“They want to know what the ambulance is for,” Gayle asked. “They can see it from their position now.”
“I’ll talk to them in a few minutes,” Estelle said. “If they want to fly over west of the location, there’s an open field there. Tell them they’ll see an old broken-down homestead off the road a ways. They can land there. Sergeant Mears will talk with them. But tell them that we don’t want that chopper near the crime scene. The last thing we need is the rotor wash sweeping everything away.”
“Roger that,” Gayle said.
Estelle switched off the phone. Tapia was watching her with something akin to amusement.
“Very good,” he said. “I am much impressed.” In a few seconds, the helicopter’s nose dipped and it headed past them toward the southwest. “Now, let us do what we must do. There is little time,” Tapia said. He stepped closer and braced one hand against the door as he touched the muzzle of the automatic to the county manager’s right ear. She flinched and said something that Estelle couldn’t hear. “Now,” Tapia said, “give me your telephone.”
“Why would I do that?” Estelle asked.
Leona yelped as Tapia jammed the silencer’s muzzle into her skull. “Because I ask of you,” he said pleasantly. Estelle extended the phone toward him. “Take it,” he said to Leona, who did so instantly. He released his grip on the door and she placed the phone in his hand. “Now,” he continued. “You have a radio, I believe.”
“Of course.”
“I mean the small one on your belt.” He nudged Leona again, but his eyes never left Estelle. “You will be careful not to trigger the emergency call button as you hand it to me.” He had slipped the phone in his pocket, and once more extended his hand. “And now,” he said as he took the small radio, “the gun.”
Estelle didn’t move.
“The gun,” he repeated. “Now is not the time for heroics. After all,” he added pleasantly, “pop, pop, and I am free to take your fine truck without arguing with you. That is so, is it not? I am offering you an opportunity, señora, an opportunity to avoid blood all over that nice upholstery. You must see that.”
With one finger, Estelle released her seat belt, then popped the holster snap. Moving slowly, she withdrew the pudgy.45. It took conscious effort to do so without snuggling the grips into her palm, the thumb safety so easily released. But she understood clearly that no matter how practiced the maneuver, it was just that-an orchestrated series of coordinated movements, none of them as instant as the single twitch of Tapia’s trigger finger: in point of fact, a far more practiced trigger finger than her own.
“Give it to him, Leona.” She held out the pistol and Leona took it, holding her hand flat like a platter.
“Very good,” Tapia said. He grimaced again and shook his head. “Ah, well. Now, on the back of your belt, young lady. There are handcuffs, I assume?”
Estelle said nothing.
“You will remove them now.”
“You don’t need handcuffs,” she said.
“Ah, but that would be something that I must decide,” he said. “If you please.”
Estelle leaned forward and reached around behind herself, slipping the set of cuffs off her belt.
“Secure your right wrist,” Tapia said, and when Estelle hesitated, he ground the muzzle of the silencer into Leona’s ear once again, so hard that she yelped. “I have been as patient as I intend to be,” he added. Estelle snapped one side of the cuffs around her wrist, keeping the latch well back from her hand. “The other on the steering wheel.” As she started to move her hand toward the bottom of the wheel’s arc, he said sharply, “Above the center.” When she was tethered, he nodded with satisfaction and withdrew the gun from Leona’s face.
“And now, madam county manager, you will step out of the truck. With the utmost care. Things have gone so well up to now. Don’t do something foolish to ruin our day.”
He stepped back a pace, and Estelle could see him wobble clumsily on the bad leg. “Come. Do not be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid of you, young man,” Leona said, lying expertly.
“Ah, I suppose not. But thank you. I haven’t been called a young man in a long, long time.” He beckoned with the gun. “Out, now.” An eyebrow lifted with surprise at Leona’s size as she slipped out of the truck. “Give me your telephone,” he commanded. Leona pulled her phone from her pocket and he waved toward the truck. “Just toss it on the seat.” As she did so, he said, “Now, listen to me. It is a beautiful day. Pleasant sunshine, a gentle breeze.” He chuckled softly. “Almost poetic, don’t you think? A pleasant day for a walk. It is not far back to the main road. And as you walk, you will remember that I have your friend with me.” He motioned away from the truck with the gun. “You will remember that, I’m sure.”
Leona looked at Estelle, eyes pleading. “You will be careful, won’t you?” she said.
“A wise woman,” Manolo Tapia said. “Of course she will be careful.” Moving painfully, he swung himself up into the truck. “Let us do what we must do.”
Chapter Thirty
The effort to climb into the truck cost Tapia considerable agony. Estelle watched him and saw his eyes go wide with pain as he pulled himself into the high seat. Through it all, he never took his eyes off her. A handcuffed right wrist was effective, she granted him that. She couldn’t reach him with her left without performing ridiculous gymnastics, and the massive transmission tunnel and center console corralled her legs. She forced herself to relax, to wait for opportunity, to seek ways to make opportunity.
At the same time, a laconic comment made years before by Bobby Torrez came to mind. A dog had bolted out of a driveway, madly chasing the sheriff’s cruiser in which they were riding. “What’s he gonna do when he catches us?” Torrez had joked as the dog snapped at the cruiser’s tires. Chasing Tapia, Estelle had hoped to see him in the distance, to have time to plan and coordinate. But her fatigue had blunted common sense. Tapia’s work brought him up close and personal. It was even possible, with the broken ankle, that he had known someone would see his tracks and follow him.
Once in the passenger seat, Tapia slammed the truck door and immediately leaned toward Estelle. His polo shirt was soaked with sweat and dust, and his odor was pungent. With his left hand he crunched the cuffs even tighter on her wrist, sliding the shackle forward of the wrist bones so she had no chance of sliding her hand free. He held the silenced Beretta so close that she could see the rosette of burned powder on the blued steel of the muzzle. Despite some confidence that Manolo Tapia was not going to just shoot her out of hand, her mouth went dry as he allowed the blued steel of the silencer to slide almost seductively down her arm.
“If you behave, you lovely creature, you’ll be home to your family by dinnertime. You understand that, don’t you?”
Estelle didn’t reply. Tapia sounded too much like Tomás Naranjo for comfort. The two of them could have cooperated to present a workshop on how Mexican men could sound gentle, suave, and self-assured all at the same time-no matter how dangerous they might be.
“When you passed by on the road earlier, I thought certainly that you had seen me. But,” and he waved with the gun toward the narrow two-track that wound up the slope, “let us be on our way. You must drive me to the airport.”
Estelle twisted in the seat until she could see Leona Spears in the rearview mirror. The county manager stood helplessly, both hands on top of her head as if she meant to tear out her braid. Finally realizing that there was nothing she could do by standing alone in the sun and dust, she turned and began a determined jog back the way they had come.
“Now,” Tapia said, tapping her right arm just ahead of the elbow with the silencer. He then pointed ahead. “Go.”