Estelle didn’t move. “You’re going to leave Hector to face authorities all by himself?” The question jolted Tapia, and the wink of uncertainty in his expression told Estelle that for all his self-assurance, Manolo Tapia had no idea what events had transpired in the past twenty-four hours. “You think you’re just going to take the airplane again and fly home? That’s not possible.”
So you know, his expression said. “There is no purpose in discussing this with you. Now go.”
“I’m not ‘discussing’ it, señor. The boy is in jail, and that’s where he’s going to stay. He may have flown you in to Posadas County, but he’s not going to fly you out.”
Tapia frowned and for a moment he was silent. “We will see,” he said. He twisted in the seat, watching Leona’s retreating figure.
“She will do you no good,” Estelle said. “You can take all the hostages you like. The simple fact remains that your nephew will remain in jail, and will face charges as an accessory to multiple counts of murder. The only way you can help him now is to testify that you forced him to accompany you-if that’s true.”
Tapia laughed with genuine amusement. “Really now,” he said, and then his face twitched as he tried to shift his leg, lifting it clear of the floor and then finding no place to rest it that was comfortable. Estelle saw the swelling above his expensive tan trainer. He pointed with the gun. “Go. I am growing weary of arguing with you.”
Estelle leaned as far from the steering wheel as she could, left side against the door. “And if I don’t?”
He heaved a heavy sigh. “You have forgotten the two men in the arroyo?” He thumbed the hammer back on the Beretta, and having carried exactly that model handgun for a decade before switching to the heavier.45, Estelle knew how little force was required to drop the sear. Her bulletproof vest suddenly felt five sizes too small.
Tapia cocked his head and reached across carefully with his left hand. He drew the corner of her light jacket to one side, exposing the county shield on her belt. “Undersheriff,” he read. “Most impressive. I’m sure you are popular with the troops, no? I’m sure they would not wish for anything to happen to you. But if you do not cooperate with me, well then.” He shrugged expressively. “A bullet for you is simple enough. And I take the truck and go on my way, uncomfortable as that would be considering my condition. So you see? I have been most generous up to this point. I have not harmed your large friend. I really do not wish to harm you. But it is your choice. And it is one you must make quickly.”
He lifted the muzzle of the Beretta and squeezed the trigger. Despite the suppressor, the gun was surprisingly loud, a vicious sharp sneeze coupled with the clatter of the slide slamming back and then forward. The hot gases scorched Estelle’s forearm, and a chip of something stung her left cheek as the bullet slammed into the door panel just below the windowsill. The empty shell casing cracked against the windshield, bounced off the dash, and disappeared down one of the defroster vents.
Estelle realized she was holding her breath, and she tried to force herself to relax. Somewhere deep inside the door mechanism, something tinkled and then clattered to the bottom of the door frame.
“Go,” Tapia repeated. “No more discussions.”
By sliding the cuffs down to the crossbar of the steering wheel, Estelle could reach the ignition key, and she started the Expedition.
“Up that way,” Tapia said, pointing with the gun. She touched the gas and the truck jarred forward. He gasped and she glanced across at him. It was clear now why he had taken such a risk in abandoning the motorcycle rather than pressing on. Perhaps at first, he had intended only to rest for a few minutes. But riding the bike must have been agony, with no way to support the injured ankle. He had seen the white Expedition blundering along on his path, and he had made his decision.
They cleared the hill, and Estelle scanned the prairie before them. Four miles ahead as the crow flew lay the state highway that passed by Posadas Municipal Airport. Their route, winding across the rumpled terrain, would eat up the better part of twice that. It would be impossible on foot with a shattered ankle, and sheer torture idling a motorcycle along.
As if reading her mind, Tapia reached out once more with the Beretta, tapping her arm. “Think self-preservation now, as I do,” he said. “Without this fine truck, I would be nearly helpless in this country-easy hunting, perhaps. But you would have a hole in you, no matter how very brave you might be.” He paused, then pointed where the rough two-track teed into a wide swath cut years before by the developer’s bulldozers now nearly overgrown by desert brush. “Go left,” he instructed.
“You’ve practiced,” Estelle said, and Tapia shrugged. The truck hit a hummock and lurched hard enough that Tapia put his hand up on the roof, bracing himself.
“Why Hansen?” she asked, and Tapia waved the gun again.
“Slow down here,” he said. A shallow arroyo had channeled across what the developer had envisioned as a street, a rough and gravelly channel. Estelle could see a set of single tracks. Tapia had made good use of his time planning the attack on Chester Hansen, right down to scouting the best getaway route.
He reached across and touched the four-wheel-drive button on the dash. “Like so,” he said, nodding in satisfaction as the little icon on the dash illuminated. The truck waddled across the cut, dropping first one tire and then another, like an old, overweight horse picking its way. The front bumper pushed gravel as they surged up and out, back onto the flat prairie.
When it became obvious that he had either not heard, or chose to ignore, her question, she repeated it. This time, he looked balefully at her. “My business is just that, señora. It is my business. There is nothing you need to know.”
“You’ve left four dead bodies for us to clean up,” Estelle said. “And you shot one of my deputies. And rest assured that it’s not over yet. It most certainly is my business.”
Tapia shrugged expressively, and his grin was genuine and warm-it would have been appealing under other circumstances. “Then we must agree to disagree, my dear señora,” he said. “What this man is to me is of no consequence.”
“And an entire family dead in the desert-they’re of no consequence either?”
“None. None whatsoever. What happened was of their own choosing, not mine.”
“You’re only the instrument, is that it?”
“Just so. That is a good way to put it. Only the instrument.” He whispered something in Spanish that she didn’t catch.
“For whom?”
He laughed gently and stretched out a hand to the dashboard as the truck surged over another hummock.
“Captain Tomás Naranjo of the Judiciales tells me that you work for corporate interests in Mexico and El Salvador. Do you think we won’t discover who sent you?”
“Please, señora. At this point, I do not really care what you are able to discover about me, or anyone else. You are in no position. In a few moments, I will be nothing but a memory for you. Your jurisdiction-your importancia-ends at the borders of your little county. It would be best that you remember that.”
“How poetic. You are a confident man. Almost as if the modern radio and telephone don’t exist.”
“It must be so. Without confidence, we simply become motionless, no?”
“PCS, three-ten.” The radio was jarringly loud, and when Estelle made no move toward the mike, Tapia pulled it off the radio clip and extended it toward her. Leona Spears had been left to find her way out on foot a mile and a half from County Road 14. She would have strode along at a good clip after the initial burst of speed, perhaps even breaking back into a jog when she could. Had it taken her ten minutes? Fifteen?