Lost but not Forgotten

Gillian fought the panic threatening to overwhelm her. Daylight was fading. Oncoming cars had begun to turn on their lights. She checked her rearview mirror for the umpteenth time before she realized it was impossible to tell the color of the cars spread out behind her. Sweat ran down her spine, welding her T-shirt to her vinyl seat cushion. She drove aimlessly, constantly peering over her shoulder.

Minutes ticked into a quarter hour, then to half an hour. Odd things registered. For instance, how flat the land was and how long it took for the sun to actually set. And it was warmer here than it’d been in Flagstaff.

Dusk gradually deepened, but she still didn’t know where to hide. Fearful of being overtaken, she eventually left the interstate. So did several other cars. The blue car—she felt it drawing closer. After driving miles on the perimeter road, she saw a graveled road angling off to the south. Blindly, she turned. A series of bumps and pings made her flinch as gravel struck the car’s under-carriage. Her headlights illuminated a split-rail fence lining both sides.

The road’s condition required her to reduce her speed. She prayed that this obscure byway led to a small Western town, where she could find an innocuous, run-down motel. She needed to grab a nap and think out her next steps.

Provided they didn’t catch her first.

Of all the things crowding her mind, she suddenly remembered one—that today was her thirtieth birthday. What a way to spend it. Using an assumed name, running from thugs she didn’t know, for reasons not fully clear. Reasons involving her ex-husband’s CPA firm.

One thing that was clear—the thugs wanted her dead. They’d already killed Daryl. Suddenly. Violently. And then poor Officer Malone…

A stab of raw fear chased goose bumps along Gillian’s skin underneath the sweat. She didn’t want to die! The discovery itself surprised her. For the last ten months, she hadn’t cared one way or the other.

Once again her eyes strayed to the rearview mirror. There was blackness in her wake. She rolled her shoulders, wishing her mind would be still, wishing she could focus on her dilemma. Had she managed to elude the blue car? If so, good. Except…where was she? This road stretched into nothingness. “You were stupid, stupid, stupid not to stay on a better-marked highway,” she muttered to herself.

Bam! The car fishtailed all over the bumpy road.

Gillian screamed. At first she thought she’d been shot at and she lost her grip on the steering wheel. When she reassessed the situation, jamming her foot on the brake, the car stopped inches from the fence. The way it lurched told her she’d blown a front tire. That was a relief, and yet it wasn’t.

Here she sat in the middle of God-knew-where. The landscape had gradually begun to change. What was desert had evolved into brush and trees along the fence. The minute she stepped from the car, she’d be vulnerable, a target for anyone hidden in among those trees. Dropping her forehead to the steering wheel, Gillian listened to her hammering heart.

She couldn’t drive on a flat. Nor could she sit there all night hoping for a white knight to ride up and save her.

Slowly, with shaking hands, she switched off the engine. Leaving only her parking lights on, she slid from the car on unsteady legs and quietly opened the trunk, using the penlight attached to her keychain for illumination. All the while, she prayed for a decent spare tire. Not for the first time since she’d been drawn into this insane ordeal did she long for the safe world she’d left behind. This was a nightmare. “Oh, Daryl, what did you get us into?”

She dug through the trunk and took out a satchel filled with emergency supplies—a lantern, a first-aid kit, bottled water and a box of granola bars. Some of her panic faded as she removed the two suitcases Daryl had packed for her. Even in haste, his attention to detail was reassuring.

Except now he was dead.

Refusing to allow useless tears, Gillian muscled out the spare tire. She tripped and almost fell over the smaller of the two suitcases. Scooting it aside, she retrieved the jack and the tire iron. Thankfully, her father—rest his soul—had taught her to change a tire years ago. She hoped the skill came back easily.

Never one to procrastinate, Gillian bent right to the task. She’d just finished tightening the last lug when she felt, more than heard, a low rumble—a vibration in the gravel road under her feet. Glancing in both directions, she saw car lights on high beam coming toward her, along the section of roadway she’d already traveled. Gray shapes danced eerily along the fence row. Gillian’s pulse leaped wildly.

“Oh, no,” she sobbed. “They’ve found me!”

Her hands slick from sweat as well as grease, Gillian struggled to shove the blown tire into its rightful place in the wheel well. She’d have to stop at the next service station and get it fixed; the way things were going, she’d probably need it again. It landed crooked, hiked higher on one side so she couldn’t put back the carpet. There seemed to be far less room in the once spacious trunk.

