Thank God there was a bullet in him, or through him, because this was the strongest living organism I had ever put my hands on. I used to playfight with Aaron in bed, knew his contours and weaknesses. These muscles here, from Mr. Kevlar, were unbelievable. Hard as rock. Huge. And trying to kill me.
I desperately curled into a fetal position and received a hit in the ribs that took my breath away. Oh, God. I caught his wrist and clung to it, in a weak attempt to disable one of those bionic arms. This would be painfully fast—I’d be knocked out with two more punches. But I dimly realized we had begun rolling.
Toward the river.
He pulled me into him, trying to bring my head down to knee my face like it was a martial arts fight on TV, but I used all my strength to turn away from his right side. I was, in effect, cranking the two of us in a sideways tango downhill, toward the river.
We rolled at first slowly, quarter turn by quarter turn, as he battered me with his fist. Before, I’d been too shocked for his hits to register. Well, now, I was exquisitely feeling them. Every single one. The head, the neck, the head again, the ribs, trying to get me to release my grip.
My grip?
I somehow had my hands gripped around his throat now.
My fingers clutched as hard as they could, a relentless hold on his nape, with my thumbs pushing into his voice box. My own strength surprised me. Call it rage, call it maternal instinct, call it whatever you want—I was operating under the influence of pure adrenaline. I was much smaller than this man, but he was now up against a climber’s hands. My grip was life or death.
“Who are you?” I said through gritted teeth. Our faces were close enough that I could see the vessels around his pupils.
Then the horizon began to flip over behind him. We were rolling. But I didn’t care. I was peering deep into his eyes.
“Who are you?!” I repeated as the horizon continued to turn, as we tumbled toward the last ledge on the cliff.
He didn’t blink, even more of an automaton than Mr. SUV Driver.
He hit me again. I withstood it. I don’t know how. Simply adrenaline? I knew that my gun was on the ground, back up where we started rolling. If he would just be so kind as to cooperate by letting go of me, I could go get it and shoot him again.
“Are you Drake?” I asked him, grunting as we grappled. I asked again, “Are you Drake Oil?”
It felt like I’d been on the ground with this man for a full year of my life, yet there I was—still alive, still a contender. In my favor was the fact that his bullet wound wasn’t just one hole, it was two. I knew because I was covered in his blood from rolling in the dirt. I was beginning to see I had hope.
Until we splashed in the river.
I didn’t register being midair, but I definitely noticed when the free fall finished and we plunged into turbulent, cascading water. My world went cold as we were dunked under and instantly swept along.
His grip softened just a bit; it was all I’d hoped for in these interminable minutes. Let that be printed on my tombstone: SHE GOT HIM TO SOFTEN HIS GRIP.
But he was on top still, his formidable body weight shoving me deeper down. We banged limbs for what seemed like the entire month of June. I suppose I should’ve been worried about upcoming rocks, but he’d introduced a new variable into the equation—not sure when that was exactly. He had a knife.
Underwater, amid murky eddies, I didn’t have his throat anymore. I had both of my hands on his wrist. My instincts had rerouted all my physical focus from his esophagus to the jagged, murderous blade in his fist.
One swipe, one cut, and I would’ve been done.
With rocks on all sides, we were getting up close and personal with the unforgiving wrecking balls of the rapids. My one goal was to try to swim upward, break free of his iron grip, and get to the surface. I could engage instead, try some kung fu moves on his face—but I’m not the fastest thinker when it comes to underwater close-quarters death-match combat.
Didn’t matter. The game ended on its own.
His size was his advantage on land, but it became his Achilles’ heel in the rapids. He was too big to make it safely through the rocks unscathed. The riverbed did its job.
Poonk. A muffled thud. I could hear the blow his head took from a cluster of granite. He swung his last two punches at me in a half-hearted, half-conscious motion.
His grip on me faded.
