Betrayal on the Border

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  “Your sister?” The air in her lungs went buoyant. So Serena hadn’t been an old flame he was tripping out over. She should feel guilty for being so delighted. His poor sister was crippled.

  “Back over a decade ago,” he continued, “when I was a cub reporter working for a print rag in Los Angeles, I ran across a fresh clue in a cold murder case and became obsessed with exposing the truth.”

  “Like you are now?”

  A deep chuckle answered her. “Touché. But back then I was like a puppy tearing up a pea patch. This was all a game. After interviewing the main suspect from when the murder occurred, I became convinced that she was a victim of unfounded police harassment and forevermore condemned to live under a cloud of baseless suspicion, unless I, Ace Reporter, could figure out who really committed the crime and clear her name. Robin was smart...beautiful...and oh, so charming. Despite the many warnings I’d received from mentors about getting emotionally involved with the subject of an investigation, I fell top over tail for her.”

  “Only she wasn’t innocent?”

  “You got that right.” Chris snorted. “When my investigation managed to dig up a piece of solid evidence that pointed straight at her, I was devastated. I went over to my sister Serena’s house to pour my heart out. Rena and I had always been close, and I needed to unburden myself before turning my evidence over to the police. To abbreviate an ugly story, Robin showed up with a gun, determined to eliminate me and my evidence. Just as Robin pulled the trigger, my sister threw herself in front of me and...” His weighted tones faded away to silence.

  Thunder rumbled, but the sound was more distant than a minute ago, and the fury of the rain had diminished. Maddie’s heart hung in her chest as heavy as the weather. Chris blamed himself for his sister’s injury. Who wouldn’t? But the finger-pointing wasn’t entirely rational or deserved. “She saved your life...and hers, actually.”

  “Rena saved her own life by becoming paralyzed from the waist down?” Chris’s tone was incredulous.

  “This Robin woman would have killed you both on the spot, but I assume your sister’s heroic action gave you an opportunity to disarm Robin.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I’ve seen you operate. You’re not ranger trained, but you’re no slouch, either.”

  “Thanks...I think.”

  “What happened to Robin?”

  A deep sigh answered her. “She’s serving life without parole, and so is my sister—in a wheelchair. Ever since then, I’ve made it a maxim of my life never to become emotionally involved with anyone associated with an investigation.”

  “Sorry for tempting you to compromise your rules of engagement.”

  She grinned into the dark that had grown less murky while they talked. Why was she so giddy about Chris’s all-but-declaration of feelings for her? She didn’t want him to care for her romantically, did she? Who was she kidding? Her heart was already seriously compromised. Did that mean she trusted him? Oh, how she wanted to have faith without reservation in his integrity, but her slain comrades in arms wouldn’t permit the luxury, not until she had proof positive that he wasn’t involved in their deaths.

  The rain had practically ceased, but water lapped at the toes of her shoes. Lapped at the toes of her shoes! The breath snagged in her lungs. She was a complete airhead—distracted by all this heart-to-heart blather. Her carelessness could end both of their lives.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  “Sounds good. The rain storm is about over.”

  “No, I mean we need to get out of this ravine—now!” She splashed him with the water rising over their shoes.

  Chris hissed in a breath. “The storm may have passed over this spot, but it’s still dumping a ton of water up-ravine.”

  “And it’s all headed downstream straight at us.”

  “Flash flood!”

  Maddie’s bones chilled. The words struck terror into the heart of any Texan.

  * * *

  Pulse rampaging through his veins, Chris leaped from the cave, hand in hand with Maddie. Pain in his left ankle sent a whimper to his lips, but he refused to let the sound escape. They had maybe a minute or two—but no longer—and then a rushing wall of water would overtake them, crush them amongst rocks and debris and drown them.

  His gaze searched the crevice in the earth that held them trapped. Now that the cloud cover was dissipating, the light of a half-moon painted a ghostly shimmer across sheer and dripping rock-and-clay walls.

