Buch lesen: «High Desert Hideaway»

ONE

The cold steel tip of a gun barrel bit into the side of Lily Doyle’s neck just below her right ear. The man holding the gun angled it slightly upward, so a single round would have maximum effect.

At least if the worst happened, it would be quick.

Please, Lord, Lily prayed, but she was unable to think of any further words after that. Her knees shook and her breaths came in short, shallow gasps.

“Relax!” the gunman yelled and Lily jumped.

A truck rumbled by on the highway outside the Starlight Mart. “Everybody, just relax!” the gunman yelled again. He’d pulled his dusty gray trucker’s hat down low and flipped up the collar of his jean jacket to try and hide his face. Lily didn’t know his name, but she did know he’d taken over the convenience store because he wanted to capture her.

The gunman’s accomplice, wearing sunglasses and a rust-colored hoodie drawn tight around his face, grabbed an energy drink from a display case. He flung it at the security camera near the cash register where Lily was being held, breaking the camera and sending purplish fizz splattering in every direction. Two wide-eyed store clerks, both looking as if they were barely out of their teens, stood behind the front counter, not far from Lily. They had their hands held up. Hoodie grabbed a second energy drink, threw it and knocked out the camera by the front door.

One of the shoppers screamed.

“Everybody stay where you are,” the gunman hollered. “Don’t move an inch. Don’t touch your phones. Don’t try to act smart or you’ll find your head exploding like one of them drink cans.”

Lily heard a whimpering sound. It came from the trio of high school kids over by the soda cooler.

This wasn’t a robbery. Well, not primarily a robbery. Lily had no idea what these two creeps were capable of, but she did know it was her fault the people in this store were in danger. She’d overheard part of a conversation at her new job that she clearly wasn’t meant to hear. And the two strangers she’d accidentally heard talking had seen her and come after her.

Now she had to do something. Nobody’s going to ride in on a white horse and save the day, Tiger Lily. She’d heard her mother say it a thousand times. It had always been true before. It was true now.

Fear squeezed her rib cage, making it hard to breathe. She took the deepest breath she could, forcing her attention away from the crawling sensation of a bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face. She needed to look around. Figure out her options. There must be something she could do.

Directly in front of her, a scaled-down baker’s rack displayed factory-made muffins, cupcakes and single-serving fruit pies. Through the thick white wires, she could see a wide-eyed woman with her arms wrapped around a boy and girl, maybe five and eight years old, clutching them close to her body.

To the right, midway down the length of cooler doors that covered one wall, stood the trio of teenagers. Slack-jawed and wearing stunned expressions, each one loosely held a neon-colored sports drink as if they’d forgotten they had anything in their hands.

“What are you looking at?” the gunman shouted at Lily as he pulled his arm tighter across the front of her shoulders, forcing her body closer to his. He jammed the tip of his gun harder into her neck, forcing her head to tilt to the side. “You get any smart ideas, you force me to shoot anybody, and their blood will be on your hands.” His lips were close to her ear and his hot, damp breath clung sickeningly to the surface of her skin.

Lily’s racing heart pounded even harder. The interior of the store started to spin a little and she was afraid she might faint. Oh, dear Lord. Help!

She looked through the tall glass windows to the gas pumps outside. Beyond the pumps, a black ribbon of highway wound past the small old store. On the other side of the road, northern Arizona high desert stretched toward jagged mountains. The Starlight Mart sat at a crossroads nearly twenty miles from the nearest town.

A semi rumbled by on the highway but there was no other traffic behind it.

“We’re just gonna get everybody together nice and cozy and locked up in some office or storeroom, and then we’ll be on our way,” the gunman’s accomplice called out.

Lily’s thoughts turned to news stories of people found murdered in the back rooms of businesses that had been robbed. A chill passed through her body, raising goose bumps on the surface of her skin.

The accomplice pulled a gun out of his hoodie pocket and aimed it at the teenagers, motioning for them to move toward the front of the store. One of the kids tripped over her own feet and fell to her knees, hard. The accomplice laughed.

Lily glanced out the windows again. Her car was pulled up to the front door at a crazy angle, the driver’s door still hanging open.