The surface seemed to rush down toward my face, and my body emerged like a clumsy rocket. I had been treading so hard, I actually got my full torso up above the waterline before being beaten back down by the current. I was floating. I tried to glance behind me to see if he’d surface, too. We’d both been under what felt like a decade. I scanned the surface behind me but he’d been consumed. I assumed, given the gunshot and blood loss, that he was dead.
And I was adrift.
I slowly took inventory of the situation: where I was heading, where I’d been, and what I now had in my possession.
I had nothing. The river gave me victory but it stripped me of all else. In addition to the gun I’d already lost, I’d lost my jacket. I’d lost my phone. The only thing I didn’t lose was pants, and a clear sense that things were going to get worse before they got better.
Chapter 13
I managed to drift over to the riverbank and crawl up onto dry land, dragging my torso above the waterline. It was a Herculean effort, though pathetic. To an onlooker, I’d appear to be a major drama queen. One hand slowly clawing after another. Pulling in slow motion. Gasping.
I’d kill to see anyone out here…of course, I’ve killed the two people I’ve run into so far.
But I was alone, having led myself a million miles away from hope. All I had were wet clothes and unanswered questions. Why Drake Oil? Why my husband? Where’s a phone?
I needed physically proficient help. I needed a cop. Better yet, an FBI task force.
Where to go now? The crags were south. The freeway north.
My husband, in the crags, might need me. I could give him an update on my trials out here in the wild. And he could tell me whatever he might have to tell me. Like, y’know: Miranda, funny thing I should’ve mentioned; here’s why an army of men might try to kill you on your stroll through the western United States.
The possibility of actual help, though, was north. A busy highway. The bigger highway gave me the best chance of finding a good Samaritan, and then law enforcement.
Yet what would I even say? Even if I managed to flag down a speeding motorist by the side of a highway at night, what if he or she didn’t believe me? Even if I managed to find the nearest police force, how would that story go?
“Officer, I need your help,” I said aloud, rehearsing. “I…uh…I…” Talking things out always helps me when I’m overwhelmed; it comes naturally to me. And right now, exhausted, starving, battered, half drowned, I felt half insane. Why not make an imaginary friend while I was at it? Anything to keep me going.
I took a few gradual steps along the higher slope. I would, again, hike to the nearest vista point, so I could make an informed decision.
“Excuse me, officer,” I repeated to the imaginary cop.
“What seems to be the trouble, miss?” I said back to myself. Slight southern accent.
“Well…you see…Drake Oil.”
“Reckon I don’t follow,” I said, tilting up my imaginary cowboy hat. I decided I had on boots and spurs. A female deputy detective.
“For a bite of your éclair,” I said to her, “I’ll tell you.”
I took a bite out of the phantom detective’s phantom éclair. And noted that my hunger level was starting to get to me.
“He started working for Drake Oil three years ago,” I said.
“Who?” said the detective.
“My husband.”
“I thought you said you were the one in oil.”
“We both—”
“Skip the foo foo,” said the detective. “Tell me facts. Just the facts. Three sentences. Go.”
&nbs
p; I was already a mile through the canyon, by my reckoning. The clock was spinning unforgivingly in my head. My imaginary detective had no patience. So I got to the point.
“Once upon a time this really awesome chick with a sharp wit and tendency to say exactly what she thinks met a man named Aaron Cooper, who made her heart glow. Like E.T.’s finger would glow. We both had…have…a love of the great outdoors. I was doing geological survey work for oil drilling and he was doing legal work out in the field. We had noble aspirations to help make the world a better…”
“Ma’am.”
“Sorry. The point is that soon I became a full-time mom. And my husband got promoted at Drake Oil. And I never thought I’d be up against murderers.” I started to lose my train of thought. “What could my husband mean about trust?”
“What?” said the detective.
“Trust. Who I’d trust. What did he mean?”
More important than answers is keeping my family safe. The only assurance of that was to keep the wolves as far away from the front yard as possible.
