The road was more winding now. Staying on it require all her concentration as she raced through what she knew to be scrub-oak-dotted foothills. Zigging and zagging and bouncing through one wash after another, it was impossible to see any distance ahead. The only consolation was that if she couldn’t see very far ahead or behind her, then neither could Hal Morgan. If the Willcox City Marshal was moving into position at the junction, Hal Morgan wouldn’t have the same kind of long-term warning he’d had of the roadblock at Township Butte. This time, maybe, they’d catch him.
“Sheriff Brady.” The radio squawked again.
“Yes.”
“Tom Givens from the city of Willcox is now in place,” Tica reported.
“He didn’t meet anybody coming northbound?”
“Not so far.”
Joanna breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Then we still have a chance of catching him. Givens knows what we’re up against?”
“He’s been warned.”
So have I, Joanna thought.
The road took a sharp jog to the left and then straightened again. Ahead, Joanna could see the flashing lights of Tom Givens’s patrol car. Between Joanna and the lights, there was nothing-no sign of any other vehicle, not on the road nor on either side of it.
“Damn!” Joanna muttered under her breath. “We’ve lost him again.”
When she reached the junction where Highway 181 heads off up into the monument itself, she found that both lanes of the roadway were blocked by a Ford Taurus bearing a city of Willcox insignia.
Recognizing her, Torn Givens stepped out of the vehicle. “Hey, there, Sheriff Brady. I got here just as fast as I could. Didn’t see anything along the way,” he added. “Not a damned soul. Do you think maybe he might have stopped off at one of the ranches?”
“Douse your lights for a minute,” Joanna said. “Just long enough for me to check something out. You can turn then on again if you see anybody coming.”
Once again she grabbed up the night-vision goggles. This time she trained them on the part of Highway 181 that climbed up the mountainside.
“There he is,” she crowed a minute later when she finally spotted the glow of a single headlight from a moving vehicle. “That’s got to be him.”
“But why the hell is he going up there?” Tom Given; asked. “There’s only one way in and one way out.”
“That’s right,” Joanna said. “We both know that, but maybe this guy doesn’t. Hal Morgan is from out of town. Get on the radio and notify the ranger station to be on the look out. And contact my department, too. My backup’s on the way. They’ll need to know we’ve got him cornered.”
With that, Joanna headed back for the Blazer. Givens followed her. “The biggest danger is going to come when Morgan figures that out for himself. Do you want me to comp along?”
Joanna shook her head. “No. You stay here, just in case he manages to double back and slip by me after all. And get your lights turned back on so somebody doesn’t run into you in the dark.”
Wrenching the Blazer into a quick U-turn, Joanna started off up the mountain. She was surprised to realize that her hands were no longer sweating. Maybe the bracing chill outside while she talked with Tom Givens had cured the sweat problem. True, she was still scared, but she was also amazingly calm. It was as though the interior of the Blazer had become the eye of a storm. In that sudden stillness Joanna Brady did something she had forgotten to do before. She prayed.
Thank you, God, for bringing us this far. Be with Debbie Howell and Ted Long. And be with me, too. Please.
Just as Tom Givens had pointed out, the biggest danger would come when Hal Morgan finally figured out that he had nowhere else to run. Joanna had no doubt that he’d come tearing back down the mountain then, intent on getting away no matter what the cost. And until her backup arrived, Joanna Brady was all that stood between him and possible freedom.
What had set him off? She found herself wondering. He had seemed so reasonable when she talked to him in the hospital. According to Father Michael McCrady, Morgan had followed her advice and had been in touch with Burton Kimball about retaining him as a defense attorney. What, then, would have provoked him into going on a suicidal rampage in which he had attacked two of her deputies?
None of it made sense, but then it didn’t have to. Someone who would take the law into his own hands-someone who would resort to murder in the first place-couldn’t be thought to be long on logic. As Joanna steered her way up that twisting mountainous road, she took some small comfort in the realization that she wasn’t the only one who had been fooled by Hal Morgan’s protestations of innocence. Father Michael McCrady had been, too.
Rounding a particularly sharp curve where one massive five-ton boulder balanced on top of another, she had to jam on the brakes to keep from rear-ending the Buick. Lights out, it was stopped in the middle of the roadway. Too late, she realized this had to be a trap. Hal Morgan was waiting for her, knowing she, too, would have no place to run.
Switching off the engine and dousing the lights, she ducked down on the seat and waited, breathless, for the barrage of gunfire she knew had to come. While Joanna’s heart pounded in her throat, the seconds ticked slowly by. There was no sound, no sign of movement from the other vehicle. By then Joanna had her Colt in her hand, ready to return fire if necessary. But none came. Finally, with agonizing slowness, she raised her head. Expecting a bullet to slice into her at any moment, she nonetheless raised herself far enough to peer out over the dash.
As far as she could see, the darkened vehicle was empty. Still expecting a trap, however, she scrambled around until she could reach the switch on her side-mounted spotlight. Turning it on, she sent a blinding beam of light in the direction of the Buick.
With both the inside and outside of the vehicle brilliantly illuminated, there was still no sign of life anywhere around the Buick. Cautiously, Joanna rolled down the driver’s window on the Blazer. Immediately her nostrils were assailed by the acrid odor of burned oil. It smelled as though the engine had lost oil and eventually seized up. If so, that would account for why the Buick was stopped in the middle of the road. No doubt the driver had simply bailed out and headed off into the wilderness.
“Mr. Morgan,” Joanna called, relieved that there was no audible tremor in her voice. “We know you’re here. Come out with your hands up. That way no one else will get hurt. Mr. Morgan?”
Holding her breath, Joanna listened for an answer. None came. Nothing.
“Mr. Morgan,” she called again. “Where are you?”
This time there was an answer, but not from a voice. Instead of coming from the surrounding woods, there was a muffled thumping noise that seemed to come from the vehicle itself.
Straining her ears, Joanna cautiously opened the door to the Blazer and set one tentative foot on the grainy pavement.
“Mr. Morgan. We’re here to help you. Come out with your hands up.”
Once again, she heard the thumping noise. This time she was sure that the sound was coming from the vehicle, from somewhere inside the Buick. Keeping herself half hidden behind the scanty cover of the car door, Joanna wondered what she should do. Walk forward until she was close enough to look in the window? Even as she framed the question, she knew that doing that without proper backup could be fatal.
“Mr. Morgan,” she called again, pleading this time. “Give yourself up. Come out with your hands up. We don’t want to hurt you.”
Now, though, in addition to the thumping, there were muffled cries as well-the grunting, indecipherable groans made by someone desperately trying to communicate but unable to speak. For the first time Joanna considered the possibility that in the process of bolting from the motel, Morgan might have taken someone else prisoner as well. Father McCrady maybe? Someone from the motel-a maid or, perhaps, a fellow guest?