His words slid into her heart and loosened the tight band of fear that threatened to crush it. She gripped his hand as she slipped into the fog.

  * * *

  Dylan Murphy took a slow, calming breath and tried again.

  “Look, Holmquist.” The other man was actually a special-operation supervisor for the border patrol. Dylan was a drug-enforcement agent, on special assignment from Washington, DC. He’d been back in Tucson for over a month now, and so far working with Holmquist and his agents had been a piece of cake...until yesterday, when Jocelyn Walker had disappeared.

  Things had changed drastically, and now Dylan would have to fall back on his position as the tough hard-liner, the role that had earned him his reputation. He didn’t have any other choice.

  When they’d first brought Joss in, he’d been so concerned with her survival, the possibility of her losing her memory had never occurred to him. This was a new wrinkle...one that had initially thrown him for a loop.

  He didn’t want to believe Joss was guilty, but she couldn’t remember what had happened, and the cold, hard facts were undeniable. Dylan had to face them...and had to force her coworkers to do the same.

  “You have to put in a request for a search warrant. We need to get into Officer Walker’s apartment to see what we can find.”

  The supervisor turned to face him, his dark features growing darker. “Find? Exactly what do you think you’re going to find in my officer’s home?”

  Dylan inhaled. “I don’t know. That’s why we have to get in there.”

  Holmquist’s features hardened. “What’s the rush? If Officer Walker survives, she’ll be in this hospital bed for a long time.”

  “I agree. Long enough for her partners...” All of the border-patrol officers standing around the hospital waiting room turned abruptly. Dylan raised his hands. “If—I repeat if—she has partners in crime...they will have ample opportunity to clean out any evidence.”

  Holmquist looked as if he were about to explode. “I don’t care how special the Drug Enforcement Administration thinks you are, Special Agent Murphy, you have no right to come in here, accusing one of my best officers of a criminal act.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but she was found in a collapsed tunnel beneath the Nogales border, with a stash of heroin worth five thousand dollars.”

  “I know how it looks!” The officer’s raised voice reverberated around the quiet room before the man halted. Fisting his hand, he shook it loose and looked around. “Let’s go someplace where we can discuss this more calmly.”

  He spun and stalked away. Dylan followed. He didn’t look at the men and women around him—anger and bitter resentment would be reflected on every face. Jocelyn Walker was popular with her fellow officers. Despite the fact the twenty-seven-year-old had risen through the ranks rapidly, much faster than some of her older counterparts, she had managed to maintain a good rapport with most of her coworkers. Competent, eager to learn, outgoing and humble, she had earned their respect without a problem.

  She’d earned Dylan’s as well. He’d liked her from the beginning and they’d developed a teasing banter that made working together pleasant. It didn’t hurt that she had a winning smile, silky, long black hair and the prettiest gray eyes Dylan had ever seen. Her beauty certainly turned his head the first time he’d met her. But he refused to let it get in the way of his investigation. As far as he could tell, her looks had not earned her special attention in the force. It just made the overall package of Agent Walker easy to take.

  As soon as his suspicions began to take form, he knew he was going to have a hard time convincing her supervisor—or any of her coworkers—that she might be involved with the gang he’d been sent to Tucson to investigate.

  Holmquist stopped at the coffee machine and punched in his order. A cup slid down and black coffee poured into it. The swishing, pouring sound echoed through the taut, conspicuous silence in the waiting room. When it finished, the captain removed his coffee and, without a word to Dylan, stalked through the hall, past the nurses station, to the elevators.

  Dylan followed silently, suspecting the man needed time to gain control of his temper. They reached the bottom floor and walked outside. Even at 2:00 a.m., the emergency room was crowded. Holmquist crossed to the opposite curb of the parking lot, where it was quiet and the lights not so bright. He stepped over the curb, to the rock-filled interior of the divider, where he stopped and took a sip of his coffee.

  Dylan waited and stared at the lightning crackling across the distant night sky.