“You can trust whoever earns it,” said the detective.
As badly as I wanted to go back to Sierra and Aaron, interrogate him about what he’d meant by his cryptic warnings, I decided to steer my enemies in the other direction. If I’d identified the voices correctly, there had to be at least one left. And if he, or they, were following me, tracking me, listening to me, then I was now devoted to keeping them up north.
I turned immediately to march in that direction. I didn’t walk to stay hidden. I walked to move fast. Find the highway. Find the cop. I guessed that it would be three miles, but took shortcuts wherever the topography would allow it. Cutting across the rock face. Occasionally jogging. And with that determination I wound up all the way on the north rim of the canyon.
Daylight was waning. Ugly things were happening all around me and I was pretending I was fine with that. I was pretending I could chitchat with imaginary cops and that I hadn’t killed two people. Most of all, I was pretending I wasn’t terrified out of my mind. The truth was if I let reality hit me, I would crumple.
So I had to lie to myself, had to think that I could make things work out. When darkness had undeniably fallen, I found some scrub that I could sleep in that would hide me well enough. It wouldn’t hide me from the cold, but I was less worried about the cold than the bullets. I was worried about Aaron and Sierra, of course, but I had to assume they were safe in the cave. I didn’t think there was any way that I would sleep—but the events of the day had taken its toll, and I was soon dreaming of food and water and big koala hugs.
Chapter 14
After some amount of time I awoke. Maybe it had all been a dream! But no, here I was in a maze of tall, slender rock formations, short coffee-less minutes after waking. It was dangerous to be up here, a treacherous jungle gym of limestone, but it was worth it. I’d found a vantage point to finally behold: the Grail.
Up ahead in the distance was Highway 89, strewn gloriously across the desert like an umbilical cord to salvation.
I’d never been so happy to see concrete. Cars zipped by in the distance—happy families on their happy ways. It was a giddy feeling of hope I hadn’t experienced in quite some time. It was intoxicating, mental bliss. And it was precisely what got me in trouble.
There were voices around me. Men. Nearby. I hadn’t noticed until it was too late. Two men. Getting louder. Getting closer. Even from my vantage point, I couldn’t see where they were but I could hear one shouting directions to the other. And I soon caught his name.
“Clay! Down this way?”
“No, go uphill from where you are,” shouted Clay. “Can’t you see the one stack that’s in shadow?”
Clay was the man in charge. They must’ve gotten lost, or separated.
“Where?” shouted the guy who wasn’t Clay. “I can’t see it.”
They were practically on top of me. There’d be no turning around without getting caught. Thankfully, they couldn’t see each other or me, although I did manage to catch a glimpse of Clay. He was clean-cut, corporate, athletic, matching the smart rasp in his voice. Seemingly not a mercenary like the first two I’d met…but still paralyzed me with fear.
They had guns. And I didn’t.
But they didn’t know I didn’t.
I had an opportunity, albeit a scary one. I took a deep breath. I needed my voice to reverberate throughout the cathedral of rocks and throughout their souls. I would need those men to tremble. I would need them to believe I was pointing a rifle at them.
So I cleared my throat, steeled my voice, and bellowed my opening gambit. “Move and I’ll kill you.”
Chapter 15
They both stopped talking. After an eternity I heard some quick, quiet scrambling. Then total silence.
My heart was pounding so loud I was sure they would echo-locate me by its beat. I couldn’t see Clay, but I knew he was across the rock colony, about thirty feet away from me. Eventually I could hear him again. He was quietly guiding his partner around the maze with shrill whispers.
All three of us were now blindly situated in a deadly game of Marco Polo.
I kept track of their chatter and managed to intercept some of his hushed commands, thereby piecing together my own plan of attack: how to move, where to move, when to move. I had the upper hand. From my hidden perch, I would give them enough phony clues to convince them I was watching them the whole time. Then, with clever wording, I could get them to put their guns on the ground and back away.
