He nodded, stood, satisfied. With the work he’d just completed on Dorian’s raw skin, but also with his own ability to assess and guess with accuracy. As much as he didn’t feel at all like the agent who’d shown up at the birthing clinic a couple of nights ago, he was glad to know he hadn’t lost his job skills.

  “They’re figuring I’m like them, a criminal willing to do what it took to make the big money. They know they’d get rid of you, and so they’ll figure I did. My guess is, they’ve been sent to wait for me to approach with the baby, wanting to make a deal.” He put away the remainder of the supplies and felt a jab to his gut.

  A foot.

  And then another.

  Shocked for a second, glancing down, he took in the downy bald head, the puffy cheeks and fully closed eyes.

  And, with a jolt, told himself to get back on track.

  To stay on track.

  He wasn’t playing a little “oh, look, I can hold a baby” game. He was dealing with life and death.

  Making sure that the infant had a chance at the first.

  Untying the sling from around him, he held it in place as Dorian had. She stood as he approached her and pressed against her, and she wordlessly completed the pass off as successfully as they’d accomplished it the first time.

  “I’m guessing he’s going to need to eat soon,” he told her. Not mentioning the couple of foot jabs. They were in no way pertinent to the tasks at hand.

  The woman, with all her lack of toiletries, looked...surreal to him...otherworldly...pure beauty.

  He shook his head. Hoped he wasn’t heading back to the lack of clarity he’d had during those last few yards up the mountain in the early hours of that morning.

  “He’s waking up now,” Dorian said.

  She might have shared more, but he stepped away from them, standing guard at the opening of the cave.

  Just in case the two hunters came back down the mountain closely enough to discover the cave.

  “You have my gun?” he asked then, and when Dorian nodded toward her waistband, he walked right over, all business. He saw her lift her shirt, and slid the gun from her side.

  His knuckles against her side were just a hazard of the job, he decided firmly, shoving the gun into the holster he’d helped himself to the night before.

  Holster and bullets...no gun that he could find.

  He’d cataloged the information.

  “As soon as he’s fed and settled, we need to head out,” he said then, back on lookout. “If those two really are the only searchers, and they’re expecting me to show up, this is our best chance to get out of here undetected. And hopefully make it to a homestead before dark.”

  He wasn’t sure how he’d approach that one.

  They couldn’t walk right up and knock on the door, for sure.

  But knew he’d have to make that choice when he came to it. When he could assess the surroundings.

  “They aren’t going to wait around for me forever. They could feasibly still sell the baby, if they have another buyer ready. And even if they don’t, they need me dead. My take right now is that they’re betting on my need to blackmail them being the stronger one.”

  She had the little guy out of the sling. Had changed him. The pack of wipes he’d found with the supplies in the cupboard wasn’t going to last forever.

  As he’d done while he’d dismantled their cave abode that morning, he dug a hole with his knife, a rock and his fingers, and buried the used diaper. He left it open for the bottle she was about to empty into the baby’s stomach.

  “Do you think we can make it to the paved road yet today?”

  Having to stay clear of the dirt road—McKellips’s men were using it—meant the trek would be much longer.

  And they had a baby in tow.

  “I doubt it,” he told her the truth. His leg was hurting like hell, but it would not slow him down. He’d find a crutch if he had to. Learn to run with it.

  He asked for the burner phone. Looked through the plethora of pictures she’d taken.

  Made a choice. Handed the phone back to her.

  “I think we should head here,” he told her. One roof. Smallish. Less chance of having to face a squadron running out the door. Hopefully, like many people in the Nevada desert, there were good people who were tired of the lies and rat race in the world, just wanting to live naturally off the land, with only natural dangers facing them.

  She glanced up at him, babe contentedly sucking in her arms, and for a second there, Scott saw a wife. His child.

  And immediately turned his back.

  Chapter 16

  Scott clearly wasn’t doing well. They’d been on the move for hours, stopping only to feed and change the baby, to eat cactus fruit and power bars and drink more juice. And while the FBI agent didn’t slow down, he wasn’t meeting her gaze anymore.

  At all.

  Like if he didn’t look at her, she couldn’t see his pale skin?

  Wouldn’t know that something was wrong?

  Her check of his face and neck earlier, in the cave, had indicated that he wasn’t running a fever. The flush was gone. His lack of color came with its own information.

  They were still traveling in the mountains, not always in sight of the miles-long road that led out of the mountain range, but parallel to it—their route much longer, more circuitous, due to the peaks they had to climb, or circle around. The need to keep cover—and to hike in the shade for the baby’s sake—all played a part as well.

  What had looked to her as a day trip from zoomed-in photos and aerial views from above was turning into something far more onerous.

  And with Scott clearly fading, the journey felt almost impossible.

  Would her team work their miracles and find them somehow? Was it ludicrous to hope for a helicopter overhead, sent by Sierra’s Web to save them?

  She looked for landing spots as she walked. To keep her mind occupied. To keep at bay the emotions that would weaken her.