Fear made her clumsy. She was all thumbs trying to force the large suitcase in beside the satchel. At last, the case slid inside. Dousing her penlight, she slammed the trunk lid closed.

The oncoming lights grew larger, like an angry cat’s eyes piercing the black night. Gillian fought the bile rising in her throat. She jumped into her car. Her hand shook so hard it took three tries to fit the key into the ignition. The approaching headlights were mere yards away when finally her engine caught and the car shot forward.

At the last minute, Gillian remembered her parking lights. She knew it was reckless to travel an unknown road without proper illumination. But the thought of what would happen if the thugs caught her drove her to do unwise things.

Without warning, the lane narrowed further. Too late, Gillian realized this must be someone’s private drive. Maybe it led to a farmhouse, and she could throw herself on the owner’s mercy.

And ask them to phone the police? “OhGodOhGodOhGod!” If Officer Malone had died, she had, in effect, fled the scene of a hit-and-run murder.

The lane came to an abrupt end. Or rather, it became a keyhole-shaped area in front of a single-story ranch house. A house devoid of light.

Frantic, Gillian braked and let the car idle. “Think,” she commanded. “What to do?” Massaging her temples, she willed her terror to subside. She dared not go back the way she’d come.

Her gaze swept the moonlit landscape. Her addled brain registered a barn and scattered outbuildings. Both the house and barn were flanked by pastures. Off to her left, about a mile as the crow flies, ghostly car lights bobbed, passing one another. This ranch apparently sat between the perimeter road she’d left and another highway that paralleled the mountains. All that stood between her and escape was a spindly fence and a few acres of raw desert.

Closing her eyes, she gunned the motor and smashed through the rails. Restoring her headlights, she prayed there was nothing on the flat expanse of land that would blow another tire. Bumping across the uneven ground, Gillian tried to keep an eye on the headlights rounding the bend of the lane she’d left. As she drew even, the other car seemed to slow down. Once again her heart climbed into her throat. She couldn’t bear to look. What if they’d recognized her? Pressing hard on the gas, Gillian focused on escape.

MITCH VALETTI, former Desert City, Arizona detective, cruised along the private lane leading to his ranch. It’d been three months since he’d driven this route. Three endless months he’d spent recovering from bullet wounds at the home of his best friend and former partner, Ethan Knight. Mitch felt he shouldn’t have intruded as long as he had. Ethan and Regan were newlyweds. They already had their hands full caring for the quadruplets Ethan had rescued from an abusive home. The bastard who’d knocked those defenseless babies around was also responsible for firing three slugs into Mitch. Three slugs that had caused nerve damage in his leg and left him with a limp.

That wasn’t why he’d stuck around longer than he should have, all the while allowing a neighbor to care for his stock. It had just seemed easier than coming home, facing a life that was in shambles.

His odd melancholy tonight had little to do with his injury—which wasn’t his first. He’d survived being knifed in the stomach a few years back when he’d gone in alone on a domestic dispute call. His staying at Ethan’s wasn’t connected to the doc’s news that he’d be left with a permanent disability. Mitch had dealt with that early on. Almost immediately after waking from the extensive surgery, he’d made up his mind to resign from the force. To expand his horse herd. Although he’d told Ethan he might take a few private investigative jobs on the side. Just until his ranch stood on its own.

When Ethan and Regan tied the knot in his hospital room, Mitch thought his own future looked, if not bright, okay. He owned and leased enough land to raise horses, had a serviceable home and loyal friends—including a woman he was pretty crazy about. Amy Knight, Ethan’s youngest sister.

Hell, he knew Amy didn’t feel the same about him. She flaunted the fact that she’d been dating Desert City’s prissy-faced, wonder-boy district attorney. Deep down, though, Mitch had assumed Amy would come to her senses. She hadn’t. Instead, she’d eloped with the jerk D.A. while Mitch was recovering. He’d never admit to anyone on the force how much Amy’s defection hurt. Especially not to Ethan. To Ethan and their fellow cops, Mitch represented the consummate swinging bachelor. In truth, Amy’s marriage had ripped the heart out of him. For the first time in his thirty-five years, Mitch questioned life’s purpose.

