Tainted Trail (14 page)

“Do you always take good care of your partners?”

“I've only got the one.” Max laughed as Ukiah tried to smother a huge yawn. “And he's about to go facedown in the dirty dishes. Come on, kid.”

They went out into the night. Max dialed Kraynak as Ukiah gave up on stifling the yawns.

“Oh, stop that.” Sam covered her mouth. “I'm not even tired and you got me going too.”

“It's me—Bennett.” Max said into his phone. “Where are you? What are you doing there?” He listened for a minute, shaking his head. “Okay. We'll meet you back at the rooms. The kid is crashing, but Sam and I plan to do some more legwork tonight.” He listened to Kraynak for a moment, and then laughed. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Kraynak. See you in ten minutes.”

“It's a go?” Sam asked, swinging one of her long legs over the Harley's seat.

“He's at the hotel now.” Max said. “The van broke down at the airport and he had it towed. He hoofed it from the auto shop to the hotel. As if he hadn't done enough walking today, he was taking the stairs up to the room—apparently he came in a side door where it's easier to walk up than go down to the elevators. And, yes, it's a go.”

“Meet you there.” Sam started the Harley, the engine pulsing noise against Ukiah's skin. She gave the men a grin and sped away.

“What did Kraynak say about a gutter?” Ukiah asked as Max pocketed his phone.

“Nothing that bears repeating.” Max pulled out his keys and unlocked the Blazer.

“You like Sam, don't you?”

“Yup!” Max cuffed Ukiah lightly, grinning widely. “Come on! Get in the car! Let's get you to bed!”

From across town, faint gunshots rang out.

“It's a .357.” Ukiah cocked his head. “Kraynak is carrying his .357.”

“Shit!” Max swore. “Get in the car!”

They scrambled into the Blazer. Max narrowly missed the back of the badly parked station wagon as he roared out of their parking space. They slid around the turn onto Main Street.

“Sam won't be able to hear the shots over her bike.” Max growled. “Is she carrying?”

Ukiah recalled Sam's scent. “Yes.” He pointed at the single red light far in front of them, already cresting the hill to South Nye Avenue. “There she is.”

Max threw him a glance. “Are you still carrying?”

“Yes.”

“Good boy.”

The hotel was barely a quarter mile, but they had to turn again and again, climbing the river bluff, before reaching the hotel's driveway. As they came down South Nye, Ukiah made out that their room lights were on and the glass window shattered. Sam had stopped at the far end of the
parking lot, a lone figure in an empty row. She leaned forward, trying to free a white plastic bag that had blown against her bike, unaware of the gunshots. Dark figures ran out into the lower parking lot, Kraynak's tall, unmistakable figure in pursuit. Kraynak carried his .357. One of the runners turned and lifted his hand. There was a muzzle flash, but no noise.

“There they are!” Ukiah pointed. “Two shooters with silencers, and Kraynak.”

“Damn it, Kraynak, this isn't the OK corral!” Max cried.

A truck suddenly moved out the shadows. The runners scrambled into the truck as it passed.

“The truck!” Ukiah shouted as truck gathered speed, racing toward Sam on her motorcycle. “It's going for Sam!”

“The hell it is!” Max growled and jerked the wheel hard. They went over the curb and across the grass, rushing to intersect the truck. “Hang on!”

Sam looked up as the truck's headlights spotlighted her. The truck swerved slightly, aiming now to take her dead center. Max laid on the horn so it screamed his outrage. Sam scrambled sideways, abandoning her bike.

The Blazer met the truck mere feet from Sam, catching it in the front quarter panel. The truck's driver turned as they collided, and the vehicles veered off at an angle, front ends grinding metal into shreds as they fought. Shoved sideways by the truck's momentum, the Blazer broadsided Sam's bike with its backend, smashing the motorcycle over. Sam herself was tumbled across the pavement and came up with her pistol in hand.

“How is she?” Max cried as the Blazer bucked and shuddered.

“She's up!” Ukiah said. “And she looks pissed.”