Hoping someone would pull into the parking lot and end this nightmare wasn’t much of a plan, but fear and disbelief made it hard to think of anything better.

Lily’s entire universe had been upended in less than an hour.

Thirty minutes ago she’d been at work and everything was perfectly normal. Then, twenty-five minutes ago she’d stumbled across a conversation she wasn’t meant to hear. Working a little later than usual at her new job as a part-time clerical assistant, she’d walked through an empty office that was adjoined to the break room. Nearly everyone else had already gone home and the building was quiet. She’d heard indistinct voices, but hadn’t thought much about it. Then, she was able to make out snippets of conversation and her mind had begun to understand a strange collection of words. Cops. Cargo. Lay low for a while. Ditch the guns.

Scared, she’d tried to backtrack through the office, away from the break room and the voices. But she’d bumped into a squeaky rolling office chair, and a man she’d never seen before had yanked open a door and spotted her. He’d demanded to know what she’d heard.

He’d shoved aside the door and started toward her, cursing while trying to grab her. Startled and scared, she’d run from him. Her phone and purse were still at her desk, but her keys were in her pocket. Afraid there would be no one in the office to help her, she’d raced to her car.

Outside she’d looked around frantically for help as she ran, but she was on her own. She’d flung herself into her car, locked the doors and fired up the engine. Without looking back she’d sped out of the parking lot and shot down the short private road leading to the highway, anxious to get to her home in Copper Mesa.

Shaking and numb with fear, she’d barely caught her breath when she realized her car’s low-fuel light was blinking. She’d never make it to Copper Mesa. It was too far. She’d have to head in the opposite direction, toward the crossroads, and hope she had enough fuel to make it to the gas station there.

A couple of minutes later she was pulling off the highway at the Starlight Mart, throwing gravel in a rooster tail behind her. She skidded to a stop right at the front door, jumped out of the car and ran inside, yelling at the startled clerks to call for help. They’d stared at her like her hair was on fire.

She’d forced herself to calm down a little, lower the volume of her voice and try to sound reasonable. But then she’d heard the door behind her being shoved open and the sound of quick footsteps. She’d turned just as the man she’d seen in the office grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. That’s when he’d shoved the gun into her neck.

Her brain knew it had only been a few minutes, but it felt as if that gun had been digging into her skin for hours.

Lily looked again at the people in the store, her gaze settling on the woman with the young children. Their lives were in danger as long as Lily was here.

“I’ll go with you,” Lily said to the gunman, her voice a shaky whisper. “No trouble.” When they got outside, she could break away and run to the highway. Someone driving by might see her and stop. That might be enough to make the gunman and Hoodie let her go while they tried to get away.

The front door of the store opened.

A man walked in. A big guy with shaggy dark blond hair sporting a few sun-bleached streaks. Scruffy beard. Heavy boots. Worn jeans with torn knees, a red T-shirt and a beat-up black leather jacket. He looked like a biker. He wore mirrored sunglasses even though it was now dark outside. He probably wanted to hide his eyes because he was drunk. Or high. After a slight pause, he headed straight for the coolers, toward the section in the back where they kept the soda and beer.

Not the kind of person Lily had had in mind when she’d hoped someone would show up. She turned her head slightly to watch him.

“Don’t even think about saying or doing anything.” The gunman slid his pistol down so it was hidden, but now it was pointed at the base of Lily’s spine. “Make a move and you’ll never walk again.”

Lily swallowed thickly.

His accomplice moved closer to the teenagers and lowered his gun out of sight.

The biker reached the coolers and peered through the glass as if he was trying to decide what he wanted to buy.

Hurry up! Lily thought. Get something and get out of here! He would obviously be more trouble than help. His sudden appearance had ramped up the tension in the store tenfold. The gunman was now holding Lily’s arm in a death grip, his fingers digging deeply into her flesh. His breathing was speeding up, as if he might be getting ready to make a move. The store clerks were getting fidgety, and Lily was worried they might try to do something that would get them killed.

Biker man finally opened a cooler door and grabbed a six-pack of cola-filled cans. Heading toward the cash register, he strode up the aisle toward the man in the hoodie and the group of teenagers. He was tall and broad-shouldered and the cluster of teens moved out of his way.

