Hidden Prey (Lawmen) (2 page)

The old man stood in front of the candles for a long moment before turning and walking beneath a long archway between the walls and thick marble columns. Out of the corner of his eye, Landon watched the man leave, a large swathe of sunlight spilling into the church as he pushed one of the doors open. Then the heavy door eased back into place and it was dim again.

Landon checked his cell phone. Miguel was two minutes late. Landon didn’t let his mind wander beyond his objective. If he did, he’d spend time dwelling on things that couldn’t be changed.

Time passed and Landon’s gut tightened. It wasn’t like Miguel to be late, but any number of reasons could have held him up. He was, after all, deep in the Jimenez Cartel, and El Demonio said, “Jump,” Miguel didn’t ask how high. He just did what he had to do to remain embedded in the cartel.

Landon’s phone vibrated a couple of times and he read the two short text messages before returning his phone to its holster on his belt. The first text had been from his mother, asking if he would be able to make it for Sunday dinner. The other was from one of his sisters, telling him not to let their mother down and to show up on Sundays more often
.

He blew out his breath. His family had been pushing him for the past year to make it to family get-togethers. He’d drawn away once Stacy had died. Maybe it was time to let go of the past and move on, but that didn’t mean it would be easy.

Basketball and Sunday dinners would be a start.

While Landon waited, two more parishioners came in and out of the sanctum. The woman in the mantilla hadn’t moved since Landon had entered the church. She kept her head bowed in prayer and her white lace mantilla shadowed the side of her face that he would have been able to see if it wasn’t veiled.

More time passed and the two parishioners who had come in thirty minutes prior lit candles before leaving. Landon checked his cell phone yet again and saw that he’d been waiting for nearly an hour. With the exception of himself, the woman in the mantilla was the only one left in the church now.

Frowning, he got up from his pew and made his way outside, blinking when he walked into the late afternoon sunlight. He stood at the top of the steps that went down on either side of him.

At the request of the man who had donated the land to the church, St. Pat’s faced a mountain while the street that ran up Tombstone Canyon was behind the church. It was a nice view, but Landon barely noticed. The fact that Miguel hadn’t shown up wasn’t anything to be too concerned about. Any number of things could have come up. Miguel wouldn’t call or text anyone at DHS to ensure that nothing could be found to tie him to law enforcement.

A hand with a vise-like grip clamped around Landon’s left wrist.

He went for his Glock instinctively as he pivoted. He came to an abrupt stop.

It was the tiny veiled woman who had been in the church since he’d arrived.

He released his grip on the butt of his handgun and left it in its holster. How the hell had she snuck up on him?

The stooped elderly Hispanic woman had pushed the mantilla away from her cheeks and his gaze met small dark eyes nearly lost in a sea of wrinkles. She looked as if she was well over a hundred years old, older than his grandmother. Her face reminded him of a withered apple, but her eyes were bright and knowing.

In broken English, with a heavy Hispanic accent, the woman spoke in a low, tremulous voice. “You will die if you tell her the truth. If you don’t tell her,
she
will die.”

Despite the fact that he didn’t believe in crap like premonitions, chills rolled over Landon’s skin, and he broke out in goose bumps for the second time that morning. He tried to jerk his arm away from the woman’s grip but she wouldn’t let him go and he was afraid to hurt her.

“Remember my words.” She released his arm and turned away.

While remaining completely aware of his surroundings, he watched her as she held onto the handrail and slowly walked down the steps. Her words echoed in his head no matter how he tried to force them out.

“You will die if you tell her the truth. If you don’t tell her,
she
will die.”

He shook his head and a natural-born instinct to help the elderly had him realizing he should be helping the old woman down the stairs. But she’d already reached the last step when he came to his senses.

In a town where most houses were built on mountainsides, Landon wondered how someone so old and frail could navigate her way around the steep inclines that could give San Francisco a run for its money.

His question was answered as a black Mercedes pulled up in front of the church. A newer model vehicle, it had dark tinted windows, and looked like it had just been washed and waxed. A Hispanic man of about thirty, wearing a bright white button-up shirt and dark slacks, got out of the driver’s side and held the back passenger side door open. He assisted the elderly woman as she slid into the vehicle and then closed the door behind her.

The Mercedes was out of place in the small town of Bisbee, Arizona—he had never seen a vehicle that matched it any of the times he’d been in town. He wondered who the woman was and what she was doing in a fifty thousand dollar car in a place where some houses could be bought for close to the same price.

He mentally noted the license plate number and jogged down the steps before heading to his SUV. When he reached the vehicle, he climbed in and grabbed the electronic tablet he used for work, pulled up the app he needed, then put the plate number into the database. What came back was that the car was registered to a Juanita Salcido at an address further up Tombstone Canyon. He saved the information. Maybe he didn’t need to, but the whole experience had been odd enough that it was worth holding on to.

Again, thoughts of the old woman reminded him of his own grandmother, who was in her nineties, and lived in Bisbee on School Hill. He hadn’t seen her for a while, and he knew she wouldn’t be long for this world. He’d stop by and see her while he was in town.

He set down the tablet as he thought about Miguel. Maybe it was nothing, and he’d been held up.

A gut-deep sensation twisted Landon’s insides and he gritted his teeth. Like a blow to the solar plexus, a bad feeling struck him hard.

A real bad feeling.

Finally, they were just outside of Bisbee. Tori tucked strands of chin-length dark hair behind her ear as she leaned back in the shuttle van’s seat. She looked ahead at the Mule Pass Tunnel that was the gateway from the west side of town.

