He started forward again and turned into the parking lot of the Border Patrol station, small compared to the one in San Diego, but Paradiso saw lots of action.
He nabbed a parking spot near the front door, as a skeletal crew was on Sunday duty, and half of them had been at the casino shindig. He ducked into the building and hung the keys to the duty truck on the appropriate peg.
One of the new agents popped his head up from behind his computer monitor, his eyes wide. “Can you believe this storm?”
“It’s monsoon season. Get used to it and enjoy the rain while it lasts.”
Sam pulled up to his desk and brought up a map of the Yaqui land earmarked for the casino. He couldn’t find anything online about the casino plans—at least nothing detailed. What could’ve been on that map that someone hadn’t wanted Jolene to see?
He dug into his missing persons again, looking for any new links, but he just kept coming back to their involvement in the drug trade. They had to be dead, and their bodies had to be somewhere in the desert.
The phone jangled Sam’s nerves even more, and Agent Herrera picked up. The agent’s excited voice carried across the room.
When he hung up the phone, he scurried to Sam’s desk. “Big accident on the highway. Car skidded off the road and went into the wash, which happens to be swollen right now.”
Sam whipped his head around. “Did this just happen? I saw emergency vehicles on my way in.”
“That was something else. This is a car in the wash.”
A muscle ticked at the corner of Sam’s mouth. “The highway north? Because I came from the rez, and I didn’t see anything out that way.”
“Yeah, north and this happened after you arrived.”
“Do you know the make and model of the car?”
“Heard it on the radio—black truck.”
Sam’s heart thundered in his chest. “License plate?”
Herrera strode back to his desk and tapped his keyboard, a crease between his eyebrows. “No plates. The truck’s partially submerged in water.”
“Jolene Nighthawk drives a black truck, and when I left her, she was planning to head north on the highway.” Sam snatched the keys from the peg where he’d left them just about an hour ago. “I’m taking the truck out to the accident. Let me know if you hear anything else.”
“Will do.”
Sam flew out of the station and got back in the truck. It took all his self-control not to speed off in the rain. He didn’t need to get into an accident on the way to the site of one.
He swatted at a bead of sweat rolling down his face. Just because it was monsoon season in the desert didn’t mean the temperatures dropped. The temps hovered in the high eighties despite the skies breaking open.
And he was feeling the heat.
As the storm moved through, the rain slacked off but his wipers were still working furiously to keep up with the water coursing across his windshield. He spotted the lights of the emergency vehicles before he could actually make out any shapes.
He eased off the accelerator and rolled to a stop behind a highway patrol car. Scrambling from his truck, he yanked out his ID and badge. As he passed the orange cones, an officer approached him and Sam flashed his badge.
“Any fatalities?”
The officer shook his head. “The woman escaped from her vehicle before it filled with water. It could’ve been a lot worse, but the wash isn’t deep enough yet for a car to be completely submerged.”
“Woman?” Sam got an adrenaline spike that made him dizzy. “She’s okay?”
“She’s a bit banged up, but she’s fine.” The officer pointed to two EMTs hovering at the back of their ambulance. “Over there.”
Sam strode to the ambulance, glancing to his right at Jolene’s black truck sitting upright in the water. As he approached, one of the EMTs stepped away to reveal Jolene sitting in the back of the ambulance, her feet dangling over the side.
Her eyes widened when she saw him. “Sam! What are you doing here?”
Warm relief washed through his body and he ate up the space between them in two long strides. He took her hands in his and brought them to his lips. “Are you all right? I heard about the accident involving a truck north of town and immediately thought of you. What happened?”
Her gaze darted toward the EMT unwrapping the blood pressure cuff from her arm. “I skidded off the road. I think my brakes locked up.”
“Didn’t I tell you to get a new car the last time I was here?” His nerves caused his voice to come out louder than he’d intended and with a sharp edge.
Jolene disentangled her hands from his. “You told me a lot of things the last time you were in Paradiso.”
The EMT threw a sideways glance at Sam and said, “Ma’am, are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”
“I’m sure. The car slid off the road into the water, my airbag deployed and I was able to crawl out the passenger window. Just a few bumps with some bruises to follow, I’m sure.” She held up her arms, displaying a red rash from the airbag. “You checked my vitals and I’m fine, right? I didn’t hit my head, so no worries about a concussion.”
A crane lifted her car from the wash and water poured out the windows and cascaded from the chassis.
The EMT pointed to the mess. “You’re not driving off in that.”
“I’ve got a Border Patrol agent right here with his official truck to take me home.” She patted his arm. “Right, Sam?”
“Absolutely, as long as she doesn’t have any injuries and you don’t think she’s going to suffer any ill effects from the accident.”
The EMT shrugged. “Just bruising, like she said. She has a few scrapes from squeezing through the window and clambering up the cement walls of the wash, but she acted fast—buzzed down that