  August. Monsoon season in Southern Arizona, when storms from the Gulf of California sweep up from Baja to bathe the desert in torrential downpours. One minute everything was dry, and the next a deluge soaked the parched earth. The desert turned green and cacti blossomed with bright blooms. Everything turned brilliant and bright. Dylan hated to admit it, but it was beautiful. And the skies... Light or dark, the skies were always spectacular. Lightning would rip the clouds open, and thunder would rock the earth. This season, and all that came with it, was one of the things he’d missed about home. Probably the only thing.

  He shook his head with an abrupt gesture, stopping the memories before they could flood in. “Look, I don’t want to think that one of our own could be guilty.”

  Holmquist shook his head. The olive green of his uniform almost disappeared in the night, but the bright yellow lettering of his name and border-patrol patches stood out in the light from the entrance across the way. “Joss is not one of yours. She’s my officer and I don’t believe I could be that wrong about her. After fifteen years in the US Border Patrol, I know people.” He turned to Dylan, his features set. “I know my people.”

  Dylan shrugged. “You said she hasn’t been her normal self. We’ve all noticed that she’s been off track, different for the past week—distracted and lost in her own thoughts. Now she shows up in the middle of a drug shipment, beneath a cave-in.”

  “Yeah. One that looks like the perfect setup to me. You’re the expert on tunnels. You tell me how one of those new systems that, according to you, has been so ‘expertly designed by the Serpientes,’ would collapse like that.” The sarcasm in his tone wasn’t hard to miss.

  Serpientes—Spanish for snakes—was the name of the new gang Dylan had been sent to Tucson to investigate. The appearance across the country of bags of heroin stamped with a distinctive red snake had sent the DEA scrambling for more info on the group based in Arizona.

  The discovery of a sophisticated tunnel beneath the border at Nogales brought up a red flag. Usually tunnels dug under that border were hasty, ramshackle crawl spaces—scratched-out hollows a man could barely shimmy through. But these new tunnels were clean-cut and bolstered with supports that were strong enough for a mine. They made the transportation of drugs easy.

  The violent kidnappings of two known Tucson gang members had ended in murder. All signs suggested that the Serpientes were transporting massive amounts of drugs across the border and were trying to take over the distribution of those drugs throughout the entire Southwest territory. A gang war was imminent unless the DEA could identify the leaders of the Serpientes and stop them.

  The strongest link Dylan had to the Serpientes was the professionally designed tunnels, including the one where they’d found Walker. He had hoped to trace the tunnels to a qualified engineer.

  Surprisingly there weren’t too many of those around. He had already asked for information from mining companies, engineering organizations and schools. Hopefully they’d find a connection and maybe, just maybe, that info would lead to an explanation as to why Joss had been there.

  He shook his head. “That tunnel was too well designed. It wouldn’t have collapsed on its own. That’s why I called in a team of experts to examine it and take some samples. It’ll be a while before tests tell us if they purposely destroyed that tunnel and how. In the meantime the disappearance of Walker’s brother looks suspicious.”

  Holmquist nodded. “Joss is close to him...really close. He’s her only living relative. It doesn’t make sense that he hasn’t shown up after several calls and messages. We even sent a man to his apartment.”

  “The collapsed tunnel was discovered this morning. If Jason Walker could be here, he would.”

  Holmquist looked up. “What are you saying?”

  Dylan focused his gaze. “You and I both know how dangerous the Serpientes are. The Mexican police chief who discovered the first tunnel had death threats sent to him. Do you think the Serpientes would be above using a family member to get what they want from a border-patrol officer?”

  “You’re suggesting Jason Walker could be in danger...that maybe the Serpientes have him?”

  Dylan’s nod was slow. “That’s one possibility.”

  The captain gave him a sideways glance. “Another possibility is that Jason Walker is involved with the gang and dragged his sister into the middle of it. That’s what you really believe, isn’t it?”

