moved,” he said.
What? Why? That didn’t make any sense at all. “Where?” Her voice was all air and very little sound.
He cocked his head and gave her an odd stare as if she should know this.
“Up to Turquoise Ridge.” He glanced at her distended belly. “Oh! Clinic is up there, too. They’re in trailers, one beside the other. Can’t miss it. You need me to drive you?”
“No. Thanks.” She did not wait for a reply before accelerating away.
They’d moved? Why would tribal government ever leave their main community for the rough mining settlement of Turquoise Ridge?
The women’s health clinic was right next to the police station, looking just as deserted. But she couldn’t go to the clinic, even if it were open, because the Russians would probably look for her there, because someone there had done this to her. She and the other girls had compared memories. They had all been to the tribal health-care facility shortly before capture. But what had happened there was a yawning blank, for her visits and theirs. Why couldn’t they remember?
She had to get word to tribal police.
It was several minutes before Kacey became aware of her surroundings again. She was already in the tribal community of Koun’nde and heading for Turquoise Ridge. She should turn around.
And go where?
Where could she go where she would be safe and where they could not find her? Somewhere she could find help for her friends but not endanger her sisters and brothers?
And then she knew. She would go to him, the boy who had promised to go away with her and instead left her behind. Kacey knew he was scheduled to come home from Afghanistan. His brother Ty had told her so and that he was changed. He had been discharged after something that had happened over there. Ty said that Colt had been captured with comrades in an insurgent attack and then recovered.
Afterward Colt had spoken to Ty from Maryland and said he wasn’t ready to come home. Ty talked him into coming back anyway. Colt agreed but only if he could live up in the family’s claim off Dead Horse Road beyond the community of Turquoise Ridge.
Ty had told her Colt wanted to see her after he got his act together. But she’d been taken before he came home. She knew Colt’s plan had been to make over an old cabin. Colt had shown it to her once. She knew where it was. It was a good place to hide, and if Colt was there, he could help her rescue her friends.
What she didn’t know was if she had the physical strength to reach it. Her middle began to squeeze again and she bucked back in the seat, swerving dangerously. She had to reach him before her body forced her to stop, before the men pursuing her captured her again.
I rip dat baby from your belly.
She shivered at the memory of Oleg’s words. The tears she had held for months now poured down her cheeks, blurring her vision. But she ignored the tears and pain in her middle and the ache in her heart as she pressed down on the gas.
Time had become the enemy.
* * *
COLT REDHORSE HEARD the screeching of brakes and the slide of tires on gravel as someone made the turn leading to his cabin way too fast. His brother Ty was known to drive like that in his youth, trying out the various cars he was improving. But lately he always approached Colt’s retreat slowly and with proper notice. Often he sent his dog, Hemi, in first as envoy.
So it wasn’t Ty.
Colt collected his rifle. The pistol was always on his hip or beside his head on those few occasions when he slept. He didn’t sleep much. Too many ways for his enemies to reach him in dreams.
He moved between the trunks of the trees quickly and without much sound. Whoever it was would not hear him coming. He was like death itself—silent and without mercy.
Since he’d returned from Afghanistan, Colt’s emotions boiled down to only two—fear and fury. Right now, it was just fury. No one came up here uninvited. His brother Jake had tried more than once. Colt hadn’t shot at him, but it had been hard hiding while Jake violated his personal space. The mining cabin belonged to all of them, as did the claim. But the way he figured it, it was his by occupation and because he just couldn’t stand to be around anyone yet. His skin itched like that of a junkie coming down from a high. He checked to see if a bug was crawling up his arm and saw only smooth brown skin.
He wasn’t back in Afghanistan anymore, he told himself. He was home. This was Apache land. Safe land. This settlement lay tight against the turquoise-bearing ridge from which the town got its name.
Turquoise Ridge, the most remote of the three settlements on the Turquoise Canyon Reservation. Most folks here were miners. Living up on the ridge required a person to tote water and live without electricity or plumbing. Other than the miners, there were a few recluses, like him, he supposed. His closest neighbor was a Vietnam vet, former army, who went off the rez hoping to be a code talker like the Navajo and came home as crazy as Colt felt he himself was rapidly becoming. Randy Hooee hung tinfoil around his cabin to keep the CIA from listening to the thoughts in his head. As far as Colt could tell, it seemed to be working.
Colt’s breathing slowed and his skin now only buzzed with adrenaline, not the flesh-crawling fear that threatened daily to have him hanging out bits of tinfoil, as well.
He had a purpose. Find the identity of the intruder.
He resumed his operation, moving close enough to see the road. The car was black and unfamiliar. A sedan, dust-covered with a dented hood. Parked at an odd angle and stationary now as the dust continued to settle back to earth. The tinted windshield showed him nothing. His eyes narrowed.
Why didn’t they all just leave him alone?
The door opened and a hand appeared on the top of the driver’s-side window. Small, slim and gripping hard as if the driver had to haul himself out of the car. Colt lifted the rifle, using the scope to aim at where he knew the center of the driver’s torso would be in just a moment. Should he kill the bastard or just shoot out the windshield beside his head? He shifted between his two targets. This or that? That or this? A smile twisted his lips. He’d learned a lot from the US Marines but even more from the insurgents who had held him for three days.
And then the target’s head popped up above the door frame like a fox leaving its den. Colt’s hands went numb and he dropped his rifle.
It had been eighteen months, but he knew he would never forget that face. That was his former girlfriend, Kacey Doka. She’d tried to convince him not to join up after he graduated. Not to leave her behind. He had explained that if she wanted to get off the rez, this was their way. He hadn’t wanted to go because he loved it here, couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. But Kacey could and he loved her enough to try to give her what she wanted. It had cost him, deeply.
He had planned to give the signing bonus and his pay to her, but she wouldn’t take it. She wanted them to go together, but he had committed himself. How had he messed that up so badly? She had not answered his letters. When he’d finally made it back home on a psych discharge, her home was the only place he’d stopped before coming here. Kacey had left, her mother said, months ago. She hadn’t been back, wasn’t expected back. But she sure was back now.
Kacey glanced up the hill toward his position, the sunlight highlighting