  To keep belief alive.

  If she didn’t believe in something, she’d be lost.

  And she did believe that she’d do all she could to help save lives. So she walked. She assessed. She climbed, and, on occasion, slid. Insisting, when Scott offered to take his turn with the sling, that she needed him to be ready with the gun. To use his skills to keep them safe.

  He’d insisted on carrying the satchel. No way she was giving the man any more extra weight on that leg.

  Dusk hadn’t yet fallen, but it was getting closer when Dorian saw Scott stumble. He righted himself immediately. Continued on without losing forward momentum. But she’d seen him wince.

  His injured right leg had been the one to misstep.

  “The baby needs real time out of this sling,” she said to him then, no longer able to hold back. Telling a truth, but not the one that concerned her the most. She’d changed the newborn’s positions regularly, and had refashioned the sling periodically, as well, allowing him to move more freely, so that his little body didn’t get cramped. “I know it’s early, but we should find cover for the night.”

  It would be their second in the mountains.

  Her third away from home.

  Seemed incomprehensible. Her life had changed so completely in just a few days’ time. Far more than it had during her previous kidnapping, where she’d been largely kept physically comfortable, with enough to eat and drink, and in one place.

  Seconds after she’d spoken, Scott spared a quick glance for the bundle covering her chest. Nodded. And continued taking them farther from the previous night’s compound. And toward, she hoped, their salvation.

  She was beginning to wonder if Scott was pushing himself so hard that the effort was affecting his thought processes.

  Did she trust him to know best? Or was he so focused on forcing himself onward, blinded by pain, that he’d lost ability to discern?

  He’d passed out almost as soon as he’d reached the culvert the night before. If he lost consciousness out there on a mountain ledge...what in the hell would she do?

  He’d be fodder for coyotes...and worse.

  She wasn’t muscled enough to move him far...and to where?

  With a baby strapped to her?

  She was strong. Able. She acted rather than reacted. But she was human. Exhausted. Scraped up. And...

  Scott had stopped at a little clearing, an inlet between the wall of mountain they’d just rounded and the wall straight ahead, then he walked to the ledge. She came up behind him. Seeing more of the valley they’d been following all day.

  “Look, a little to the right.” Scott’s words held...something more than the deadpan tone from the past several hours...as he pointed.

  An old shack—a good-sized structure—stood a quarter of a mile down.

  And in front of it...“Is that a stream?” she asked, growing excited in spite of everything.

  “Yeah,” he told her. “I thought so a while back, but wasn’t going to say anything until I knew for sure. We’ve been following it for the past hour or so. I just had to get close enough to see that it wasn’t just a dry bed.”

  He could have told me.

  The thought served no good purpose.

  And yet, there it stood.

  After pulling out her phone, she zoomed in on the shack. And her fingers started to shake. “I think there’s a path leading out to the dirt road,” she told him, showing him her phone.

  Had the universe heard her call?

  Her partner and friend, Kelly, would be more apt to believe such a thing.

  “It’s fairly grown over.” He handed the phone back to her. And met her gaze full on for the first time since he’d turned his back to her in the cave when she’d been feeding the baby.

  Not that it had rankled or anything...she gave herself a reality check with a taste of sarcasm thrown in.

  He could connect with her or not. Didn’t change their course of action. He didn’t owe her anything.

  To the contrary, she owed him her life.

  “You okay?” He was still looking at her. With concern.

  Dorian blinked. Nodded by instinct.

  And then, meeting his gaze again—able to read from it as she’d been able to do from the first time they met—she nodded for real.

  * * *

  Broken, faded, cracked and askew, private property signs hung on various broken-down wooden fence posts. Scott, keeping himself and Dorian and the baby concealed as best he could in trees, tall desert bushes and brush, walked along the posted area, not ready to breach it until he was certain that the dilapidated gray building in the distance was really abandoned.

  He’d seen all kinds of living conditions during his years as an agent, and couldn’t afford to assume anything.

  It was later than he’d have liked, with the sun having already disappeared behind the mountain, leaving the area in shadows. The baby had been fussy for a bit right after he’d eaten that last time, and while Dorian had been able to soothe him, and eventually get him back to sleep, Scott had been loath to leave their little inlet until he knew for sure that if he saw enemies, they’d be able to hide and have a better chance of remaining undetected.

  The brief downtime had helped his leg as well. And had given Dorian a chance to rest. The woman never complained, but he knew her back had to be aching. The hiking they were forced to do was hard all by itself...having to accomplish it with a baby strapped to her...

  “We could have to walk another mile or more before we get beyond these property markers to make it over to the stream,” Dorian said from just one footstep behind him.

  They could see the water in the distance.

  Almost as though it was taunting them from the other side of the old, in dire need of repair, cabin.

  He’d had a thought or two about lying down in the middle of the bed of water, closing his eyes and letting it soothe him for a while.