Oh, he knew his friends had seen a change in him and were worried about his moodiness. Because of that the Knights had insisted he stay on, and he’d hung around several weeks beyond when he probably should’ve bid the newlyweds farewell. Ethan had gone back to work right away, and Regan’s at-home social work private practice was taking off. The quads, two boys and two girls, cute little tykes, would probably miss him the most. Already he missed them. Darn, but those rascals had gotten under his skin. Wouldn’t the cops who gathered at Flo’s Cafе to eat and shoot the breeze get a walloping laugh if they ever found out he envied them their families?

Mitch snorted inelegantly and contemplated how that image contrasted with his life. Man, maybe he should’ve stopped at Flo’s before coming home tonight. Guys and gals from the precinct tended to hang out there between shifts. He probably just needed to get back in the swing of things.

The very thought lifted his spirits. “Shoot, how can a man feel down when he’s lucky enough to be behind the steering wheel of a sweet baby-blue fully restored ’68 Corvette?” Grinning foolishly, Mitch caressed the steering wheel. He nearly missed the flash of his headlights off metal ahead.

Chrome. Damned if there wasn’t a car without running lights parked in his lane. He’d worked too many drug busts to shrug off the significance of a car traveling without lights after dark. And this one was moving. Mitch could hear the sound of the other car’s engine, too. It was plain the driver didn’t have a hankering to stick around.

Mitch’s headlights barely pierced the swirl of dust kicked up by the fast-departing car. Mitch tried to make out its type, but as he peered out his windshield, he plunged into a curve in the lane.

Pressing on his gas pedal, Mitch was determined to read the license plate before the car reached his turnaround and came back at him with lights on bright. Only reactions long-honed by his police training saved him from plowing into something sitting in the road—a small suitcase. He braked and swerved.

Once he’d squealed to a stop, Mitch sat there a moment, sweat beading on his brow, his teeth clamped tight to stave off the pain he’d brought to his bad leg. Fighting off a wave of dizziness, he backed the hell up fast and scrambled to locate his cell phone.

Cursing, he watched the other car disappear and decided to relinquish the chase. Instead, he punched in the number of the precinct’s bomb squad. Why else would someone drop a suitcase on a private rural road at night? Especially as the drop coincided with an ex-cop’s arrival… If Mitch didn’t know for certain that the crazy who’d shot him was locked up tight, he might think Tony DeSalvo had come back to finish the job.

DeSalvo wasn’t the only creep he’d ticked off in his career, though. Just the latest. Tony was still safely put away—Mitch verified that first. He had no clue who’d left him a hot calling card, but he would damn sure find out as soon as the sucker discovered this road dead-ended.

“What the hell?” Mitch saw headlights bobbing across his west pasture. He slid out of the Vette, wincing at the stabbing pain in his left leg. Hands on hips, he watched the fleeing car slow midway in its run to intercept the 181 cutoff. Probably waiting to see him blown to smithereens.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he muttered darkly as the distant vehicle sped up again. He ought to notify the county sheriff, whose territory was intersected by Highway 181, but Mitch knew they couldn’t respond in time. The perpetrator could turn north and lose himself in Tucson’s winter-visitor traffic, or turn south and cross the border into Mexico at Agua Prieta. Either way, they’d shake a tail. So rather than give futile chase, he’d be better off seeing if his old department’s bomb squad could lift any prints from the suitcase. It shouldn’t be hard with the new computer system to cross-match prints to any of the bad guys he’d helped put away during his six years on the force.

It took fifteen minutes for his former co-workers to show up. Mack Rich and Pete Haslett wore gear that made them look as if they were headed to the moon. They seemed particularly eerie in the hazy spotlights they trained on the item in the lane.

“Wow, cowboy,” quipped a third member of the team. “You really know how to throw a homecoming. Since it could get hotter than your standard college bon-fire around here, I suggest you move that classic car before it gets torched, ruining your day and mine.”

Mitch, long used to being tagged “the Italian cowboy” by his comrades at the station, complied without taking issue with their friendly taunts.

“No audible ticking,” shouted the dough boy closest to the suitcase. “Could be she’s set to explode the minute anyone lifts her. Let’s give the case a shot with the X-ray camera to see the setup inside.” He turned to Mitch. “You said you saw a car drop the suitcase and leave the scene? Did you get a plate and a make?”

Mitch stood well back from the others while they readied a boom attached to a portable X-ray unit in the bomb van. “I saw a car,” he said with a grimace. “It was already in motion. I swerved to avoid the bag and missed getting details. I figured something was fishy. The car ran without lights and didn’t turn around at my ranch where the road ends. The driver took out across the field. Had to have torn out a section of my fence.”