  “There’s no way to climb out?”

  Maddie shined the beam of her flashlight on the knotted end of a rope dangling above their heads. “Too high to reach, even for you.”

  “Wait a second!” He grabbed Maddie’s wrist and adjusted the angle of the flashlight beam. “An exposed tree root. You could climb up on that and reach the end of the rope.”

  “Good idea. You first. Hurry!”

  Chris swallowed. “I don’t think my leg will support a climb. You go. Go now!”

  Maddie stuck her face in his. “Listen up, Mason, if you don’t go, I won’t, so suck it up and climb.”

  Stubborn woman! Who did she think she was? A drill sergeant? Didn’t she know he needed her to be safe, no matter what happened to him? But he read no compromise in her fierce gaze. For both their sakes he’d better play the obedient grunt this time. Water was already swirling above their calves.

  Teeth gritted, Chris grabbed a shiny bend in the protruding root and heaved himself onto it. Pain shot stars in front of his eyes as he dug his toes into the precarious perch and reached upward. The beam of Maddie’s light guided his fingers to the end of the rope. On the strength of his arms and the assistance of one good leg to brace himself, he inched his way upward. The rope was slick in his fingers, scraping skin raw, but he dared not slacken his grip.

  What was that terrible grinding sound? The growl of the approaching flood?

  Chris increased his pace, ankle screaming at him to halt, to let go, to give up. Not going to happen. Maddie depended on him to get out of her path to safety. Fast! Muscles straining...quivering...he hauled himself over the lip of the draw and flopped onto his back.

  Thunder bore down on them.

  Not thunder!

  Roaring water.

  Ignoring the throb of fire in his ankle, Chris rolled onto his stomach and peered over the edge of the draw. Maddie was on her way up, but she’d never make it. The flood was coming. It was here!

  Tasting bitter bile on his tongue, Chris reached for her.

  EIGHT

  The flood waters loomed—a roiling monster bounding toward her, eager for fresh prey. Death’s rush planted stillness in Maddie’s core. No fear, only peace.

  Then a strong hand closed around her wrist, lifted her and dragged her up and over the edge of the ravine even as flood waves pawed at her feet. She rolled across sodden but solid ground. Safe. She lay on her back atop the lumpy remains of her pack, breathing in—out—in—out, staring at stars she never believed she’d see again.

  “Are you all right?” Chris’s winded voice penetrated her wonderment.

  He sprawled beside her, panting and releasing small groans.

  Weakness saturated her limbs, but she struggled onto one elbow and gazed into his face. Deep lines on either side of his drawn mouth testified to pain. “I’m fine, but you, my hero, are not.”

  “Tell me about it.” He started a smile that became a grimace.

  “Let me take a look at that ankle. I lost the flashlight during my climb, so I’ll have to eyeball it as best I can.” She sat up and rolled Chris’s left pant leg away from the affected area. “Youch! That’s not an ankle. It’s a basketball.”

  “Feels like a torch stuck to the end of my leg.”

  “Most likely a bad sprain. Believe it or not, a sp
rain can hurt more and swell bigger than a break.”

  “Whatever it is, I’m not going to get around very fast or very far.”

  “We have to make it back to the vehicle. I have a first-aid kit in the glove compartment that contains stretch wrap, pain pills and an instant ice pack. Or should we hazard a stop at a hospital E.R.? I could be wrong. That ankle may be broken and should be in a cast.”

  “Nix on the hospital. We poked our fingers into a red ants’ nest last night. The lower profile we keep, the better. I want to live to enjoy my misery.”

  A chuckle spurted between Maddie’s lips, but she quickly sobered. “Let me see if I can find anything around here that will do for a homemade crutch.”

  The best she could come up with was a notched stick that was too short and acted more like a cane than a crutch. Maddie gladly accepted his arm around her shoulders as they hobbled along. A hazy dawn found them at last approaching Ginger, where the faithful old girl awaited their return behind a stand of trees about a quarter of a mile from where they’d staged their stakeout of the paper factory.

