by J. A. Jance
He could have worked with his dad in the orchards and maybe found an office job with one of the growers. After all, that was how he had put himself through school-earning money by working in the fields and orchards during the summer months. Stoop work hadn’t been too good for his forebears, but since he had the benefit of an education, he wanted something more than that. And he sure as hell didn’t want to hang around Wenatchee now that his father had hooked up with a new wife, Ramona.
As far as the old man was concerned, Al could have stayed at home indefinitely while he continued his job search. Except Ramona wasn’t having any of that. The witch had made things so miserable at home that Al had taken the first job that presented itself-an offer to go to work for Border Patrol. When he signed up, he had ditched the name Alonzo in favor of plain Al. And when they had shipped him off to the Arizona desert, he hadn’t minded a bit. The farther away from home the job was, the better he liked it. Or so he had thought.
But Al had come to realize that he hated the Arizona desert, and he hated the job. He missed his home state-the rolling hills and fertile farmland of eastern Washington and the snowcapped peaks and towering evergreens of western Washington.
As for the job? Some of the guys were okay, but others weren’t. Some of them were beyond gung-ho. Al was there because it was a job and the only job he could get. The fact that he spoke Spanish, thanks to his mother, had worked in his favor. But along with the job came some very real danger, because there were some genuine bad guys out in the desert.
First and foremost were the drug smugglers, of course, who were often armed to the teeth. They tended to shoot first and ask questions later. Next came the people smugglers-the coyotes. They were generally well armed, too, as they transported vans full of illegals from Mexico and other South American countries across the border and into Arizona’s interior. Their customers included the traditional illegals-the ones in search of jobs-but they also brought along the occasional would-be jihadists. More than once, Al had encountered troops of otherwise hardworking illegals who had been strong-armed into carrying drugs. The cartels gave them a simple choice: Turn into a mule and carry our drugs north or be dead, take your pick.
On a daily basis, though, Al’s work brought him into contact with people who reminded him of his own family-people who crossed the border in search of the American dream, of making a better life for themselves and for their families. And every time he picked up people like that-people whose major crime was wanting to better themselves-he couldn’t help but feel guilty, because his family had come north for the same reason. As he rounded up dispirited border crossers and loaded them into buses to ship back home, Al felt guilty because, but for the grace of God, that could have been him. Or his brothers.
Their grandfather had come to the States as part of the old bracero program. He had married a U.S. citizen and had become a naturalized citizen himself. Had it not been for Al’s father’s mother, Al himself wouldn’t be here, riding around in a Border Patrol vehicle and doing this job. As conflicted as he somehow felt about all this, he continued to remind himself on a daily basis that it was his job-something he was sworn to do, like it or not.
Al had parked his vehicle on a dirt track on King’s Anvil Ranch. Now he walked away from the SUV to the arroyo just out of sight from where he had parked. He knew that illegals often trudged north in dry creek beds, keeping to the sandy washes in hopes of staying out of sight and avoiding apprehension. That was where Al was when he heard the sound of an engine turning over. The engine was followed by a moan of pain that made the hair on the back of Al’s neck stand on end. Drawing his weapon and crouching behind a clump of mesquite, he eased his way over to the edge of the wash. In the sand ten feet away, he saw what appeared to be the naked body of a woman lying faceup in the stream bed.
He stood there for a moment, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The sand surrounding the victim was smooth and undisturbed, as though she had been rolled down the bank and left there.
In his months on the job, Al had seen his share of beating victims, but what he saw here went far beyond a mere beating. The woman’s body was bloodied, cut, and bruised. Someone had carved tic-tac-toe games into her skin. Her body was dotted with scabs that he was sure were cigarette burns. But the worst of her injuries looked as though they had been inflicted by someone wearing steel-toed boots while they kicked the hell out of her.
The fact that she was bleeding told Al that she was still alive and her attackers hadn’t been gone long. He suspected they had heard his approaching vehicle, and that was what had sent them packing.
