the Buford brat again was unacceptable.