Fatal Intent (Desert Heat Book 3)

by Jeffries, Jamie

  The next day, she put her plan in motion. She didn’t know where the Patriots headquarters were, and even if she had, she wasn’t stupid enough to believe she could walk up to their door and say she’d like to join and kill Mexicans. It could take some time to find a hangout, get noticed and invited to a meeting, and even more time before she was trusted enough to start asking questions. Her first attempt was to drive around to truck stops and wander among the C-store aisles, hoping to overhear some anti-illegals rhetoric she could join.

  When that was a bust, she went into a few bars where she found lots of pickups and a few motorcycles outside. The trouble was, that was every bar in Casa Grande, and she hadn’t thought to try to get fake ID. She was underage and even in her disguise she sometimes got carded. Rather than give away her identity, she would slump in apparent disappointment, say ‘never mind’, and leave the bar.

  Deciding that wasn’t going to work either, she went home in defeat one evening and told Natalie her problem. “Shooting ranges,” Natalie said.

  “I beg your pardon?” Alex asked.

  “Shooting ranges. They’re gun nuts, aren’t they?” As taciturn as ever, Natalie didn’t elaborate, but Alex got it. Of course! Where better to find rednecks and ultra-conservatives than at a shooting range, where they could exercise their Second Amendment rights freely and with like-minded people?

  As luck would have it, right there on the door of the ammunition shop attached to the first range Alex went to the next day was a flier advertising a meeting of the Patriots! Maybe they weren’t so secret after all.

  Alex spent an hour learning to shoot a pink-camouflage semi-automatic weapon, and enjoyed it so much she wished she could buy one. Then reality kicked in. Besides the fact that her dwindling cash didn’t even begin to cover the cost, she couldn’t think of a thing to justify owning one in the first place. She made a note of the location and time of the meeting from the flier, and left, feeling on top of the world

  On the day of the Patriots meeting, Alex arrived early and waited across the street from the location listed on the flier. Only when she’d watched long enough to believe they weren’t requiring ID did she approach the door herself. Her heart beating wildly, she approached the door and gave her name as Misty Jenkins. The guy at the door took little notice of her and let her through. Amazed it was so simple, she found a seat near the back and settled in to observe.

  As she expected, there was plenty of rhetoric about American jobs and English being the official language of the US, the latter of which she knew to be untrue. Maybe it was outrageous to the descendants of English pioneers, but the US has no official language, and this area had been settled by Spanish pioneers long before the others came west. If there were any justice, she reflected, the Native American languages would also take precedence. Of course, she couldn’t and didn’t say any of what she was thinking. She only hoped she was presenting a neutral face.

  By the end of the meeting, Alex concluded that either this was a recruitment meeting, where nothing of substance would be discussed, or there was really nothing to the Patriots. She knew, on the other hand, that several murders had been laid at their door. Dare she attempt to insert herself closer to the inner circle, where she might hear something of value?

  There was no opportunity this time, no call to join the membership, if there even was such a thing. What did she expect, an announcement that anyone interested in murdering people should stay after the meeting? Along with everyone else, she filed out of the room, disappointed that she hadn’t learned much more about the Patriots, their true agenda, or their potential for criminal activity.

  However, she had learned she could get into one of their meetings without being recognized. Her best plan was to haunt the shooting range and make sure she knew of upcoming meetings. Maybe once she’d attended often enough someone would invite her to less public meetings.

  Meanwhile, she wanted to do a follow-up on Dawn Redbird. The original story had garnered some praise from her college adviser, as well as commentary in letters to the editor from not only the students but also many townspeople. Alex hadn’t realized the paper was that widely distributed.

  With her funds dwindling, she called the local newspaper and TV station and proposed a follow-up story for pay. The newspaper was interested and offered her a couple hundred dollars for her story, more if her photos were usable. It was a start.

  Alex located Dawn at a rehab center in Casa Grande, after trying her at her parents’ house. Dawn was learning to use the prosthesis for her leg, and would be there for several weeks for physical therapy after she mastered the device. On the day Alex visited, Dawn had taken her first unassisted steps.

  “Alex! Look!” Dawn cried, when Alex appeared at her doorway. She attempted to stand, and immediately fell back into her chair.

  “Dawn, be careful!”

  “It’s okay. They’ve told me not to try to jump to my feet like I used to,” Dawn said. The big grin on her face gave away her good spirits, and Alex was glad to see it.

  “Let’s see, then, but take it slower.”

  Dawn used both hands to push herself up from the chair, took a moment to be sure of her balance and then turned another brilliant smile on Alex. “Here goes!” She swung the artificial leg forward, planted it carefully and then brought the other even. “They say when I learn to bend the knee no one will be able to tell this leg isn’t all mine.” After a few more shaky steps, she reached the bed and sat down.

  Alex clapped her hands. “Hey, it is all yours! You bought and paid for it, didn’t you?”

  Dawn made a face. “Technically, the tribe did. Insurance. But you’re right. If I want to be normal, I have to think of it as part of me. It’s good to see you, Alex. What have you been up to?”