Memories slid back to her of holding her breath from one end of the tunnel to the other. It was something just about everyone who lived in Bisbee had done when they were young.

Like other town residents, Tori had often referred to it as “The Time Tunnel.” It was like traveling through time, leaving the world of today and traveling into an earlier century. The van entered the dimness of the tunnel and she resisted holding her breath. The concrete walls were stained from seeping water, and she knew it was a never-ending project to maintain the integrity of the tunnel’s walls.

When the van reached the other end of the tunnel, she blinked away the bright sunlight and let out her breath. She almost laughed. Without realizing it, she’d been holding her breath after all.

It really was like traveling to another time, another world. As the shuttle continued on, she leaned forward in her seat, her cell phone in her pocket digging into her hip. Her gaze drifted to take in homes perched on the hillsides and the aging narrow road the shuttle traveled.

Waves of memories rolled over her of her years growing up in Bisbee. She couldn’t wait to leave when she had graduated from Bisbee High School. She’d wanted to escape the small town and find out what waited out in the great big world. Now, here she was, running back to it.

Her smile faded. She’d never thought one man could make her whole world crash down around her, chasing her away from her dreams and everything she’d worked so hard for. One man.

She ground her teeth. This was only temporary. She would go back to her life, only it would be without Gregory.

Just the thought of him and what he’d done to her before she’d left him made her feel dirty, and her skin crawled.

And now she was running home to Mama.

The backs of her eyes stung. Josie Nuñez Cox had been Tori’s safe place, her refuge, and even at thirty-three, she needed her mother more than ever.

Tori put her fingers to her temples. She couldn’t believe she’d left not only her laptop, but her six thousand dollar clarinet. She’d left them by the front door of the townhouse that she owned, and prayed Gregory wouldn’t destroy either in a fit of anger at her leaving. More than likely he wouldn’t because he wasn’t prone to physical violence. No, he preferred to sling harmful words when he was angry, beating her down verbally and emotionally.

He’d also expect her to come back for the clarinet, especially. It was one of five that she owned, although none of the others had been as expensive as the Buffet Crampon professional. He’d be right that she would be back, but not yet. Although, she didn’t know how she could go many days without music. At least her mother still had the old Baldwin upright piano that Tori had learned to play on from the age of four, and one of Tori’s old clarinets might still be around.

If her car hadn’t been in the shop, she could have loaded everything that was most important to her. But she hadn’t been able to wait for the car. She’d had to get away from Gregory.

This morning she’d called her best friend, Paula, and had planned to tell her about what Gregory had done, but she’d been too sick over it to tell her friend. So she’d just told Paula she was headed for her parents’ home in Bisbee and would see her when she got back.

Tori had met Paula in the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and the other woman was second chair clarinet while Tori was first chair. Tori had several friends she enjoyed meeting up with when Gregory wasn’t harassing her for not spending enough time with him. But she was closest to Paula.

Sue and Janice were two other good friends who were also in the symphony. Occasionally, Tori, Paula, Sue, and Janice went to a jazz bar for a glass of wine and good music. But not as often as Tori would have liked. It wasn’t easy getting time away from Gregory.

Her gaze drifted out the window as she fought back tears and the stinging ache behind her eyes slowly dissolved. She could name the homes of old friends and wondered if any of them still lived there or in town.

On Facebook, she was friends with some of her childhood buddies and acquaintances from Bisbee. Most of the people she had grown up with had moved away from the old mining town, but many had stayed. She couldn’t always keep up with statuses of people she didn’t know well anymore, but when she felt like her brain couldn’t take anything more strenuous than skimming through online social media, she’d catch up on the lives of old friends and acquaintances.

She sobered as her mind turned to two friends who’d recently been diagnosed with devastating news—one with ovarian cancer and the other with breast cancer. If it weren’t for social media, Tori probably wouldn’t even have known. One was an old friend from college who lived in Chicago, and the other was a woman she’d met years ago at a party in Phoenix and became good friends with. Tori had been observing their brave battles as they went through chemo and other challenges. Both women were warriors. By seeing how strong her friends with cancer were, and admiring their strength, it gave her the courage she needed to make the decision to leave.

The shuttle traveled down Tombstone Canyon, past St. Patrick’s Church. She’d belonged to the church from childhood until she graduated from high school. She had gone through catechism and had received her first Holy Communion and Confirmation at St. Pat’s.

Castle Rock was coming up as the shuttle continued to Main Street in Old Bisbee. Victorian and European-style homes clung to the hillsides.

The shuttle passed the jutting Castle Rock and then they were rounding the bend, continuing down the street between rows of old buildings that had been around since about 1910, rebuilt after a fire had ravaged the town. In the early 1900’s, the town had been home to over twenty thousand people and was the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco.

Now the town had less than fifty-five hundred people. It had once been reduced to an even lower population.

Bisbee had nearly died in the 1970’s when the mines had closed, but hippies had revived it by restoring old buildings and homes, turning the town into an artists’ community. The history of the place, plus the uniqueness and quaintness of the town, drew tourists from around the world.

The shuttle driver parked in the lot behind the Bisbee Convention Center, which had once been the old Phelps Dodge Mercantile. The driver had told her he wouldn’t take the van up the steep winding street to her parents’ home, so she was left to climb up on her own. She didn’t mind—she’d been a runner in high school and had kept in shape by jogging regularly. It would give her a chance to collect herself before she made it to her mom and dad’s. She just hoped her dad wasn’t there. She needed some alone time with her mom.