Snowbound

TWENTY-ONE

Kalyn was at least a hundred yards out from the car before she realized she’d forgotten the flashlight in the glove compartment. She stopped beside an ancient saguaro, gnarled and rotting to death. With no wind, the silence screamed, though after a moment, she began to discern the subtlest inklings of noise—low bass from a radio blaring out of the campground a mile away, the scraping hiss of dry brush set in motion by a wood rat or a wren.

She scrambled down the twenty-foot embankment and stood on the sandy bottom of the arroyo. It was absolutely quiet, the cooler air having settled here.

She stood for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the meager starlight. Shapes appeared—boulders, scrubs, ten feet away, the carcass of a coyote—sharp whiff of decay.

There was movement in the sand behind her—crunch of fast footsteps.

A cottontail bounded past.

“You little shit,” she called after it.

She climbed back out of the arroyo. The moon had edged above the Superstitions. The car was up ahead, a black hulk standing in the desert, the chrome glowing as the moonbeams struck it.

She walked around to the driver’s side. As she touched the door handle, a bush shook behind her and she turned, saw Will.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she said. “I told you to stay put.”

“I was afraid if he killed you, I’d be a sitting duck for him inside the car.”

She lowered the gun. “Well, you don’t have to worry about it now.”

“You got him?”

“No, he’s gone. Come on, we should go.”

“Just let him walk off—”

“What would you suggest, Will? You wanna stay out here all night, walking around in the dark. ‘Javier? Javier? Where are you?’ ”

“You said he’d warn Jonathan off if we let him go.”

“I know.”

“Well?”

“Well, he’s gonna be concerned with finding his family, first and foremost. That’s our only card, but it’s a good one.”

As Kalyn turned out of Lost Dutchman State Park, Will watched her face—pensive and hard in the glow of the dashboard lights.

“You know, you’ve been lying to me since I met you. ‘Come on down to Phoenix, Will. I’m an FBI agent. We just need you to make an ID. We’re just gonna talk to him, Will.’ You had this thing planned all along. Hole already dug.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know if I could trust you.”

“Anything else I don’t know? Wanna drop any other bombs while we’re on the subject?”

She glanced over at him, said nothing.

“From here on out, you start treating me like a partner,” Will said. “I wanna know what you’re thinking, what you’re planning. I don’t wanna be surprised again. One more lie, Kalyn, and I’m done with you. Devlin and I will take our chances on the run.”

They rode on in silence, speeding west toward Phoenix now, a massive, distant glow on the horizon, like a city on fire.