Reluctant Runaway (25 page)

“That’s good, Des. You can stop.”

Her face appeared in the opening. “I could lower myself over the edge, and then jump the rest of the way. I want to hold you.” She cleared her throat. “I mean, I want you to hold me.”

“Nothing I’d like better, sweetheart, but you don’t need to be trapped down here, too.”

“What’s the difference between being trapped down there or up here?”

Des,
snap out of this
. “Up there maybe you can find a way to escape and go for help.”

Her head disappeared. No sound, and then a little sob. “Des, talk to me.”

“I found a place the Anasazi used to climb in and out.” Her shadow covered the opening, but he couldn’t see her. “They must have been little like me, small feet and hands. But it’s impossible. The finger- and toeholds have weathered. Maybe they’re even crumbling. Besides, I have a sore ankle.”

So that was it. She felt guilty for not being superwoman. “It’s okay, hon. If you say it’s impossible, it is. I trust your judgment.”

“You do?” Her face reappeared. “You could’ve fooled me.”

Now there was his fierce Desi.

She scowled down at him. “I didn’t dare tell you why my toe was sore when you picked me up for the White House bash, because you would’ve had a fit. I was doing a human fly on the
side of a skyscraper. Not on purpose. It just happened, and there I was—in a situation with no Tony to save me. Just me and God, and He got me through in time for our date. How’s that for divine protection?”

The burn in Tony’s middle heated up. “How am I supposed to respond to that? You’re up there. I’m down here. And why are you telling me now?”

The spunk drained from her face. “I just wanted you to know that I could get through situations without … Never mind. Stay here. I need to think.”

Stay here? Where did she think he’d go? “Des?” Silence. The hole showed nothing but sky.

Hissing through gritted teeth, Tony worked himself to his feet. He swayed and steadied himself against the wall with his good arm. His injured arm dangled, aching.

She was gone, stuck with life-and-death issues bigger than she was. The cruds who put them in here could arrive at any moment, and he couldn’t help her.

Some cat burglar
she
was!

Desi stared up at the cliff face, heart fluttering. Each gouged-out hand- and toehold mocked her.
Foolish Anglo
, ancient voices taunted.
You cannot go where we went. We were agile. Our feet had wings. Our fingers the strength of talons
.

Desi climbed the rock pile that led to the base of the cliff-ladder. She fitted her hands in the highest holds she could reach. Lifted a foot and put it in the crevice. Then the other foot, ignoring her complaining ankle. Her cheek pressed against the warm rock. She could do this. She must.

Up a notch. Hand. Hand. Foot. Foot. Hand up, but slipping on grit. The arm flopped down, and she cried out as she fell and
lay crumpled against a boulder, breathing in, out, staring straight ahead. Something stared back at her.

Not something—someone! The eyeholes of a skull gaped at her.

Desi screamed and scrambled back until she hit a rock. She swallowed her heart back into her chest. Whoever that dead person had been, the bleached remains couldn’t hurt her. She crawled back to the cracked and grinning skull. No other bones lay where she could see. Scavengers must have carried them off, leaving this testimony of a climber who never made it.

And she couldn’t make the climb either. Foolish to try. Darkness swelled inside her. She hugged her knees as Karen had done on their first meeting. May as well dress her in a robe of sacrifice, too.

“I give up.” She put her head in her hands.

Hurting and nauseous, Tony slid down the wall of the ancient kiva. He cradled his injured arm between his bent legs and his chest.

God, You leave me no choice. I
give
her into Your hands
.

“Pssst. You awake down there?”

Tony looked up to see a woman looking down at him, face framed by long dark hair.

“You’re Karen Webb. Lots of people are looking for you. Me included.”

“Because you’re a friend of Desiree Jacobs?”

“No, because I’m an FBI agent.”

“Really? Cool.” She looked to both sides, then back at him. “I want to confess.”

Tony’s chuckle turned into a moan. “Be my guest.”

“I took a bunch of Anasazi artifacts and hid them.”

Tony’s heart sank. Desi was going to be disappointed, not to mention family members devastated. He stretched out a leg. “I’m surprised. I’d pretty much decided you weren’t in on the museum theft. Did you also club your accomplice a little too hard on the head?”

“What? No way! I didn’t take the things from the
museum
. I stole them from Hamilton Gordon, and he was hopping mad. Couldn’t do what he wanted with them.”

“You’re using past tense. Did he get the items back?”

