WINDOW OF TIME (32 page)

Lucy held onto the door’s frame for support and stared at the agent. “I was one of sixteen people smuggled across the border north of Los Vidrios heading for Tacna. At least that was the promised destination. But shortly after we were on the American side, our coyote deserted us without any provisions or communication. I doubt any of the women can make it out of this desert on their own, and one of the women has two young children.”

“And you left them?” Jason asked sharply.

Lucy gave him a hard stare. “I had a mission to complete. I gave them all the food I brought with me, as well as my water. That was the best I could do, agent.”

“Did you notice which way they headed?” the older agent asked, looking off into the distance.

Nodding, she said, “It was with the rest of the group. Northwest.”

“On foot? I don’t get it. It’s desolate in that direction,” Jason said. “A solid fifty miles of nothing but desert.”

Lucy nodded again. “I tried to talk them into going more toward the east, but one of the men was very persuasive. I have a theory—”

Using two dirty fingers, she pinched out the dark brown contact lenses irritating her eyes and threw them to the ground. She looked up and grinned at the wide-eyed surprised look she got from the two men when they saw her blue irises. Considering she had no makeup on, she enjoyed their reaction. “I was, uh, undercover.” Her long, straight hair was naturally brown, so she slipped in comfortably with most Mexicans.

“We’ll—” The other agent cleared his throat and tried again. “We’ll call for a couple of helicopters and some more back-up.” He took hold of her elbow, turning her toward the truck’s interior. “And we’ll start a thorough search after your ambulance gets here—”

“No, I’m not going anyplace, agent.” Lucy pulled out of his grasp. “I need to get to a telephone and then I want to help you look for Ana and her kids.”

“What help do you think you can be? You’re dehydrated.”

“I need some water and I’ll be fine.”

“Do you have a headache?”

Lucy straightened her shoulders but didn’t say anything.

“I can’t have you passing out on me in the middle of a search.”

“I’m coming with you,” Lucy said, getting into the truck and pulling the door closed behind her. She didn’t bother looking out the window to see if the agents were still waiting outside. As far as she was concerned, her decision was final.

The driver’s door opened and the older agent sat inside beside her. He moved the air-conditioner vents toward her, giving her the first cool breeze she’d felt in days. Without speaking, he took out an orange flavored sports drink from a cooler and opened it before passing it to Lucy. Just as quietly he gave her a small paper bag.

“What’s this?” Lucy asked.

“It’s a roast beef sandwich I brought for lunch.” He smiled. “I think you need it more than I do.”

Lucy opened the bag and out wafted a delicious aroma that made her stomach tighten. “Thank you.” When she met his gaze, he had a smile on his lips, and in his hand was an iPhone.

“I’ll leave you alone while you make your call. By the way, my name is Mark Whittier.”

Lucy smiled. “Nice to meet you, Mark.”

~*~

“Do you know who that is?” Jason asked quietly.

Mark looked over at his truck. Lucy was sitting inside the Tahoe with the air-conditioning on high and his cell-phone pressed against her ear while she ate his lunch.

Jason continued. “I thought she was just an urban legend.” He glanced at Mark. “You’ve heard the stories, but …” he looked toward the truck and nodded his head, “there she is. Secret Agent Lucy James in the gorgeous sunburned flesh.”

“Come on. Do you believe everything you hear?” He turned away from the truck in case the agent could read lips, and lowered his voice, too. “Most of the time the guys are so plastered when they’re telling those wild stories, even if they were true, I’m sure they’ve been blow all out of proportion.”

“Maybe.” Jason shrugged his shoulders. “Why don’t we just ask her if she single handedly stopped a terrorist group—”

The sound of the truck door opening stopped Jason’s suggestion before he could finish it.

“Mark, does your MDC have an internet connection?”

He whispered, “No, Jason. Just leave her alone.” He then went to stand next to Secret Agent Lucy James. Yeah, he believed the stories he’d heard, too. Every one of them. They were as fantastic as any spy movie he’d seen in years. “No, not out here it doesn’t. Why?”

Lucy shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”

Jason threw Mark a grin.

“Do you know the closest place I can go online?” Lucy slowly asked, her stare going between the two men.

“My phone has the Internet,” Jason said.

“No, that won’t work.”

“I can take you to the station, but then you’ll miss the search,” Mark told her.

Lucy nodded. “You’re right. I think finding that family is more important,” she said softly. Looking up at the sky, she shielded her eyes with her hand. “When will our air support get here?”

“Any time now,” Jason said quickly.

“How about the back-up?”

Mark said, “They’ll be coming from Yuma and will be here within the next hour.”

Lucy asked, “Are we going to wait for them before we start our search?”

“I don’t see why.” Mark headed for his side of the truck. “You gave us a pretty good idea on the area where they might be.”

“Good. I don’t know how far a woman with two children can walk in this heat—” Lucy lifted her head and asked, “Did you hear that?”

“Gun shots?” Jason asked.

Lucy caught Mark’s stare. “Yes. Gun shots.”

Mark nodded. “I heard them, too. Sounded like a .45. Three shots.” He pointed west, with his heart accelerating with excitement. “That way. Come on, Lucy. You’re with me.” He grinned at his rookie and said, “Try not to get lost.”