  Dylan didn’t answer and the older man shook his head. “You’ve been gunning for Joss for weeks now. Why are you so sure she’s involved?”

  Dylan thought about the abrupt change in the woman’s outgoing demeanor lately. The downward tilt of her head when they discussed the gang. The sideways glances when he tried to meet her gaze. The tense poses when she thought no one was looking. And especially her nervous habit of fingering her gun holster when she was worried. She’d been doing that a lot over the past few days.

  “Let’s say I recognize a person with something to hide. Joss Walker is that person. I’d stake my career on it.”

  Holmquist ran a hand around his neck and looked away. After a few minutes he agreed. “It’s a substantial career to throw away. They don’t call you the ‘gang buster’ for nothing.”

  Dylan sensed a victory and pushed home his point. “Look, I’m not saying she’s guilty. I’m saying something is not right. We owe it to her to check it out. If we don’t do it, someone else will. The press...other agencies...everyone is hungry for answers. They’ll look at her quick advancement, at everything she’s accomplished, and question her integrity. More important, they’ll question your group. We owe it to her and to the rest of your officers to find the truth.”

  After a long while, the older man released a heavy sigh. “You’re right. I don’t like it, but you’re right.”

  With that, he tossed the last of his coffee onto the ground, crushed the cup in his fingers and stalked toward the entrance, where he threw the mangled container into the trash.

  Upstairs, in the waiting room, he called his employees together. “Agent Murphy has made a valid point.”

  Dylan ignored the virulent glares sent his way as Holmquist continued. “This looks bad for Joss. Those of us who know her know she’d never betray the department...or us. But the rest of the world doesn’t. They’re going to look at this situation and paint Joss dirty before she even gets out of that bed. So...” He shifted his shoulders, as if lifting a weight off, and looked around. “Instead of sitting around here like a bunch of whipped puppies, we’re going to go out and do our job. Let’s prove Joss innocent before the rest of the world has a chance to accuse her of being guilty.”

  The men and women nodded their heads. “Henderson, you’ve known Joss the longest. I’m sure you’d like to stay here and wait for word on her condition, but you know her best. Tomorrow I want you at her brother’s apartment. Rouse the neighbors. Get some answers. I want to know where he is or when he was last seen. You know his girlfriend too, right?”

  Daniel Henderson spoke up. “Maria... I do know her. I went with Joss to a birthday party for Maria’s little sister, at their house.”

  “Good. Take Cupertino with you. Go to the mother’s house. Question the girlfriend. I want to know everything I can about Walker. Evans and Hughes, go to that mechanic shop where he works. See what they know. I’m going back to the office to see about getting a warrant to search Joss’s apartment. One of you needs to stay here with her.”

  “I’ll do it,” Dylan spoke up before anyone else had a chance. “I want to be here if she wakes up.”

  Holmquist’s jaw tensed, but he worked it loose slowly. “Yeah. You’re right. It might be best if someone not from the department is here when she starts to talk. That way no one can say we covered for her.” That statement was aimed at Dylan. “The rest of you, go home. Get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”

  The group gathered their things and tossed their empty cups into a nearby trash can. Angry glares shot in Dylan’s direction before everyone headed to the elevators.

  At last he was alone. He rubbed his hands over his face and sank into a nearby chair. He’d been up since 4:00 a.m., when he’d first gotten the call. The cave-in had created a sinkhole in a cemetery on the US side of the border wall.

  At one time, Dylan’s team of DEA agents and the border-patrol officers had a storage building near the cemetery under surveillance. They had detected an unusual amount of traffic at the empty building and suspected it might be the cover for a tunnel. It was the perfect setup. Drugs could be delivered via the tunnel beneath the wall into the building then loaded into vehicles to be shipped out, all inside the cover of the large structure.

  Unfortunately, traffic to and from the building had stopped so Dylan called a halt to the surveillance. This morning when a section of the cemetery collapsed, Dylan expedited a search warrant for the property. They found the opening of a tunnel and Walker trapped inside.

