Kiss of the Bees

“You’ll take the cell phone?”

“It’s already in my pocket.”

“Call the moment you hear anything,” Diana added. “The moment you find her. Promise me you’ll call, no matter how bad it is.”

Brandon stopped at the door and looked back at his wife. “I promise,” he said. “No matter how bad.”

Leaving Diana alone, he hurried out into the living room. “What’s up?” Brock Kendall asked.

“Hitch up the wagons. We need to go out to the place where they found those bones yesterday afternoon. According to Gabe Ortiz, that’s where we’ll find Lani—at Rattlesnake Skull Charco.”

Brian Fellows leaped to his feet. “I can take you there,” he offered. “It’s not easy to find but—”

“I’ve been there before,” Brandon Walker said. “It’s the same place where we found Gina Antone all those years ago. Besides, Brian, I want you to stay here.”

Disappointment washed over the young deputy’s face. He started to argue. “But I—”

“Most of the other officers here are strangers, Brian,” Brandon Walker said. “You’re family. I’d like you to be here to be with Diana just in case. To give her some emotional backup. I only pray she won’t need it.”

“All right, Mr. Walker,” Brian said. “If that’s what you want me to do, I’ll be glad to stay.”

Brandon had left the Suburban parked out in front of the house. “Gabe Ortiz,” Brock Kendall was saying as they climbed in. “That name sounds familiar. Who is he again?”

“A friend of the family,” Brandon answered. “He’s also the Tohono O’othham tribal chairman.”

“But what does he have to do with all this, and how would he know that’s where Lani might be?”

“He’s a medicine man,” Brandon answered, heading for the door. “He knows stuff. Don’t ask me how, but he does.”

Sitting in the mouth of the cave, watching the flashing red lights in the desert below, Mitch Johnson fought his way through an initial attack of panic. He was convinced that the lights had nothing to do with him. What he couldn’t understand was why the hell they didn’t finish up whatever it was they were doing and go away. The little Indian slut was still missing, but he was beginning to think that maybe she hadn’t made it out of the cave after all.

He couldn’t believe he had screwed up that badly, but there was no one to blame but himself. He had counted too heavily on the drugs to control Quentin. He had kept the Bronco’s ignition key in his pocket, but Quentin must have had a spare. He had raced out of the cave in a rage when he heard the Bronco start up without taking the precaution of securing the girl first. When he first discovered that Lani was missing, he had figured she had simply followed his own path up and over the landslide debris in the smaller cavern and out to the steep surface of the mountain.

Now, though, he wondered if that was true. Had she gone that way, she, too, would have seen the lights. If she had gone straight there, hoping to be rescued, wouldn’t her appearance have provoked an almost instantaneous reaction? By now the mountainside would have been crawling with cops ready to use Mitch Johnson for some high- tech nighttime target practice. No doubt a bunch of eager-beaver searchers would have combed every inch of the surrounding terrain. One of them was bound to have stumbled across the crumpled hulk of Quentin Walker’s Bronco.

No, as the still night slid into early morning, as the sky brightened in the east, and as the flashing red lights stayed right where they were, Mitch grew more and more convinced that Lani Walker was still somewhere inside the cave and probably freezing her cute little tush off as well.

He had already decided on a backup plan of action. All he had to do was make it to the Bounder. Even with his knee acting up again, he could walk that far. Then, if he drove into town, hooked on to the Subaru, he could drive off into the sunset and no one would be the wiser. He understood, however, that a plan like that would work only so long as Lani Walker wasn’t alive to point an accusing finger in his direction.

Which meant that, inside the cave or out of it, Mitch Johnson had to find her first.

Had time not been an issue, he could simply have settled into the passage and waited. Eventually Lani would be faced with two simple courses of action: she would either have to come out or starve to death.

Mitch’s real difficulty lay in the fact that time was an issue. By now the Walkers knew something was up and had probably called for reinforcements. And so, after checking the flashing lights one last time, Mitch Johnson turned back into the first passageway. He did so with only one purpose in mind—to find Lani Walker and kill her.

Somewhere over southeastern Colorado, Davy Ladd finally did fall asleep. The next panic attack hit while the Boeing 737 was cruising over central New Mexico. An observant flight attendant realized something was wrong and quickly moved the little old lady out of the way to an empty seat several rows forward.

As the dream started, it was similar to the others. The evil Ohb was there once again, armed with a knife, and chasing Lani and Davy through miles of mazelike tunnels. Once again he was awakened, gasping and sweating, by Lani’s chilling scream.

“Something’s happening,” David said when he could finally speak again as he sat mopping rivulets of sweat off his face with a fistful of napkins the flight attendant had provided.

“What do you mean?” Candace asked.

“Something’s happening, and it’s happening now,” Davy declared.

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t know how I know, I just do.”

Candace reached in her purse, pulled out a credit card, and removed the air-to-ground phone from its holder in the seat ahead of them. “Call,” she said, running the magnetic strip through the slot to activate the phone. “Call and find out.”

“Hello?” Diana answered. Her voice wasn’t as strong or as clear as it usually was on the phone. Whether that stemmed from nerves or weariness, Davy couldn’t tell. “Mom? It’s Davy.”