As he walked past the man in the hoodie, he swung the six-pack and clocked him in the side of the head. In a flash of movement he grabbed the gun from Hoodie’s hand just before Hoodie tumbled into a candy rack and knocked it over. Chocolate bars, mints and packs of gum skittered across the floor as the biker reached beneath his jacket. He pulled out his own pistol and pointed it at the gunman who held Lily. “Drop your weapon!”

The gunman loosened his hold on Lily as he raised his gun to fire at the biker.

It was the chance Lily had been hoping for. She jabbed her right elbow straight back, connecting with the gunman’s ribs. At the same time she raised her left foot and stomped on his instep. Any second she expected to feel the gun blast into the base of her spine or the back of her head, but the gunman shoved her aside as he fired at the biker.

Two cooler doors exploded and glass fell like jagged rain.

The biker disappeared.

* * *

Deputy Nate Bedford crouched on the floor behind an ice-cream cooler. He peered around the edge of the coffin-shaped container and through some wire display racking, watching the gunman at the counter and the woman he’d held by the arm. The man’s unnaturally tight hold on the woman had been the first thing that had caught Nate’s attention when he’d walked into the store. Then he’d noticed the odd way everyone was standing still. And the uneasy quiet.

The car parked at the front of the store with the driver’s side door hanging open had hinted something might be wrong, too. Or the driver could just be incredibly impatient. Nate had seen it all.

The reflection in the cooler doors as he’d searched for his favorite cola had given him a quick sense of who was where in the store. Who looked terrified, and who looked dangerous and ready to snap. By the time he’d found the drinks he wanted, it was clear he’d have to do something.

Nate was on his way home after spending three months working undercover assisting the Phoenix police department’s narcotics unit. The deep undercover assignment had sharpened his observational skills and fine-tuned his ability to read any environment, though the peculiar situation in the Starlight Mart would have been obvious to anybody who was paying attention to their surroundings.

He was exhausted after surviving three months of restless, uneasy sleep every night and his nerves were stretched to their limit thanks to the constant threat of drug-cartel-related violence. He had stopped at the Starlight Mart to pick up a soda to help keep him awake until he got to the Blue Spruce Ranch.

Well, he was awake now.

From his hiding place on the floor, Nate watched the gunman at the counter scanning the store, searching for him. There were large round mirrors in the corners of the ceiling to help detect shoplifters, and reflective glass and steel surfaces everywhere. The gunman was bound to see him any second. Nate shifted his weight and got ready to sprint. Then he heard something. He turned in the direction of the sound.

The teenagers had hit the deck when the gunman started shooting. Now they were getting to their feet. Where did they think they were going?

Nate glanced back toward the front of the store. The woman who was apparently being held hostage by the gunman was also starting to move. Freed from his grasp and shoved to the ground, she’d gotten to her hands and knees and was now crawling toward the front door. Not a good idea. Not yet. The guy in the hoodie Nate had whacked still lay on the floor, moaning. The gunman was obviously spooked and itching to shoot again. Nate had experience with edgy, violent people. This was a textbook definition of an explosive situation.

The woman was still crawling. Her dark hair was tied back, but a few strands had worked loose and fallen around her face. She wore black-framed glasses and looked smart, like a librarian. She looked familiar, too, but Nate couldn’t place her. It could be his mind playing tricks on him. Undercover work always left him edgy and suspicious. It took a little time to transition back into his normal self. Staying up at the Blue Spruce Ranch for a few days would help with that. It always did.

The woman was gutsy, Nate had to give her that. Maybe too gutsy. Any second now she would get too far. The gunman would be afraid she’d escape. He’d panic and shoot her. Nate had to do something to draw the gunman’s fire away from her.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and slowly rose up.

The sound of rapid footsteps jerked away his attention. Something screamed, like the sound of a train squealing to a stop, and a whoosh of cooler air swirled through the small store. The clerks were running out the back door, the teenagers right behind them. Someone had pushed open the emergency exit and activated the alarm.

Nate looked over his shoulder. The guy in the hoodie he’d knocked out earlier was no longer on the floor. Nate couldn’t see him anywhere.

