Desert Heat

by D'Ann Lindun

  Mike sped up the sandy road toward the courtyard so fast that the SUV fishtailed. If anything happened to Mallory, he wouldn’t be able to stand it. In just a few short days she’d filled a hole in his heart that no other woman ever had. He’d fallen in love with her. And he couldn’t live without her.

  ~*~

  Mallory came to, a little groggy. Her head pounded worse than the time she’d gone to a friend’s bachelorette party and spent the night throwing away quarters and drinking dollar margaritas in one of Vegas’s many casinos.

  Picking herself up out of the sand was getting to be a regular habit, one she could do without. She fumbled for her glasses.

  Her arms wouldn’t move. She was tied up, bound like a piece of carpet. She wiggled, but the rope was too tight. Who had done this?

  “So, you’re awake.”

  Relief filled her. “Thank God you found me. Someone tied me up like a hog. Would you undo me?”

  Shelby looked at Alan as if Mallory had said something incredibly crazy.

  “I don’t think so,” he said almost gently.

  She struggled. “But somebody tied me up—” She stilled. “You did this? But why?”

  “Quit the act,” Shelby said. “We know you know.”

  “I don’t know anything. I’m not clear what you’re talking about.” Mallory still saw stars. She wasn’t sure how hard she’d been hit, maybe harder than she realized.

  “Cut the games,” Shelby yelled.

  Alan knelt near her. “Where’s the treasure?”

  “I don’t know. Can I have my glasses, please?”

  He stood as if to get them, then pulled his foot back and aimed for her face. Mallory braced for the blow.

  “Not yet, Alan.” Shelby grabbed his arm. “We need her to tell us what happened to the gold. Then we can drop her off in Canyon Lake.”

  Her head spun. Drop her off in the lake? They were going to drown her? Not if she could help it. She wiggled around like a fish on a bank. Nobody was going to save her. No one even knew where she was. Brent was at the police station. He didn’t know about the site anyway. Mike was distracted by his problems with the SRPL. She had to figure a way out of this mess herself. Her prospects didn’t look good, but she had to try. She’d just found Mike, she couldn’t lose him now.

  “I can’t see. Hand me my glasses so I can look around.”

  Shelby shoved them on Mallory’s nose. “There. Shut up about your glasses. Now, tell me where the gold is.”

  Mallory almost wished she hadn’t asked for her glasses. Shelby looked like a stranger. Her eyes were wild and her skin was red and blotchy. But it was her mouth that was most frightening. Pulled in a tight line, it bore no resemblance to her usual wide smile. Alan looked the same as he always did, grumpy.

  “I don’t know where the gold is, but the metal detector went off there where the shovel is lying.” Where you hit me on the head.

  “Alan, dig.” Shelby bent down. “It better be there.”

  Mallory stared defiantly back at her.

  They both turned and watched Alan shovel sand out of the hole she’d started. The sound of metal hitting metal rang out over the desert. Dropping to his knees, Alan dug like a dog, throwing handfuls of sand out behind him. “I got it.”

  Shelby ran to his side as he pulled a rust-covered box from the ground. “Open it.”

  He sat back on his heels and lifted the lid.

  Mallory strained to see. This is what her father had given up everything in his life for. What would he have found if he had not been murdered?

  Alan lifted out a handful of sand, then another.

  “There’s nothing here,” Shelby said. “Nothing at all.”

  “You killed two people for a box full of sand?” Keeping her mouth shut probably would’ve been the smart thing to do, but Mallory couldn’t help herself.

  “Shut up,” Shelby screamed.

  “There’s something here.” Alan’s voice rose with excitement. He pulled out a tiny piece of yellowed paper. “What is it?”

  Shelby jerked it from his hand and looked at it. “Just some numbers. Eleven-twenty-six-sixty-five-sixty-four. What is that? A phone number? No. Maybe an address? What the hell is this?”

  Mallory kept her face neutral although she wanted to smile. She and her mother had shared the same birthday. November twenty-sixth. And Mallory’s parents’ birthdays had been in ’64 and ’65 Skeeter hadn’t forgotten them. He’d found the treasure and he’d left a clue here for whatever reason. Maybe he knew she’d somehow find it.

  “We’ve got to get rid of her,” Alan said. “Then we’ll figure it out.” He stood and picked up the shovel.

  Mallory struggled, but she wasn’t any closer to loose than she’d been ten minutes ago.

  Alan handed the shovel to Shelby and picked Mallory up, slinging her over his shoulder like a bag of grain. She twisted, but he held her fast. Shelby ran ahead of him and opened the back door of the Suburban. Alan tossed Mallory in and she landed on something soft.

