by Cindi Myers
“You could have walked out the way you came in,” Blessing said.
“That would have taken days,” Travis said. “But I imagine Braeswood was smart enough to have men watching that route, too.”
“I can’t believe he went and offed himself,” Wade said. “After all these months of us chasing him, he went and cheated us out of putting him on trial. Where’s the justice in that?”
“Ending up on the rocks at the bottom of a ravine isn’t exactly an easy way to go,” Luke said.
“Tell the truth, Travis.” Cameron Hsung leaned forward to address Travis. “When you had him backed up to the drop-off, weren’t you tempted—at least a little—to give him a little push?”
Travis had thought Leah might push Braeswood. He had a clear image of her hand on his back, the determination mixed with pain in her face. Maybe he should have let her do it. After the torture Braeswood had put her through, it would have been fitting.
But he wasn’t wired that way. He had been taught to protect all life, even that of the criminals. So he had moved in quickly to put on the cuffs. Just not quickly enough. “I wanted to make him go through a trial and endure the public scorn he deserved,” he said. “That would have been a fitting punishment. Then I wanted to see him rot in prison for the rest of his life.”
“It would have been good to find out what his plans were,” Blessing said. “It’s possible he’s already set in motion other acts of terrorism and his followers will carry them out.” He directed one of his patented stern looks at Travis. “Do you think Ms. Carlisle can tell us anything about Braeswood’s planned activities?”
If Travis said yes, it might be Leah’s ticket to freedom from jail, at least for a little while. But he wouldn’t lie to his boss. “She says Braeswood tried to keep her in the dark about his activities. He had thugs who guarded her, and he conducted his business meetings away from the house or in his home office, where she wasn’t allowed to go. The best she can do is give us an idea of his whereabouts for the past six months, and identify people he associated with. That might lead us to other sources of information.”
“Agent Renfro and I did some research last night and the story she gave you checks out,” Blessing said. “At least as far as the surface facts. She did resign from her job and sign over all her property to Braeswood, or more accurately, to one of the shell corporations we suspect he had set up to launder money for his terrorist activities. Her sister died in a car accident three weeks later. It was a one-car accident that local police labeled as vehicular suicide, but I found notes by one investigator that noted the evidence was inconclusive and, in his opinion, suspicious.”
“Did anyone ever follow up on that?” Travis asked.
Blessing shook his head. “You know how it is. An overworked department has better things to do than follow up on every bit of information that doesn’t line up quite right, especially if no family members or press are on their backs about it.”
Travis looked at Luke, who held out his hands in a gesture of contrition. “I had to check it out,” he said. “For your peace of mind, as well as ours.”
Good thing he had, too. Travis owed his friend one. “Does this mean you’ll go to bat for Leah?” he asked Blessing.
“We’ll do what we can,” Blessing said. “The Justice Department is a separate entity. They’re under no obligation to listen to us.”
But they will, Travis thought. They have to.
Chapter Eighteen
The sun had already disappeared behind the canyon walls when the team members returned to the Needleton Station late that afternoon after the last tourist train had departed, a row of shackled prisoners in tow. They had taken Braeswood’s men by surprise. Only one had escaped through the woods, and local authorities and train personnel had been alerted to be on the lookout for him.
The chase had been cathartic for Travis. Once on the hunt, his aches and pains had vanished. He had been able to home in on the area where they had seen the men and positively identify each of them. The outlaws fought back against the agents, but only briefly, outmatched and outnumbered. The days in the woods had taken their toll on Braeswood’s men—they looked like refugees of some tragedy, unshaven and dirty, their clothes rumpled and torn. Travis realized he must have looked like this when he’d emerged from the woods. No wonder the train passengers had stared.
No passengers stared as they boarded cars for the return trip. Federal authorities had commissioned a special train consisting of only two passenger cars and an engine to take the prisoners back to Durango. Instead of a conductor, Russell Waddell met them at the top of the platform in the first car. “You’re looking a little different today, Agent Steadman,” he said with a grin.
“I imagine this is more excitement than you usually see on your tourist train,” Travis said as the prisoners filed past.
“You might be surprised,” Waddell said. “Our main focus is on tourist traffic, but we’ve hauled everyone from Hollywood stars to construction equipment and a whole herd of bighorn sheep.”
“No sheep today.” Travis nodded to the row of disheveled men slouched in the train seats. “Though I think most of the fight has gone out of them.”
“What happened yesterday, after you got to Silverton?” Waddell asked. “Did you arrest Beaverton, or whatever his name is?”
Travis tried to keep the pain he felt from his face. He didn’t like remembering the scene in Silverton, or the look on Leah’s face as the sheriff’s deputies hauled her away. “It’s a long story,” he said. “But Mr. Beaverton won’t be causing any more trouble.”
As the train whistle sounded and the cars lurched forward, he dumped his pack in an empty seat with several others, then made his way to the front of the car to sit beside Luke. “I thought we were headed back to Durango,” Luke said. “But we’re traveling the wrong direction.”
