WINDOW OF TIME

by DJ Erfert

  Using two dirty fingers, she pinched out the dark brown contact lenses irritating her eyes and threw them to the ground. She looked up and grinned at the wide-eyed surprised look she got from the two men when they saw her blue irises. Considering she had no makeup on, she enjoyed their reaction. “I was, uh, undercover.” Her long, straight hair was naturally brown, so she slipped in comfortably with most Mexicans.

  “We’ll—” The other agent cleared his throat and tried again. “We’ll call for a couple of helicopters and some more back-up.” He took hold of her elbow, turning her toward the truck’s interior. “And we’ll start a thorough search after your ambulance gets here—”

  “No, I’m not going anyplace, agent.” Lucy pulled out of his grasp. “I need to get to a telephone and then I want to help you look for Ana and her kids.”

  “What help do you think you can be? You’re dehydrated.”

  “I need some water and I’ll be fine.”

  “Do you have a headache?”

  Lucy straightened her shoulders but didn’t say anything.

  “I can’t have you passing out on me in the middle of a search.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Lucy said, getting into the truck and pulling the door closed behind her. She didn’t bother looking out the window to see if the agents were still waiting outside. As far as she was concerned, her decision was final.

  The driver’s door opened and the older agent sat inside beside her. He moved the air-conditioner vents toward her, giving her the first cool breeze she’d felt in days. Without speaking, he took out an orange flavored sports drink from a cooler and opened it before passing it to Lucy. Just as quietly he gave her a small paper bag.

  “What’s this?” Lucy asked.

  “It’s a roast beef sandwich I brought for lunch.” He smiled. “I think you need it more than I do.”

  Lucy opened the bag and out wafted a delicious aroma that made her stomach tighten. “Thank you.” When she met his gaze, he had a smile on his lips, and in his hand was an iPhone.

  “I’ll leave you alone while you make your call. By the way, my name is Mark Whittier.”

  Lucy smiled. “Nice to meet you, Mark.”

  ~*~

  “Do you know who that is?” Jason asked quietly.

  Mark looked over at his truck. Lucy was sitting inside the Tahoe with the air-conditioning on high and his cell-phone pressed against her ear while she ate his lunch.

  Jason continued. “I thought she was just an urban legend.” He glanced at Mark. “You’ve heard the stories, but …” he looked toward the truck and nodded his head, “there she is. Secret Agent Lucy James in the gorgeous sunburned flesh.”

  “Come on. Do you believe everything you hear?” He turned away from the truck in case the agent could read lips, and lowered his voice, too. “Most of the time the guys are so plastered when they’re telling those wild stories, even if they were true, I’m sure they’ve been blow all out of proportion.”

  “Maybe.” Jason shrugged his shoulders. “Why don’t we just ask her if she single handedly stopped a terrorist group—”

  The sound of the truck door opening stopped Jason’s suggestion before he could finish it.

  “Mark, does your MDC have an internet connection?”

  He whispered, “No, Jason. Just leave her alone.” He then went to stand next to Secret Agent Lucy James. Yeah, he believed the stories he’d heard, too. Every one of them. They were as fantastic as any spy movie he’d seen in years. “No, not out here it doesn’t. Why?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”

  Jason threw Mark a grin.

  “Do you know the closest place I can go online?” Lucy slowly asked, her stare going between the two men.

  “My phone has the Internet,” Jason said.

  “No, that won’t work.”

  “I can take you to the station, but then you’ll miss the search,” Mark told her.

  Lucy nodded. “You’re right. I think finding that family is more important,” she said softly. Looking up at the sky, she shielded her eyes with her hand. “When will our air support get here?”

  “Any time now,” Jason said quickly.

  “How about the back-up?”

  Mark said, “They’ll be coming from Yuma and will be here within the next hour.”

  Lucy asked, “Are we going to wait for them before we start our search?”

  “I don’t see why.” Mark headed for his side of the truck. “You gave us a pretty good idea on the area where they might be.”

  “Good. I don’t know how far a woman with two children can walk in this heat—” Lucy lifted her head and asked, “Did you hear that?”