Mark jumped into the driver’s seat just as their secret agent got in the passenger side. He quickly used his GPS to mark his position. With a hard punch of his boot, Mark accelerated forward, spinning his tires and spraying a waterfall of sand behind his truck, accidentally covering his rookie’s windshield. “Lucy, I need to ask you something.”

Lucy struggled to fasten her seatbelt. “What?”

“Do you have a firearm and did you discharge it?”

“Yes, I killed a snake. Why?”

“We heard a single gunshot and that’s how we found you. What caliber is it?”

“A .380.”

“And it was louder than the three shots we just heard—which means our target is farther away—”

“Or it could have just been down in an arroyo,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “That would muffle the sounds.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Mark pointed toward his GPS. “Do you know how to use one of these?”

Lucy tilted the monitor toward her. “What did you want me to do?”

Mark smiled. He knew she would. “Pan out and look for an arroyo or wash.” He glanced sideways and saw her concentration as she tapped on the monitor’s on-screen keyboard. “Just out of curiosity, would you tell me where you keep your gun?”

Lucy stopped and stared at him for a moment, and then she placed her boot against the dashboard. When she pulled up her pant leg, she exposed the weapon strapped to her ankle. “Any other questions?”

He glanced at the floorboard and asked, “Yeah, do you have any other weapons?” The smile she gave him was … intriguing. She placed her other boot against the dash and then pulled up her pant leg, and took out a folding knife. He flinched when the blade suddenly appeared out from the end of the handle. “A switchblade?”

“Uh-huh. My father gave it to me when I started dating.”

“Holy crap, Lucy. Where did you grow up?”

“Phoenix.”

“That’s not exactly a dangerous city.”

“Maybe not, but I tended to get into a lot of trouble and this came in handy more times than I can remember.” Lucy tenderly replaced her knife back inside her boot. “Here,” she said, touching the GPS monitor. “Veer ten degrees south. The landscape dips down about six feet in about a half mile.”

“Okay.” Mark maneuvered the Tahoe around the scrub brush and found the clearest path. When he saw recent tire tracks on the sand in the direction their secret agent told him to go, he got concerned.

“Oh no,” Lucy whispered.

Mark glanced at her face. She saw them too. He followed the tracks around a sharp bend and then they suddenly went down into an arroyo carved out by heavy flash flooding years ago, maybe even decades before. He got on the radio to warn his rookie. “Jason, come straight down. Don’t take it at an angle.” He let out his breath when the other truck made it down the steep grade without losing control or getting stuck. The ground was firmer in the dry riverbed and the tire tracks got harder to follow.

They went around a large outgrowth of brush, Lucy shouted, “Stop!”

Mark hit his brakes and slid a few feet before coming to a standstill.

“What is it?” he asked, watching her take out her gun from under her pant leg.

Lucy threw open her door. “I saw something—” she said, getting out.

Mark ran around the truck, taking his weapon out of its holster, and looked at Lucy. She must have seen something serious. She bent down and peered under the truck. “What did you see?”

“Look,” she said pointing at the other tracks. “They stopped here.” Lucy looked at him and softly said, “And got out.”

“What happened?” Jason asked, stopping his truck next to his partner.

Watching Lucy study the desert floor, Mark said, “She saw something I missed.” He looked at his rookie. “Come on. We need to follow her.”

I wrote the first draft of this book thirteen years ago. It had nearly eight hundred pages—way too long for one story. After four serious revisions, and advice from a seasoned content editor, and many beta readers, Window of Time is now a trilogy. I’m elated, excited, and relieved that Window of Time, book one, is finally published.

I want to thank my husband, Mike, for understanding the lengths I’ve gone through to get this book published. I’d like to thank my sons, Ryan and Adam, who sat with me through countless showings of Pirates of the Carribeen: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the movie that started my love of writing. I’ll be forever grateful for their patience. Thank you, Kate, and Diana, for marrying the aforementioned sons. You are their perfect match.

I’d like to thank Kerry Lynn Blair for reading this book in its rough, rough draft form many years ago. She encouraged me to continue writing when I thought it was useless.

Over the years many others have beta-read for me. I’d like to thank Sara Werra, Judi Feuerbach, Rachael Renee Anderson, Ranee S. Clark, Christina Tarbet, Aften Szymanski, Julie Coulter Bellon, Terry Montague, Janine Christensen, and LaVon Taylor, each in their individual way made this book better, stronger than how it started.

I need to say thank you to Angela Eshler for an eye-opening content appraisal, and to my wonderful editor/proofreader, Shauntel Simper. Her skills are unmatched.

DJ lives in Southwest Arizona, and has been married to Mike for 36 years. She’s the mother of two awesome sons, who married their forever loves, and she’s a grandmother to three beautiful grandchildren.

DJ wrote her first novella thirteen years ago just to see if she could. That brief taste into the world of an author prompted an undeniable writing obsession rivaling only her love of chocolate. She’s an award winning fine artist, and loves traveling with her husband.

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Also available from Debra Erfert:

A Kindle Worlds novella, Royals of Monterra: It Takes a Sleuth exclusively from
Amazon
.

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But she has a bigger problem than just trying to prove her investigative abilities to a man with whom she’s attracted and probably falling for. The strongest lead in Taylor’s case trails straight to an ex-contestant of
Marry Me
, Lemon Beauchamp, a woman who’s engaged to His Royal Highness Prince Dante of Monterra. Getting to question her might be more difficult than keeping Taylor alive, or getting Jace’s respect.