Al was torn. It was possible that he could give chase and catch whoever had done this, but he knew that if he left the woman alone for very long, she might well die. That was when she moaned again. The agonizing sound galvanized him to action. He vaulted down the edge of the bank, dropping down beside her. She must have heard him land. Her eyes blinked open.
“Water,” she whispered. “Water, please.”
Not agua, he noticed. Not por favor. “Water, please,” in English.
“Hold on,” he said. “I’ll be right back,” He raced back to his vehicle, radioing for help as he went. He had no idea who her assailants were, which direction they were going, or what kind of vehicle they were driving, but he did the best he could.
“How bad is she hurt?” the dispatch operator wanted to know.
Al thought about the catalog of bloody bruises, cuts, and burns. “Looks to me like someone tortured her first,” he said. “Then they threw her down in the sand and kicked hell out of her.”
“Survivable?” the dispatcher asked.
“I don’t know,’ he said. “She’s hurt real bad.”
“Ambulance or helicopter?” the operator asked. “Your call.”
As a taxpayer, Al knew that each and every airlift of an undocumented-and, as a consequence, uninsured-alien was coming out of the pockets of legal Arizona residents at a rate of fifty thousand dollars a pop. Still, he didn’t think the woman would live long enough for a regular ambulance to arrive, to say nothing of driving her the fifty or more miles to the nearest trauma center.
“Needs to be an airlift,” Al answered.
“Airlift it is,” Dispatch said. “I’ll give you a call when I know their ETA.”
“You’ve got my coordinates?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Your vehicle’s GPS position is right here on my computer.”
Al wondered how things had worked back in the days before all the vehicles came equipped with GPS technology. Back then cops out in the boonies were probably a whole lot harder to find.
He collected a bottle of water and a lightweight blanket from the trunk of his vehicle, then made his way back down to the woman. Her eyes were closed again. Out of nowhere, a swarm of flies had appeared. She gave no indication that she even noticed them buzzing around her and made no effort to drive them away. He did.
“I brought you some water,” he said, kneeling beside her. He knew it was dangerous to move a victim, but he did so anyway, lifting her as gently as he could into a semi-sitting position so he could give her some water. Her eyes flickered open briefly, and she moaned again. He held the open bottle up to her parched lips and tried to dribble some water into her mouth. He was afraid she might choke on it, but she managed to swallow a small sip. He offered her more, but she closed her eyes. Since the woman-a girl, really-had apparently passed out, he didn’t dare give her more for fear of drowning her.
“They’re sending a helicopter to take you to the hospital,” he explained, covering her naked body with the blanket, more for modesty’s sake than for warmth. She was already far too warm. “They’ll be here soon,” he added. “Hang on.”
Most of the illegals he had met spoke some English, but only with prodding. This one had spoken English even under terrible physical stress. Her blond hair and olive skin constituted a mixed message. She might be Hispanic, but he wasn’t sure she was an illegal. If not, who was she, and
what was she doing here?
Al sat there cradling the injured woman and keeping the flies away until the helicopter showed up half an hour later. While they waited, he noticed the tape residue on her arms, legs, and mouth-evidence that she had been restrained by her captors either during the attack or before. As the air ambulance attendants moved her onto a gurney, Al noticed the tiny rose tattoo discreetly inked into the side of her right breast with what appeared to be a cigarette burn marring the center of the flower.
Not a prison tat, Ali realized. And not a DIY homegrown ink job, either. Al couldn’t ever remember seeing a female illegal sporting a professional tattoo.
Relieved that she was still among the living, Al left her in the care of the air ambulance attendants and went looking for the crime scene. He found it on the other side of the wash, just opposite the spot where he had found her.
On the far bank, the rocky red dirt had been disturbed. From the way the grass was bent, it looked like something-a blanket, maybe, with something heavy in it-had been dropped on the ground. Unfortunately, there were no legible tire or footprints to be found. Broken stalks of dried grass and mesquite branches showed where people on foot had tramped through the desert. Here and there around the place where the blanket must have been, Al found what looked like blood spattered on the ground, as though much of the beating had been administered right there.
