by J. A. Jance
Diana's voice rose, verging on hysteria. "There's not going to be any ransom call. You know that. You just-"
"Please, Diana," Brandon said huskily. He reached out and touched her, letting his fingers graze gently down the curving line of her cheek. "Please stay here. I can't order you to stay, but do it because I need you to, Di. Because I'm asking."
Diana sank back down on the bed. "All right," she said. "I'll stay."
"Thank you," Brandon said. He started toward the door.
"You'll take the cell phone?"
"It's already in my pocket."
"Call the moment you hear anything," Diana added. "The moment you find her. Promise me you'll call, no matter how bad it is."
Brandon stopped at the door and looked back at his wife. "I promise," he said. "No matter how bad."
Leaving Diana alone, he hurried out into the living room. "What's up?" Brock Kendall asked.
"Hitch up the wagons. We need to go out to the place where they found those bones yesterday afternoon. According to Gabe Ortiz, that's where we'll find Lani-at Rattlesnake Skull Charco."
Brian Fellows leaped to his feet. "I can take you there," he offered. "It's not easy to find but-"
"I've been there before," Brandon Walker said. "It's the same place where we found Gina Antone all those years ago. Besides, Brian, I want you to stay here."
Disappointment washed over the young deputy's face. He started to argue. "But I-"
"Most of the other officers here are strangers, Brian," Brandon Walker said. "You're family. I'd like you to be here to be with Diana just in case. To give her some emotional backup. I only pray she won't need it."
"All right, Mr. Walker," Brian said. "If that's what you want me to do, I'll be glad to stay."
Brandon had left the Suburban parked out in front of the house. "Gabe Ortiz," Brock Kendall was saying as they climbed in. "That name sounds familiar. Who is he again?"
"A friend of the family," Brandon answered. "He's also the Tohono O'othham tribal chairman."
"But what does he have to do with all this, and how would he know that's where Lani might be?"
"He's a medicine man," Brandon answered, heading for the door. "He knows stuff. Don't ask me how, but he does."
Sitting in the mouth of the cave, watching the flashing red lights in the desert below, Mitch Johnson fought his way through an initial attack of panic. He was convinced that the lights had nothing to do with him. What he couldn't understand was why the hell they didn't finish up whatever it was they were doing and go away. The little Indian slut was still missing, but he was beginning to think that maybe she hadn't made it out of the cave after all.
He couldn't believe he had screwed up that badly, but there was no one to blame but himself. He had counted too heavily on the drugs to control Quentin. He had kept the Bronco's ignition key in his pocket, but Quentin must have had a spare. He had raced out of the cave in a rage when he heard the Bronco start up without taking the precaution of securing the girl first. When he first discovered that Lani was missing, he had figured she had simply followed his own path up and over the landslide debris in the smaller cavern and out to the steep surface of the mountain.
Now, though, he wondered if that was true. Had she gone that way, she, too, would have seen the lights. If she had gone straight there, hoping to be rescued, wouldn't her appearance have provoked an almost instantaneous reaction? By now the mountainside would have been crawling with cops ready to use Mitch Johnson for some high-tech nighttime target practice. No doubt a bunch of eager-beaver searchers would have combed every inch of the surrounding terrain. One of them was bound to have stumbled across the crumpled hulk of Quentin Walker's Bronco.
No, as the still night slid into early morning, as the sky brightened in the east, and as the flashing red lights stayed right where they were, Mitch grew more and more convinced that Lani Walker was still somewhere inside the cave and probably freezing her cute little tush off as well.
He had already decided on a backup plan of action. All he had to do was make it to the Bounder. Even with his knee acting up again, he could walk that far. Then, if he drove into town, hooked on to the Subaru, he could drive off into the sunset and no one would be the wiser. He understood, however, that a plan like that would work only so long as Lani Walker wasn't alive to point an accusing finger in his direction.
Which meant that, inside the cave or out of it, Mitch Johnson had to find her first.
