Saguaro Riptide

official who had departed the immediate scene, and he’d managed to shoot the woman’s partner. .

He stumbled forward, toward the lights. They had never been this close before. And being this close, he could tell for certain that they were not an illusion, no figment of a wounded brain.

The lights were real. If Allah would grant him the strength, Woodrow would know what was behind them before he died.

He stepped through a hole in the chain-link fence. A dog barked at him, but the animal was somewhere in the shadows and he could not see it. Still, he fired the deputy’s pistol into the night, hoping to hear the animal squeal because he recalled all too well the damage inflicted by Jack Baddalach’s dog.

Quite suddenly, the dog ceased its barking. Perhaps Woodrow had been lucky. Perhaps Allah had guided his aim.

He turned and faced the lights.

They beckoned him forward, and this time no needles of pain assaulted his skull, and no taffy-pulling machine tore at his brain.

Still, Woodrow was afraid. He hesitated, squinting into the light.

A silhouette shimmered within the pool of bright white fire.

The silhouette came toward him.

It was a woman.

Woodrow watched her come.

Her face was scarlet. Masked with blood.

Her clothes were black … but her hands were very white.

And in them she held a shotgun.

Woodrow raised his pistol.

The woman fired her shotgun.

Jack pulled the towel out of Sandy’s mouth. She gasped deeply, shivering.

“Easy,” he said. “Take it easy. .”

Sandy took another breath, and then another, and then her face wasn’t purple anymore.

Jack heard footfalls outside. Someone was running along the landing, just the way he had.

It had to be Wyetta.

Sandy’s fingers dug into his arm. The look in her eyes told him that she heard the same thing he did.

“Keep quiet,” Jack whispered, “and she’ll never know you’re here.”

Fortunately, Sandy Kapalua-Dayton was a skinny woman.

She actually fit under the bed.

Kate lay on the ground for a long time.

The shotgun recoil had put her flat on her ass. And even though she was a Montana girl and Montana girl’s got things done, she couldn’t quite get up the gumption to move. Partly because one of the deputy’s bullets had notched her right ear and nicked her skull, and she was still leaking pretty good.

That part of it was okay, though, because fresh blood made good camouflage. She’d smeared it over her face, just the way they taught her in the army. In a dangerous situation without the proper equipment, a soldier must improvise. And, hey, it had worked, because the hit man hadn’t known what to make of her until it was way too late.

But the hit man wasn’t the only one she had to worry about. There was the deputy. And the sheriff.

If the deputy was still out there, she was taking her own sweet time about showing her face. But maybe she was just a careful kind of girl. Maybe she was trying to figure a way to move in without getting her ass blown in half.

Maybe the sheriff and the deputy were flanking Kate this very minute.

Yeah. Could be. She’d better get to moving.

Kate gripped the shotgun. Just one more minute. One more minute and she’d start moving.

Damn. It was just too bad that the old Dodge Dakota didn’t have an air bag. Forget a bullet notching her ear-if she had had an air bag, she’d be fine right now. Give her a little bit of cushion and it would have taken more than a head-on collision with a Chevy junker to put a hitch in her getalong.

Kind of like the Saudi, in fact. Because Black Hawk helicopters didn’t come with air bags, either, and crashing one of those babies nose-first into a sand dune was just a little tougher than this.

Kate still had the scars to prove it.

But she’d had Vince Komoko to get her through the Saudi. And he’d been so beautiful then. So good. A-one all-fucking-American.

Kate remembered bouncing around in the back of an Iraqi truck, busted bones grinding against bruised flesh while she screamed her head off, a couple of Republican Guards trying to loosen the zipper of her flight suit but it hurt so bad and she had to scream, and Vince was busted up too but he went after those guys just like John Wayne.

That gave the soldiers something else to do. They beat the shit out of Vince. Kate watched them do it, every inch of her screaming in pain because there were lots of bumps in that desert and the truck driver seemed determined to hit every one. . hell, you’d think desert sand should be smooth but it wasn’t. . and she’d never forget what Vince did for her out there. Not just saving her ass from rape. Taking that beating, he’d given her hope. Showed her that they could tough it out, no matter what. Make it through anything with their dignity intact.

Vince had shown her that, and she’d learned the lesson. Together, they’d survived. That was important.

But there was more to life than simple survival, more than just drawing breath. Kate knew that. You had to make something of your life, or survival meant nothing.

If you ended up all alone with two million dollars for company. .

If no one cared about anything but your money. .

If the only person you wanted to give it to wouldn’t even answer her phone. .

A tear spilled from Kate’s eye, washing a clean trail on her bloodstained face.

Maybe you couldn’t help but be alone when you died.

Maybe. .

No. Kate knew it was silly to think about that. She wasn’t going to die. She was just a little busted up. Just bleeding a little. Jesus, she was sure happy that she wore her hair long-it would cover the notch the deputy’s bullet had clipped from her ear.

It’s nothing, she told herself. Only a flesh wound. Once it scabs over, no one will notice it at all.

No one will notice because you live alone, girl. A cabin out there in the middle of the big lonesome. No one visits. Your phone doesn’t ring. You have really long conversations with your horses, but they haven’t learned to hold up their end of the deal.

You’re a solo act from here on out, remember?

And she asked herself-if you were dying, who would you call? If you had two million, who would you leave it to?

Was there anyone, anywhere?

Vince Komoko was stone-cold dead. .

But maybe there was someone else. This other guy. Jack Baddalach. He was out there somewhere. And he was alone, just like she was.

He was waiting for her. Counting on her. The way she’d counted on Vince in the Saudi. The way Vince had counted on her to drop everything and come to Pipeline Beach, Arizona.

Because she was a Montana girl, and you could count on a Montana girl, especially if her name was Kate Benteen. Anyone knew that. Because Kate Benteen got things done. She was a war hero. An Olympic champion. A rodeo rider. A movie star.

And she was damn good with a gun to boot.

Kate stared at the motel. It seemed to be a million miles away.

Aw, Christ. That was a lot of bullshit. The motel was maybe a couple hundred feet away, tops. All she had to do was get up, get her ass in gear. .