He was photographing the scene when his immediate supervisor, Sergeant Dobbs, showed up.
“What have you got?” Kevin Dobbs asked.
“Looks like the worst of the assault happened here,” Al answered. “The victim is being airlifted to the trauma center at Physicians Medical in Tucson. If she doesn’t make it, this will turn into a homicide. Do you want me to notify Pima County?”
“Naw,” Dobbs said, shaking his head. “Don’t bother. If you do that, you’ll be stuck with a world of paperwork, and so will I. You found her and got her transported. She’s an illegal. That makes her somebody else’s problem.”
Al knew that Sergeant Dobbs wasn’t a fan of extra paperwork, either. “What if she isn’t?” Al asked.
“Isn’t what?”
“Isn’t an illegal.”
“You found her out here in the desert all by herself, in an area that is known to be full of illegal immigrants, right?”
Al nodded. “Right.”
“Did she look like an illegal to you?” Dobbs asked.
“Yes, but-” Al began.
“But nothing,” Dobbs interrupted. “If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. End of story. Go write up your report and hand it over. I’ll take it from here, and I want you signed out at the time your shift is over. Got it?”
“Got it,” Al answered.
But once he got back to his vehicle, he made a note of the location showing in his GPS. He thought it was likely that Dobbs would simply deep-six any investigation, but if Al needed to get back here with a local homicide detective and without the vehicle he had driven that day, he wanted to know exactly where he was going.
4
5:00 P.M., Friday, April 9
Sedona, Arizona
Late in the afternoon Ali’s peaceful reverie was broken by the welcome arrival of twin tornadoes in the form of her two-year-old grandkids. Squealing with delight, Colleen and Colin raced onto the patio just ahead of their father, Chris.
“Mom, can you watch these two dust devils while I check on the footing forms for the cement pour?” Chris, who left nothing to chance and was determined that the sculpture would be spot-on perfect, had arrived carrying a diaper bag laden with kid stuff as well as a giant tape measure.
Seeing both things together made Ali smile. “Sure,” she said, “they’re safe with me.”
When the twins were born, Chris had put both his teaching and his artwork on hold in favor of being a stay-at-home dad, while Athena, their mother, continued to teach and coach at Sedona High. Chris had done an excellent job of caring for the little ones, but as they grew older, Ali had seen evidence of his feeling frustrated and stuck, something she saw as the male equivalent of postpartum depression. Her decision to commission Chris to create the garden’s centerpiece had helped snap him out of it. As the job progressed, the old Chris reemerged-energetic, humorous, and full of enthusiasm. And two more people who had seen the work in progress in his basement studio had commissioned him to do pieces for them.
As Ali watched the twins explore the patio-clambering off and on the furniture; chasing after fallen wisteria blossoms; examining an ungainly praying mantis; and asking nonstop questions-she smiled to think what her sophisticated friends from her newscasting days or from the police academy shooting range would think if they could see her now.
She had never been one of those women who spent years longing to be a grandparent, so the joy she took in getting to know Colin and Coleen was entirely unexpected. During the first few months, she had helped out a lot while Chris was trying to get his head around caring for not one but two newborns. With Chris’s artwork bringing in extra cash, he and Athena had been able to hire someone to come in and help out as a part-time nanny. Not wanting to be regarded as an interfering mother-in-law, Ali had used the arrival of the nanny as an opportunity to step back. She found herself in the position of seeing the twins less and enjoying them more.
She loved watching their similarities as well as their differences. Did Colleen take after her mother? In some ways, yes. She was fiercely independent, but she also mimicked her father’s more artistic side. She loved cooking “pretend” meals and, even more, “helping” a doting and exceedingly patient Leland with real cooking chores at Ali’s house.
