High Desert Hideaway Read online

  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.

  TWO

  Lily sat down in the driver’s seat of her car, stretched across the passenger seat and stuck her hand down between the seat and the door, digging around for loose change so she could buy some gasoline and get home.

  Deputy Cooper had taken her statement. She’d told him everything, from overhearing bits and pieces of a conversation between strangers to being chased here to the Starlight Mart and held at gunpoint. She’d explained to him that she hadn’t even heard enough to understand what the men were talking about, and she’d given him the name and location of her new employer, though she didn’t have her phone with her and couldn’t remember the phone number. Finally, the deputy handed her his card and told her he’d follow up with her tomorrow morning.

  Now she had her car pulled up to the gas pumps outside the Starlight Mart. She worked three part-time jobs and typically got her lunch at a fast-food drive-thru window. Sometimes she dropped her change on the floor or tossed it onto the passenger seat when she was in a hurry. Maybe there was enough to buy the gasoline she needed to get her home. If not, she’d have to walk back into the Starlight Mart and try to borrow the money from somebody.

  Home. That’s all she wanted to think about right now. The comfortable old house she’d grown up in. The dogs. And most of all, her mom. Mom would help her hold herself together.

  She didn’t want to think about what had just happened to her in the Starlight Mart, or what might have happened if that biker hadn’t shown up. She absolutely didn’t want to dwell on the terrifying possibility that the gunman and his accomplice might track her down tomorrow or the next day. The second time they found her they’d probably drag her out into an isolated expanse of scrub brush and finish the job without witnesses or anyone getting in their way.

  She would let herself process what had happened to her after she got home. Right now she would swallow her fear because that’s what you did with fear. Lily had learned that at a young age. When trouble comes—and it always does—you choke back your fear and you take care of the job at hand. You do your crying later.

  That’s what Lily’s mom, Kate, did all those years ago when Lily’s father died. She’d pulled herself together. And she kept doing that in the years that followed because money was tight and trouble was never very far away.

  Lily only found a couple of dimes in the space beside the seat, so she sat up and opened the glove box. She shoved aside her car registration, a few aged ketchup packets and a collection of plastic forks fro
m fast-food restaurants, and finally found a few more coins. Altogether they totaled less than three dollars. Not nearly enough to get her where she wanted to go.

  One of the terrified sobs Lily had choked back while that gun bit into her skin rose up in her throat and escaped as a cross between a hiccup and a gasp. Tears burned her eyes. Her body began to tremble.

  No, she commanded herself. You will not do this. Not now.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  The sound of the biker’s voice startled her and she dropped her coins. They rolled under the seat. Fear turned into fury in an instant. She’d been terrorized and pushed around more than enough today.

  She got out of her car and slammed the door shut, then turned and glared up at the biker. He was definitely big. He’d taken off his dark glasses and she could see his eyes. Cold, unemotional steel-gray. Why was he even talking to her? She didn’t want to know him. And he certainly wasn’t going to keep her from going home. Not after all she’d been through tonight. It didn’t matter how big he was.

  She held his gaze for several seconds and then felt her anger drain away just a little. The man had saved her life, after all. She should probably thank him for what he’d done. Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t in a particularly generous mood at the moment. “What do you want?” she snapped, just barely managing to sound civil.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head slightly. “You look like you’re trying to leave. Sheriff Wolfsinger arrived a few minutes ago. You need to stay and talk to him.”

  “I already gave my statement.”

  “If you talk to him maybe you’ll remember some new details.”

  Lily scoffed. “What are you, a cop?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  He couldn’t be serious.

  Apparently he was.

  He took out an ID from his back pocket, complete with an Oso County sheriff’s department badge, and showed it to her.

  “‘Nathan Bedford,’” she read aloud from his ID. “That name sounds familiar.” She turned back to him. His eyes narrowed, as if he didn’t believe her. She didn’t care if he did or not. But his cynical expression goaded her. And then she remembered how she knew him. “Cottonwood High School. You hung out with Joseph Suh.”

  His hardened expression gave way just a little. “I was friends with him for a long time,” he said. “You look familiar. What’s your name?”

  “Lily Doyle. And I wasn’t exactly friends with him. I tutored him in English composition.” She’d hung around with a totally different crowd than Nate and Joseph when they were all in high school. And every day after school, she’d had a job stocking shelves in a grocery store. If she wasn’t in class or at work, she was either studying or sleeping. She hadn’t had much time for friends.

  “Pip-squeak,” he said after a few seconds.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s the nickname Joseph gave you. Because you were a couple of years younger than us and kind of small.”

  “Oh.” Had Joseph really called her Pip-squeak behind her back? She’d had fond memories of working with Joseph. He’d told her she needed to lighten up and he was always trying to make her laugh. He came from a nice family. His mom made sure Lily had a snack whenever she came to their house to tutor him.

  “Joseph said you did a good job,” Nate added. “His mom made him sign up for peer tutoring and he was mad at first, but if it wasn’t for your help, he might not have graduated.”

  Lily felt a lump in her throat. For some reason, now that Nate was speaking to her a little more kindly, it was harder to keep her emotions in check.

  “I haven’t seen Joseph in a long time,” Lily finally said. “I know he enlisted in the army. I hope he’s doing okay.”

  “Deployed to the Middle East three times,” Nate said evenly. “Made it through two of them.”

