The Sheriff

by Angi Morgan

  “You’re kidding me, right?” the agent replied, jerking the reins to the side. They continued arguing, exchanging little digs back and forth. Some under their breath, but mostly not.

  “This will never work.” Andrea was furious but kept her voice low enough for just Pete to hear her. “Agent Conrad might be the same height, but stuffing her hair into a hat won’t fool anyone that she’s me. She doesn’t even know how to sit a horse. It’s obvious to everyone she’s petrified of the animal. It’s old, as slow as Christmas, and she’s still having trouble controlling it.”

  “We’ll get there in time.” Pete stayed calm and relaxed in the saddle.

  In the week she’d known him, anxiety rarely showed through his controlled exterior. Stressful situations seemed to make him even more laid-back. He watched, waited.

  And she was just the opposite. The more frustrated or excited she became, the more questions she asked. And at the moment she was very anxious for Sharon’s benefit.

  “What if they’re watching us right now? I mean, anyone can tell she’s not me.”

  He took a long look at Andrea’s outfit. She knew exactly what he was thinking. They’d gone to great lengths to make her look like a guy, even setting her on a smaller, shorter horse so she’d look larger. The oversize Western hat on her head stayed in place with a leather tie.

  “They don’t know you’re the one who can ride a horse. We’re not certain they know about Agent Conrad being here at all. Keep your eyes open.”

  Beth Conrad’s horse whinnied loudly and began dancing in circles. They’d never make it to the rendezvous point at this rate. Pete brought his horse closer. It was the first time since their task force meeting that the frown on his face had relaxed.

  “Andrea, we won’t be able to stop them from taking you. Do you know that?” The concern on his face broke her heart.

  It should have frightened her.

  “Cord informed Dad’s team. They’re tracking me. It’ll be okay.” As hard as it was to say the words, it was harder to believe them while she looked at the worry on Pete’s face. He hadn’t smiled all day and probably shouldn’t, but she missed it. Missed the man who had teased her to nervous, unending babble.

  Pete leaned in close, tugging her even closer. If anyone had fallen for her outfit before, her cover was totally blown when his lips devoured hers. Excitement returned even with the cautioning clearing of Cord’s throat.

  “I know you think you have to go through with this, but you don’t.” Pete let his horse put a couple of feet between them.

  “He’s right,” Cord added. “Say the word and we’re heading back at a full gallop. There’s no guarantee that Sharon will be released.”

  “But there’s a chance.”

  Nick tried to help Beth by jumping off his horse and soothing the older mare.

  “Very slim,” Pete said.

  “I have to do this. And we all know the real objective is to find their camp and the men responsible. We’ll put a stop to the murders and find Sharon.”

  Pete exchanged a glance with Cord, making her feel naive. Well, maybe she was, but she had to try catching the person responsible for Logan’s death.

  “Remember what we said. Try to keep an idea of where you are. Landmarks, if you cross water, sounds like a train or lots of people.” Pete rubbed her back. “If I can’t stop you, just remember that I’m not far behind. I will find you. Got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t be a hero, Andrea. Just do what they say. Please,” Pete whispered.

  “If things don’t go according to plan, just listen to us and do what we say. Okay?” Cord added. “You ready, Nick?”

  Before Nick could respond, Beth exploded with confidence behind them. “I can do this!” But a loud crack sounding like a single gunshot echoed through the mountains, giving their horses a different opinion. While the rest of them regained control, Beth’s old mare bolted into the open area toward the wider end of the ravine.

  “Dammit, she’s lost control of the reins,” Cord said, rising straighter in his saddle as if he could see more than a runaway horse carrying away their bait.

  “I’ll get her,” Nick exclaimed, taking off before anyone could object. “Don’t wait for us.”

  “You want to wait here?” Pete asked. “Or do we turn around and forget this farce?”

  “We can’t.” Andrea could only think of her mission. The shadows were growing long behind them as the sun sank lower on the other side of the mountains. “We have to keep going for Sharon.”

