Rattlesnake Crossing

Sonja nodded mutely and reached for the door handle. 'There's a milk crate in the backseat with a Kevlar vest in it,' Joanna continued. 'Take that out and put it on.' Not that a Kevlar vest is going to do anybody much good, she thought. Fifty-caliber bullets will go through bullet-resistant vests like they're made of paper.

Once in the Blazer, Joanna fastened her seat belt, switched on the ignition, and slammed the vehicle into gear. 'Frank, there's an Arizona atlas in the pocket behind my seat. Get it out and let's see how many places he could turn off between here and there.'

While Frank dragged out Joanna's dog-eared copy of the Arizona Road and Recreation Atlas and flipped through its pages, she raced the Blazer down the narrow private road that cut through Alton Hosfield's irrigated pasture, past a placid herd of calmly grazing Herefords. Their lives haven't changed, Joanna thought, even though everything else has.

'How could he kill his own brother?' Sonja Hosfield was asking from the backseat. Under such appalling circumstances, Joanna found the woman's voice unnervingly calm-far steadier than anyone would have expected. 'How could he do that?'

How could Cain kill Abel? Joanna wondered. She said, 'As far as we can tell, your stepson is a natural-born killer, Mrs. Hosfield. So far, we're fairly certain that he's killed six people-five of them in just the last week. There could be more, though, other victims we as yet know nothing about.'

'Six people!' Sonja whispered. 'I tried to tell him, but…

'What are you talking about?'

'My husband. Before Ryan ever came here, I tried to tell Alton that boy was trouble, but I never dreamed, never imagined, that he could do something so… appalling. His mother's a mess, and I was afraid he would be, too. That we'd have to watch him constantly. Alton told me I was imagining things. He said all the boy needed was a chance and that I was being paranoid.'

You weren't paranoid, Joanna thought. Not at all.

'But Alton's Ryan's father, and he was determined to try, so I went along with it,' Sonja continued. 'He felt so guilty about what happened between him and Lindsey. She was Alton's first wife, you see. One of the world's worst mothers. She put Alton through hell, and the kids, too. Ryan and Felicia-Ryan's younger sister-practically had to raise, themselves. Lindsey gave them no supervision, no guidance, and once she left, she pretty much cut off sill contact between Alton and his children.

'It's no wonder Ryan got in trouble, then. We didn't even know about it when he was locked up the first time and sent to Adobe Mountain. They let him out on parole and he was locked back up again within minutes. That was the first we heard anything about it-the second time, when they put him in Florence.'

'For what?' Joanna asked. 'What was he locked up for the first time?'

'Nobody ever told us. The first we knew there was a problem was when Ryan wrote to Alton from Florence and asked if he could come here when he finished serving his sentence. I was against it. I was afraid of the kind of influence someone like that might have on-' Sonja's voice broke. 'On Jake,' she finally said. 'I was so afraid of what might happen to Jake.'

They rattled across the cattle guard and turned north. 'But your husband let him come anyway?' Joanna asked. 'Over your objections?'

After a few moments, Sonja regained control enough to answer and nod. 'Alton thought we could help. Thought the combination of living out here, doing hard physical labor, and having a loving family around him would somehow remake Ryan. Fix him. Make up for all those years of neglect. Once Ryan got here, Alton tried to explain that he had fought for custody when he and Lindsey divorced. That he had wanted to keep both Ryan and Felicia with him here on the ranch. He tried to explain that those were different times back then, when men didn't get awarded custody no matter what.

'And Ryan did seem to listen. I mean, he wasn't nearly as bad to be around as I had thought. Once he knew what was expected, he pitched in with work around the place. Alton said he was a good worker. He didn't know much about living on a ranch, though he was willing to learn. But when he wasn't working, he didn't hang around with us. He wasn't much interested in having a family kind of relationship.'

Sonja lapsed into silence, and Joanna looked at her watch. How long it would take for the helicopter to cross Redington Pass depended on the chopper's speed and the physical location when it was contacted. Tucson had expanded to fill a wide swath of valley from east to west and north to south. A location on the far west or north side of town could add as much as twenty miles to the distance.

'What are you seeing?' she asked Frank who, in brooding silence, was studying the map.

'There are little roads that lead off into the mountains, but they mostly don't go anywhere. We should probably put a roadblock up on Muleshoe Road between the Nature Conservancy Center and Willcox. Then, up beyond Redington, there are forest service roads as well. The real problem, though, is that since he has access to an ATV, there's no reason he couldn't go right around whatever roadblocks we do throw up.'

'Good point,' Joanna said. 'But go ahead and call for them anyway. And while you're at it, see if you can get a fix on the helicopter's location. The sun will be going down pretty soon. When it does, we'll be screwed.'

Speeding along the deserted road, Joanna kept up the velocity as much as possible. At fifty miles an hour, the washboards disappeared, but loose gravel made the twisting corners as slippery as icy pavement. At that rate they were fast coming up on Redington, coming up on the place where the road would split off in different directions. There Joanna would be forced to make a critical decision. Depending on which fork she chose, she would either he right on Ryan Merritt's fleeing trail or off in the hinterlands and headed in the wrong direction.

While Frank repeatedly attempted to contact the helicopter by radio, Joanna glanced in the rearview mirror and caught sight of a now dry-eyed Sonja Hosfield staring out the window. 'Did one of my deputies come see you a few weeks back?' Joanna asked. 'Somebody named Eddy Sandoval?'

'Yes. It wasn't very long after Ryan got here. Deputy Sandoval came by one afternoon while Alton and Ryan were working in the fields. The deputy didn't say straight out what he wanted or what it was all about, but he hinted around that it had something to do with Ryan. I put my two cents' worth in right then and there. I told him Ryan Merritt was an adult and responsible for his own actions; that if Ryan got himself in trouble again, he'd have to get himself out of it. I gave Ryan the same message later that night. I wanted him to know that if he screwed up, he was on his own. That his daddy wasn't going to fix it for him.'

The speeding Blazer arrived at the first junction just out-side Redington. There was nothing for Joanna to do but pull over and wait for information from the helicopter while Sonja Hosfield went on talking and unburdening herself.

'It sounded good,' she was saying. 'I really read him the riot act. I told him if there was even a hint of any more trouble, he'd have to find himself some other place to live. I meant it, too. I meant every word. The only problem is, I never would have been able to make it stick.'

'Why not?' Joanna asked.

'Because Alton wouldn't have backed me up on it. He would have come to Ryan's rescue again. He loves him, you see. Ryan is his firstborn son. Alton loves him to distraction, no matter what. And that's why my little Jake is dead now. It isn't fair. How can that-'

A voice cul in on them from the radio in the dash. 'Sheriff Brady, can you read me?'

'Yes.'

'This is Todd Kries with the Tucson PD,' a voice said over the rattling racket of a flying helicopter. 'Hold on. I think maybe we just got lucky.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“I’m looking down on a light blue, older model panel truck.'

Awash in relief, Joanna rammed the Blazer into gear. 'Which way?' she demanded. 'Ask him which way.' Frank relayed the question.

'Toward the pass,' Kries answered. 'Up Road Three-Seven-One, Redington Road, almost to Piety Hill.'

'Can you find that on the map, Frank?' Joanna asked.

'It's right here,' her chief deputy said, using his index finger to point to the spot. 'According to this, it looks to