Targeted in the Desert, page 1
As the car flew toward them, Jude grabbed Felicia’s arm...
They leaped out of the impact zone, falling onto the rough stone steps. Rocks bit into Felicia’s elbows, and she banged her knee as they rolled aside. Jude encouraged their momentum, tumbling her farther away, putting his body on the impact side.
Were they clear? Would they be crushed any second by the out of control machine? Felicia closed her eyes, breath held. Braced for collision, her forehead pressed against Jude’s shoulder with his arm held up to somehow shield her, she knew it would not be enough to save them.
Every muscle in her body tensed. A shower of grit peppered her cheek. Felicia squeezed Jude’s bicep, the only gesture of thanks she could manage. He had done his job, put himself on the line for her, a professional sacrifice. Ironic that they’d be together in death, though they hadn’t managed it in life...
Dana Mentink is a nationally bestselling author. She has been honored to win two Carol Awards, a HOLT Medallion and an RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award. She’s authored more than thirty novels to date for Love Inspired Suspense and Harlequin Heartwarming. Dana loves feedback from her readers. Contact her at danamentink.com.
Books by Dana Mentink
Love Inspired Suspense
Desert Justice
Framed in Death Valley
Missing in the Desert
Death Valley Double Cross
Death Valley Hideout
Christmas Crime Cover-Up
Targeted in the Desert
Rocky Mountain K-9 Unit
Undercover Assignment
Alaska K-9 Unit
Yukon Justice
True Blue K-9 Unit: Brooklyn
Cold Case Pursuit
Visit the Author Profile page at LoveInspired.com for more titles.
Targeted in the Desert
Dana Mentink
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
—John 15:12
To those who step in to be the hands and feet of Jesus for the children of this world.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Dear Reader
Excerpt from Yosemite Firestorm by Tanya Stowe
ONE
Felicia Tennison’s hands shook as she idled the car on the side of the road. What was she doing? Everyone from her best friend, Nora, to her very-ex-boyfriend Sheriff Jude Duke would say she was making a dangerous choice. It wasn’t too late. She could avoid the coffee shop and sit, calm her breathing, think the situation over, maybe call up Nora and talk about it. Ten months ago she might have done that, but the need to go it alone seared along her nerves like an exposed wire. Before the January car bombing that almost killed her, she’d been an extrovert, always in search of people and conversation. After her extended hospital stay, with nurses, doctors and therapists coming and going in a steady stream, she was a different person. Jude’s abandonment hadn’t helped, either.
A scattershot of questions unleashed in her mind as she opened the envelope again and slid out the small photo. It was a school picture perhaps, showing a child maybe five years old. She had brown hair, captured in two ponytails, and a tentative smile. It could have been anyone’s child, no connection to Felicia whatsoever, except for two things. The tiny photo showed a dimple in the girl’s cheek, low down, just one, left side. Felicia fingered the place where her own dimple surfaced when she smiled. Silly. A dimple didn’t prove anything. Countless people had them.
The kicker was the message written on the back of the photo in spotty blue ink above an address.
Meet me at the coffee shop near Mule Creek
tomorrow at two. You’ve got to save your sister. Please.
Her sister? What sister?
Then a scrawled signature.
Keira Silvio Mattingly, a name she’d never heard before.
Her fingers again found her cell and she was ready to dial her mother, Olivia, but her mom was helping a family member through an illness in Athens. She was not sure of the current time in Greece, so she decided to call the other person who had raised her.
“Uncle Abe,” she said, just as it went to voice mail. Not surprising. Her uncle was the resident doctor at the campground he’d started years ago in Death Valley for medically fragile children. Early fall and winter was the time when the campground was hopping and so was her uncle. And anyway, she knew what he’d say—the same thing he always told her about her origins.
“You were abandoned in the outer lobby of a fire station. Your mother and dad were asked to foster you because of your heart condition. That turned into adoption because your parents lost their own hearts to a little freckled beauty. I got to go along for the ride when your dad died. Uncle Abe got promoted, so to speak.”
The “freckled beauty” part always made her smile, since she knew she was not textbook beautiful. Thin and with buck teeth that had required braces, but her uncle had always made her feel lovely nonetheless. Though her adopted mother was gruff, Felicia was loved to the point where she’d never really considered trying to find her biological parents. Even during her rebellious teen phase, when she’d run away, she’d felt no desire to find her birth mom. Sure, she’d been curious, but there had been no hole that ached to be filled, no uncertainty about her own identity.
Until she’d returned home from a late kitchen shift at the Hotsprings Hotel the night before and found the envelope with the photo on her doorstep.
Left by whom? This Keira woman? Why? What did it all mean? She left a quick message on her uncle’s voice mail. “I need to talk to you, Uncle Abe. I’ll call you soon, okay?”