  Alex didn’t think it was a good idea to answer that question truthfully, so she left out the part about hunting for and finding the Patriots. Instead, she told Dawn about her broken weekend with her boyfriend. Dawn made a face.

  “That’s too bad, Alex. So, what are you going to do? Stay here and finish your degree, or make up with him?” Dawn shifted her position and pulled herself up onto the bed, leaning against the headboard and pillows. “Have a seat.”

  Alex hadn’t really thought about her situation with Dylan, and she didn’t want to think about it now. As she sat in the chair Dawn had vacated, she gave a half-hearted chuckle and said, “Oh, I’m sure we’ll work it out. I need to transfer…I’m already a semester late. Anyway, I came here to talk about you. Tell me about your prosthesis. It sounds state-of-the-art.”

  Alex put Dylan firmly out of her mind as Dawn waxed enthusiastic about her new leg and all its capabilities. It even had different feet for different purposes, she said. Alex took notes for the story and saw it taking shape in her mind.

  She was still asking questions when a nurse came in to get Dawn for her afternoon physical therapy. Sensing a second story, Alex asked to tag along and Dawn agreed. Alex spent another hour gaining an appreciation for Dawn’s courage and strength. Some of those exercises looked painful.

  At last, the PT session was done and Dawn confessed to being tired. She invited Alex to come back again whenever she could, and signed the release allowing her to print her story. The story almost wrote itself. Alex had to admit to a bit of a girl-crush on Dawn. She’d faced danger and near death herself, but her injuries were more psychological than physical and she wondered if she would have had Dawn’s courage if she had to endure weeks or months of pain to recover.

  That line of self-reflection brought her up against Dawn’s question. What was she going to do about Dylan? It occurred to her for the first time that maybe she’d been unreasonable.

  How important was it that she find out the truth about her mother? Was she sure she even wanted to? With ignorance, she could pretend something overwhelming had prevented her mom’s return. Maybe the baby had special needs, or something. What kind of damage would it do to her psyche to learn that her mom really didn’t
care about her?

  Even worse, what if she learned her mom’s minor depression after childbirth had become serious and chronic after a second baby? What if she really was mentally ill, and what if it was hereditary?

  By morning, the weight of her speculation kept her from getting up when her alarm went off. All she wanted to do was curl up and sleep until things got better. What finally got her up was the realization that she was exhibiting the very thing she feared—depression. It was time to see her counselor again and talk about her mother this time.

  Alex forced herself to write the story and then to polish it for grammar and flow. Keeping her mind off her troubles and on someone else’s seemed to help, but there was nothing in Dawn’s story to make her happy. The girl had been ruthlessly attacked and left for dead, and was now suffering lifelong consequences, all because she believed in a cause.

  The injustice of it stung, and it made Alex even more determined to get to the truth. She forgot about her misgivings for her own safety and determined she’d go back to the Patriots and work to gain their trust. The only trouble was she didn’t have very long to do it if she was going to transfer to State.

  Her problem wasn’t the distance or travel time involved. It was that once school started she'd have less time to spend looking for answers. Not to mention she would probably have to hide what she was doing from Dylan. He’d never let her knowingly walk into a potential trap.

  After filing her story along with an invoice, Alex made an appointment to see her counselor. She’d seen him only a couple of times immediately after her kidnap and attempted murder. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the trauma of those events that sent her to him. It was her vicious counterattack in self-defense, which almost killed her assailant. She didn’t know she had that much rage in her, and it frightened her.

  The counselor, Devin Wright, assured her it was natural, given her state of fear after the near-death experience in the hospital. He’d given her a prescription to take if she felt overwhelmed by panic, but the episodes were few and far between. She hadn’t even had one when Wanda’s husband was discovered dead in his hospital room last fall.

  Her attack in the hospital was so similar to Hector’s murder that she figured if that hadn’t done it, she was cured. From the incident a few weeks ago, she now knew she wasn’t, and she also wanted to discuss the new information about her mother.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Before Devin could see her, Alex had another opportunity to meet with the Patriots, and this time she went prepared. Her new fake ID probably wouldn’t fool a cop or a bartender, but at least it had her fake name on it. If anyone in the group challenged her, it would give her half a chance.

  She had overheard someone talking about a private Facebook group at the previous meeting, and had created an account in her fake name, posting some stuff she thought would get her noticed. Mostly it was memes with anti-Latino sayings like “Why should I have to push one for English?” Eventually, people from Casa Grande had sent friend requests and finally an invitation to the private group, which was where she’d learned of today’s meeting.

  It had been a week since she’d left the hotel without saying goodbye to Dylan, and in all that time, she hadn’t answered any of his messages. She’d forgiven him for the words that made her run away in the first place. He was right. She’d been acting like a spoiled brat.

  The trouble was, she hadn’t forgiven herself, and she didn’t know what to say to him. Because the thing was, she knew he’d hate what she was planning to do today. He’d try to stop her, so she couldn’t tell him. Once she started lying to him, it was only a matter of time until it was really over. As long as she could avoid saying anything at all, maybe there was a chance he’d take her back. The messages were getting colder, though. All she could do was hope that a few more days wouldn’t cost her everything.