“I think we’re stopping off at Deadwood Gulch to pick up the recovery team,” Travis said.
“The place where Braeswood jumped?”
“Yeah.” A man had to be crazy to do something like that.
They fell silent, Travis staring at his own reflection in the window against the blackness outside. All day he had been distracted by the mission, but now his thoughts turned to Leah. What was she doing right now? Did she think he had abandoned her again?
The train slowed, then jerked to a stop with a loud exhalation of steam from the brakes. After a few moments, they heard voices, and a quartet of weary men filed into the car. They conferred among themselves, then they moved down the aisle, toward Travis. “Are you Agent Steadman?” one asked.
“I’m Travis Steadman.”
“Shawn Peterborough.” The man offered his hand. “San Juan County Search and Rescue. We contracted to bring up a body from Deadwood Gulch.”
“Was he in bad shape?” Luke asked.
Peterborough shook his head. “He wasn’t in any kind of shape. We couldn’t find him.”
Travis stared, trying to let this information sink in. “What do you mean, you couldn’t find him? I saw him fall from the train into that gulch. Nobody could survive a drop like that.”
“We didn’t find anything—no blood, no footprints, nothing,” Peterborough said. “We spent all day combing through the area for two miles on every side. Nothing. Your guy is gone.”
That was impossible. “Maybe an animal dragged the body away,” Travis said. “A wolf or a mountain lion.”
“We don’t have wolves here,” Peterborough said. “And mountain lions store their prey near the kill site. We would have found it.”
“He couldn’t have survived a fall like that,” Travis said.
“I’ve seen stranger things happen,” Peterborough said. “If he landed in a deeper part of the creek, in softer mud, and if he was very, very lucky...” He shrugged. “He might have walke
d away with a few bruises, maybe a broken bone or two.”
“Son of a—” Travis bit off the curse. “He can’t have gotten away. He can’t have.”
“If you want, we can go in tomorrow with a search dog,” Peterborough said. “But the trail will be pretty cold by then. We’d have to get lucky to find anything.”
“Nothing about this mission has been lucky,” Luke said.
“Yeah, well, even if your guy survived his fall and walked into the woods, he’s not going to last long out there alone with no supplies,” Peterborough said.
“I’m sure he had a phone,” Travis said. “He wouldn’t have had to walk far toward Silverton to be able to call for help. He could even follow the train tracks to town. It’s only a few miles from the gulch.”
“Provided the phone wasn’t damaged in the fall, and he was in any shape to climb up to the tracks,” Peterborough said. “I made some calls, and no one in town reported a man wandering in from the wilderness.”
“Maybe they didn’t notice him, with all the tourists and everything,” Travis said. “And Braeswood already had a car and driver waiting in Silverton. He could have met up with them and been out of town before the train left to return to Durango.”
“If he did make it out of here alive, we’ll find out sooner or later,” Luke said. “He won’t stay quiet for long.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Travis said. “When we do hear from Braeswood again, it won’t be good.”
* * *
AFTER TWO NIGHTS in jail, Leah had decided that being patient and cooperative wasn’t getting her anywhere. She was fed up with the guards’ condescending attitudes and their assumption that she was guilty of the charges against her. She didn’t want to hear any more excuses about why she was being held here in the middle of nowhere, with no access to a lawyer or any outside visitors. She refused to believe Travis hadn’t at least tried to see her, so her jailers must be keeping him away, the way they were keeping away the reporters and others who had tried to speak with her.
“You have to let me see a lawyer,” she said when a guard responded to her shouts for help on the morning after her second night in the stark, uncomfortable cell.
“You’ll see a lawyer whenever you get to Denver or DC or wherever they decide to send you,” the guard—a portly redhead whose name badge identified him as Erickson—said.
“You can’t just hold me here forever,” she said.
“We can do whatever the Feds tell us to do,” Erickson said, and turned away.
“Then bring me some paper and a pen,” she called after him.
“Why?” He turned toward her again. “Do you plan to write your memoirs?”
“I’m going to write a letter,” she said. The Denver Post wouldn’t pass up the chance to publish a letter from a notorious fugitive who’d been captured, she was sure.
Maybe she would write to Travis, too. She would apologize for dragging him into this mess, and tell him she loved him. She hadn’t had the courage to say the words out loud when he was awake when they were in the wilderness, but she wanted him to know them now. Whatever happened, whether they were able to ever be together again, she wanted him to know she loved him, and she always had.
The writing paper never materialized, however. Instead, about ten o’clock Erickson returned with another officer, who unlocked her cell and motioned for her to step out. “Someone here to see you,” he said.
“Who is it?” she asked as he led her through the double doors that separated the cells from the rest of the facility.
But he ignored the question and motioned her to walk in front of him down the hall, into a gray, windowless room that contained a table and a single chair.
He left her in the room, locking the door behind him. She sat in the chair and looked up at the camera mounted in the ceiling. Was someone watching her now, the way a scientist watches a rat in a maze, waiting to see how the animal will react to various stimuli?