When she disconnected, indecision swept over her like a heat wave. Continue on to the coffee shop for the mysterious meeting? Go back home, research Keira Mattingly and wait to hear from her uncle? Drive to the address where the child might be living and try to find answers? Too many choices. Then there was the one that involved swallowing her mountain of hurt feelings and asking Jude for advice.
Having a sheriff at her side would undoubtedly help, but thinking about him knotted her up inside. Being unceremoniously dumped by a man who’d filled her mind with thoughts of love was more than mortifying. It hurt. Lesson learned and not to be repeated where Jude was concerned.
Instead she prayed, but still no answer presented itself. The October temperatures were on their way to the low nineties, and she wasn’t sure if her recently purchased used Ford was up to the task of running the air conditioner, so she opened the window. A light-colored SUV drove by, and she got a glimpse of a man with work gloves and sunglasses behind the wheel. He hurried on.
She tried to simplify her stampeding thoughts.
Choice A or B. Turn around, or drive the remaining mile to the coffee shop? One minute ticked into five and the time slid to 1:40.
Go, her gut told her. At least she could drive there and sit, listen to Keira if she did show up. There was no obligation to become any further involved than that. But what if she heard something that would change her life again? Anxiety infiltrated her mind, but she’d resolved, while lying in a hospital bed all those months with tubes connected everywhere, that if she was released, she wouldn’t let fear slow her down for one hot minute. “Coffee shop or bust,” she muttered. Resolutely, she guided the Ford back onto the road and let the warm air dance across her face. The decision eased her rattled nerves, and she relaxed against the seat as she drove.
Turning on the radio, she fired up a Broadway show-tunes station and let the cheerful music wash over her. Ahead was an old cement overpass, glowing golden in the light. As she drove toward it, humming along, a flicker of movement from above tweaked her senses. Someone up on top of the structure? No, surely not. A bird or rodent seeking a vantage point or hiding place.
The shadow of the overpass blotted out the sun as she tried again to join in the song. The scrape of rock from above topped the radio music as she passed underneath. There weren’t any loose rocks that might fall. Should she turn around and check? A dark shadow cut the sunshine. There was only a split second for her to yank the wheel sideways as something exploded through her windshield.
* * *
Jude Duke figured he was entitled to another cup of coffee since he’d already put in a full day’s work as acting chief of police for the tiny town of Furnace Falls in Death Valley, and it was barely two o’clock. What would it hurt to swing over to the coffee shop to tide him over for the last hour of the shift?
Maybe it would be a quiet end to his workday, as it sometimes was in the small Death Valley town. He’d just decided to allow himself the caffeine bomb when a small boom from up ahead caught his attention. So much for quiet.
Adrenaline surging, he hit the gas. The overpass loomed into view, dust writhing along th
The tire tracks marked where a vehicle had skidded between the cement walls and plunged out of sight. He slammed to a halt and leaped from the driver’s seat, pulse thundering as he ran until he saw a vehicle tipped into the drainage ditch that led the periodic flash floods away from the structure.
He sprinted to the front of the crumpled vehicle, boots skidding on the debris-strewn earth. The rear left wheel was off the ground, spinning, and trails of broken glass sparkled in the desert sun. A woman was sitting in the driver’s seat with head bowed, arms hugging herself. “Inyo County sheriff,” he called out. “Are you okay, ma’am?”
He shouted again and got no response. The car was lopsided, leaving the driver’s door angled into the ground. He reached for the handle and yanked hard on it, forcing it open. She was still unmoving, chin on her chest.
“Ma’am, I’m...”
And then she looked up and his world tilted. Felicia Tennison. Was he hallucinating? No, it really was her—delicate profile, the sliver of a scar on her neck below the hairline, the lush fringe of eyelashes deepening her confused expression. It took a few seconds for his brain to resume control of his mouth.
“Felicia,” he said urgently. “It’s Jude. I’m going to help you.”
His senses made notes—the gaping hole in the windshield from the hunk of rock that had been tossed from the overpass and had now slid into the corner under the dash. Most definitely not an accident. No sign of anyone lurking around. “Can you hear me?”
“Jude?” she whispered. “What...? Why are you here?”
The very same question he had for her. He was so relieved she was able to reply, he had to force his heart to simmer down. “I was on my way to get coffee. Were you hurt in the crash?”
She shook her head, but she might not be aware of her level of injury. He wrenched open the door the rest of the way.
“It’s okay. You had an accident. We’ll get you to a hospital.” He radioed while she struggled to catch her breath.
“Something fell through my windshield.” She looked helplessly around at her glass-strewn lap.
Not fell, he wanted to say. It was dropped. Instead he tried for sensitivity, asking a series of calm questions to assess her condition.
“I’m okay, lost my breath for a minute.” She nodded, as if to convince herself. “But if I hadn’t yanked the wheel...”
