Before Sunrise (29 page)

Cortez was looking around with a guarded expression. He could picture Phoebe with a gun at her back held by a desperate woman. If she hadn't had good reflexes…He couldn't bear to think about it.

The sheriff gathered a few sticks and made an arrow with them, pointing in the direction Phoebe had indicated.

“Great idea,” Cortez said with a smile. “I'll get my forensic team out here with a metal detector. We'll find the gun in no time,” he assured the sheriff. He turned to Phoebe. “Right now, we've got to get you to a hospital.”

Even as he spoke, a deputy sheriff's car came down the road behind them, followed by a green forestry service vehicle.

“Talk about great timing,” the sheriff chuckled as Drake Stewart got out of his car and approached them, the forest ranger following suit. “Drake, you need to take Phoebe to the emergency room and get her checked out.”

She turned to Cortez. “You aren't coming?” she asked suddenly, worried.

He hesitated for a second, torn between duty and concern.

“It doesn't take rocket science to process a crime scene,” the sheriff told Cortez. “Too many cooks spoil the soup, anyway. I'll stay out here with your forensic team. We'll find the gun and I'll show them where to get impressions of the tire tracks,” the sheriff assured Cortez.

“I'll call Alice Jones right now and bring her out here with her van and equipment,” Cortez compromised.

“I'll drop Phoebe and Cortez at the hospital, then I'll go by the motel where Alice Jones is staying and lead her out here,” Drake volunteered.

“Good man,” Steele said, smiling. “You do that.” He glanced at Cortez with a somber expression. “The perp is still on the loose, and she's already tried to kill Miss Keller once. You're needed more at the hospital than here.”

“Thanks,” Cortez told him.

The sheriff shrugged his big shoulders. “We're all on the same side.”

“Indeed we are,” Cortez added, with a grin. “You'd make a great addition to our Indian Country Crime Unit. We value local law enforcement.”

“Consider me appropriated,” Steele told him, smiling. “You'd better get going.”

“I'll get your sleeping bag back to you,” Phoebe told the sheriff. “Thanks a million!”

“You're welcome,” he said gently. “I'm sorry this happened to you. But I'm very glad you're going to be all right.”

“Me, too,” she murmured, smiling as she caught Cortez's big hand in hers and held tight.

 

R
EACTION BEGANTO SET IN
when Phoebe was in a cubicle in the emergency room, waiting for the resident on duty to examine her. She couldn't let go of Cortez's hand.

“How in the world did you find me?” she asked. “I didn't know where I was or how to get out of the forest. I heard strange singing in the distance and went the right way. But when I got to the crossroads, I was too tired and numb to go on. How in the world did you find me?”

“My father led me to you,” he murmured enigmatically. He linked her fingers into his, searching her wan face intently. His hair was down, as he usually wore it when he tracked. She reached out and touched a long, thick strand of it.

“I've always loved your hair,” she commented softly.

He caught her hand and drew it, palm up, to his mouth. His eyes closed as he savored the soft scent of it, her own
special scent. “This has been the longest day of my life,” he said huskily.

“Mine, too,” she replied.

“Thank God you were desperate enough to try getting that gun out of her hands, or you'd be a case number,” he murmured.

“I don't want to die,” she said simply. She looked into his dark eyes. “Not until you do.”

He nodded solemnly. “Not until I do, sweetheart,” he whispered huskily. His eyes were so tender and dark that she felt like crying.

The resident came in while they were still looking at each other. “What's the problem?” he asked pleasantly. He looked at his notes and added, “Miss Keller?”

“I was kidnapped at gunpoint and carried off to be assassinated,” she said quietly. “She hit me over the head with something first, I don't know what. I have headache and I had some nausea at first. But my biggest complaint is exposure. I had to walk out of the national forest to get help, and all I had on were a sleeveless blouse, thin slacks and flat shoes with stockings. I'm freezing.”

The resident was giving her a tongue-in-cheek look. It lasted just until Cortez pulled out his ID and flashed it under the student doctor's nose.

“She's not making it up,” Cortez said. “We've got a
BOLO out for the perp. A woman, and she's already killed once.”

The resident looked interested. “The guy in the cave, right?”

“I'm impressed,” Cortez said, grinning.

“That's why your name looked familiar,” he told Phoebe. “You're the anthropologist everybody's talking about. You're the curator at the local Native American museum.”

“Yes, I am,” Phoebe confessed.

The doctor pulled his stethoscope from around his neck, plugged it into his ears and listened to her chest. He did a standard examination, careful to look for any signs of concussion.

“We won't know until we do an MRI, of course,” he said, “but considering that you were unconscious for a few minutes, I think it's concussion. Any dizziness, light sensitivity, nausea?”

“Nausea, just at first. No light sensitivity. Heck of a headache,” she added with a weak laugh.

“Well, I think we should keep you tonight,” the resident said. “I'll need to run more tests…”

“Can you do a blood test? We think she may be pregnant,” Cortez added with breathless tenderness, combined with a glance at Phoebe's shocked face that was as intense as a confession of love.

“You can't know that!” she exclaimed.

“I didn't. When my father called and told us where to look for you, he said you're pregnant.”

“Is your father a doctor?” the resident asked curiously.

Cortez cleared his throat. “He's a shaman.”