  With his head propped on the bank, of course. No way was he checking out. But he’d give much for a few minutes of respite from the sharp burning in his leg. The pain was getting so great he was starting to have hot flashes.

  “Hey!” A voice sounded out of the distance.

  Behind the tall brush separating them from the house in the distance, Scott froze.

  Had he actually heard an angel from heaven, calling out to him?

  Scott rejected the thought. Took it as a warning that he was going to have to find a place to rest his leg soon. Eat some fruit and not burn it off immediately.

  He needed to sleep long enough for his body to start to heal...

  Right behind him, Dorian had ceased all movement as well.

  “Hey there!” The voice came again.

  He wanted to turn, to see if his companion was hearing things as well. But he didn’t get a chance to do so before he saw the bent form coming toward them, waving her hand and smiling.

  “I saw you out there!” the ancient voice said, with a waver and a crackle. “Figured you were lost.”

  Dorian’s hand closed around Scott’s elbow. Just held him lightly. Not squeezing tight.

  Telling him that she wasn’t afraid?

  That maybe they’d found the help they so desperately needed in the form of an old spirit?

  “My place is nothing fancy, mind you, and my fixings real basic, now that I’m here by myself with my Fred gone and buried, but I can still offer tea and sandwiches.”

  A couple of quick squeezes of his elbow prompted Scott to follow his own instincts and step out from behind the brush.

  Just him, his forearm pressed against the gun beneath his T-shirt.

  Dorian stayed behind cover. As he’d have instructed, given the chance.

  “Thank you, ma’am, but we’re dirty and shouldn’t be coming inside. If you wouldn’t mind just allowing us a dip in your stream?”

  Standing in the open, he had a much better view of the premises. Saw that a lot of the foot-high grass disguised the clutter strewn around it. Rusted-out pieces from machinery, broken parts of what looked to have been an old sofa, filled plastic bags.

  Trash that the woman had been too frail to dispose of properly?

  “Don’t be shy, young man,” the woman said. “You use my shower, my toilet, not that rock-bottomed river. It’s got fish guts in it, you know. It does. Not proper for a little one like yours. I’ve been watching you with my beenoculars. Hoping you were coming my way. I don’t get so many visitors here anymore. Now you all come right on in proper here, and I’ll get some food on for you.”

  When Dorian stepped out into the yard, fully exposing herself and the baby, Scott knew their decision had been made. She was going in, whether he did or not.

  Which meant that he was going in.

  No way he was leaving her without protection.

  The idea that he was thinking that she’d need protection from a little old lady who couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, and whose bones were obviously frail, gave Scott further indication of his need to take a breather.

  He was human. And couldn’t be so filled with his own determination and course, couldn’t be so hardheaded that he’d refuse the help that they’d managed to find.

  Which had been his goal all along. Finding help.

  His plan had worked.

  It was time to follow its course.

  * * *

  The structure, which appeared to have been a nice cabin at some point, was one main room with two doors leading to Dorian knew not what. But she was pretty sure she didn’t want to know. There were stairs leading upward as well. But from what she could see of them, she was fairly certain there’d be no point in trying to climb them—except perhaps to take in the enormity of a severe hoarding addiction.

  Boxes in all different sizes, piles of shoes, a chandelier, stacks of books, of china dishes, folded clothes and many, many things that were unidentifiable due to the thick coats of dust on them, filled every available space. On what she could see of the stairs, and throughout the entire main room.

  “Sorry for the clutter,” the old woman said, her voice warbly, as she ushered them down a small aisle to a large table—three-quarters of which was also filled. “I’m in the midst of organizing and getting rid of things. For Fred,” she said then. “He’s not as much of a collector as I am.”

  Fred? The man the woman had buried? Dorian glanced at Scott. Recognized his frown of unease. She’d expected, as soon as they’d followed the woman inside, to find out how the woman communicated with the outside world, got her supplies, whatever, so that they could make their call for help.

  She’d been hoping for a landline.

  “Fred’s your husband?” she asked quickly, wanting to keep the woman in conversation long enough, and quickly enough, for Scott to figure out what Dorian was strongly suspecting.

  “That’s right,” the woman said. “Been married ten years now. I was just a teacher when he made me his bride, but I’m the principal now. Right here in the local school.”

  “In Globe or Miami?” she asked, naming the two closest towns to the east Superstitions.

  “Miami, of course. School’s just a mile down the road from here. My Fred, he works the mine, you know. Copper. He’ll be home anytime now for supper. Always after the sun goes down. But don’t you worry any—my Fred’s a friendly sort. He likes company as much as I do.

  “Have yourselves a seat,” the woman continued as Dorian shared a longer glance with Scott.

  His brow raised. She nodded.

  “Go on now, sit,” the woman repeated. There was only one chair, at the end of the table where the woman was standing, that was not piled higher than the table with clutter. “Just move that stuff down to the floor.” The woman motioned toward the chairs closest to Dorian and Scott—chairs closest to the door through which they’d come. “I’ll get it in a bit.”