  She shoved the hat off her head, letting the leather string dig a little into her throat as the wind caught it like a sail behind her. She tussled her short hair around, fluffing it a bit to let anyone watching know it was her. Pete was still close so she leaned and kissed him with all the passion she could. He kissed her back and looked stunned when she sat in her saddle again.

  “We have to find Sharon.” She kicked her horse and took the lead, trotting up the trail they’d been following.

  “Andrea! Wait!” Pete shouted. “What are you doing?”

  Both men called for her to stop. She would, just as soon as she got over the next rise and it was too late to follow the DEA agent whose horse was still galloping in the opposite direction. She clicked to her own mare, kicking her sides just a little to get her to break the trotting motion. The path was smooth and level enough for a short, steady lope.

  She topped the rise, slowing and coming face-to-face with six armed men. Horses and ATVs and gun barrels. No Sharon in sight. Her escort was several seconds behind her.

  It was the trap Pete had anticipated. She’d been so determined—or stubborn—to save the young college student that she’d disregarded all the men’s warnings. Midway in turning her horse around to get back to safety, a man leaped out and grabbed her waist. They fell to the ground and rolled, lucky four hooves didn’t trample them. She kicked out, threw an elbow in the soft spot under his rib cage, but he held tight.

  Nothing deterred him. They ended up with him on the ground, her on top of him. He slapped a dirty hand over her mouth tightly so she couldn’t shout out and warn the men. She kept throwing punches until another man put his boot on her stomach and pointed his gun at her head.

  “That’s far enough,” the man holding the gun said. “Throw your weapons to the ground. We don’t want any death today.”

  At first, Andrea thought he was talking to her. Then she realized that Pete and Cord had topped the hill.

  “Let her go,” Pete shouted.

  “We have your money. Where’s the girl?” Cord’s weapon was still holstered.

  Pete moved, his eyes searching hers. They both knew that these men weren’t there for a hostage exchange. They were there to abduct the daughter of the man in charge of border patrol.

  The man holding Andrea released her to two others, who quickly yanked her to her feet and zip-tied her wrists behind her. Pete began to swing his leg over the back of his horse to dismount, but the man with the gun shoved it in her back, tsking.

  Pete cursed and kept his seat.

  “I’ll be okay.” She answered his unasked question. Her father would certainly be tracking her, but she could see the determination in Pete’s eyes that he’d find her no matter what the cost. She knew he’d keep his promise.

  Countless times she told herself to expect this scenario, yet it was still frightening. They wanted her alive, otherwise they would have shot them all earlier. Why was the million-dollar question that her father and the DHS needed answered.

  The men half lifted, half dragged her to an empty ATV.

  “Wait. Isn’t there some deal we can make?” Pete asked.

  “Don’t you want your money?” Cord shouted.

  “You keep your pittance. The women are worth a lot more to me. We’ll get more for not taking your money.” The one pointing the gun laughed at their attempt. He straddled the ATV in front of her. “You can get off your horses now.”

  Two other m
en on horseback pointed their guns at Cord and Pete, waiting for them to follow instructions. The weapons they’d dropped earlier had already been picked up. They bent low against their own horses, grabbing the lawmen’s fallen reins and leading them away.

  As the horses passed Pete, he lunged, catching one of the men off guard and pulling him to the ground. The big man giving the orders held up his hand to stop his men. All stayed where they were while the one closest to Cord put a gun to his head. He froze while the fight continued.

  The man Pete fought was young and seemed inexperienced. Pete got two or three punches in for every one he took. A final uppercut to the younger man’s jaw had him out cold against the rocky trail.

  Pete took a deep breath and wiped a little blood away from a split lip. A pistol was quickly pointed at the back of his neck, keeping him from moving.

  “That was quite a show. The fight was good experience for my man and seemed only fair since he helped kill one of yours.” He gestured for one of the ATV riders to drag the unconscious man to his vehicle. “Useless to make a move. There are many of us. Too many to fight, I think.”