They both knew if the rock had landed a few inches closer, she might be dead. He still couldn’t see anyone hiding or parked vehicles nearby, but he didn’t dare leave her to find out. The arriving officers would have to be his eyes and ears.
She picked the envelope out of a pile of glass chips and unbuckled.
“Stay still until we get you some help.”
Ignoring him, she got out.
He tried to hold her in place. “Felicia, you need to go to the hospital. After what you’ve been through...” His words seemed to light a fuse.
She turned blazing eyes on him. “After what I’ve been through, I’m not going to the hospital unless I jolly well decide I need to.”
He was glad to see her fire, glad and relieved, but still... “You could have internal injuries, a concussion.”
Without acknowledgment, she shook glass chips from her clothing.
He bit back his irritation. His only choice was to ease off, hands ready in case she collapsed, guiding her to his vehicle against her protests. “Get in my car.”
“No, thank you.” Polite and infuriating at the same time.
“Felicia, someone dropped a rock on you. Let’s not give them another crack at it, okay?” he said in exasperation.
Her eyes widened a fraction, but she complied this time. He stayed by her side, watching until another squad car arrived. His commanding officer, Head Sheriff Gwen Detweiler, got out. She quirked a brow at him when he introduced Felicia. He hoped his expression was impassive, professional. After a quick briefing, Detweiler handled the investigation herself, scoping out the area while he stayed with Felicia. The medics arrived, and maddeningly, they accepted Felicia’s refusal to go to the hospital after only a few moments of trying to persuade her.
Her car was photographed and a truck arranged to tow it to the evidence yard.
Detweiler returned, a muscle twitching in her jaw. “I got nothing. Whoever it was knew how to get away fast. Why are you on scene, Jude?”
“On my way to get coffee.” He turned to Felicia. “Did you notice anyone on the road before this happened?”
Felicia twisted the silver ring on her finger. He knew it was the first thing she’d bought herself after her hospital discharge. “To remind me about what I’ve survived.”
Tough, but in the sweetest way he’d ever seen in a woman. He blinked his inappropriate musings away. She told them about a guy in an SUV wearing work gloves who’d passed her before the incident.
Detweiler pinned her with a look. “Where were you headed?”
Felicia explained with incredible calm about a photo she’d received, with a mysterious meeting to be held at the coffee shop. The revelation set Jude back on his heels. Felicia showed them the photo, which only increased his astonishment. Why in the world hadn’t she called him?
You know the answer to that. He was about as welcome in her life as a bad case of poison ivy.
“May I have the envelope?” Detweiler asked. “There’s no proof that this accident and the message you got are connected, but it’s too strange to be a coincidence.”
Felicia pocketed the photo and dropped the empty envelope in an evidence bag that Detweiler held open. Then she stood waiting.
The head sheriff cocked her chin. “The photo, too?”
Felicia shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I’m keeping that one.”
“Fingerprints...” Jude started.
“Will be on the envelope if there are any,” Felicia said. “But you can take a picture of the photo with your phone. Like you said, there’s no proof this rock-dropping incident has anything to do with the photo, right?”
A tight-lipped Detweiler took the picture with her cell phone. “Not a good idea to press any further into this until the police investigate. I’ll send an officer to the address on the photo and sort things out right now. You should go home.”
Felicia shook her head. “Funny how everyone keeps advising me how to handle my life just now.” She avoided looking at Jude, staring instead at Detweiler. “I’m going to the coffee shop to see if Keira might by chance be waiting for me still.” She got out of the car, stepped away from them and poked at her phone.
Detweiler moved close to Jude. “Your former girlfriend, right?”
Embarrassingly, his cheeks heated up. Was there anyone in the department unaware of his failed love life? “That’s all over now.”
“Not far enough in the past for you to be assigned this case. I’ll put Fox on it.”
Fox, the last cop Jude wanted to think about. “I can be professional.”
Detweiler quirked a lip. “No doubt, but Fox will handle it.”
“He’s in court today. I’ll take her to the coffee shop and fill him in later.”
Detweiler cocked a brow. “Something’s going on here. Don’t get involved,” she answered after a beat. “A ride only and an escort home. Do you understand?”
Still feeling a flush of discomfort, he nodded and walked to Felicia, who was tapping out another message on her phone.
She didn’t look at him. “I know you’ll say I shouldn’t go, but I’m going to call in a favor and ask someone to come with me. Beckett has been great to me, but he’s so busy. Maybe Levi or Austin. I just hope Keira doesn’t leave before I get there.”
His cousins Levi or Austin? Why did he feel offended that she would recruit them to help? “I’ll drive you.”
“No, thanks.”
“Someone tried to kill you.”
She blinked. “Maybe. Or it could have been a kid looking for some excitement.”
“My gut says no.”
“Maybe your gut’s wrong.”
“That doesn’t happen often.” Cocky, Duke. His default mode.
