The Cessna lay belly-down in the long, shallow trench it had dug on landing. The front wheel had snapped off like a matchstick. The two taller wheels behind it had crumpled and bent under the fuselage. Aside from some scratches and dents, the rest of the plane was intact. But whether from the shock of impact or the lack of fuel to run the engine, nothing else on the craft worked.
The midday sun blazed overhead. Without air conditioning, the inside of the plane had become an oven. Brock had brought the emergency bag outside, passed Tess one of the water bottles, and laid the space blanket on the ground below the wing, which was tilted high enough on one side to provide a meager spot of shade.
The desert around them was adobe-colored sand, interspersed with clumps of sharp-edged brown rock. Teddy bear cholla, with barbed needles that could pierce flesh at the lightest touch, grew in abundance, along with prickly pear and a few lanky saguaros crowned with knobs of budding flowers. There was no sign of water, no shelter, and no shade closer than the distant hills. At least, in this open country, the plane wouldn’t be hard to spot. But it would take a helicopter to land in this rough country and rescue them.
Tess, wearing sunglasses, sat on the silvery blanket sipping water, her back against the side of the plane. Damp tendrils of hair clung to her face. Her denim shirt was dark with splotches of perspiration. She knew this country. She knew what to expect and how to survive. Brock could only hope they wouldn’t be stranded out here for long.
As he came around the plane, she shifted to make a place in the shade beside her. Brock ducked under the low wing and sat down. “Did you discover anything new?” she asked.
“I’d have to open up the wing and expose the fuel system to see the leak. That would do more harm than good. But one thing’s for sure. This was no accident. Somebody’s out to get me. I’m just sorry you were involved.”
She shrugged. “How would they create the leak? Puncture the fuel line, maybe?”
“Most likely. Not everyone would know how, especially on a plane like this one. For that matter not everyone would know how to euthanize a bull or make a bomb. I don’t know of a single person who has all of those skills.”
“Maybe you don’t know them. Maybe they’re like some kind of hit man, being paid by somebody else—somebody who hates you and wants to scare you before they kill you. So the next logical question is, who could that be?”
Brock sipped from his water bottle and gazed out across the desert, where the sunlight cast mirages that looked like shimmering pools of water. Tess was making sense. Maybe too much sense. He didn’t know who was after him. But he knew—or at least suspected—why.
“Come on, Brock, work with me,” she said. “I know you’ve done some ruthless business in your time. You did it to my family when you outbid my father for that land.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I have made some ruthless deals. It’s called outsmarting the competition. But this isn’t about business. This is personal.”
Tess took off her glasses, wiped them on the hem of her shirt, and tucked them into her shirt pocket. Her serious gray eyes seemed to penetrate the depths of his black soul. “You promised me a story,” she said. “I can’t think of a better time or place than now.”
Brock nodded, still hesitant. If he told her everything, he would be at her mercy.
“If you’re worried about my sharing your secrets, don’t,” she said. “You have my word—I won’t tell a soul.”
“All right then.” After a long, painful exhalation, he began.
“My name was Ben Talbot. My parents died when I was so young that I can barely remember them now. I grew up in the foster system. At eighteen, I was kicked out to survive on my own.
“I didn’t have much going for me, but I was ambitious and wanted to make something of myself. I found a job as a lot boy at a car dealership—slept over the garage to keep an eye on the place.
“The owner, Chase Carpenter, was the richest man in town. He had two children. Jeff was a little younger than I was. Mia was about fifteen. His wife, Johanna, was a pretty woman, and nice enough, but I only met her a few times.”
Telling the story now was like awakening ghosts. Brock could see the sympathy in Tess’s eyes. But that would be gone by the time he finished.
“I worked hard, and my boss seemed to like me. Over time I became close friends with his son, Jeff. You might say we were both a little wild, but the fun we had was mostly harmless. Jeff had this beautiful car—a black ’95 Porsche 928. His father had gotten it on repo and gave it to Jeff on condition that nobody else was to drive it. Jeff promised, and he kept his word. I know because I begged him to let me drive that car, and he always said no.”
Brock closed his eyes as the memories came rushing back—memories he’d almost managed to bury—until that clipping had arrived in the mail and turned his days and nights into a living purgatory.
“The night that changed everything was a Saturday,” he said. “Chase and his wife had gone to the theater in another town. Mia was sleeping over at a friend’s house. Jeff and I were out on the town. We ended up drinking at our favorite bar.
“We’d been there a while when the bartender told Jeff he had a phone call from his sister. Mia was in tears. Some boys had shown up at her friend’s house with beer, and things were getting out of hand. There were only a couple of bars in town, so she’d tracked down her brother and begged him to pick her up and take her home.
“I left the bar with Jeff. We were both pretty drunk. Jeff had had even more to drink than I had, so I offered to drive. But there was no way he would let me, so I got into the passenger seat.
“Mia’s friend lived on the far side of town, on a country road with a dry canal running along one side. We made it to the house. Mia was waiting on the porch. She got into the back seat and we started home.”
Brock glanced down at Tess, who was sitting close to him to share their narrow strip of shade. He already felt drained, but the story had a long way to go. “It gets worse from here,” he said. “I can stop now if you want.”
She shook her head, the breeze fluttering a tendril of her hair against his cheek. “I need to hear this,” she said. “Please go on.”
Brock cleared the tightness from his throat. “Jeff was weaving all over the road. I heard Mia scream as a wheel caught the edge and we rolled off the bank into the canal bed. My head hit something. Then everything went black. I woke up a few hours later in the hospital. That was when I learned that Mia had been killed.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Brock. That must’ve been awful.” Tess laid a hand on his arm. Her fingers were warm and lightly calloused.