Skeleton Canyon

Staying safely out of reach, Joa

Joa

“Thank you, God,” she whispered, aiming her heartfelt prayer at the sky far above her. Then she turned both her eyes and her Colt back on the man in the Hummer.

“All right, Meadows,” she ordered. “Throw the knife out the rider’s window. Do it now! I want to see your right hand behind your head.”

“But my arm…”

“First the knife,” she said. “We’ll worry about your arm later.”

After ten seconds or so, he finally gave in and threw the knife outside. Joa

Ernie Carpenter reached her right then. “Joa

“He is,” Joa

“He’s okay. Maybe not completely okay. It looks to me like he’s got a mild concussion, but I’m sure he’ll be fine.” “How do you know that?”

“Because we found him up there on top of the ridge, ru

Joa

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Once Ernie Carpenter had applied a tourniquet to Aaron Meadows’s mangled left arm, they handcuffed his other wrist to Adam York’s left one. While the DEA helicopter ferried the pair off to University Hospital in Tucson, Ernie used the still-working radio in the wrecked Blazer to summon assistance.

“Where’s Hastings, then?” Ernie asked Joa

“Beats me. The bad guy I saw was Meadows, and I’m stumped as to motive for Bria

Fortunately, despite having suffered a multiple rollover, the sturdy Hummer still seemed to be driveable. With a bloody bandage wrapped around his head, De

“What other guy? I only saw one.”

Ernie shook his head. “I guess we’ll find him eventually.”

“Look at this,” Hacker said, shoving the damaged tire in Ernie’s direction before the detective walked away. “That blown sidewall is enough to make me a believer in exit wounds.”

With the tire changed, Hacker climbed into the battered vehicle, started it up, and drove it right back up the bank, which probably was one of those commercially touted 60 percent grades. When the Hummer was back topside, Joa

In the darkness, retracing the path they had followed earlier took longer than she expected. For one thing, because Joa

Here and there along the way the sketchy road became virtually invisible in the dark. Joa

As they traveled, De

“He kept telling me to hurry because somebody was after him.”

Dick Voland, making notes despite the inconvenience of the bouncing truck, stopped writing then. “Did he give a name?”

“Marco,” Hacker said. “I’m sure that’s the name he mentioned, but I couldn’t tell if that was a Christian name or a family name.”

“Neither,” said Joa

“That’s all, then?” Voland asked De

“As far as I’m concerned.”

Voland closed his notebook and flipped off the reading lamp. “All I can say is, you’d better thank your lucky stars for a young woman named Angie Kellogg. She’s the one who came busting into Sheriff Brady’s office yelling that something was up. If it hadn’t been for her, there’s no telling what would have happened.”

Out of sight of both her passengers, Joa

“I know what would have happened,” De

Guiltily, Joa

When they came into view of De

Joa