At the front of the store the gunman grabbed the woman and yanked her to her feet. Then he looked around, wild-eyed, and fired a couple of random shots into the store, hitting a pyramid of salsa jars and a light fixture that sent sparks spraying to the floor. While Nate took cover, the gunman started toward the front door, pulling the woman with him.

Nate couldn’t return fire. The woman was in the way. “Throw down your gun,” Nate yelled, figuring the gunman probably couldn’t hear him over the screaming drone of the alarm.

The gunman fired a shot in Nate’s direction. Then he backed toward the door, looking over his shoulder several times, dragging the woman with him. Finally, he reached the threshold. He hesitated, then shoved the woman into the store while he turned and ran outside.

Nate sprang up and ran after him.

The sky had gone from dark blue to pitch-black while Nate was inside. Buzzing white security lights shone over the gas pumps, but the fleeing gunman was nowhere in sight. He must have taken off into the wildland.

Nate jogged across the crumbling asphalt, continuing around the back of the store, just in case the bad guys had gone that way. He came across the high school kids and clerks who’d escaped out the back door. They were clustered in small groups. Some were crying, some were hugging each other. Nearly all were on their cell phones.

Nate tucked his gun back under his jacket. “Did anybody see where either of those two guys went?”

The kids glanced at each other and shook their heads.

“I called 911,” one of the clerks offered. Nate could already hear sirens. A couple of cars rolled by on the highway, red taillights glowing in the night, but there was no way to tell if either car held the escaping thugs.

Nate went back inside the store with one of the clerks and they disarmed the shrieking alarm. Blue and red flashing lights spilled through the front window as the patrol cars pulled into the parking lot.

Nate walked all through the store, checking the restrooms, office and storage areas to make sure the man in the hoodie wasn’t hiding anywhere. There was no sign of him. He must have slipped out the back door when everybody else ran.

Deputies cautiously entered the store. They recognized Nate and he waved them in. “Two guys held everybody in the store hostage and then got away,” Nate told the senior deputy. “I guess it was a robbery. I’m not sure. I got here in the middle of it.” He gave their descriptions. “Wish I could tell you if they’re on foot or driving, but I don’t know.”

“We’ll get everybody out looking.” The senior deputy, David Cooper, keyed his collar mic to speak to Dispatch. Meanwhile the other deputies fanned out to do their own search of the premises and get started collecting witness information.

“The gunman at the front counter was hanging on to that lady over there pretty tightly,” Nate said to Cooper after he’d finished talking to Dispatch. He gestured toward the dark-haired woman in the glasses who stood by the main entrance, her arms wrapped across her stomach as she stared at the ground. “I couldn’t tell if they were after her in particular for some reason, but I’d like to find out.”

Nate strode over to her. “Are you all right?”

Her head jerked up. She looked at him, wide-eyed, and tried to take a step back. But she was already pressed against the glass at the front of the store and there was nowhere for her to go.

“The bad guys are gone,” Nate quickly added. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt. The medics are outside. Maybe you should get checked out.”

“I’m okay,” she finally answered in a low voice. She blew out a shaky breath. “I thought they were going to kill me.”

“You’re safe now.” Nate had been through some terrifying situations in his life. Dwelling on all the horrific things that could have happened never did him any good. Focusing on what went right, and thanking God, did.

“How did all this get started?” Nate asked. “Do you know those guys?”

“I’ve seen them before but I don’t know them.” She reached up to tuck a few stray tendrils of hair behind her ears and recrossed her arms. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They must have thought I was going to turn them in to the police or something.”

“I’ve got this.” Cooper walked up and gave Nate a look that clearly said “go away.”

It was standard operating procedure to separate witnesses when gathering statements after an incident like this. Nate knew that, but he wasn’t used to being only a witness. He was used to being a cop and taking control.

“Go find Gibson and give him your statement,” Cooper added. “And Sheriff Wolfsinger is on his way. He’s going to want to talk to you.”

“Right.” Nate glanced back at the dark-haired woman, bugged by the thought that he knew her from somewhere. He should have asked her name. He’d find out eventually.