“Always was about as clever as a G.D. fox,” Drew said.
Wolf looked at her frowning, because it wasn’t her first odd comment about Camellia, but before he could ask, she said, “Full disclosure. I know her from PI school.”
And it clicked in his mind. “You’re hernemesis,” he said as he realized.
“She found out I was named after Nancy Drew and never let me hear the end of it,” she replied. “We competedhardin that class. Had to, since nobody else held a candle to either of us.” Then she shrugged. “Made each other better, I guess.”
She stomped ahead, but then she stopped short and dropped suddenly to her knees, motioning behind her with one arm for them all to do the same. “There’s a shoe over there where a shoe shouldn’t be,” she said.
Everyone hunkered down, inching closer.
Sure enough, in a cluster of large boulders and formations, one of Camellia’s walking shoes lay on its side. He started to panic, but the little blonde put a hand on his shoulder and said,“Don’t go thinking something bad happened. She’s been leaving us a trail. She must’ve run outta things to drop.”
“It’s all open in the center of that cluster,” Maria said, gazing at the rock formations that towered high around it. “Good spot to get ambushed.”
“Let’s move around this outcropping,” Ethan said. “See if we can pick up their trail on the other side. Be quiet, though. They could be close.”
They crept around the boulders, moving inland from the river bank several hundred feet, as the formations were huge and sprawling. Wolf watched the ground for signs, footprints, anything along the way, but the ground was pristine. Camellia and Earl had clearly go through the cluster, not around the outside.
On the far side of the formation, there wasn’t a clue anyone had come out, though, and in fact, the boulders on this side were a solid wall. There was only one way in or out of the cluster, back around the side where they’d found the shoe.
“They’re in that cluster somewhere,” said Maria-Michelle.
“We have to assume he’s armed,” Willow added. “The gun that shot Wolf wasn’t anywhere at the scene.” She peered through a crevice into the cluster of boulders. “He could be behind any one of those rocks, waitin’ in ambush. We should climb up top, get a better view.”
“Screw that,” Wolf said. He broke away from the others, ran back around the boulders and went through the only opening into the large cluster of stones toward Camellia’s shoe. Running footsteps followed. About four steps in, he felt something across his shin, and the words “trip wire” rang in his mind far louder than the firecracker sound that came from above. He looked up and saw boulders plummeting.
Camellia
Earl was pulling her along by her upper arm, deeper and deeper into the cave, but when she heard what sounded like a gunshots or small explosions, she jerked her arm free and started running back the way they’d come through pitch darkness with her arms out in front of her so she wouldn’t hit a wall.
Earl swore, caught her in two strides, and pulled her back. There was a roar and pounding outside.
“Is it a cave-in?” she almost shrieked.
“It’s a welcome I left for anyone who tries to come this way,” he said. “Seems like your boyfriend wasn’t hurt too bad after all.”
“Anyone could have wandered this way, you idiot.” He was pulling her again. She heeled off her remaining shoe and left it behind, limping along in her socks. She was running out of breadcrumbs to leave.
“You don’t understand,” Earl said. “You don’t know how things really are, but you’ll see. I’ll show you and then you’ll understand. I can’t let you die like Mary Jo.”
He wasn’t okay. In fact, she was pretty sure he was the farthest thing from okay and probably in desperate need of medical intervention. “Where are we going, Earl?”
“A safe place. A safe place.”
“A safe place in a cave?” They seemed to be moving deeper into the earth. She’d lost all sense of direction, couldn’t judge which way they were going, other than down. The ground was definitely sloping downward. But eventually, it felt as if it wassloping upward again. When a sliver of light appeared up ahead, relief washed over Camellia at the sight. At least he wasn’t going to kill her in the dark.
He pulled her along toward the light, which grew into a tall, narrow crack in a solid stone face. They moved through it, its space so tight the cold stone touched her shoulders. When she stepped out into the hot sun, it warmed the cave’s chill right out of her, and she could hear the reassuring sound of the Rio Grande nearby. They hadn’t gone too far, then.
They were standing in front of a square structure whose top and sides were made of rusted steel roofing. One section of it was hinged and held in place by a rope looped around a peg—a makeshift door. She looked around the place, saw nobody else nearby. There was a row of targets lined up off to the left—and pieces of tin with bullseyes painted crookedly, all full of holes. There was a four-foot-tall tank on legs with a spigot on the front. Water, she guessed. She looked around and then realized that the sound of the river wasn’t coming from where it should, and when she spotted it, it seemed the water was flowing the wrong way.
“Wait, wait a minute here. Are we in Mexico?”
“Like I said, a safe place where nobody’s gonna bother us.”
“Yeah, no.”
She pulled away again, but he grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder, and walked along a narrow path toward the shack amid junk of every imaginable sort as she twisted and thrashed, he stopped all at once and said, “Be still!”
