The Cradle Conspiracy. Robin Perini
weight, no matter how slight. Shards of pain dug through the spots where the plate and screws held his bones together. All he could do was keep walking.
He’d tried dialing 9-1-1 for help, but signals in the middle of nowhere were hard to come by. Once he thought someone answered, but he never could connect. Hell, he couldn’t even reach Information to get the local sheriff’s department number.
Trouble had taken up his customary position out of reach, though instead of ten feet away, the mutt had moved closer. More like six feet, eyeing the woman in Daniel’s arms the whole time.
“If you were a horse this would be a lot easier,” Daniel groused to his traveling companion.
The dog just quirked his ear and kept walking.
With a quick shift of his arms, Daniel adjusted his burden. Raven had scared him when she’d keeled over. She hadn’t responded when he’d attempted to revive her. Head injuries were nothing to mess with, and for a moment, he’d feared the worst.
When her chest had risen and fallen, his heart had restarted. At least she was breathing, even if her face had taken on the color of buttermilk.
He’d debated whether to turn back to Trouble, Texas, or go forward to Nickel Creek, just south of the Texas–New Mexico border. But he knew Trouble had a medical clinic, so for the first time since leaving Langley, Daniel retraced his steps. He still had a good ten miles to go. Even one more seemed impossible right now.
His foot snagged a rock, and he stumbled forward. Daniel’s arms held Raven snug against his body, but a sharp pang pierced his knee. Something had stabbed or bitten him. He hadn’t heard a rattler. He backed up and righted himself, a long, slow breath escaping him at the sight of the devilishly sharp plant at his feet. The lechuguilla resembled the base of a yucca, but its three-inch-long black spikes at the ends of the flat leaves could spear through leather or skin with ease. Thank God, he’d been moving slow. Those suckers could do some real damage.
He was lucky he hadn’t dropped Raven.
The jostling hadn’t caused a gasp or the slightest movement from her, and he didn’t like it. She’d been out too long. He glanced behind him. As dusk approached, the merciless sunlight dimmed somewhat. Even when he’d been in top shape, it would’ve taken him until full dark to reach Trouble. His leg wouldn’t hold out much longer.
A siren sliced the silence. Daniel tamped down the irrational urge to run in the opposite direction. He had to remind himself he wasn’t in a country where the national police could stuff you into a dungeon, and people forgot about you like you were never born.
He waited as the sheriff’s vehicle pulled a few feet from him.
A cop stepped out and rounded the car. Not your average small-town sheriff. This guy walked with precision and a determined quiet. He had the look of some of CTC’s operatives, and his narrowed expression took in the three of them. “You the one who tried calling 9-1-1? We caught the tower location, and this is one of the only paved roads around. You need some help? Your lady’s not looking too good.”
“She needs a hospital,” Daniel said, shifting her in his arms so the sheriff could see her head wound. “And I need to talk to you.”
The man took one look at the blood on her head and ran to his car. He opened the back door and helped Daniel slide inside the idling vehicle with Raven still cradled against him. The dog hesitated by the side door.
“Come on, boy.” Daniel tapped the backseat.
The dog hunkered back, then scampered into the desert.
“Trouble!” Daniel called.
The mutt didn’t stop, just disappeared behind a shrub bush.
Daniel sighed and gazed at Raven. The cop shut the door on them. “You want me to go after him?”
With a pang, Daniel scanned the empty landscape. Yeah, Daniel wanted the sheriff to go after the dog. Trouble had no water, no food, and it would be dark soon, but Raven was still unconscious. “She needs an emergency room. The dog lands on his feet.” At least Daniel prayed Trouble would.
“He yours? Will he go home?”
“I’m not sure either of us currently has a home,” Daniel said. “We met on the road.”
“I see.” The cop pulled onto the road and studied Daniel through the rearview mirror. “You wouldn’t be that drifter Milly mentioned who came through town yesterday?”
Daniel stiffened. He didn’t like the fact that someone had noticed him. He prided himself on being invisible to most, but the waitress had been way too friendly in that small-town-nosy kind of way.
“She didn’t mention you had a traveling companion. You gonna tell me what happened, and why you’re carrying an unconscious woman down a county road? Or did you find her along the way, too?”
At the suspicious tone in the sheriff’s voice, the hairs on the back of Daniel’s neck straightened. He didn’t need any more problems, so he told the man what he knew.
The sheriff cursed. “Those mines have been abandoned for years. I occasionally find some kids out there playing stupid games of truth or dare. One kid died because he couldn’t find his way out. The state should seal them up.”
“You need to get the carpet and the toy box out of there first. Maybe you’ll find some fingerprints.”
The sheriff plucked his radio speaker. “I don’t have a lot of help, but I can call in some assistance from Midland. If it’s not too dangerous to enter the mine, they’ll retrieve the evidence.” He waited a beat. “You say this woman doesn’t know her name? Do you believe her?”
Daniel met the sheriff’s gaze. He understood what the man was asking. “Wrapped in carpet held together with duct tape? She didn’t do that to herself. Yeah, I believe her.”
The sheriff zipped across the desert and soon reached the Trouble, Texas, Medical Clinic. Daniel carried Raven inside.
A grizzled doctor took one look at her wounds, grabbed a gurney, then wheeled her into a closed area. Daniel followed.
“You with her?” the nurse asked, obviously ready to evict him.
Daniel nodded. He wasn’t about to let Raven out of his sight. Not while she was so vulnerable.
The doctor immobilized her neck first, then bent down. “Can you hear me, miss?” he asked loudly.
She didn’t respond at first, until a child in a different examining room cried.
Raven’s eyes blinked open, and she stared up at the doctor in panic.
“Where am I? Where’s my baby?”
* * *
PAMELA WINTER EASED the rocking chair back and forth, back and forth, her aging muscles aching as she held the child closer.
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. “Mommy’s going to take care of you.”
The baby cooed in her sleep, pursing those sweet little lips as if she were nursing. Pamela wished she could do it, but it was impossible at her age.
“You’ll be fine, my precious girl.”
Pamela let her wrinkled hand stroke down the soft cheeks of the healthy eighteen-month-old baby. So healthy when...
No. Pamela wouldn’t think that way. Everything would be fine. She’d done what she had to do.
The television filtered through the room. Another game show, one she’d watched nightly for twenty-five years. The recliner near the fireplace mocked her with its emptiness.
This wasn’t the home it was supposed to be. She wasn’t supposed to be alone. She was supposed to be here with her husband, with their new daughter. A perfect, happy family. A second chance. A do-over after the horrific way their first attempt at parenthood had turned out. She’d believed her