  Chris expelled a sharp hiss as Maddie helped him ease into the car. She stepped back and took stock of his pale, dirt-streaked face and bloodshot eyes. If she looked a smidgeon as bedraggled and filthy as he did, she’d make a fine scarecrow.

  “Why don’t we find some fleabag motel that won’t look at us too closely where we can go to ground for a while?”

  Chris responded with a thumbs-up, leaned his head back against the rest and closed his eyes. Maddie headed the car down the double-dogleg road that would take them off one of the higher hillsides in the relatively flat topography of this patch of south Texas. Near the first curve, the water of the Rio Grande glinted at her from below. Foot steady on the accelerator, she narrowly skirted the paltry length of guardrail as she navigated the sharp turn.

  A hiss from her passenger drew her attention. His eyes were wide open, and he gripped the edges of his seat.

  Maddie chuckled. “Yes, I know I drive this thing too fast, but speed and traction are among Ginger’s joys.”

  Chris shook his head and offered a lopsided smile. “Sorry. I’m a little punchy right now. After ducking bullets and escaping a flood, I’d just as soon not land nose-down on the riverbank.”

  “Gotcha, sarge.” She saluted him.

  He snorted and subsided against his seat.

  She drove them to a run-down section of the city and checked them into a pair of adjoining motel rooms. No credit card. Cash only. That was the way she traveled now. Then she helped Chris into his room. He flopped onto the bed, and she put a pillow underneath his ankle. She went back out to the car and returned with her emergency kit and his piece of small carry-on luggage that he’d stowed in Ginger’s backseat when he first broke into her vehicle at the parking garage in San Antonio.

  “Here. Pop a couple of these.”

  Chris obediently downed the pain pills, then went still, eyes shut, but he was awake. Pain furrows between his eyebrows gave him away.

  “I’m going to take a quick shower and run to the store after more ice packs. One’s not going to be enough. And I’ll round up something for us to eat. Then I’ll be back to wrap your ankle.”

  “You’re amazing,” he murmured.

  Forty-five minutes later, she knocked on his door, then leaned on the frame to await Chris’s hobble across the floor to let her in—if he was even awake. At least she felt halfway human and presentable now. A night without sleep wasn’t that unusual for an army ranger, but probably

  unheard-of for a civilian journalist.

  “Who is it?” His voice came from the other side of the door.

  Good boy. He wasn’t assuming the identity of his caller. “It’s me. Maddie.”

  The chain rattled and the dead bolt clicked open. Another kudo. He’d gotten up after her departure and secured the entrance. The door swung wide, and so did Maddie’s mouth. Not only had he locked himself in, but he’d taken a shower and changed his clothes. Those pain pills must be phenomenal. Then she looked at his face. It was ashen, and the puckers between his brows hadn’t lost any depth.

  “You’d better sit down before you fall down,” she said.

  He grunted and hopped to the only chair in the room—an overstuffed beast upholstered with faded brown cloth. Maddie pulled up the matching ottoman and held his ankle between her knees while she applied cold packs and bound it in stretch wrap. He never flinched or made a sound during the process, but his knuckles went white from his grip on the chair arms.

  “There. I’m done torturing you.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Coming up on 8:00 a.m.”

  “Click on the TV, would you? We should be able to catch the morning news on one of the stations. The internet news through my phone isn’t showing any updates that mention our names, but I’d still like to verify that on live TV.”

  Maddie huffed. “Well, at least our exploits at the paper factory haven’t made the news.”

  “I don’t think those jokers want anyone to know about the midnight meeting we crashed.”

  “I wish we could figure out who Agent Ramsey was talking to in that office.”

  “Did you catch a glimpse of any of those others while we were playing cat and mouse in the plant?”

  “Negative.”

  “Me, either.”

  “Bummer.” Maddie sighed and clicked the power button on the remote.