“Ha! That's my girl!” Max shouted.

The truck tore free, wheeling tightly to the left, plowing over small shrubs in its way. It gained the asphalt again, and raced toward the loop at the end of the parking lot, which would bring it back past Kraynak as its only way out. Ukiah scanned for Kraynak and saw the big policeman staggering in the middle of the lane. His white shirt was stained red.

“Kraynak!” Ukiah flung open his door and sprang out, unheeding of Max's startled call. “Kraynak, move!”

Kraynak wavered in place, pressing his left hand to his bleeding side wound.

Ukiah ran. Out the corner of his eye, he saw the truck loop around, heading toward Kraynak. He wasn't going to make it. Sam's nine millimeter thundered behind him, punching stars through the truck's windshield. The night was filled with sirens, but everyone was going to be too late.

The truck roared toward them. He reached out for Kraynak, caught him, spun, flinging himself shoulder-first for the truck's hood.

The truck hit them with a force that made the fall from the cliff seem gentle. The top of the grille clipped him first, sending him rolling across the hood with Kraynak in his arms. He smashed against the windshield and then rebounded, sliding off to the driver's side. The driver's mirror caught him as he fell groundward, knocking him finally unconscious.

Red Lion Hotel's Parking Lot, Pendleton Oregon
Friday, August 27, 2004

He came to still trying to escape.

Max had him pinned against a wall, hands framing his face, looking into his eyes. “Come on, son. Come back to me. I need you awake.”

Ukiah blinked, surprised to find his eyes already open when a moment before he had been unconscious. “Max?”

Max grinned. “Ah, there you are! Good boy.”

Trapped by Max's hands, Ukiah flicked his eyes about to orient himself. He was pressed against the wall surrounding the outdoor pool, downhill of the parking lot where a frantic knot of paramedics worked on Kraynak. “Kraynak? Sam?”

“Sam's fine. I don't know about Kraynak yet. You kept running, so I figured I better nail you down first.”

“Yeah.” That did seem like a good idea.

“How are you?”

“I'm fine. Thanks. How are you?”

“Ukiah,” Max said sternly, leaning closer to take up Ukiah's entire range of vision. “How. Are. You?”

“Oh. How am I?” Ukiah considered. “I hurt real bad. I should lie down before I fall down.”

“Are you going to live?”

“Yeah.” He said. “I think. Yeah, probably.”

Max kept a light hold of his arm and guided him to their second rental car. “If you think you're going to drop for whatever reason, you tell me. Okay?”

“Okay, Max.”

“Do you trust her?” Max unlocked the car and opened the backseat, motioning Ukiah inside.

“Who?” It was a relief to lie down in the dark interior.

“Killington. Sam.” Max opened the back, found a blanket and tossed it forward so it landed on Ukiah.

“I don't know. Do you?”

Max sorted through their gear in the back. “Oh, kid, I've crossed the line with her. I can't see her clearly. I'm seeing what I want to see, and I can't trust that, not with your life.”

Ukiah tried for a shrug and winced when the motion lanced pain through him. “She hasn't lied to us since that first one, about being a reporter.”

“I should go with Kraynak. There's no telling how hurt he is. People have died while the hospital tried to find next of kin to okay surgery. I'm the only one in this town who knows shit about him.”

“I can come with you.”

“No, no, no.” Max closed the back and came around to the open back door. He had a sixty-four-ounce bottle of Gatorade, still warm from being in the hot car all day. “We can't risk anyone who knows exactly how hurt you were the first time getting a second look at you. Right now the hospital thinks you're recuperating, and everyone else figures you weren't as hurt as you seemed.”

While someone had concealed the truth about the Ontongard mother ship with the story about hackers downloading graphics to the Mars Rover, one only had to turn on the television to see that the initial news clip had etched itself into the human psyche. From commercials to the revival of old shows based on UFO investigations and alien invasions, extraterrestrials still saturated the media.