  “Oh.”

  The barrier Lily had built around her emotions dissolved in an instant. Tears collected in her eyes and then ran down her cheeks. Her shoulders started to shake and her nose started to run. She wiped at her face with the back of her hand.

  Nate grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser attached to a pole between the gas pumps and handed it to her. The thick brown paper was meant for cleaning windshields and it was rough on her nose. She used it anyway.

  Leaning against her car, she let the tears fall because this time she knew she couldn’t stop them. Part of her choking emotion was simply the terror of the day catching up with her. But sharp sadness over the death of Joseph pushed her over the top. What a horrible reminder that terrible things happened to people all the time.

  Finally she calmed down a little, took a breath and sighed. She wadded up the paper towel and tossed it into a trash can. Nate quickly got her another one. She didn’t really need it, but just throwing it away seemed spiteful so she put it into her pocket.

  Trying not to be obvious, she stole another glance at him. Nate Bedford had always been easy on the eyes. But she didn’t ever remember him looking this scruffy. And now he was a deputy sheriff? She would have been less surprised to learn he was an inmate somewhere.

  “Thank you,” she finally said. “Thank you for saving my life in there.”

  Nate nodded. “You’re welcome.”

  He looked past her shoulder into the darkness surrounding the Starlight Mart.

  A chill wind kicked up and Lily rubbed her arms.

  “It’s cold out here.” Nate flipped up the collar on his leather jacket and turned to her. “Are you ready to go back inside the store to talk to the sheriff?”

  “Yes.” Since he was asking instead of telling her, Lily figured she could work with him.

  “Good. Try to remember every single detail you possibly can. You never know what might help. I’ll see if I can join in the hunt to track down those two idiots and make them pay for what they did.”

  * * *

  Inside the Starlight Mart, Oso County Sheriff Ben Wolfsinger had taken up his usual role as the calm center in the midst of the storm. A slender, bronze-skinned man with gray shot through the black hair at his temples, Wolfsinger wasn’t a physically imposing man. But his confident demeanor and calm voice lent him a presence that drew people’s attention.

  Wolfsinger saw Nate and quirked an eyebrow. “Bedford. I heard you were here. Why aren’t you at home in Painted Rock getting some rest?”

  “I decided to go to the ranch instead. I stopped here to get something to drink on the way.” He introduced Lily to the sheriff.

  “You’re the lady we’ve been hearing about from our eyewitnesses.” Wolfsinger reached out a hand and rested it on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you.”

  Nate watched Lily look into Wolfsinger’s eyes, take a deep breath, exhale and relax her shoulders a little. She had scratches on her neck and a bruise darkening the top of her right cheek. Thin red lines across her forehead and chin marked spots where something sharp, perhaps shattered glass from the cooler, or pieces of broken lightbulb, had sliced across the surface of her skin.

  Thinking about the creeps who had hurt her made Nate’s stomach tighten.

  As an elected official, Sheriff Wolfsinger could pull out some impressive political skills when necessary, but he was also a decent and compassionate human being. Which was probably why he kept getting reelected without doing any actual campaigning.

  A few minutes later they were sitting in the store’s office. Nate and Wolfsinger listened to Lily finish telling her story of what had happened. Nate was intrigued.

  Lily worked at a trucking company—Torrent Trucking.

  A sophisticated theft ring had been stealing cargo trailers along the highways crisscrossing Oso County for quite a while. It was a multistate problem and an interagency task force had bee
n formed while Nate was away. Nate already knew he would be attached to the task force when he returned to duty, thanks to the specialized training he’d received as a military policeman investigating large-scale theft of military property. He was itching to get started.

  “We need to talk to Bryan Torrent,” Nate said to the sheriff. The owner of Torrent Trucking was well known in Copper Mesa. His parents had started several enterprises that Bryan inherited. Torrent Trucking was the only one still in business.

  “I will talk to Bryan Torrent,” Wolfsinger said, turning to Nate. “You go on to the ranch. Tell Bud and Ellen I said hello. Take your week off. Get some rest. There’ll be plenty for you to do when you report back to work.”

  “Yes, sir.” Nate stood. “Are you going to talk to Bryan Torrent tonight? He must know the two guys we’re looking for.”

  “Maybe not,” Lily said slowly.

  Nate turned to her, a quicksilver flash of suspicion squirming in his gut. “Why do you say that?” What did she know and what was she hiding?

  “I’ve only been working there a few weeks. Part-time. But I’ve never seen Mr. Torrent in the office. He doesn’t come around much.” She crossed her arms and let out a small, deflated laugh. “I thought working there would be a great opportunity.”

  She glanced down for a minute, then looked directly into Nate’s eyes. “Torrent Trucking doesn’t just dispatch trucks and drivers. There are warehouses on the property. Sometimes truckload deliveries are brought in, the pallets are broken down and the items are delivered locally. Sometimes semis bring in an entire trailer full of freight that’s kept in storage until it’s picked up by another driver, who will complete the delivery.

  “There are all kinds of drivers in and out of there. Most of them aren’t Torrent Trucking employees. Drivers are welcome to take a break in the break room, where there’s hot coffee and some vending machines. The men I overheard talking, the ones who chased me here to the Starlight Mart, were in that break room.” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “If they actually worked for Torrent Trucking, I would have seen them before.”