Page 65 of Deadly Evidence
“A what?”
“Next intersection, take a left. I believe it’s a country road that winds back to town.”
Anna glanced nervously at the rearview mirror again. The other vehicle was gaining, but slowly. “It forks about a mile down—to the left, it heads back to town. To the right, there’s about fifty slow miles of gravel to Gresham,” she said.
Brady reached over and rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I just want to check this out. Cut your lights. Don’t signal...and once you get on the gravel, keep going but go slow so we don’t kick up a lot of dust. We’ll just see what he does.”
Her hands shaking, Anna did what he asked. In the dark, with just faint moonlight filtering through the clouds, the road was a study of monochromatic shades of charcoal and black, vague shadows barely marking the edge at either side.
At the Gresham fork, she turned left toward Saguaro Springs, then Brady squeezed her shoulder. “Pull over and take a look, Anna.”
Leaving the truck idling, she looked over her shoulder and held her breath. Out on the highway, the other vehicle slowed down just past the turnoff. Stopped. Backed up.
After what seemed like an eternity, it jerked into a three-point turn and sped back toward Saguaro Springs.
“Hewasafter me...or you.” A knot of dread settled in her stomach as she considered the implications.
“Probably.”
“Talkto me.”
“That wasn’t someone local. If they were, they would’ve just kept going toward their destination.”
She nodded. “True.”
“It was someone hanging around town who wanted to follow and see where we were headed. If he’d wanted a confrontation, he would have been right on your bumper—maybe would’ve tried to run you off the road.”
Now she felt her stomach clench.
He nodded toward the Ruger rifle suspended in the rack along the back of the cab. “I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
He reached over and tucked a strand of her long hair behind her ear, his fingertips brushing against the sensitive skin below it, and she shivered as much from his touch as from the dangers lurking in the darkness.
“Before, I worried about drug runners coming across the river,” she murmured. “It made me angry, and there was risk. But being stalked is worse.”
“While I’ve been at the Triple R, other members of my team have been tracking the activities of the Garcia gang, both here and in Mexico. These are the people we’re after, Anna, and we’re getting close.”
In the faint illumination from the dashboard, she could see the resolute set of his jaw and the determination in his eyes. She could see this waspersonal...and someone was going down.
She said a silent prayer, hoping it wasn’t going to be him.
“Why does this matter so much to you?” she asked. “I’d bet that you weren’t really supposed to come back here until you healed better. Don’t you guys have to take medical leave after an injury until you’re fully capable?”
A muscle ticked on the side of his jaw. “I have to be here. No one else can step into the setup at your ranch and blend in. Not now—there isn’t time.”
“But that isn’t all.” Sitting so close together, in the dimly lit intimacy of the pickup, she felt as if they were alone in the cosmos.
Even without touching him, she could imagine feeling the beat of his heart. The warmth of his skin. “I think I deserve to know.”
He closed his eyes and leaned against the headrest and was silent for so long that she doubted he would tell her.
“Two years ago,” he said finally, his voice raw. “We had an operation set up on the other side of El Paso. Everything was going like clockwork; every move planned, reevaluated. Five agents. Six different state and local agencies as peripheral backup. I was instrumental in the planning process, and I was responsible for assigning the agents.”
“And something went wrong?”
“Ifailed, Anna—Felipe Garcia didn’t rise to where he is today because he’s stupid. Before we even finished moving our people into position, part of my team went ahead before I could stop them.
“A dozen of Garcia’s men appeared out of nowhere with AK-47s and flak jackets. They showed no mercy and disappeared without a trace. I blew it, and three good agents died.”