  “No harm in trying.” Pete spit blood toward the man who had murdered Logan.

  “I think Jimmy would disagree with you.”

  “I will find you,” Pete growled with confidence but kicked rocks with his feet. The leader laughed.

  It could have been encouragement for her or a threat to the man calling the shots. She didn’t know. His words gave her hope and she’d hang on to them as long as possible.

  Both ATVs were started.

  “If it were up to me, amigos, you’d never walk out of here. Not up to me today. Maybe next time. Sí?” He saluted Cord and Pete and put the ATV in gear with a jerk. “Take their phones.”

  Pete and Cord had brought hand radios, which the armed men tossed to the ground and smashed. She looked at Pete as long as she could. She knew he was yelling, but she couldn’t hear his words over the ATV engines. Hoping above all else that this would end quickly and positively, she tried to get her bearings.

  Then they were bouncing over rough terrain and all she could think about was hanging on for dear life. She barely had a grip on the edge of the seat with her hands tied. One good bump and she could be dead against the rocks.

  They were on the north side of a state highway. So she doubted they’d be riding horses and ATVs all the way to the border. So where would they take her? They hadn’t scanned her for tracking devices and she could only pray they wouldn’t before they arrived at their destination.

  And if they did?

  Would she vanish like Sharon?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “They lost one of the signals twenty minutes in. Just lost the second.” Cord hung up the cell.

  “Where? Where’s the last place they had her?” The look on the Ranger’s face told him he’d been instructed not to disclose that information. “Dammit, Cord. Tell me. You knew this was going to happen. We all did and we let her go through with it anyway. Stupid. I should have stopped her.”

  “Take a minute. You tried to talk her out of it.”

  “I didn’t try hard enough.”

  “We’re to wait here. Burke and Beth Conrad are still missing.” Cord calmly pocketed the cell they’d picked up from his truck.

  “Do you think they’re dead? We didn’t hear any shots. And if they’d wanted more hostages, why didn’t they take us?”

  “Too much trouble, I imagine. Same as killing us would have brought too many law enforcement agencies in here to muck up their plans. We sit tight and wait.”

  “No. Whatever’s happening is going down in Presidio. That’s what your informant said. You going to sit in the corner and accept your punishment or are you coming with me?”

  “Now, hold on just one damn minute. We aren’t being punished. We’re part of a team.” Cord defended the task force.

  At the moment, the only loyalty Pete felt was to Andrea. He’d promised her. He wouldn’t sit around and let that promise be broken by following orders. He’d already broken a couple.

  “Well, this player’s tired of sitting on the bench.” He threw out the challenge, wanting the backup but willing to go alone. “You coming?”

  Cord hesitated long enough to blink. “Yeah, I need my shotgun.”

  “Dispatch,” Pete said into the microphone while he was waiting.

  “Whatcha need, Pete?”

  “Anyone heard from Hardy? I sent him on an errand and thought to hear back by now.”

  “I’ll ask him. Be right back.”

  And what if they were monitoring the police bands? “Peach, have him call my dad at the house.”

  “You got it, Sheriff.”

  Pete pulled out the tracking device he’d borrowed from the county. He’d been using it with Andrea since dropping her off the first day at the observatory. “Good, it’s still working.”

  “You can’t be tracking Andrea.”

  “Nope. Do you think I risked getting shot in a fight I knew I couldn’t win? I planted a tracker on that guy, Jimmy.”

  “You could have told us.”

  “What’s the fun in that?” He switched the box on and watched for a light. Nothing. “If I had told anyone, Andrea would probably have found out. I didn’t want her to give it away. I also wasn’t certain you guys would approve. We need to get closer for it to pick up the signal.”

  “Or they found it and got rid of it just like Andrea’s. The fight was risky.” Cord shook his head in disbelief.