The resident's eyebrows arched. He clasped the chart to his chest. “Let me guess. He told you to put two large silver coins in your pocket just before you were shot,” he murmured to Phoebe. He nodded when she laughed self-consciously and Cortez arched both eyebrows. “He's become a local legend among the medical staff here. Considering his batting average, I'd say the blood test is a pretty good idea.” He gave Cortez a measuring glance.

Cortez clutched Phoebe's hand and smiled. “It's mine,” he said proudly. “And we're getting married next week, whether she wants to or not.”

The resident chuckled and went to arrange for a room for her. Phoebe gaped at Cortez. Her heart was racing wildly.

“You want to marry me?” she whispered, shocked.

“Of course,” he said simply.

“But you never said…you always talked about…I didn't think…” she faltered, unable to formulate even one single coherent thought.

He touched her mouth gently with his. “I love you
with my very soul,” he whispered, his eyes dark and soft and solemn. “With my heart, with my mind, with my body. I want to share my life with you. I'll love you all the way to the grave, Phoebe,” he whispered. “Until I close my eyes forever. And the memory of you will go with me into the darkness.”

She was fighting tears. She drew her long fingers against his cheek. Tears were stinging her eyelids. “I've loved you since the day we met,” she whispered back. “I never stopped. Not even when I thought you tossed me aside for some other woman who was closer to your own culture.”

“Now you know why I did it,” he replied. “Why I had to do it.”

She smiled. “I love Joseph, too.”

“We'll have children of our own,” he said. “Starting with this one,” he added, tracing her belly lightly. He smiled. “What a delight!”

Her fingers rested atop his and she smiled with wonder. “Yes.”

They looked into each others eyes and dreamed of the future.

 

B
UT REALITY INTRUDED
when Phoebe was settled down in a private room. Cortez's cell phone rang noisily. He answered it.

“We found the pistol and got impressions of the tire tracks. We've got her on the run,” Sheriff Steele told Cortez. “Every unit in the county is on the road looking for her and she's been spotted just outside town. Do you have any idea where she might go underground?”

Cortez thought for a moment. “Where's the last place you'd think to look for her?”

The sheriff paused. “Miss Keller's house.”

“My guess, too. I'm on my way. I'll meet you at the end of Phoebe's driveway.”

“Post a man at the door of her room, just in case,” the older man suggested.

“No argument there,” Cortez replied.

He hung up and went to the bed, where Phoebe, although sedated, was still awake enough to worry.

“Don't you go out there and get yourself killed,” she said firmly. “If I really am pregnant—and God knows how they could tell this quickly from a blood test—our baby is going to need a father!”

He smiled down at her. “And a mother,” he pointed out. He bent and kissed her tenderly. “I'm going to call the local police and have them send an officer over to take care of you while I'm gone.”

“Okay.”

“I'll be careful,” he promised. “We can't let her get away,” he added grimly.

“No, we can't. I'll just hang around here. I love gourmet food.”

He winked, and left her reluctantly.

 

T
HE RESIDENT CAME IN
a few minutes later, looking whimsical. “I have two announcements,” he said.

She held out her hand, palm up.

“You're pregnant.”

She grinned from ear to ear and propped her hands on her stomach. “Gosh, I didn't get you anything!”

He grinned back.

“Second announcement?” she prompted.

“It seems that you have a visitor.” He stood aside. A tall, slim, elegant silver-haired man in a vested gray suit walked in. He had dark eyes and high cheekbones. He looked vaguely Spanish.

Phoebe was puzzled. She stared at the newcomer intently. The resident smiled and walked out the door to finish his rounds.

“So you're Phoebe,” the man said in a cultured voice. He smiled warmly. “I'm impressed, and not only with your credentials. You have courage.”

She blinked. “I'm sorry, I don't know you, do I?”

He waved the question away, moving forward to stand over her. “That isn't important. I'm glad you're safe. I had worried that I wouldn't be in time.”

She was more confused by the second. Perhaps the drugs had her hallucinating.

“I was already in Atlanta. The problem was getting a commuter flight up here, with the weather being so bad,” he said. “But just in case they had too much trouble finding you, I was going to volunteer for the search party. God knows how I'll explain this to my boss,” he added wistfully.

“Your boss?”

“I teach history at our local community college in Oklahoma. Final exams are in four days.”

Her lower jaw fell. “You're…!”

“Jeremiah's father, yes,” he confirmed. He grinned from ear to ear. “See, no rattles, no bells, no beads and I actually did courses in anthropology. Think what a handy grandfather I'm going to make!”

 

C
ORTEZ HAD MADE IT
to his own car, still parked at the motel. Tina came running out with Joseph in her arms.

“Is she all right? Did you find her?” she exclaimed.

“She's fine. They've got her at the hospital, and they're keeping her overnight.”

“She was hurt?” Tina exclaimed, crushed with guilt.

“A little, but they're keeping her for further precautionary tests. We think she's pregnant.” He grinned wickedly. “You're going to be an aunt again!”

Tina's eyes widened like saucers. “It's…yours?”

He glared at her. “Of course it's mine!”

“How could I have been so wrong about Drake and Phoebe?” she groaned.

“Love makes us do crazy things, I suppose,” he said gently. “Drake knows everything now, I might add. He's walking on clouds because you care about him.”

Her eyes opened wide. “He is? He is?” She cleared her throat. “About Phoebe. I'll apologize to her on my knees, I swear I will. Where are you going?”

“To catch the perp. Stay inside with the door locked.”

“I will. Oh, did you get the call?”