Had time not been an issue, he could simply have settled into the passage and waited. Eventually Lani would be faced with two simple courses of action: she would either have to come out or starve to death.
Mitch's real difficulty lay in the fact that time was an issue. By now the Walkers knew something was up and had probably called for reinforcements. And so, after checking the flashing lights one last time, Mitch Johnson turned back into the first passageway. He did so with only one purpose in mind-to find Lani Walker and kill her.
Somewhere over southeastern Colorado, Davy Ladd finally did fall asleep. The next panic attack hit while the Boeing 737 was cruising over central New Mexico. An observant flight attendant realized something was wrong and quickly moved the little old lady out of the way to an empty seat several rows forward.
As the dream started, it was similar to the others. The evil Ohb was there once again, armed with a knife, and chasing Lani and Davy through miles of mazelike tunnels. Once again he was awakened, gasping and sweating, by Lani's chilling scream.
"Something's happening," David said when he could finally speak again as he sat mopping rivulets of sweat off his face with a fistful of napkins the flight attendant had provided.
"What do you mean?" Candace asked.
"Something's happening, and it's happening now," Davy declared.
"How do you know that?"
"I don't know how I know, I just do."
Candace reached in her purse, pulled out a credit card, and removed the air-to-ground phone from its holder in the seat ahead of them. "Call," she said, running the magnetic strip through the slot to activate the phone. "Call and find out."
"Hello?" Diana answered. Her voice wasn't as strong or as clear as it usually was on the phone. Whether that stemmed from nerves or weariness, Davy couldn't tell. "Mom? It's Davy."
"Where are you?" she asked. "Still in the hotel?"
"No," he answered. "We're on a plane somewhere over New Mexico. Maybe even Arizona by now. What's happening?"
"All hell has broken loose. There are investigators all over the house tearing the place apart. They've been here for hours and-" Diana stopped. "You're flying?" she asked as what Davy had said finally penetrated.
"Yes."
"And you'll be here soon?"
"Yes. The plane should be on the ground in about half an hour. We'll rent a car and-"
"Oh, Davy!" Diana whispered into the phone. "Thank you. I can't believe it. This is an answer to a prayer. But don't rent a car. Brian's here with me right now. I'll have him come to the airport and meet you at the gate. What flight?"
"America West, flight number one, from Chicago. And, Mom?" he added. "I'm not alone."
"You're not?"
"No. My fiancee is with me," David Ladd said, reaching out and taking Candace's hand. "Her name is Candace, Mom. You're going to love her."
The unrelenting cold of the larger cavern had crept into Lani's body, bringing with it a strange lethargy that robbed her of purpose-of the will to fight as well as of the will to live. The first time Mitch had gone cursing through to the outside in search of her, she had tried leaving one hiding place in favor of a better one.
She had barely ventured beyond the sheltering cover of the stalagmite when she lost her footing and fell. She came to a stop with one leg hanging out over a void. Unable to tell how deep the hole was, she broke off a small splinter of icicle-shaped rock and dropped it over the edge. It fell for a long, long time before finally coming to rest.
Shaken, Lani had crawled back int
o her original hiding place and there she stayed. At first she tried to maintain her connection to Nana Dahd' s song, but gradually the cold robbed her of that as well. The words slipped away from her. She could no longer remember them. She had almost drifted off to sleep when Mitch Johnson returned to the cave once more.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," he called. "You can't hide from me forever."
The sound of Mitch Johnson's voice jarred Lani to alert consciousness. She had hoped to convince him that she had left the cavern. Now, however, as the beam from his flashlight began flickering here and there across the far wall of the cavern, probing one shadowy hollow after another, she realized that wasn't true. With the light moving ever closer, Mitch was searching for her-searching systematically. Fortunately for Lani, he had started on the far side of the cave, but gradually he was working his way closer. It was only a matter of time before the revealing light found its way into Lani's shallow hiding place.