Heavy sigh. “Last night when he brought you two in, he said they’d found ‘his property.’ “ She snorted. “Like he’s got a drop of Pueblo blood!” She hung her head. “I’m not surprised he found the stuff though. I didn’t have much time to stash them. Pretty worthless, huh?”

“I’d call it courageous but a little misguided—like someone else I know.” He shifted his arm into a less painful position. “Fill in the blanks for me. Gordon robbed the museum—”

“Not Gordon. He had someone do it for him. I doubt he even knew how it was done.”

“All right, he took custody of the goods after someone else stole them. Then you grabbed the artifacts from him where and when?”

“The day after the theft. If I let Gordon keep the things from the museum, he meant to do something bad to someone innocent … like Adam.” She stopped and bit her lip. “But if not Adam, someone else pure and fresh. I had to stop him. So after Adam went down for his afternoon nap, I watched until I saw Brent’s car coming toward the house, and then I ran out the back door into the alley and took off in our old rattletrap Honda. Drove up to Gordon’s new estate. He welcomed me in as a fellow believer, and I whipped out this pistol my daddy gave me when I was a teenager, grabbed the Anasazi stuff, and hopscotched off into the
desert. Thought I could make it to friends of my father’s and disappear for a while. But then my car broke down, and Gordon’s dudes caught me, and here I am.”

“But they didn’t catch you before you hid the goods.”

“Right.”

“And why did you do all this instead of reporting Gordon to the police.”

“Who would believe me? Some crazy is going to kill and eat people using an ancient Indian ritual? Nope. But I knew right away who took the stuff and why. And it was my fault. I had to fix it.”

A piece of the dirt roof came loose and hit the floor near Tony’s foot. He coughed and wished he hadn’t. “How was it your fault?”

The girl stared down at him. “Guess I’d better get it off my chest. It’s not like anyone else is ever going to know. We’re due to be the main course of a sacred meal.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that Karen. We have the Lord Jesus Christ on our side.”

“The Lamb of God? He’s what got Gordon thinking about taking the body and blood to the next level. I figure he’s on Gordon’s side.”

Tony shook his head. “Not the empty fantasy Gordon made up. The real Jesus, the One you believed in when you married Brent and had Adam.”

Karen gave a strangled noise, and her head disappeared. The sound of running feet faded.

Way
to go, Lucano. Chase her off just when the conversation is getting interesting
.

Heat settled over him like an unwelcome blanket. Reality faded, and he drifted in a fog filled with pain and dread.

Dirt plopped onto his head. He sneezed and cried out, red haze filtering through his brain.

“Sorry.”

Karen. Tony’s eyes popped open. She stared down at him with a tear-streaked face.

“Desiree needs you. She’s sitting in the sun with her head in her lap. What do we do? She can get us out of here. I know it.”

“Your Inner Witness tell you that?”

“Forget about that stuff. I think … ” She let out a breath. “I think I quit believing when I found out what Hope did with the information I gave her. Now I don’t know what I believe. Jesus wouldn’t want me back anyway.”

“Don’t be too sure about that. What did you tell Hope?”

She sighed. “The ditz came to visit me two days before the theft. Hadn’t seen her in a couple of weeks. We never hit it off, but there she was all sisterhood on me. Guess I was lonely, so I let her in. She cooed and gushed all over Adam. Kept calling him the perfect little lamb. The way she said it spooked me. That and the brochure she left about healing sacraments helped me put two and two together after I heard about the theft.

“At the time, I didn’t understand why her interest in Adam bugged me. But then she changed the subject and told me a bunch of confidential stuff about her job with the ministry. Made me jealous. The Reverend Romlin trusted her with
everything
, and this bigwig CEO Ham Gordon had an Inner Circle going, and she was in it. All I got to know at the museum was where the keys were to the display cases.”

“And you think that information helped the thieves get the artifacts?”

She lifted her chin. “It did.”

“I’ve got news for you, Karen. A computer virus disabled the alarm system, but the case that held the artifacts was smashed, not unlocked. They never touched the keys.”

The woman’s mouth dropped open. “So I didn’t help them get the artifacts?”

“Nope. But you shouldn’t have tried to handle the problem on your own.”

“I had to. This
voice
kept telling me it was my fault, and I had to make it right.”

“Any time you’re driven, not led, the voice isn’t God’s.”

“But I left my baby, my husband … ” She made strangled noises, shaking her long mane from side to side. “All for nothing.”

“Don’t run off on me again.”

Karen stopped shaking her head, but she didn’t look at him.

“We’ve got to help Desi. I want you to tell her something for me.”

