… Crap. Would he be signing his own ticket to hell if he stole a horse from a priest?
A heavy sigh slipped out. Yeah, probably.
Not to mention that he hadn’t been on horseback since … damn, since an eighth-grade trip to that dude ranch in Wyoming.
But, hey, like riding a bike, right?
Decision made, he strode into the barn and made a beeline for the first horse stall. Twenty minutes later, the healthier-looking of the two mares was saddled up and Sebastian was leading the spotted Appaloosa out of her stall.
He made sure to leave five-hundred American dollars on a bale of hay where the old priest would be sure to find it.
“I’m going with you,” Lissa declared, her green eyes glittering with fortitude.
“You’re staying here,” Julia corrected. She shoved a spare flashlight into her backpack, along with an extra package of batteries.
“Jules—”
“Don’t argue with me about this, Lis. Everyone else just got off a forty-eight-hour shift, and Kevin isn’t here. With me gone, that leaves only Nadir and Marie-Thérèse to run the entire clinic by themselves tonight. They need you.”
A frustrated breath flew out of Lissa’s mouth. “Fine. But radio me the second you get there.”
“I will,” she promised.
She zipped up her bag and marched out of the supply room, with Lissa hot on her heels.
“Did Kev say what the emergency was?” Lissa asked.
“No. He didn’t say much of anything.” She pretended to adjust the straps of her bag, just so she wouldn’t have to meet the nurse’s eyes.
Don’t come here.
Kevin’s ominous warning continued to buzz in her mind like a persistent fly, and she couldn’t seem to swat it away. She wanted to tell Lissa about what Kev had said, but she didn’t want to raise a panic. Besides, the radio had been so static-riddled that she might have misheard him.
Don’t come here. Ha. Fat chance. Did he honestly think he could say something like that and she’d actually abide by it? If her friend and colleague was in trouble, there was no chance of Julia staying away.
“I’ll take one of the trucks,” she said, swiping a set of keys from the bulletin board near the front door. “It’ll get me there faster than my moped.”
Lissa still looked unhappy as the two women stepped outside. “Drive carefully, love. And contact the clinic the moment you reach Esperanza.”
“I will.”
She slid into the cab of the pickup and stuck the key in the ignition. It took a few tries for the engine of the old truck to chug to life.
Poking her head out the open window, she waved at the redhead and managed a smile loaded with encouragement she certainly didn’t feel. “I’ll call you when I get there.”
It was pitch-black out as Julia made her way to the main road. The weak glow of the pickup’s headlights didn’t offer much help in lighting the way, but fortunately, she knew these roads like the back of her hand. For the past six months, she’d ridden her moped all over this region, but she still forced herself not to speed as she drove north. Hardly any of the locals who lived around here owned cars, but it wasn’t uncommon for a herd of goats, or a stray cat or dog, to dart into the middle of the road.
Esperanza was about seventy miles northwest in the remote woodlands at the base of the mountain. During the day, the drive would take only an hour or so, but with the low visibility and reduced speed, Julia ended up nearing the little settlement almost two hours later.
Because she hadn’t been able to see more than five feet in front of her during the entire drive, the sudden burst of light that came out of nowhere hurt her eyes.
Squinting, she gaped at the unexpected sight before her.
Military vehicles formed a barricade in the middle of the road, and upright floodlights had been set up in various spots to illuminate the area. Soldiers moved around with purpose, their murmured voices wafting into the open window of her truck. The uniforms identified the men as San Marquez military, but amid the blue and gold she also saw … green?
Her eyes widened as she realized precisely what she was looking at. Americans. Those were American soldiers.
And every single person wore a white surgical mask over his face.
“What the …” She trailed off, unable to tear her eyes off the confusing chaos up ahead.
Seeing as she couldn’t exactly go straight, Julia pressed her foot on the brake and jerked the gearshift into Park, just as a shout rang out.
The next thing she knew, four soldiers were swarming her pickup like crazed fans surrounding a celebrity’s limousine. The driver’s door was thrown open, someone grabbed her arm, and her sneakers landed on the gravel with a thud.
“What are you— Let go of me!” she ordered when a strong male hand circled her upper arm and squeezed it hard. She shrugged the hand off and staggered backward.
“Who are you?” one of the soldiers demanded. She couldn’t see his mouth beneath that surgical mask, but his blue eyes were as cold as an Arctic ice cap, and he’d spoken to her in English. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m Dr. Julia Davenport. A colleague of mine was supposed to—”
Her voice died abruptly as she suddenly noticed something up ahead in the distance.
She wrinkled her brow, trying to make sense of that head-scratching visual. Was that a big pile of garbage bags? What the hell were these soldiers doing with—Body bags. Oh, God. Those were body bags.
As horror whipped up her spine, Julia’s gaze flew to the first person she saw. It happened to be a beefy African-American soldier with shuttered brown eyes and a thick black mustache poking out from the top of his mask.
“What’s going on here?” she asked, her voice sounding far calmer than she felt.
The man didn’t answer. Rather, he grabbed her arm and forcibly moved her away from her truck. “Please come with us, ma’am,” he said in a monotone voice.
Outrage slammed into her. “What? No. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on here.”
Her protest was ignored. The grip on her arm tightened.
“I’m an American citizen!” she blurted out. “You can’t just detain me for no reason! I haven’t done anything wrong, damn it!”
She was still shouting out protests as the soldiers dragged her away.
Chapter 4
“What is your business here?”
Julia was grinding her teeth so hard