  Canned laughter invaded the room from some inane sitcom, and she quickly flipped the channels until she found talking news heads. She picked up one of the carry-out bags she’d brought from a nearby fast-food joint.

  “You hungry?”

  “A part of me is ravenous. Another part wonders if I might ralph if I tried to eat.”

  Maddie wrinkled her nose. “Probably the pain pills doing a number on your empty tummy.”

  “What have you got?”

  Mouth watering, she handed him a wrapped breakfast sandwich and container of juice, then dug her own out of the bag. The smells of sausage and biscuit had nearly driven her nuts on the drive back to the hotel. What was that old Western saying? She was so hungry her stomach thought her throat had been cut. Ewww! Bad thought. She took a big chomp out of her sandwich. By the time she’d wolfed down her breakfast, nothing significant to their situation had been said on the news, and Chris had eaten his portion without any ill effects.

  Maddie stood, yawning and stretching. “I’m going to catch a few z’s. You’d better do the same. See you at twelve hundred hours for another dose of pain medicine and a change of ice packs.”

  Chris groaned. “Fine, but if I’m sleeping soundly at noon and don’t answer after the first knock, go away.”

  “Deal.” Maddie laughed.

  She traipsed back to her room, lugging exhaustion like a hundred-pound pack. Who cared that the mattress was lumpy and the linens yellowed? As soon as she fell onto the bed, sleep wrapped her in warm arms. Minutes later, the bedside phone shrilled. Or at least she thought it had only been minutes. A quick check of the clock on the nightstand said noon was only a tick away.

  Maddie sat up and grabbed the insistent handset. “Hello?” Her voice came out thick.

  “Get over here. Fast!” Chris’s voice barked. “The ad for the upcoming newscast is promising a special segment on developments in the Jackson murder case, and they’re tying it to the Rio Grande Massacre. Some bigwig on the Texas Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee is going to address the public live. Seems he’s known for his vendetta against the drug trade and has taken a personal interest in the case.”

  Sleep’s dregs sloughed off Maddie, and she leaped from her semi-comfortable nest. Within a few seconds, she joined Chris in staring at the television screen in his room. He occupied his easy chair, and Maddie took up a
perch on the end of the bed, hands gripping her knees. A sober-faced anchorman gazed back at them as he made his announcements.

  “Breaking news in the recent murder of Agent Edgar Jackson of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. The police now have suspects who were witnessed fleeing the scene. Their identities link the crime to last year’s massacre of a joint task force charged with rounding up the Ortiz Drug Cartel near Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.”

  A pair of faces appeared side by side, filling the screen. Maddie’s stomach plummeted to her toes. She gaped at her stern-eyed, military image—hair scraped back into a severe bun—next to Chris’s engaging smile. Viewers might not have too much trouble imagining her as a murderer, but Chris? He looked like the wholesome boy next door.

  “Madeleine Jerrard, former communications expert for the army ranger team wiped out in the Rio Grande Massacre and television news reporter Christopher Mason, formerly associated with that same unit, are sought in connection with the death of Agent Jackson. Anyone spotting these suspects is to report their location to the police at once, but do not approach them. Repeat, do not approach them. They are considered armed and dangerous.”

  A poke in the ribs turned Maddie’s attention toward her companion.

  “Do you think the guy at the front desk when you checked in will remember us?”

  “There’s always a chance, but not a good one. He never saw you and barely glanced at me. Absorbed in some girlie magazine he was drooling over.”

  Chris nodded, and his gaze strayed from her toward the television screen. Their attention refocused on the news report.

  The anchorman drew himself up straighter and squared his shoulders. “Now we take you, live, to Laredo police headquarters for a statement from State Representative Donald Jess, a Laredo native and Chairman of the Texas Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee.”

  The scene morphed to an outside view of the glass-fronted entrance of the Laredo police headquarters. A crowd had gathered to hear a short, pudgy man, who stood on the sidewalk behind a portable podium. Flanking the man and behind him stood various officials. A few wore guns at their hips and badges on their chests, but