She peeked at him between the curtain of her hair.

Tony made himself smile. Then he gave her his message for Desiree, some of the hardest words he’d spoken in his life.

A shadow fell across Desi, and she looked up. Karen had sand in her hair and dirty tear streaks down her cheeks, but her gaze was clear. A little copper water did the trick.

The young woman wavered a smile. “I came from Tony. He gave me some things to think about.”

Not just water. A stiff dose of Lucano practicality. Good for him. She looked away across the sterile valley. “You made your peace with Jesus?”

“Not yet, but I think I will.” She crouched to Desi’s level, her Pueblo features dominating the Anglo green eyes. “He told me to tell you something.”

“I’m listening.”

“He said to say it just this way, so act like this is him talking.” She closed her eyes. “Tony says, ‘I thought all the scary
things that happened to you these past few days were to teach you to live more cautiously but now I see they were to teach me that I’m not your protector. God is. Whatever He tells you to do, do it. You’ll be fine.’ “ She opened her eyes. “That mean anything to you?”

Electricity washed through Desiree. Shackles she hadn’t known were there melted like ice on a sun-baked stone. Maybe she hadn’t missed God’s leading the past few days. Maybe there was still a purpose. She stretched out her legs and stood up. Lifting one arm and then the other, she reached toward the pale heavens. Every muscle tingled.

“I’m terrified, Lord, and You know I don’t want to do this. Can’t do it alone. So if I’ve messed up, and I’m not hearing You right, I’ll die. So what? At least I give my life trying to help Tony and Karen, not on some crazy man’s altar.” She lowered her arms.

Karen stared at her with eyes as big as silver dollars.

Desi smiled. “Let’s go get some of that bitter water. I need a drink before I climb a cliff.”

 Twenty-one

T
en feet up, Desi paused. She puffed from her mouth like a woman in labor doing Lamaze. Only ninety more feet. Keep going. Her ankle ached, but the hand- and toeholds were sturdy. A little deeper would have been nice. Maybe they’d get better higher up. Maybe not.

Don’t think about that
.

She moved up like a human spider on the wall. Thank goodness there was no wind. Another pause. Don’t look down. Not up either. A small laugh passed her lips. The look on Karen’s face when she said she was going to climb the cliff belonged in a museum. A few more puffs, and she went on. Sweat soaked her skin, her clothes. She blinked moisture from her eyes. Was she halfway yet?

Don’t ask, just keep going
.

A little more. The sun baked her back, stronger now than when she was at the bottom of the canyon. Another step up. She had to be—oops! A hand slipped. She smacked it back onto the cliff and grabbed. The dismal truth crept upon her consciousness. The holds were getting smaller, along with her strength. The muscles in her calves trembled.

Puffing air, she studied the cliff face. Up and to the left a piece of rock jutted. Narrow, but no more narrow than the ledge she’d conquered at the Tate Building. If she could reach it, she could rest. If the lip would hold her weight.

Almost there. Got to go higher. Her hand reached for the
hold. Not there. Panic grabbed her throat. Gurgling, she pressed herself against the rock wall.
Try again, girl
Systematically, she probed the cliff for the depression. Her eyes widened. Nothing. She inched her chin up and rolled her eyes skyward, searching for the top of the cliff. Close, but not close enough. Twenty feet might as well be two thousand. Her holds had run out.

She fixed her gaze on the ledge. No way to reach it except to lunge sideways and grasp the edge. And if she succeeded in pulling herself onto the perch, she was trapped, because going down wasn’t an option.

Lord, You ask us to take the next step we can see and leave the rest to You. Here goes
.

Her muscles gathered, released. Airborne. Her fingers curled around the edge of the outcropping. One hand slipped. She brought it back. Grabbed. Now she dangled eighty feet in the air over a pile of unforgiving rock eager to break her and drink her blood.

Yuck! Get that image out of your mind, Des
.

An odd fact intruded on her awareness. The place where she gripped the ledge was curved inward, a tailor-made handhold.

Do
a pull-up now
.

She’d done thousands in her little lifetime. She strained. Her body drew up toward the ledge. She stuck a bent leg out to give herself leverage against the cliff wall.

There!

She sprawled full-length on a narrow table of stone, breathing and laughing. So what if she had no idea where to go next.

A cheer wafted up from below. Muscles quivering, Desi peered over the edge and waved. The dark-haired woman waved back and then took off toward the kiva. At least Tony would get the news that she was alive, even though she’d failed her assignment.