  “But worth it since my tracker still has a chance. Let’s get going.”

  It would be the fastest he’d ever driven the sixty miles from Marfa to Presidio. Also one of the blackest nights until the full moon came up. He passed one other car, his flashing lights lit the fields on either side. They were taking a risk. Mainly him. Not with just the speed of the Tahoe...

  “What if they took her somewhere else? I should have stayed in the mountains and tried to track them.”

  “Don’t second-guess your decisions, Pete. You took a big risk dropping the pocketknife during the fight, then kicking rocks on top of it. If you hadn’t, we might still be waiting on Nick and Agent Conrad to untie us.”

  “I was lucky they didn’t just shoot me.”

  “If they’d planned to shoot us, they would have as soon as we got within range.” Cord glanced at his cell again. “Still no word from Nick.”

  “He knows those mountains as good as either of us. The DEA agent’s horse looked pretty spooked. Probably took him a while to catch up.” Pete couldn’t put much thought into Nick’s problems. Every thought came back to getting to Presidio fast. A plan wouldn’t hurt, either. But he had nothing. “Do you think we should have stuck with tracking Andrea’s abductors?”

  “Forget it. You couldn’t see a trail in the dark. They had horses and ATVs. Three each, three pairs or six different possibilities. Presidio is our best shot. We both know that.”

  It was worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack. At least you had the haystack right in front of you. This time they had a town and all the surrounding area. Miles of border and no way of knowing which way the illegal goods were crossing. Guns into Mexico or drugs into the States. There’d be mass confusion with too many law enforcement agencies trying to call the shots.

  “What are we looking for when we get there?” He knew it was a long shot. “Other than Jimmy’s jacket that I’m tracking?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Cord finally admitted.

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  * * *

  ANDREA WAS STILL WET. The men who’d abducted her had been prepared for any electronics that she carried. By dumping her in a barrel of water the tracking earrings her father had sent would be useless. They’d held her under until she’d almost passed out.

  Afterward, the six men had split up. Their leader drove them both to an awaiting helicopter. They didn’t bother to blindfold her for the first part of the tri
p, so she could see all the terrain. They hadn’t crossed the Rio Grande, so they were still on the U.S. side of the border. That, at least, was something in her favor. The nearest town to the east would have been Marfa, but they flew south.

  The only city or town that direction was Presidio. Once they landed they’d covered her eyes with a sleeping mask. She could see nothing but her feet. And there hadn’t been one clue about Sharon. Nothing had been mentioned.

  Cord’s informant had been right. The undercover agent had been right. And Pete had definitely been right. She, on the other hand, had been terribly wrong. There was little hope that Pete or her father would find her. But hope was all she had...and her wits.

  What could these men gain from her being here? Especially tonight?

  Alone in a small metal room, no bigger than a storage crate, she could hear the low bass of a speaker. It wasn’t coming from the other side of the door as she’d first thought. It was behind her, through the wall. Vibrating. She must be close to the concert in Presidio.

  Low lighting from a battery-operated lamp. Two chairs and a card table. It didn’t feel like a normal room. The low ceiling was made of the same material. She was in a storage container. Driving from Austin to West Texas, she must have seen hundreds of these containers transported by train.

  If she could only get word to Pete. She didn’t know how much time had passed while sitting there. She’d counted every rusty plank of the container and knew how many rivets held it together. Her wrists were numb, still tucked behind her back in the folding chair. It made it impossible to rest her head.

  The door opened and in marched an unusual man. Unusual because he was tall, well-dressed in a very expensive suit and had white-blond hair. His hair among all the darker Hispanics in the city would stand out. He smoothed it flat before clapping his hands.

  “Come now, don’t tell me that no one cut your hands free.” A guy appeared with a knife.

  Who claps their hands for the hired help? But that’s how he acted...as if everyone around him was beneath him. So far beneath him he didn’t give any direction to the men who’d abducted her, just facial expressions that shouted to everyone.