  “Gun shots?” Jason asked.

  Lucy caught Mark’s stare. “Yes. Gun shots.”

  Mark nodded. “I heard them, too. Sounded like a .45. Three shots.” He pointed west, with his heart accelerating with excitement. “That way. Come on, Lucy. You’re with me.” He grinned at his rookie and said, “Try not to get lost.”

  Mark jumped into the driver’s seat just as their secret agent got in the passenger side. He quickly used his GPS to mark his position. With a hard punch of his boot, Mark accelerated forward, spinning his tires and spraying a waterfall of sand behind his truck, accidentally covering his rookie’s windshield. “Lucy, I need to ask you something.”

  Lucy struggled to fasten her seatbelt. “What?”

  “Do you have a firearm and did you discharge it?”

  “Yes, I killed a snake. Why?”

  “We heard a single gunshot and that’s how we found you. What caliber is it?”

  “A .380.”

  “And it was louder than the three shots we just heard—which means our target is farther away—”

  “Or it could have just been down in an arroyo,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “That would muffle the sounds.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Mark pointed toward his GPS. “Do you know how to use one of these?”

  Lucy tilted the monitor toward her. “What did you want me to do?”

  Mark smiled. He knew she would. “Pan out and look for an arroyo or wash.” He glanced sideways and saw her concentration as she tapped on the monitor’s on-screen keyboard. “Just out of curiosity, would you tell me where you keep your gun?”

  Lucy stopped and stared at him for a moment, and then she placed her boot against the dashboard. When she pulled up her pant leg, she exposed the weapon strapped to her ankle. “Any other questions?”

  He glanced at the floorboard and asked, “Yeah, do you have any other weapons?” The smile she gave him was … intriguing. She placed her other boot against the dash and then pulled up her pant leg, and took out a folding knife. He flinched when the blade suddenly appeared out from the end of the handle. “A switchblade?”

  “Uh-huh. My father gave it to me when I started dating.”

  “Holy crap, Lucy. Where did you grow up?”

  “Phoenix.”

  “That’s not exactly a dangerous city.”

  “Maybe not, but I tended to get into a lot of trouble and this came in handy more times than I can remember.” Lucy tenderly replaced her knife back inside her boot. “Here,” she said, touching the GPS monitor. “Veer ten degrees south. The landscape dips down about six feet in about a half mile.”

  “Okay.” Mark maneuvered the Tahoe around the scrub brush and found the clearest path. When he saw recent tire tracks on the sand in the direction their secret agent told him to go, he got concerned.

  “Oh no,” Lucy whispered.

  Mark glanced at her face. She saw them too. He followed the tracks around a sharp bend and then they suddenly went down into an arroyo carved out by heavy flash flooding years ago, maybe even decades before. He got on the radio to warn his rookie. “Jason, come straight down. Don’t take it at an angle.” He let out his breath when the other truck made it down the steep grade without losing control or getting stuck. The ground was firmer in the dry riverbed and the t
ire tracks got harder to follow.

  They went around a large outgrowth of brush, Lucy shouted, “Stop!”

  Mark hit his brakes and slid a few feet before coming to a standstill.

  “What is it?” he asked, watching her take out her gun from under her pant leg.

  Lucy threw open her door. “I saw something—” she said, getting out.

  Mark ran around the truck, taking his weapon out of its holster, and looked at Lucy. She must have seen something serious. She bent down and peered under the truck. “What did you see?”

  “Look,” she said pointing at the other tracks. “They stopped here.” Lucy looked at him and softly said, “And got out.”

  “What happened?” Jason asked, stopping his truck next to his partner.

  Watching Lucy study the desert floor, Mark said, “She saw something I missed.” He looked at his rookie. “Come on. We need to follow her.”

  Acknowledgments

  I wrote the first draft of this book thirteen years ago. It had nearly eight hundred pages—way too long for one story. After four serious revisions, and advice from a seasoned content editor, and many beta readers, Window of Time is now a trilogy. I’m elated, excited, and relieved that Window of Time, book one, is finally published.