After what felt like an hour had passed, but was probably only ten minutes or so, the lock on the door snapped and the doorknob turned. She stood to greet her visitors. A distinguished-looking black man in a dark suit entered first, but it was the second man who commanded all Leah’s attention. “Travis!” she said, and started toward him.
She would have hugged him, but he held her at arm’s length. “How are you doing?” he asked, looking her up and down.
“I’m okay.” She glanced down at the baggy orange scrubs and rubber flip-flops they had given her to wear. “At least I’m cleaner than the last time you saw me.”
“Ms. Carlisle, I am Special Agent in Charge Ted Blessing,” the black man said, “with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Special Agent Steadman and I have some questions for you about your association with Duane Braeswood.”
She looked from Travis to Agent Blessing and took a step back. So they were here in an official capacity, not because Travis hadn’t been able to stay away. No wonder he was being so distant and formal. She returned to the chair and sat, smoothing her palms down her thighs. “I’m happy to answer any questions you have,” she said. “But shouldn’t I have a lawyer present?”
“You’re entitled to a lawyer,” Blessing said. “We will see that one is provided when we question you in our offices later this afternoon.”
She turned to Travis, afraid to jump to any conclusions. “Are you taking me to Washington?” she asked.
“We have offices here in Durango,” he said. “But for now, you’re being released into my custody, pending disposition of the charges against you.”
She wet her lips, choosing her words carefully, and decided to address her next question to Agent Blessing. “What is the disposition of the charges against me?”
“We’ve petitioned the US attorney’s office to drop the charges against you in exchange for your cooperation with us in this case.”
The breath rushed out of her and she was glad she was sitting down. “I’m happy to cooperate,” she said again, though inside she wanted to whoop for joy.
“Come on.” Travis offered his hand. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Ten minutes later, she stood on the street in front of the jail with Travis and Agent Blessing. She still wore the orange jail scrubs, and was aware of the stares of passersby. But her own clothes, which they had offered to return to her, were too filthy to contemplate putting on again. “We’ll get you some new clothes,” Travis said as he opened the back door of the car for her.
She had hoped he would ride in the backseat with her, but he slid into the front passenger seat, and Blessing drove. The short drive across town was largely silent, with the men exchanging a few bland comments about the scenery or the weather. Neither of them said anything to her, as if she weren’t even there.
She stared at the back of Travis’s head, wishing she knew what he was thinking. Was he trying to distance himself from his involvement with her because he worried what their relationship might mean to his career? In the hours they had been apart, had doubts about her innocence grown? Or was he merely concerned with looking professional in front of his boss?
Yet he had said she was being released into his custody. That meant he was responsible for her, didn’t it? Why would he accept such responsibility if he didn’t believe in her?
At some point during the long drive, she dozed, lulled by the warm sun on her face and the car’s comfortable backseat. She woke when the car stopped in front of a small apartment complex, the front of the building landscaped with beds of flowers and groupings of evergreens. “We have a meeting with someone from the US attorney’s office at three,” Agent Blessing said as Travis opened the car door.
“Yes, sir,” Travis said. “We’ll be there.” He climbed out of the car, then opened Leah’s door for her. “Come with me.”
She exited the car and
followed him up the walkway toward the building. Blessing drove away and Travis took out a key and led the way to a door on the second floor. “I rented the place furnished,” he said. “So it’s not much.”
“Where are we?” she asked, confused.
“This is my apartment,” he said.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“‘Released into my custody’ means I’m responsible for you. You have to stay with me.” He frowned at her. “I thought you understood that.”
“So I’m your prisoner.”
“No.” He shoved open the door and motioned for her to go inside ahead of him.
He was right when he had said the apartment was plain. The front room was small and decorated in neutral colors and nondescript furniture—the kind used in midgrade hotel rooms. But it looked comfortable and it wasn’t a jail cell. She stood a few feet inside the room, unsure what to do next.
Travis closed the door and stood still also, looking as unsure as she felt. “You’re not my prisoner,” he said. “I don’t want you to think of it that way.”
“I’m not free to leave,” she said.
“Do you want to leave?” He looked pained.
She turned away. “I don’t know what I want,” she said softly. But she did know. She wanted him to look at her with eyes of love again. She wanted to feel his arms around her and hear him tell her that everything would be all right.
He moved toward her, but stopped when he was still a few feet away. “I know this isn’t the best situation,” he said. “It’s not what I want, but it’s the best we can do right now. It was a compromise to get you out of jail.”
She nodded, tears clogging her throat. She swallowed and found her voice. “Thank you for getting me out of there,” she said.
“We’re going to get the charges dropped,” he said. “We captured most of the men who were with Braeswood in the wilderness and at least two of them are cooperating. They confirmed that you weren’t involved in Braeswood’s terrorist activities, and that they were sent to hunt you and me in the woods.” He laid his hand on her shoulder, the weight of it so heavy—physically and emotionally—she feared her knees might buckle. “Agent Blessing checked out your story, as much as he could, and he believes you’re innocent now, too. The US attorney will listen to him.”
