looked at her, showed glassy eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, fumbling with the ring on her belt for the key that would release him.
“Hadley, don’t you dare, dammit,” Eckland said, but he was in too much pain to do more than curse.
A thin sheen of sweat was popping out on Tucker’s forehead and he’d closed his eyes as though he didn’t have the strength to speak.
“I have to. I can’t stand to leave him like this,” she told Eckland, unlocking the cuffs and kicking herself for not loosening them sooner.
Tucker cradled his hand in his lap and sucked in an audible breath. For a moment, the gray tinge to his skin grew worse. Gabrielle thought he was going to pass out, but he surprised her by grabbing her forearm and pinning her beneath him.
“What are you doing? Don’t make things any worse for yourself,” she cautioned, the terror of what he could do finally dispelling the dazed confusion caused by the accident. “You heard Eckland call for help. They’ll be here soon. Just sit back and relax.”
Eckland growled Tucker’s name, threatening and swearing at him, but Tucker didn’t answer. Suddenly alert and quick-witted as a cat—and seemingly oblivious to any kind of pain—he used his left hand to search through her keys and unlock his belly chain and leg irons. Rolling over her, he held her down with one knee while he recovered the handcuffs, locked her right hand to the screen between the seats and got out of the car. Then he scanned the horizon—and started running.
CHAPTER FIVE
HE WAS ESCAPING. Gabrielle couldn’t believe it. She used what little room the cuffs allowed to stand outside the open door of the car, where she could watch Tucker cross the deserted highway. Once he reached the other side, he started jogging into the desert as blithely as though he’d planned the whole thing. Jogging! He was jogging!
“Damn you, Tucker,” Gabrielle muttered, even angrier with herself because she’d let him fool her. This was what her compassion had brought her. An escaped convict, an injured guard, another disabled vehicle with God only knows how many people inside—and the burning desire to bring Tucker back, regardless of anything else.
Eckland managed to meet her hand with his keys, and she unlocked herself. It took some doing and by the time she was free, Tucker was well on his way.
Should she go after him? She glanced at Eckland, then the other car, and decided she’d better attend to the injured.
Eckland was swearing a blue streak, but his condition hadn’t worsened. The truck, which had rolled at least once, was still partially on the highway. The windshield hadn’t shattered, but it was cracked into a spiderweb Gabrielle couldn’t see through. A peek in the side window, which was still intact, revealed two occupants—a middle-aged woman driver and a man who looked to be in his early twenties. The driver had hit her face on the steering wheel and cut her lip. She was bleeding, though not profusely, and the man was rubbing a knot on his forehead where he’d banged into the windshield or dash. They were both luckier than Eckland.
Gabrielle helped them out and away from the truck, got a first-aid kit out of the patrol car for their use, and lit some flares to warn other motorists to slow down. Then she stood off to the side to wait for the ambulance.
But the sight of Tucker’s retreating figure, growing smaller and smaller as he made his way up the mountain closest to the road, taunted her. If she let him get very far into the desert, they might never find him. The Mexican border was only fifty miles or so to the south. He could slip across and easily disappear….
If he made it to the border. Chances were better that he’d die of dehydration long before he reached Mexico. He was injured, had no water, and they were in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, one of the hottest, driest places in all of North America. Temperatures this time of year often reached one hundred and twenty degrees. Though Gabrielle wasn’t sure exactly how that would translate into surface heat, she knew the ground would be a whole heck of a lot hotter than the air, probably one seventy or one eighty degrees.
What was Tucker thinking? That he’d rather die than go to Alta Vista?
Evidently.
Telling herself she’d worry about Tucker later, she walked back to see if there was anything she could do for Eckland, but he didn’t want her company.
“Stay the hell away,” he growled. “You’ve done enough.”
“Are you bleeding anywhere?” she persisted.
“My leg’s broke. That’s it. Nothing we can do but wait.”
“You don’t seem to have a back or neck injury. If it would make you more comfortable, I could probably help you out of the car.”
“I don’t want your help. I don’t want to be touched.”
“Okay.” Gabrielle took a deep breath. At least she’d tried.
When she rejoined the people from the truck, the man was using some gauze to help the woman stanch the bleeding on her lip. Gabrielle could tell from their exchange that they were mother and son, but they weren’t particularly interested in speaking to her. She didn’t have much to say, anyway. Other drivers were stopping to see if they could help, creating a diversion. And she was too busy flogging herself for letting Tucker escape in the first place.
Raising a hand to shade her eyes from the bright morning sun—which promised to raise temperatures even more by midafternoon—she watched Tucker’s progress through the haze of heat that shimmered all around him, making him look more like a mirage than a flesh-and-blood man. Though he was moving slowly now that he had to climb, he was nearly halfway up the first rocky mountain, which was probably a mile and a half away. Every step he took made Gabrielle grind her teeth in frustration. Soon he’d be out of sight, and then…and then there was no telling what would happen to him.
She remembered the pain in his eyes, knew he couldn’t have faked that as easily as he might have exaggerated his moans and grunts, and made the only decision she could live with. She might be responsible for Randall Tucker’s escape, but she wasn’t going to be responsible for his death.
Hurrying back to the car, she found Eckland, ashen-faced, head back, eyes closed. But the moment she ducked into the open passenger-side door and started rummaging around, he sat up and glared at her.
“What are you doing now?” he asked.
“I’m going after him.”
His brows knitted and anger flashed in his eyes. “You’re what? Are you nuts? It’s got to be over a hundred degrees already. You’ll get heatstroke inside an hour.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what, damn you?”
“He can’t survive.”
“You’re still worried about Tucker?” He winced and stared down at his leg.
“He could die if I don’t bring him back.”
“And you could die going after him. You could get lost, run out of water, get bit by a rattlesnake or—”
“I’m taking
