Andi’s pulse thudded harder as she leaned closer. “Rupert, who is he?”
Rupert opened his eyes and met her gaze. “I don’t know. I never saw his face. He had this light . . . He kept it on me the whole time. I couldn’t see anything else.”
“Anything else you can tell us?” Andi asked.
“There was a woman with him,” Rupert said. “I think it was the one you guys talked about, the one you ate dinner with at the hotel that night.”
“Fake Pam . . .” Andi muttered.
Ranger rose to his feet. “I’ll get him back to the van.”
Duke didn’t argue. He turned toward the direction Rupert had indicated, already shifting his weight, already tracking.
Andi stood.
Duke looked at her. Just once. A question without words.
She nodded.
Then they broke into a run.
CHAPTER
SIXTY-SIX
Andi sawa shape break from the darkness ahead, a moving shadow against darker ground.
The man was tall and fast. He cut toward the low rise as if he already knew where the land dipped and where it held.
“There!” Andi said.
Duke surged forward, and Andi followed after him. Her lungs burned as her legs pumped, the desert tearing at her shoes.
The distance closed faster than she expected.
The figure stumbled once, corrected, then slowed.
Too suddenly.
Her skin tightened.
The man turned, and light exploded in their eyes.
White fire punched through Andi’s vision. She threw an arm over her eyes, but it did nothing. The beam pinned her where she stood. It erased depth, erased distance, erased everything except the heat behind her eyes.
“Stop.” The man’s calm voice cut through the ringing in her ears. “I have a gun.”
Andi forced air into her lungs before asking, “Where is Kate?”
“She’s not important,” the man said.
Andi’s pulse thudded harder.
“Maybe you should worry about your friends instead,” he continued.
The desert seemed to tilt.
Mariella and Matthew.
