Addis didn’t have a response anyway, but that ceased to matter when the rumble of an engine broke through the sounds of nature. Friend or foe? There was only one way to find out, but could she do it? Was she brave enough?

Guessing Addis’s intention, Emerson’s fingernails sliced into her arm, dragging her back when she moved to poke her head through the gap. ‘Wait until it passes. Please. It might be them.’

Or it might not be. Even so, Addis hunkered back down with her friend a breath before a truck thundered over them, knocking debris and mud onto their heads, forcing them to release each other in an effort to shield their eyes.

Only when the truck passed, and Addis had counted to ten did she risk sitting up again, the top of her head grazing the bars. Then slowly, she crawled back to the gap and rose until she could peer out. It was like a hundred hammers slamming against her ribcage when she realized the vehicle was backing up, the driver’s eyes staring right at her through the rearview mirror.

Muffling a scream, she dropped back down, ignoring the scorching pain brought about by a piece of metal gouging across her cheekbone and scuttling back with hands and feet as she subconsciously sheltered Emerson’s body with her own.

‘What is it? What did you see? Is it them?’

Addis couldn’t speak because her vocal cords were frozen upon hearing the echoes of a car door opening followed by crackling sticks and leaves as the person in the truck approached the refuge that had inadvertently become their new prison.

The crunching sounds of booted footsteps stopped, casting a shadow into the hole, and Addis screamed at the pasty face looming from above and peering down.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Tuesday, October 8

It was close to three o’clock when Joe called. They’d just passed into Albuquerque’s city limits, and Alyssa was just realizing how famished she was since neither she nor Cord had wanted to stop for more than a small bag of chips and a soda when they stopped to fill up for gas.

‘Hey, Joe. What’s up?’

Anger sizzled over the line. ‘Where are you?’

A thick layer of apprehension coated the oxygen in the air. ‘Just drove back into town. We should be at the precinct in thirty minutes or so. What’s going on?’

‘Apparently, Elizabeth Monroe went into cardiac arrest today.’

Alyssa recognized the tight control of Joe’s voice; it was the tone he used when he’d neared the edges of restraint. What she didn’t understand was why. This might be bad news, but it wasn’t the kind that warranted this type of reaction. ‘What aren’t you telling us, Joe?’