Chapters (110)
- Cover
- ALSO BY J. TODD SCOTT
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- PROLOGUE
- I
- II
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- PART FOUR
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
- SEVENTY-FIVE
- SEVENTY-SIX
- SEVENTY-SEVEN
- SEVENTY-EIGHT
- SEVENTY-NINE
- EIGHTY
- EIGHTY-ONE
- EIGHTY-TWO
- EIGHTY-THREE
- EIGHTY-FOUR
- EPILOGUE
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Excerpt from LOST RIVER
- LITTLE PARIS
- DILLON
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
She’d also been thinking about the voicemail she got yesterday from Ron Delaney, the DPS evidence tech. He’d wanted her to know that although they still didn’t have any IDs on the bodies they’d recovered from Delcia Canyon, they did have some approximate ages.
The youngest, the boy, had been no more than thirteen years old.
—
SHE LET THE PHONE RING ON AND ON for several seconds, staring at it in her hand. None of them had expected to hear from Gualterio or his people so soon.
Danny wasn’t back yet, and despite what she’d said to the sheriff, she had no idea where he was or what he was really doing.
She’d imagined they’d have more time . . . that she would have more time.
Before she could answer it, though, the phone went silent.
She turned it over and over in her hand, then checked the other phone, but there were no calls or messages on that one.
Thirty seconds later, the Telcel started ringing again. She knew it wasn’t going to stop. It would never stop now.
America holstered the gun she’d been cradling in her lap, and then slowly got up off the floor of Jack’s nursery, where she’d been sitting for most of the night.
She let the phone ring, as she went to find Fox Uno and the sheriff.
FIFTY-THREE
Javy’s place was rough, but nice.
The main house was old and rambling—some siding, some wood—within sight of the Christmas Mountains. A good part of his acreage used to be part of the G4 Ranch from way back in the 1880s, before being bought up in 1942 by the State of Texas to create the Big Bend National Park.
Somehow, the Cruz family had come into control of several hundred acres of their own, and they’d been able to hold on to it as the park expanded around them, an oasis in the middle of the desert. It was all oak, mesquite, and chaparral; loose scree on low hills; and plenty of cactus. Javy had long ago abandoned running cattle on the land, instead guiding hunting trips: mule deer, elk, aoudad sheep, javelina, and even mountain lion. Scattered across his land were a couple of bunkhouses without electricity or running water for all the hunters from Dallas, Austin, and Houston looking for an authentic rustic experience.
Javy was a walking encyclopedia of the region. He knew about the Indians who’d settled in the Trans-Pecos more than ten thousand years ago and could point out their middens and their hieroglyphs at the river and creek sites they’d still occupied into the nineteenth century.
He knew the routes the old missionaries and traders had cut along Alamito Creek, places where a dozen ranches and mines had briefly flourished and then failed, most of their names long forgotten or no more than faded ink on old maps.