  She thought she’d moaned, but she realized it was not her when another soft whimper came from under her. Shuffling sideways, Mallory managed to move off the lump. Dianna, trussed up in the same fashion as she, with her mouth duct-taped shut, lay facing Mallory with wide, frightened eyes.

  “You okay?” Mallory asked.

  Dianna nodded once.

  “We’re going to get out of here,” Mallory told her. She tried to sound brave, but she was shaking like a leaf. Alan and Shelby had murdered at least two people. They had already said they were going to throw her into Canyon Lake. They meant business. If she and Dianna didn’t find a way out of here pretty darn fast they were going to be fish food.

  ~*~

  Mike skidded to a stop at the old courtyard.

  No one was in sight. He jumped out and ran, his heart and pulse pumping. Someone had continued to dig where he’d started that morning. A rusty metal box lay in the sand. Several pairs of footprints marked the sand. They led to a set of vehicle tracks. Those tracks led straight into the desert. He knew the old wagon road eventually ended up near Tortilla Flat, close to Canyon Lake.

  He leaped back in the SUV, glad he’d brought the four-wheel drive, and ripped up the road, praying he wasn’t too late. He tried to tell himself Brent was wrong, that Shelby wouldn’t hurt anyone. But his gut told him different. The pieces were beginning to fall into place and he couldn’t deny their stark evidence. Shelby had Mallory. And she was a killer.

  His mouth went dry and he punched the gas pedal.

  If he was too late . . .

  Burning around a turn, he almost slammed into the back of the Suburban. Stuck in deep sand, right in the middle of the road, the big SUV looked like an abandoned stagecoach. All the doors were wide open, but nobody seemed to be in it.

  Mike nearly fell in his haste to get out of the Durango. Forcing himself to slow up, he approached the Suburban with caution. His heart pounded so loud he figured they could hear it in Phoenix. Edging alongside the Suburban, he peered through the tinted windows. No one.

  Again, he looked to the sandy earth for directions.

  ~*~

  “That’s far enough,” Alan ordered.

  Mallory stumbled to a stop, and Dianna fell against her. Her hands were still bound. Alan had untied their feet, but left their hands securely tied. He’d ripped the duct tape from Dianna’s mouth, leaving a bright red streak across her lips and cheeks.

  “Look at me,” Alan ordered.

  Dianna turned and fell to the ground.

  Her mind racing, Mallory faced him. This was the end. There wasn’t any way out. So long, everyone. She hadn’t expected to die in the desert like a lizard or a road runner. Tears formed in her eyes. She’d just found Mike. At least she had found out what love was all about before she died.

  She closed her eyes and focused on Mike’s face.

  “Mike,” Dianna muttered hoarsely.

  Mallory opened her eyes to glare at Dianna. It was r
eally past time she gave up her crush.

  But Dianna was staring at a figure in the distance.

  All of them turned to look.

  Mallory’s heart sang.

  Mike.

  “Don’t come any closer or I’ll kill them both,” Alan shouted and waved a small handgun.

  Mike kept walking toward them. “Take me, Alan. You don’t want to hurt the women.”

  Shelby snorted.

  Mike moved within talking distance and held up his hands. “Give yourself up, Alan. You’re done. We figured it out. The sheriff is on the way.”

  “That fool couldn’t figure out a crossword puzzle,” Shelby muttered.

  “Maybe not, but I did,” Mike said. “The pieces all fell into place this afternoon.”

  “Is that right?” Shelby crossed her arms over her chest. “Do tell.”

  Mike pinned her with a cold gaze. “I don’t know how, but you somehow found out about Skeeter’s map and decided to take it for yourself. But you had to get rid of Skeeter, so you stole some of Brent’s insulin and injected it under Skeeter’s toenails. Then, after he died, you stuck cholla in his skin, thinking it would cover up the marks. Older people sometimes contract diabetes.”

  “You’re a nurse, you’d know those Cholla needles would be easy to cover up needle tracks.” Mallory twisted her wrists. If she could get loose, she’d slap Shelby’s face off.

  Alan smirked at them. “Yeah, and it would’ve worked too, but she—he pointed the gun at Mallory—had to come along and mess things up.”

  “Your plan was messed up before Mallory ever came along,” Mike reminded them. “You were one step behind Wendell Wallace. He was a CNA at Apache Park nursing home and he discovered the map old Gentleman Jim Weeks had. When you found him digging in the desert, you thought he’d beaten you to the treasure and you hit him over the head and killed him. The thing was, he hadn’t found anything. He was way off. Who knows why, but he was nowhere near the treasure.”

  “You killed him for no reason,” Mallory said. “All of this was for nothing. And you could have killed me, too, when you stuck the cactus under the saddle and cut the cinch.”

  “We didn’t do that,” Alan said. “That was Dianna, trying to get rid of her rival for Mike’s affection. She thought if you had an accident, you’d go home.”