Desi got to her knees on the ledge and looked around. She made the climb, but what was the point? Too bad she didn’t have a rope. She could attach it to the thumb of rock jutting on the far side of the ledge and let herself down. That outcropping was worn in a way that suggested ropes had been used on it before.

She sighed and examined the cliff face above her. As she’d thought, no hand- or toeholds. They petered out at the level of her perch. Why did the Anasazi make the gouges at all? An ancient practical joke? If so, it was a dangerous one.

She just prayed it wasn’t fatal as well.

The sun hurt her eyes, and she looked down at the cliff face near her thighs. Something glittered inside the rock.
Inside?
Desi looked closer and found a crevice no wider than a fist about a foot above the place where the ledge pushed out from the cliff. A spark flashed again. Desi swallowed. Should she reach inside? Who knew what scaly critter might be in there?

Curiosity killed the cat, and it could be the death of Desiree Jacobs, because the force was impossible to resist. Okay, just put a couple of fingers in there, and see if she could reach the shiny object without disturbing any rock-dwelling denizens. Holding her breath, she probed and brushed something hard that moved with a small scrape. She jerked her hand out of the hole.

Quit being silly! What she’d touched wasn’t alive. She reached in, grabbed the object, and pulled it out. A necklace. The long gold chain dangled from her fingers. The links were thick and heavy, and on the end swayed a large, round medallion studded with green stones. This was no Anasazi work or even Pueblo. Pure Spanish and old, too—a relic from the days when the Spaniards of Mexico dominated the region.

Desi looked toward the ground. Had this necklace belonged to whoever died at the base of the cliff? Made tragic sense. Maybe the person, either a woman or a boy, judging from the
size of the skull, made the climb, but when she got up here, she realized the same thing Desi did. This was no way out, and there was no way down. Rather than face a slow death under the merciless sun, perhaps that person jumped, leaving behind this testimony of who she was.

Desi slid the necklace back into the crevice. The creeps who’d be dropping by soon didn’t need to get their grubby hands on it. But if she got out of this mess alive, she’d come back to investigate. A piece like this had a history, and so did the person who’d owned it.

Desi stood and surveyed the canyon. How could she find this place again if she needed to? From here she could see the entire canyon. At one end, it narrowed into a closed point. On the other end, an earthquake or other natural disaster had collapsed a cliff wall into an impassable barrier.

Her gaze traced the ridgeline opposite. A red stain like someone had tossed the contents of a giant paint can splashed the cliff at her eye level. The stain rose into the air on a monolith of rock jabbing high above the rest of the canyon face. The way the red finger pointed, it wouldn’t be visible from the floor of the canyon, but it would be from the air. A perfect landmark. No chance of their captors mislaying them. They could be here anytime.

Desi sighed and sat down, dangling her legs over the edge of the rock lip. She could only wait for rescue by the bad guys. How ironic was that?

That crazy-wonderful woman made it to a safe spot! If anything other than his legs were working, Tony would have danced. He laughed instead, and even that was too much. Man, he was a wreck. But a happy wreck.

All they could do now was wait for Gordon and company He didn’t expect mercy but he wouldn’t give any either. A strong set of legs was better than nothing, and let him anywhere near a gun … Ham Gordon better watch out.

Whump! Whump! Whump!
The deep tone began as a vibration and grew.

Helicopter. Tony’s heart beat in time with the rotors.

The wait was over.

The chopper’s thunder shook the ledge under Desi’s legs. A pale blue whirlybird lowered toward her. The gale wind of its rotors pressed her back against the cliff wall. She lifted an arm to protect her face, but peered above her elbow to watch the approach. The helicopter hovered level with her perch. She met the gaze of the passenger seated next to the pilot. Not Gordon. Reverend Archer Romlin. The preacher’s slack-jawed stare mirrored her own.

Desi snapped her mouth shut. Why was she surprised? The guy was a shyster. And he’d approved of Ham Gordon’s construction project in the wilderness. Goodness, he was even planning on setting up his own harem full of little Hopes. No doubt he was the one prospecting out here for copper. Why shouldn’t he be a full accomplice in this too-weird combination of greed and insanity? But he was a
minister
, for crying out loud. Guess there was something in people that expected a shred of decency out of someone who professed spiritual leadership.

The chopper rose, and a rope ladder fell toward her. Desi stood and reached for the rungs. All aboard who’re going aboard. Like she had a choice.