  Obviously the Serpientes knew about the surveillance, realized the tunnel had been compromised and were willing to let it be destroyed for another purpose.

  But what purpose was so great they were willing to lose a tunnel and five thousand dollars’ worth of heroin to accomplish it? Not a small amount to a normal person, but for a group with such perfect, undetected access across the border, the heroin’s value wasn’t much more than chump change. Dylan suspected the Serpientes could have transported three times that. Holmquist was right. The cave-in looked like the perfect setup. But why would the gang want to incriminate Walker? What did she know that they wanted silenced?

  Just one of the questions he prayed she could answer when she woke up the next time.

  Dylan jerked to his feet and strode to the door, to look into her room. The nurse was finishing her hourly check on Walker’s vitals. She looked up and motioned him into the room.

  “Any improvement?” He kept his voice low, almost at a whisper.

  “Not yet. But in situations like this, it helps to have someone the patient knows talk to them. You can touch her, hold her hand. It will help her to stabilize.”

  The nurse smiled and left the room. Dylan stared at Joss Walker’s still form. She had a tube around her face, an IV in her arm and an oxygen monitor on her thumb. When she’d arrived, the staff had done what they could to clean her, but gray dust coated her normally black, silky hair. Still caught up with a band, her long ponytail trailed across the white pillow. A raw, bright red scrape marked her chin.

  Her free hand rested limp and lax, palm up on the bed next to Dylan. He lifted it and turned it over on his, palm to palm. She had long fingers, with nice, well-shaped nails. He’d noticed those details before. It seemed there were lots of things he’d noticed about Joss Walker.

  “What happened?” he whispered. “What were you hiding? Did you find yourself trapped, like I did?”

  He hadn’t told Holmquist why he suspected Joss. He didn’t like to remember. But now, in the silence of this room, with tubes plugged into Joss’s body, he couldn’t stop the memories.

  An image of Rusty came to him, his best friend since they were in grade school. Hair to match his name. Fun-loving. Mischievous but never hurtful or mean. They’d stayed good friends...even when Rusty started using pills to keep him going.

  At first Dylan believed his friend’s claims that he could stop anytime. He just needed a little help. Needed to get that scholarship so he could go to college. After all, his parents didn’t own a ranch and have money like Dylan’s. Rusty had to pay his own way.

  Dylan believed him...even felt guilty for his own accident of birth. He turned a blind eye to the missed assignments and dark moods. He covered for his best friend...until the day his seventeen-year-old sister Beth was found with Rusty, both of them dead from overdoses. That day had changed Dylan’s life forever.

  All the dropped glances and lies he’d used to hide the truth about his friend were emblazoned in his memory like white-hot embers. Those images were never far from his thoughts.

  That’s why he recognized the signs of deceit in Joss. He knew them well. Personally.

  He looked at her unconscious body. Black dirt was caked beneath Joss’s neatly shaped fingernails, evidence that she’d crawled away from the explosion. It was what saved her life. Dylan had seen the path she’d made as she’d dragged herself over the gritty gray floor of the tunnel. She must have woken in the stygian darkness, afraid, desperate...and crawled for her life.

  A wave of empathy swept over him. Guilty or not, she didn’t deserve that. He gripped her hand. “I’ll get them. I promise. I’ll make them pay.”

  His harsh, whispered words echoed across the silent room. He searched her face, hoping for some awareness, some movement. Nothing. Not a flicker of her eyes. Thick eyelashes lay on her cheeks. No thin, wispy lashes for this woman—they were thick and crisscrossed each other in riotous abandon. She didn’t wear makeup. She didn’t need it with those lashes. And eyebrows to match. Thick and dark, they defined her face, gave it character above her gray eyes. Straight nose. Slightly pointed chin. She had what Dylan supposed would be called classic features. Whatever that meant. He’d heard the expression and it seemed to fit Joss.