  I want to thank my husband, Mike, for understanding the lengths I’ve gone through to get this book published. I’d like to thank my sons, Ryan and Adam, who sat with me through countless showings of Pirates of the Carribeen: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the movie that started my love of writing. I’ll be forever grateful for their patience. Thank you, Kate, and Diana, for marrying the aforementioned sons. You are their perfect match.

  I’d like to thank Kerry Lynn Blair for reading this book in its rough, rough draft form many years ago. She encouraged me to continue writing when I thought it was useless.

  Over the years many others have beta-read for me. I’d like to thank Sara Werra, Judi Feuerbach, Rachael Renee Anderson, Ranee S. Clark, Christina Tarbet, Aften Szymanski, Julie Coulter Bellon, Terry Montague, Janine Christensen, and LaVon Taylor, each in their individual way made this book better, stronger than how it started.

  I need to say thank you to Angela Eshler for an eye-opening content appraisal, and to my wonderful editor/proofreader, Shauntel Simper. Her skills are unmatched.

  About Debra, DJ, Erfert

  DJ lives in Southwest Arizona, and has been married to Mike for 36 years. She’s the mother of two awesome sons, who married their forever loves, and she’s a grandmother to three beautiful grandchildren.

  DJ wrote her first novella thirteen years ago just to see if she could. That brief taste into the world of an author prompted an undeniable writing obsession rivaling only her love of chocolate. She’s an award winning fine artist, and loves traveling with her husband.

  Connect with her online:

  Facebook at AuthorDebraErfert

  Twitter @debraerfert

  Her blog is debraerfert.blogspot.com

  And also, debraerfert.com

  Join her email mailing list (she promises not to sell or misuse addresses) stonehorsepress@debraerfert.com

  Also available from Debra Erfert:

  A Kindle Worlds novella, Royals of Monterra: It Takes a Sleuth exclusively from Amazon.

  Taylor Hodges, field producer of Hollywood’s hottest reality show, Marry Me, hires Larabee Investigations after someone tries to kill her while scouting next season’s filming location in Arizona. Maxine Larabee hopes solving the celebrity’s case might end her company’s financial struggle, and at the same time prove to her lead investigator, Jace Atmore, she has what it takes to be a good detective.

  But she has a bigger problem than just trying to prove her investigative abilities to a man with whom she’s attracted and probably falling for. The strongest lead in Taylor’s case trails straight to an ex-contestant of Marry Me, Lemon Beauchamp, a woman who’s engaged to His Royal Highness Prince Dante of Monterra. Getting to question her might be more difficult than keeping Taylor alive, or getting Jace’s respect.

  Also:

  Changes of the Heart , a romantic suspense, at Amazon.com

  A coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous.

  Buying the 1920s farmhouse south of Phoenix, where the rumors of John Dillinger’s gang hid out in the 30s, is supposed to be Grace Evanheart’s way of escaping an old romance. When she finds an ancient diary with a map under the bedroom’s floorboard, the rumors solidify into fact. She doesn’t know who to trust with the news; Micah Stevens, the handsome deputy and the great grandson of the original landowners with whom she’s attracted, or Jerry, the young historian who seems too intent on learning about her new home?

  Micah seems convinced their paths cross exactly at the right time and in the right place for them to fall in love. Now he just has to convince Grace of the same thing before suspicions of his real motive have her running again.

  Also,

  RELATIVE EVIL from Xchyler Publishing at Amazon.com.

  Inspired by her father and his pretty young wife, novelist Claire Abney allows her imagination to run wild and pens a best-selling thriller. However, as Glen Abney suffers multiple freak accidents, she wonders exactly where the prose stops and reality begins. Claire screens her family from the prying eyes of success with a masculine pen name and her handsome editor, her shill for photo ops and book signings. But her father’s unexpected death, and bungled attempts on her own life, force her to admit the strategy may have backfired. Now, with the help of her brother and Max, her dreamy frontman, she must separate truth from fiction. Before life imitating art becomes deadly.