Colin, on the other hand, was introspective, almost dreamy. Needless to say, he was the quieter of the two. Yes, he played with blocks and could be persuaded to do “art,” as in finger painting, but what he really liked was being cuddled and read to. He also loved animals to distraction.
“Where’s Sammy?” Colin wanted to know when it got chilly enough to go inside, where they settled into the playroom off the kitchen.
Sammy was Ali’s one-eyed, one-eared adopted tabby. She’d come into Ali’s life years earlier, arriving as a particularly ugly sixteen-pound foster-care case. The fact that Ali had never had cats and hadn’t cared for them all that much was irrelevant. She’d rescued the overweight aging cat as a favor to a dead friend, but over time, Sam had become her cat.
As Sammy had aged, she’d developed mobility issues. Ali and Leland had placed pet stairs here and there, which allowed Sam to reach her favorite spots-on the pillows of Ali’s tall bed or on top of the warm clothes dryer. Two years ago, a sudden loss of weight had necessitated a regimen of daily insulin shots. A month ago, Ali had awakened to find Sam seemingly asleep in her usual spot on the bed, only she hadn’t been sleeping. All that remained of Sam were the ashes in a polished elm wood box on the fireplace mantel in Ali’s bedroom.
“I’m sorry,” Ali reminded Colin. “Remember? Sammy’s not here anymore.”
“Where is she?”
“In heaven.”
“Where’s that?”
“Far away.”
“But why isn’t she here?”
“She’s dead.”
“What’s dead?”
Ali had no compunction about tossing Chris under the bus. “Ask your father,” she said.
Moments later, as if by magic, Chris returned to collect his offspring and helped oversee the process of putting away toys. After the exchange of sloppy toddler goodbye kisses, Ali went to her room to change out of her tracksuit.
Earlier in the day, B. Simpson had called. “I hope we still have a date tonight for dinner at my place.”
“Of course we do. I was just going to change from my sweats into something more appropriate.”
“Don’t dress up,” B. said. “The menu is pizza.”
“What a surprise,” Ali said. As a dedicated noncook, B. was big on eating out and taking out.
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Ali and B. had both grown up in Sedona but fifteen years apart, far too long for them to have known each other. Given the name Bartholomew Quentin Simpson at birth, B. had shortened his name to a single letter in junior high as the result of too much teasing from classmates about the “other” Bart Simpson.
Like Ali, B. had left Sedona in hopes of making his mark on the world, and he had, earning a fortune designing computer games. In the aftermath of a failed marriage, B., again like Ali, had returned to Sedona to get his bearings. For months after coming back home, he had been a daily visitor at Bob and Edie Larson’s Sugarloaf Cafe.
When Bob Larson had learned that his regular customer was in the process of starting a computer security company called High Noon Enterprises, he suggested that Ali look into using their services. At the time Bob made the introduction, he’d had no idea that he was acting as a matchmaker-in-chief.
Ali and B. had now been a couple for several years. During that time, B.’s business, although locally based, had developed into an internationally recognized computer security company with more than a few government contracts. Operating out of a former warehouse in nearby Cottonwood, High Noon employed almost fifty people, an economic boom in an area where many businesses, especially those involving tourism, had taken a big hit.
High Noon still did some private security work, though the company had morphed into one that specialized in providing anti-hacker services to both businesses and government agencies. Believing in fighting fire with fire, B. had attracted a cadre of talented young hackers who were willing to ply their high-tech trade in relatively rural Yavapai County, with its spectacular scenery and laid-back lifestyle. And the understated appearance of the corporate offices belied the multimillion-dollar contracts that routinely found their way into High Noon’s in-box.
B. would have happily married Ali, anytime, anywhere, but she wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. She had yet to recover from the emotional damage left behind by the multiple betrayals of her previous husband, Paul Grayson, a serial philanderer who had cheated on her five ways to Sunday. In addition to Ali’s trust issues, there was also the fifteen-year age difference between her and B. The idea of being labeled a cradle-robbing cougar was more than Ali could handle, although the label was out there anyway, wedding or no.