  Just before she went to the meeting, she finally sent him a text. It said, ‘Please give me just a little time to get my head straight. I still love you. Whatever happens, don’t hate me.’ She found Lisa and Nat watching a movie in the living room, and told them where she was going. They’d supported her quest so far, but now Lisa sat up straight.

  “Alex, do you really think that’s a good idea? I thought you said these guys were bad news. Murderers, maybe. How can you be sure you’re safe?”

  “They didn’t recognize me last time. They think I’m Misty Jenkins, and I don’t look anything like the picture I used to have on my blog, do I?”

  Lisa gave her a critical stare. “Well, no. But still… ”

  “I’ll be okay, Lise. I’ll be careful.” She gave them the address of the meeting, just in case she didn’t make it home, and went out the door with more confidence. Lisa agreed she didn’t look like herself. That would be plenty, wouldn’t it?

  There were fewer people at this meeting, and those who were there seemed to be more serious. The rhetoric from the previous meeting was still there, but it no longer sounded like lip service to a catch phrase. These people really hated what the unchecked stream of illegals crossing the border had done to the economy of southern Arizona.

  She had to admit, there was some justification for their attitude. These weren’t highly trained or professional workers. They were carpenters, whose wages took a blow every time an undocumented worker offered to do a job for a lower price. Unskilled laborers pushed out of the job market by people who weren’t content to take one job each for low salary, but would often work three, foregoing rest for the opportunity to support a family back home and save to bring them to the land of plenty. They were landscape artists whose businesses failed because they couldn’t afford to compete with a family of gardeners able to work for next to nothing because they all lived in the same house and shared expenses.

  The handful of other women there had similar stories. Housekeepers in hotels, cleaners for small businesses, servers in restaurants, all laid off because illegals would work for less. Alex hadn’t realized the other side of the story. She could see their despair, and she agreed it was unfair. None of it justified the tactics the group used, of course. But she didn’t have an answer, either. Even if she had, putting it forward while surrounded by angry men and women wouldn’t have been the way to get agreement.

  Before she realized what was happening, everyone was staring at her and it became clear almost too late. They wanted her story, and she didn’t have one. “I-I’m a student,” she said, stalling for time while her mind raced.

  Then she had it. “I was denied a loan because an older woman had been using my Social Security number to get medical and financial assistance.”

  Stop right there. No need for more.

  She closed her mouth abruptly and dropped her head as a tear of fright escaped. Thankfully, the next person took up the refrain and her lame story didn’t excite any more comment. Mentally, she apologized to Dylan for using his mom’s situation like that. At least it had saved her, at best, some embarrassment. At worst, her lack of a reason for being there could have spelled disaster.

  When the opportunity to state their issues had gone around the whole room, the leader, a man Alex hadn’t seen before, stood up and spoke. “We’ve all been screwed by these illegals. What are we going to do about it? I don’t know about you, but I’m mad as hell…”

  To Alex’s surprise, the audience took up a refrain as one. “We’re not going to take it anymore!”

  Again, the leader shouted, “I’m mad as hell…”

  Now the group was standing, and a few individuals had climbed onto their chairs and were waving their arms as they took up the refrain, “We’re not going to take it anymore!”

  Even as she joined in from a sense of personal preservation, a small part of her mind was busy analyzing this development. She recognized the phrase as coming from an old movie about her industry. Network, it was called.

  Ironically, the film was a satire, and the character who’d coined the phrase ended up dead. She wondered if anyone here remembered that. Prob
ably not, she concluded. No one here was old enough to have seen it in its first run, and she doubted that anyone here was intellectually inclined to view even a newer movie for anything other than its entertainment value. Who was the leader, and what was his agenda? What did he hope to accomplish with this rabble-rousing?

  Alex didn’t have long to wait to find out. As the leader raised his arms in a quieting move, the chant died down as quickly as it started.

  “It’s been awhile since our last demonstration,” he began, when the last of the chair-climbers had clambered down and taken their seats. “Unfortunately, we were too subtle. The girl survived, but hasn’t pointed her finger at us. We need a more visible incident this time. As usual, we want the suspicion to fall on us, but the evidence must be too little to go on. If we can frighten some of these wetbacks into going back home, it will be a start.”

  Alex almost objected, but common sense prevailed at the last minute. What good would it do to point out that Dawn wasn’t illegal, or even Latino? How ignorant were these people, anyway? She restrained her indignant response, and instead started wondering how and why they wanted the finger to point at them. What evidence did they leave that would have done so, and why hadn’t it been discovered?

  She was so preoccupied that she almost missed the end of the discussion. The leader and three volunteers were to come up with a plan, and the entire group would be involved in one way or another. Alex found herself assigned as a lookout for whatever was going to go down. Now she was in, but she still didn’t know, none of them did, what she’d signed up for.

  When the meeting broke up, Alex caught up with one of the women. The leader had never been introduced. Did they all stay anonymous, or was she expected to know? She fell into step beside the other woman.

  “Good meeting, huh?” she said, hoping the other woman would open up with no more introduction than that. It worked almost too well. The woman stopped walking, forcing Alex to stop as well.