So far, few people believed that the ship on Mars had been real—and they were hampered by the lack of proof. Max and Ukiah's family lived in fear that the
fact
that humans weren't alone on Earth might leak out. Unfortunately, Ukiah's body contained enough evidence for anyone with a suspicious mind and an understanding of basic biology.

“I'll go with Sam.” Ukiah saw the concern on Max's face, and forced himself to say, “I'll be safe with her.”

“I hope so.” Max watched Ukiah take a long swallow of the warm Gatorade. “How is it?”

They had developed a rate system based on warm Gatorade. The better it tasted, the worse Ukiah's state. Completely healthy, he couldn't stand the stuff.

“You don't want to know,” Ukiah gasped, and guzzled the rest of the stuff down, savoring the taste.

The timer on the interior lights decided that they were going to leave the back door open all night and clicked the lights off. In the darkness, Ukiah was losing the battle to stay awake.

“You sure you're going to be all right?” Max took the empty bottle from Ukiah's limp hands, recapped it, and tossed it in the back.

“Nothing's broken. I'm not bleeding—just bruised all over.”

“Hey!” Sam's voice floated out of the night. “There you are! Thanks for the save.”

“Not a problem,” Max said.

Sam's footsteps approached the Blazer. “The hotel manager was down here a minute ago. The door to your room is busted open and the place has been trashed. The FBI doesn't want anything moved. They're coming to dust for prints.”

“Shit!” Max swore. “That's why they went back to the campground. Not to grab Rose, but to get Alicia's things.”

“Apparently.” Sam stopped beside Max.

“Can you do me a favor?” Max asked.

“Anything.”

With a soft jangle, Max held out the keys to the rental car. “Take my partner someplace safe—someplace these assholes aren't going to find him—and stay with him tonight?”

Sam glanced at Ukiah through the open door. “You're shitting me. He's been hit by a car. He needs to go to the hospital.”

“He's okay, just a little bruised.”

She gave a disbelieving laugh. “Bruised? I saw him take that hit! If he dies, it's manslaughter through negligence.”

“Trust me as much as I'm trusting you. The only danger he's in is from these bastards that shot him two days ago and just tried to kill you and Kraynak. He'll be okay.”

Sam stared at Max with laser intensity, her eyes flicking over the set of his mouth, the sweat on his brow, and the open pleading in his eyes. She looked then to Ukiah, curled in the rental car's backseat. “How do you feel?”

“I'm fine, Sam. I just want to go to sleep.”

Sam let out her breath in a long sigh. “When am I going to stop trusting men? Okay. Fine. I'll do it.” She took the keys. “How do I get hold of you?”

“Ukiah has my phone number on his speed dial.” Max leaned into the car, pulled out Ukiah's phone, and made sure it worked. He slipped the phone back into Ukiah's pocket, rumpled Ukiah's hair, and closed the door. “Go on, before the police start looking for him.”

Sam swung into the driver's seat. “This makes us even.”

“As long as you keep him safe.”

 

Sam took him to a small A-frame cabin, tucked someplace in the mountains. Night pressed in close as she helped him out of the car. Pines veiled the sky. No lights shone inside the cabin. He followed her to the door and waited while she unlocked it.

The door opened into a large room that smelled of old fires, trout dinners, and Sam herself. Sam paused beyond the door, seeking with a blind hand to orient herself. Ukiah's eyes had already adjusted to the dark and he made his way to a kitchen chair. He felt hollow, the pain dull and banging in time with his heart, filling up the emptiness. He sat carefully, trying not to jar himself.

“I'm renting this place from an old client.” Sam walked through the darkness, hand gliding along the butcher block countertop of the L-shaped kitchen. “After I broke up with my ex, I had a place in town, but it was too easy to find. All my mail goes to my office. The taxes and utilities are in my client's name. I check to make sure I'm not followed every time I drive out, and you can't see the car in the driveway from the main road.”

She flipped on a recessed light over the sink. Dishes from her last meal sat clean in the drying rack. A bowl. A spoon. A cup. “The only people that know where I live are in Portland.”

