“No you haven’t. I’d have remembered.”
Will glanced in his rearview mirror. Hedwig wasstaring out the window as they wound higher up into the trees andhills. Apparently she’d lost interest in the conversation. Nice.Had her only purpose been to wind Taylor up? If so, she’dsucceeded.
Seeing that Taylor was still waiting for a reply, hesaid mildly, “Why would you? It’s not a big deal.”
“What was her name?”
“Madonna.”
“Madonna? What kind of a name is that?”
“Catholic, I guess. Her family was Catholic. You’reacting kind of weird about this, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Taylor sat back in his seat. He was still eyeingWill narrowly.
“So…you consider yourself bisexual?”
“No, I don’t consider myself bisexual. What are youtalking about? Because I had a girlfriend in high school? A lot ofpeople have girlfriends in high school and college.”
“And college? Were you still seeing her incollege?”
Will could happily have bitten his tongue out. “It’sjust a…an example.”
“Were you still together in college?”
Goddamn that persistent, ruthless investigativestreak of Taylor’s.
“For a little while,” Will admitted.
“Well.” Taylor had that huffy, irritable tone he gotwhen he was edgy or nervous. “This is certainly an interestingdevelopment.”
Will looked away from the road to throw him anexasperated look. “Why would it be? It’s nothing. It was a millionyears ago. A lifetime ago. I can’t figure out why the hell we’reeven still discussing it.”
“So this is why I’ve never met your family?”
The sheer breathtaking illogic of that jump was onlysecondary to the deadly intuitive accuracy of it. Until Taylor hadput it into words, it had never occurred to Will that it was onething to admit to your all-American, red-blooded, manly man familyyou were gay. It was another to bring your male lover home to meetthe folks. And maybe that difference was one reason he’d alwaysmanaged to arrange visits to his family when Taylor couldn’tgo.
“That’s the most fucking ridiculous thing I everheard!”
Taylor said with infuriating calm, “Okay, okay. Justasking.”
From the backseat, Hedwig suddenly sucked in a sharpbreath.
“Now what?” Will growled.
Her wide bespectacled gaze met his in the rearview.She swallowed. “I-I think… I’m not sure… Could you stop thecar?”
“No,” Taylor and Will answered in unison.
“But I think the baby is coming!”
* * * * *
The middle of nowhere. That’s about as close asTaylor’s trusty GPS seemed to be able to narrow their location downto. A small grassy knoll in the middle of nowhere. On either sidethey were surrounded by hills and trees. Behind them, the clearingfell away to a long series of steep slopes covered in more rocksand trees.
Hedwig was walking a big circle around the glade,hand pressed to her bulging belly, taking deep, distressedbreaths.
Standing by the car, watching her, Will said, “Maybeshe’s just carsick. Considering what she put away at lunch…”
Taylor was scowling at his BlackBerry. “Istill can’t get a signal.”
“If she is in labor, we could have hours,right? It can take hours.”
Taylor shook his BlackBerry. In a minute, he’d beknocking it against a boulder.
“Don’t you think?” Will persisted. “It’s not like inthe movies.”
“True. I guess.” Taylor scowled across the clearingat Hedwig, who continued to make her big slow loop. “She’s got tobe faking.”
“I know. But for the sake of argument, let’s sayshe’s not.”
Taylor shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“We’ve had training on this.”
“Good. You can deal with it.”
“I can’t remember anything about it except how totie off the umbilical cord.”
Taylor looked horrified. “Her…uh…water has to break,right? I don’t think it did.”
“How would you know?”
“She’d have said.”
Will nodded, relieved. That made sense. “Should wehead back to Carrizozo or try to make it to Sierra Blanca?”
“I say we try to make it to the airport.”
“The airport?” Will was doubtful about that.
“Maybe not the airport itself, but Ruidoso. She’sgot to be faking.”
“Okay. They’ll have more extensive medicalfacilities, anyway. It’s —” He broke off as a long black sedan withtinted windows pulled off the road, tires shelling rock as it drewinto the turnout.
“I don’t like this,” Taylor remarked, plantinghimself squarely in line with Will. “Is this somebody we know?”
Will cast a quick look back at Hedwig. She hadstopped circling the mini meadow and was standing in a pose thatconveyed a creature at bay. At his quick gesture, she moved towardthe stand of trees. One thing he couldn’t fault was her instinctfor survival.
The passenger door of the sedan opened. A short,slender form emerged. A man with cropped, fair hair. He wore darksunglasses and a black tailored suit.
“Is everything all right? Can we offer assistance?”Not a man. A woman. It wasn’t just the voice. Unless Will was verymuch mistaken, there were small breasts beneath that sexlesssuit.
Will politely waved her off.
“Does she look familiar?” Taylor inquired out of theside of his mouth.
“The car does.”
“It does?”
“Classic movie villain wheels.”
“True. So are the threads. They scream ‘HitPerson.’”
Will grunted a laugh. He sobered as the driver’sdoor of the car swung open. “Here we go.”
A man got out, blond counterpart of the woman.
“They could be feebs.” Taylor looked back at whereHedwig was hiding, then looked at Will.
“I don’t think so. They’d have identified themselvesby now.” Will called to the woman, “Thanks again. It’s undercontrol.” Under his breath, he said to Taylor, “Shit. They’re notgoing to buy it. Move.”
He was aware of the man reaching beneath his blazer.Hip holster, probably. He was aware of Taylor leaping for a cairnof rocks. That was all there was time for; Will himself was alreadymoving. He raced for the edge of the hillside to his right,throwing himself down behind a shoulder of rock and grass, drawinghis weapon. What he wouldn’t give for one of the standard issueColt SMGs or even a Remington 870.
“We just want the girl,” the woman yelled.
“We’re federal agents,” Will shouted back.
“Give us the girl, and no one has to get hurt.”
“You’re not getting the girl.”
A granite splinter just missed the tip of his nose,and he heard the familiar whine of a bullet ricocheting off stone.In reply came the brisk, untroubled bang of Taylor’sSIG.
Will rolled over and risked a quick look. The femaleshooter was situated behind a boulder near the edge of the road.The male shooter was behind