  Dianna hung her head and didn’t speak.

  “Shut up,” Shelby screamed. “Alan, let’s tie them up and get out of here.”

  “Where are you going to go?” Mike waved a hand. “Mexico is too far and you don’t have water or supplies to get you there. A chopper will spot you out here in about ten minutes flat. You’re caught.”

  All the fight seemed to go out of Alan. His shoulders slumped and the gun dropped from his fingertips. “There’s no treasure. It was all for nothing.”

  Shelby dived for the gun and aimed it Mallory’s head.

  “I want to know how you found out about my dad’s map,” Mallory said. “You owe me that much.”

  She shrugged. “What the hell. I’m a nurse, and when the SRPL put us all out of work, I went to Apache Park and applied for a job. I knew Gentleman Jim Weeks from his days as the head wrangler out here at The Cholla, and I stopped in to see him. He was fading fast and he let it slip that he’d given a treasure map to Skeeter. I waited until Skeeter came in for some R and R. He made it too easy because he had pneumonia. When he passed out, I injected him with the insulin. Easy.”

  Mallory lunged at her with no thought of danger. “Why?” she cried.

  Shelby sneered. “Didn’t you hear me? We’re out of work. Mike’s losing his ranch. Killing an old man nobody cared about was an easy way to fix it all.”

  “You’re insane,” Mike shouted.

  Someone screamed.

  The gun went off.

  Mallory half expected to feel searing pain from the gunshot, but nothing. The bullet had gone by her. She struggled to rise, and managed to flounder up on her knees when she saw Mike. He lay a few feet from her, a dark red bloodstain seeping from his shoulder.

  Mallory screamed, but the sound was drowned out by the sound of a police helicopter approaching overhead. Bodine hung out the side, rifle in hand, trained on Shelby.

  Mallory scrambled to Mike’s side. “I love you,” she cried.

  He grinned feebly. “I love you. Will you stay and take care of me?”

  She fell over on him. “Count on it.”

  Epilogue

  Mallory looked at Mike again.

  He caught her worried glance and said, “Quit fussing. I’m fine. I’ll be back on my feet in time for next season. Thanks to you, I have my life and my business back.”

  “I only told the truth,” she said.

  “Yes, but it was your credentials that convinced the judge to take off the injunction,” he said.

  She squeezed his hand. “What you and the other outfitters do doesn’t harm the environment.”

  He was silent for a moment. “I’m so sorry for what Shelby and Alan did.”

  She nodded, unable to speak for a moment. “I know. They’ll be going to prison for a very long time.”

  “I just can’t believe my very good friends would do something like that. And murder Wendall Wallace, too.” He shook his head. “Insane.”

  Mallory changed the subject. “I can’t believe my dad found so much gold.”

  Mike grinned at her. “The old fox. Stowing it away in a bank the whole time.”

  In spite of herself, Mallory giggled. “He left me enough so I can do whatever I want, that’s for sure.”

  “And what do you want to do?” Mike reached for her hand. “Go back to teaching at UNLV?”

  She shook her head. “No. I was thinking I might see if there’s an opening at The Cholla.”

  “What position are you interested in filling?” Mike began stroking her wrist.

  Mallory swallowed. “Um, I’m not sure.”

  “I have an idea,” Mike said. “It would involve a big commitment, though.”

  “It would?” Mallory’s voice squeaked.

  “Uh-huh.” He leaned close. And looked into her eyes. “It would mean changing your name . . . if you want to, of course.” His eyes darkened. “It would mean wearing a ring.”

  Mallory couldn’t find her voice. She stared at Mike with wide eyes. “Wha—what are you saying?”

  He took her hand and held it gently. “Will you marry me, Mallory?”

  Happy tears filled her eyes. “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  “I love you, lady.” He smiled widely, then tugged her close and covered her lips with his.

  ~The End~

  Bio:

  Falling in love with romance novels the summer before sixth grade, D’Ann Lindun never thought about writing one until many years later when she took a how-to class at her local college. She was hooked! She began writing and never looked back. Romance appeals to her because there's just something so satisfying about writing a book guaranteed to have a happy ending. D’Ann’s particular favorites usually feature cowboys and the women who love them. This is probably because she draws inspiration from the area where she lives, Western Colorado, her husband of twenty-nine years and their daughter. Composites of their small farm, herd of horses, five Australian shepherds, a Queensland heeler, two ducks and cats of every shape and color often show up in her stories!

  I love to hear from readers! Please contact me at

  dldauthor@frontier.net

  http://dlindunauthor.blogspot.com/

  http://www.facebook.com/DLindunAuthor

  http://www.amazon.com/DAnn-Lindun/e/B008DKL9TU

 

 

 
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