“None of your friends know?” Sitting up, he felt his blood pressure dropping. Cold seeped in.

“All my friends live in Portland. Everyone I know here were his friends first and last.”

He wondered why she didn't return to Portland. Money, probably. It seemed to control most people's lives. “How long have you been here?”

“Too long.” She considered Ukiah. “How long, total, have you worked with Max?”

“Five years. Two years doing tracking part-time before going full time three years ago.”

“And you trust him?” She repeated Max's question, only the pronoun changed, with the same tone of voice. Like they trusted one another, but not themselves for doing so.

“There's no one I trust more.” He started to shiver.

She came to press a hot hand to his forehead. “Damn, I told him you should be in a hospital. You're going into shock.”

“It's just because I'm sitting up.”

“It's just because you were hit by a car.”

“I just need to lie down. Cover up. Stay warm.”

She swore softly, just like Max would. “The bed's upstairs. You don't need to pee first, do you?”

“It probably would be best if I did.” At the thought of flushing his system, his body made sudden demands for him to urinate. “Definitely.”

“Hold on.” She went to switch on lamps, lighting the way.

The downstairs was sectioned off into a large kitchen/living area and a full bathroom. Opposite the kitchen, four wing chairs stood guard about an oriental rug. Each chair was slightly different in height, width, and style of feet, but they'd been reupholstered in deep green damask in an attempt to make them match. A beveled-glass tabletop resting on four large river rocks made a coffee table island in the
center of the rug. The lamps sat on mismatched but stylish side tables.

The bathroom was tiled up to the ceiling in large squares of smoky pink, with smaller accents of deep green and silvery gray. Sam apologized for the color scheme, saying that the original owner ran a flooring business and had used overstock to do that bathroom.

“Come up to the loft when you're done.”

Ukiah used the toilet and then drank deeply from the faucet.

The steps up to the loft, he noticed, were done in hardwood, but they didn't match the floors downstairs. Upstairs, no attempt had been made to disguise a jumbled selection of wood flooring.

“Overstock?” He pointed out abutting cherry and white oak boards.

“Overstock.” She held out a blue-flannel shirt. “I got this for my ex, but we broke up before I gave it to him.” When he only blinked at her in confusion, she draped it over the bed's footboard. “Put it on. You're not wearing that dirty thing into my bed.”

The ceiling slanted up to a peak. Low, mirrorless dressers and cedar chests lined the short walls. While Ukiah gingerly pulled off his torn, bloody T-shirt, Sam stripped the king-sized bed, took clean sheets from one of the cedar chests, and remade the bed. She seemed to make it a point not to look at him while he changed. He fumbled with the buttons, shivering too hard to do them up. She came and pushed away his hands, frowning as she did the buttons.

“Do you need help with your boots?”

He eyed his feet, suddenly so far away. “Probably.” She caught him before he could sit on the bed with his dirty pants, undid his pants and stripped them down to his knees, and sat him on the bed. She frowned at him as she crouched at his feet, undoing his laces and pulling off his boots, as if she expected him to do something she didn't like. “Not a
word
 . . .”

Word about what?
Perhaps something sexual in nature,
but he couldn't guess what. After she pulled his pants the rest of the way off, the frown eased to a more worried look.

“You're not going to die in my bed, are you?”

“No.” At least, he didn't think so.

“Well, get in.”

He crawled wearily into the bed as she collected her pajamas, turned off the light and went downstairs. The place was too new, too unfamiliar for him to fall asleep. He heard her use the toilet, wash her face, and brush her teeth. She turned off the lights downstairs, returning the house to full darkness. She padded barefoot up the stairs, went to the far side of the bed, and slipped in beside him. She smelled of damp soap, mint toothpaste, leather, cold steel, and gun oil.

“Just so you know,” she whispered in the dark, “I sleep with my gun.”

Good. They'd be safe if someone had followed them.

After several minutes of silence and stillness, she reached over to lay a warm hand on his cheek. Finding him shivering, she slid across the bed and carefully curled around him. Her warmth muted the thudding pain.