Brilliant, right?
Wrong.
Suddenly, I looked around to realize that I was the one being gamed. Clay was baiting me, knowing that I could hear his last round of whispering. He was just loud enough that I could catch his details, not loud enough that it was obvious.
He’d lured me to crawl into what I now saw was a central cluster of the rock formation. He’d orchestrated our rendezvous.
I was in serious trouble.
I expected him to get quiet now that he had me where he wanted, but he talked directly to me.
“Miranda,” he said. Not shouting but projecting. Like a Greek orator. Saying my name like a dad would say it, like he was addressing his teenage kid who was caught sneaking back into the house at two a.m.
“Miranda,” he repeated.
I didn’t answer.
“My name is Clay Hobson.”
He couldn’t see me. Though he ensnared me, he still didn’t know exactly where I was or whether I was armed. It was a miracle he and his pet thug hadn’t stormed my nook. If they did, both of them at once, I’d be cornered in broad daylight. It’d be over.
But they weren’t coming.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” said Clay.
Yeah, right, you can fertilize the lawn with that one.
“I’m not here to hurt your family, Miranda.”
He was playing verbal chess.
“I’m here to help,” he added. “We both are.”
I was too scared to retort but I couldn’t afford to stay quiet. I needed to assert some kind of competitive quality. My silence was a giant white flag, being waved like a sheet of Kleenex, indicating I was weak.
“I’m Clay and my partner’s name is Terrence Unger. We’re worried about your husband.”
“You can fertilize the lawn!” I yelled.
He went quiet. The lawn? That was not what I wanted to say. That was the worst phrase possible. I strained to listen for them trading more instructions, but I could only hear the nearby rapids, which certainly didn’t help. Every splash and babble seemed to have Clay’s communications hidden within it.
“Miranda.” He finally spoke up again. “I’m sorry about the other two gentlemen you met. They were hostile to you. And that’s inexcusable. The truth is—”
“If you touch my daughter, I’ll kill you!” I shouted.
“Not everyone in our little group is agreeing on how to proceed,” he finished. “Yes, absolutely, if I touch your daughter, p
lease kill me. I’m not here to do anything but help you and help your daughter. And especially help Aaron. Where is Aaron?”
Directly north.
That’s what I wanted to say—the opposite of where he really was. But I knew this statement would be too elementary. Clay would have to assume I’m suggesting the opposite direction. He would go south. And he would find my family.
“Miranda?” shouted Clay.
Then he stopped talking. The other guy—his partner, or goon, or rent-a-thug—was quietly asking about something that almost sounded like the word dynamite.
“Wish we had some of that dynamite here,” he murmured.
Dynamite?
“It’s at the ranch,” Clay murmured back. “With Branch. Wish we could use it on that strike.”
Dynamite for what? And what’s the branch he mentioned? What kind of strike were they planning?
“Miranda, do you need food?” said Clay loudly.
I didn’t have a wristwatch but I could tell our standoff had been going on for a while.
“We have food,” he added. “Do you need some?”
The stalemate was seductive. Simply the opportunity to eat something felt irresistible. Yet as we kept talking in circles, I was beginning to realize Clay’s game was deadlier than I thought. It was only after the third round of silence that I pinpointed it but I could hear him mumbling very quietly again, which I’d assumed was to his partner, but he wasn’t talking to him.
Clay was on the phone. Clay had been on the phone.
“Where is Aaron?” he randomly said aloud to me again, this time in an even nicer tone than before. Then he resumed murmuring.
A phone call. He must have been using a satellite phone, like we used when doing survey work in remote locations.
Clay wasn’t playing mind games to get me to move, he was manipulating me to keep me still.
Chapter 16
I probably should’ve been more strategic. I could have waited a moment and at least calculated some defensive geometry. But I jumped up and left, with no plan or preparation. I jumped up and sprinted.