In this unequal contest where one opponent had light and the other did not, Lani knew there was no hope. And it wasn't just the light either. He had other advantages as well-a gun for sure and probably even a knife. Once Mitch found her, it would all be over. There would be no further possibility of escape. If only there were some way…
No longer able to summon Nana Dahd' s war song, Lani shrank back against the wall, trying to make herself as small a target as possible. As she did so, she felt something brush against the back of her neck. A bat! It was all she could do to keep from screaming as the invisible wings ruffled her hair and fluttered across the skin of her cheek.
Possibly the bat was as startled by Lani's presence as she was by the wings fluttering past her. Soaring on across the chamber, the disoriented creature must have swooped past the man as well.
"What the hell!" Mitch Johnson exclaimed while, at the same time, the flashlight fell to the rocky floor, rolled, flickered briefly, and then went out.
"Damn it anyway!" Mitch bellowed. "Where the hell did it go?"
Lani Walker closed her eyes in prayer, although the darkness both inside and outside her head remained the same.
"Thank you, little Nanakumal," she said silently to the bat, wishing that she, like the Mualig Siakam of old, could speak I'itoi' s language well enough so the animal could understand her. "Thank you for stealing the evil Ohb' s light."
With her heart pounding gratefully in her chest, she waited to see if Mitch Johnson was carrying a spare flashlight. She could hear him scuttling around in the dark. And then, just when she was beginning to think she was safe, she heard a distinctive scraping. Suddenly a match flared.
Mitch's fall had taken him several yards from where he had been before. The flame of the match flickered in a part of the cave where Lani hadn't expected to see it. Not only that, in her eagerness to return to her hiding place, she had gone too far. Instead of being completely sheltered by the stalagmite, she had moved a few critical inches to the other side.
"Why, there you are, little darling," he said. "Come to Daddy."
And then the match went out.
Brian was waiting at the gate when Candace and Davy finally stepped off the plane. He grinned when he saw Davy. "You guys must have been at the very back of the bus."
"Close," Davy said. "Candace, this is Brian Fellows, my best friend. Brian, this is Candace Waverly. We're engaged."
Suppressing a blink of surprise, Brian nodded again, taking charge of one of Candace's bags while she carried the other. "Your mother mentioned something to that effect, but things are so chaotic right now, I'm not sure the information's really penetrated."
"What's going on?"
"It's a very long story," Brian said. "And if you don't mind, I think I'll wait until we're in the car before I tell it to you."
"It's that bad?" Davy asked.
"It ain't good," Brian replied.
On the way down the concourse and while they waited for the luggage, Candace chattered on and on about how brown everything was and about how small the airport was compared to O'Hare. She seemed oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, but Davy had seen the bleak look in Brian's eyes.
Brian had gone home and traded the Blazer for his personal car, a low-slung Camaro. The mountain of luggage didn't come close to fitting in the trunk. Candace finally clambered into a backseat already piled with two leftover suitcases.
"All right," Davy said to Brian as soon as they were all in the car. "Tell me."
As Brian related the story, Davy became more and more somber. Tommy and Quentin had been the banes of Davy's childhood just as they had of Brian's. In fact, it was the older boys' casual meanness that had, in the beginning, united the younger two. Mean or not, though, Brandon Walker's sons were still part of both families. To have to accept one of the two as Lani's killer was appalling.
"You're sure he did it?" Davy asked.
"I heard the tape," Brian replied. "Believe me, it was pretty damned convincing."
"How's Mom taking it?"
"About how you'd expect," Brian said. "Not very well."
"And Brandon?"
"He's better off than your mother is. At least he's able to do something about it. The last I saw of him, he was on his way out to Rattlesnake Skull Charco with Brock Kendall, an FBI agent."
"Rattlesnake Skull? Why there?"
"To meet Fat Crack. Wanda Ortiz called and said that according to Gabe, that's where we'll find Lani."
"Is that where we're going?" Davy asked.
"No. We're supposed to go to the house."
"If the charco is where the action is, that's where I want to be," Davy said. "Let's go there."