Desi reached the open rear door, and male hands pulled her inside. One of the palms was wrapped in a dirty bandage that had probably started out white. She came face-to-face with a
muscle-bound goon that had coyote breath and stained teeth. One of the truckers who ran them off the road yesterday? He shoved her into a seat, drew up the ladder, and slammed the door. The goon took the seat next to her and pulled a rifle onto his lap.

She glanced at the bandaged hand. “Been in any interesting museums lately?”

He stared at her, face blank. Probably couldn’t hear over the din of the descending helicopter. They bumped onto the canyon floor, and the roar faded as the rotors slowed.

Romlin turned toward her. “Desiree Jacobs, I presume.” He chuckled. “Who else might we expect to find camped out on a cliff-side aerie?”

The melodious voice flowed over Desi, and her heart rate gentled. She looked away from his silver gaze. Hypnotic man. No wonder people followed him.

He chuckled again. “Now we’ll have Jack and George collect the other members of our party and be on our way. You and I can wait here.” The muzzle of a handgun pointed toward her from Romlin’s white fingers.

The pilot and the goon climbed out.

“How do they plan to get Tony out of that pit? He can hardly move.”

“Don’t worry.” A scrape came from the pilot’s side of the helicopter. “I believe that was George detaching the telescoping aluminum ladder. The federal agent will climb unless he wishes to perish of dehydration in that hole.”

Heat flared in Desi’s chest. “Maybe he’d prefer that over what you and Hamilton Gordon have planned.”

Romlin shook his head. “Not me. Ham’s developed his own outlandish theology. I don’t understand how he got his notions from what I preach.” The man shrugged. “But I make allowances
for such a generous donor.” Romlin flashed even white teeth.

This guy was greed personified. Wonder what
allowances
he’d make for news of the copper deposit right under his nose? Desi pressed her lips together. He wouldn’t find out from her that his dream had been found. Let him go away as empty as Francisco Coronado in his quest for the Seven Cities of Cibola. That misguided search led to centuries of Spanish oppression over the Pueblo people. News of a copper find on unclaimed land surrounded by reservations would unleash a feeding frenzy among the rich and influential. Enough to endanger what land the tribes had. Karen better have enough wits about her to keep her mouth shut, too.

Out the front windshield, Desi saw the lanky pilot coming toward them herding a white-robed Karen, who picked her way with bare feet among the spiny vegetation.

“The Indian girl is quite striking,” Romlin said. “Cleaned up a bit—”

“Keep your lecherous thoughts to yourself, you disgusting worm.”

Romlin tut-tutted. “Name-calling doesn’t become a Christian. You
are
one of those true believers, aren’t you?” He cocked a brow at her.

“If Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees snakes, naming a deceiver like you among those belly crawlers strikes me as right on target.”

His eyes slitted, and the gun poked toward her. “You have a disturbing mouth.”

Desi gripped the edges of her seat with sweaty palms. “So I’ve been told.”

“Well, keep it shut.” He turned his head. “Ah, here comes our last passenger.”

“Tony.” The name breathed between her lips.

He moved like a man treading on eggshells. His left arm crossed his chest and clamped his right to his body. Behind him, Mr. Goon gave him a shove. Tony staggered and went to his knees, head thrown back in a silent scream.

Desi cried out and lunged forward. A gun barrel in the face forced her back into her seat.

The passenger door opened, and Karen climbed in behind Desi. Seconds later, Tony filled the doorway. A moan escaped as he crawled inside and took the seat beside her.

The goon with the gun took the last seat, right behind Tony, and the pilot started the engine. They climbed out of the canyon into a cloudless sky. The helicopter skimmed close to the earth, and small wildlife scattered before them. A short time later, the chopper took an abrupt turn around a butte, dropped, hovered, and then settled next to a bright orange bulldozer. The huge machine looked as out of place as a cactus in a rainforest.

The doors of cliff dwellings gaped in the face of the butte, just like in the O’Keeffe painting, but where was Sanctuary? Nothing in the landscape resembled the model she saw in Santa Fe … except for the humongous mound of earth ahead of them. The granddaddy of all kivas, and from the ribbon of smoke rising from a small chimney, it was occupied. No wonder Max hadn’t found evidence of a clandestine construction project if this was all there was to Sanctuary.

Romlin got out, as well as the pilot, who also lugged an impressive firearm. Goon shoved Karen out ahead of him, and then hopped to the ground. The young woman shot Desi a frightened look between strands of hair whipped by the slowing rotors. Desi tried a smile, but managed only a frown and shake of the head. Romlin motioned her out with his gun. She stepped down and turned to help Tony, if they’d let her.