Brian cast a dubious look across the front seat toward his friend. "All right," he said. "But first let's drop Candace off at the house."
"No way," Candace Waverly said from the backseat. "Where did you say you're going?"
"To a charco to see if there's anything we can do to help."
"What's a charco?" Candace asked.
"A stock tank," Brian answered.
"A retention pond," Davy said at the same time.
Candace sat back in Brian's cramped rear seat and crossed her arms. "If you're going to the charco, I'm going too," she announced.
Davy looked at Brian. "I guess that's settled then," he said.
"I guess it is," Brian agreed.
"How can it be so empty?" Candace asked, as Brian's fully loaded Camaro swept west along Highway 86.
"Empty," Brian repeated. "You should have seen it years ago when Davy and I were kids. That's when it was really empty. There are lots more people living out here now than there used to be."
Candace looked out across the seemingly barren and endless desert and didn't believe a word of it.
Davy, meantime, seemed preoccupied with something else. "You told me about finding bones at the charco,and about Quentin's fingerprints showing up on some of them. What I don't understand is why Quentin would have taken Lani there. It doesn't make sense."
"Nobody says it has to make sense," Brian told him. "All I know is Fat Crack said that's where your dad should look and that's where he's looking."
"Who said that?" Candace asked.
"A friend of ours," Davy answered quickly. "His name's Gabe Ortiz. He's actually the tribal chairman."
"He's an Indian, then?"
"Yes."
"But it sounded like Brian called him by some other name."
"Yes." Davy rolled his eyes. " Gihg Tahpani," he said. "Fat Crack."
"So is Fat his first name and Crack's his last?"
Candace asked the question so seriously that Brian burst out laughing while Davy was reduced to shaking his head. Obviously he had failed miserably in preparing Candace for the culture she was stepping into.
"Fat Crack is a first name," Brian explained good-naturedly. "But it's also sort of a friendly name-a name used between friends. So when you meet him, and until you know him better, you probably ought to call him plain Mr. Ortiz."
They
turned off onto Coleman Road. "What kind of shoes do you have on?" Brian asked, looking at Candace's face in the mirror.
"Heels. Why?"
"I was just over this road in a Blazer yesterday. If the Camaro doesn't high-center on the first wash, I know it will on the second."
"On the what?"
"Wash. It's a dry riverbed. A sandy riverbed. We're going to have to walk from here, so the car doesn't get stuck."
"That's all right," Candace said. "I have some tennis shoes in my roll-aboard."
Brian pulled over on the side of the road. The suitcase in question was one of the ones that had wound up in the backseat with Candace. While she dug through it to find her tennis shoes, Davy and Brian stood outside the car, waiting and looking off up the road toward the charco. Finding her shoes, Candace kicked off her heels and then moved to the front seat. She was sitting there tying her shoes when she saw something strange on the shoulder of the road a few feet away.
As soon as she had her shoes tied, she walked over and picked up a small medallion with a strange black-and-white design woven into it. "Hey, you guys," she called to Brian and Davy, who were waiting for her on the other side of the road. "Come see what I found."
Davy sauntered over. As soon as he saw what was in her hand, though, his jaw dropped. "Where did you get that?" he demanded.
"It was right here. Along the side of the road…"
"Brian, come here, quick. Fat Crack's right. Lani's been here. Look!"
Sprinting across the road, Brian Fellows stopped in his tracks the moment he caught sight of the basket. "You're right," he said. "She has to be here somewhere…"
The three of them were standing there in stunned silence, staring up the mountain, when they heard a cry. "Help."
The voice was so faint that at first they all thought they had imagined it. Then it came again. "Help. Please."
Brian Fellows was the first to start off up the mountain. Davy followed directly on his heels, with Candace bringing up the rear.
Tackling the mountain straight on, with no zigzagging to ease the ascent, made the going slow and difficult. From time to time they had to pause for breath, but each time they did, the voice was a little stronger. "I'm here. In the bushes."
