Читать книгу Under the Radar - Fern Michaels - Страница 12

Kathryn started to pace, a sure sign of her agitation. It was clear that the issue with Isabelle was bothering her, perhaps more so than it did the others. While Kathryn wasn’t exactly a hothead, she was clearly outspoken, sometimes to the point where the others cringed.

But, as Yoko said, coming to Kathryn’s defense, Kathryn only said aloud what the others were thinking. Then Yoko reminded them all of the first days of forming the Sisterhood and how Kathryn was on her case twenty-four/seven, and how it all worked out in the end.

The others watched out of the corners of their eyes as Kathryn got more and more agitated by the moment. Finally, she whirled around, and shouted, “Annie, call Pearl and tell her to ditch the bus! Tell her to get off the road. They’re going to come back for her. They can’t let her get away. One of those girls had a GPS under her collar. I’ll bet you my sunflower bikini that that GPS is now on her bus. Now, Annie, God dammit! Put her on speakerphone.”

Nikki stopped what she was doing. The other Sisters heard her say, “Avery, I have to put you on hold for a moment.” She looked at Kathryn and mouthed, “What?” Kathryn just shrugged.

Annie was already pressing the number that would connect her with Pearl. She didn’t bother with a greeting but simply said, “Pearl, ditch the bus, take your gear, and get out of there. Stay off the main road if you can. Kathryn thinks those people planted a GPS tracker on the bus. Don’t leave anything incriminating behind. Help is on the way. I can’t give you a specific time frame, but they’ll find you as long as you have your handheld GPS. Move, Pearl!”

The Sisters leaned forward, the better to hear the voice on the other end of the satellite phone. “I’m one step ahead of you. I had a bad feeling, so I ditched the bus thirty minutes ago, Annie. I tossed the distributor cap and I have everything I need. I’m moving. There isn’t much traffic on this back road. My story will be, I’m hiking and had a falling-out with my friend, and I’m off on my own. What do you think is going to go down?”

Annie looked directly at Kathryn, then at the others. She nodded at Kathryn to indicate she should talk.

“This is Kathryn, Pearl. Just a gut feeling, but over the years I have learned to pay attention to gut feelings. You need to stay out of sight if possible until we can get help to you. Worst-case scenario is those people file a complaint with the cops, who go looking for you. From what I read, there are a lot of polygamists in law enforcement, even a judge or two. The children on the bus and the men who showed up to take them would have given an accurate description of you by now. And remember who you really are.” Kathryn looked over at Nikki, who was talking a mile a minute to Charles’s second-in-command. She kept nodding as she spoke.

Pearl’s voice came through loud and clear, almost as if she were in the next room. “I don’t exactly look like the person who was driving the bus. My new name is Rosa Sanchez, and I look like a Rosa Sanchez. How will I know it will be your people if someone should accost me?” Kathryn looked over at Nikki, who whispered, “By her new name.”

“They’ll call you Rosa or Miz Sanchez. It’s high noon, your time. Can you take the heat?”

“Not really. I can’t be sure, but the temperature seems to be around a hundred. If not, it certainly feels like it. I have water. I’m going to look for some cover. I’ll stay as close to the road as I feel comfortable with. Any suggestions?”

Yoko flapped her arms up and down. She shrugged her tiny shoulders. “She’s between a rock and a hard place right now. Just tell her to stay alert and to drink plenty of water.” She looked over at Nikki, her gaze quizzical.

It was Nikki’s turn to speak on Annie’s phone. “It’s Nikki, Pearl. Ninety minutes, and that’s being optimistic. Can you handle it?”

“I can. I will. If I’m caught, I’ll leave the tracker so your people will find it. From there you’ll have to find the nearest police or sheriff’s department. If, and I say if, that’s where they take me.”

Annie reared up. “They won’t be taking you anywhere near either place. They’re going to take you back to that Heaven on Earth place and make you one of their slaves.”

The Sisters as one gasped aloud. They all started talking on top of one another. “Yes, it could happen.”

“No, it couldn’t happen.”

“Well, maybe it could happen.”

Then, “Cross your fingers and hope for the best.”

The connection broken, they turned once more to Nikki for their latest update.

Annie’s cell phone rang. “Change of plans, Nellie. We’re leaving the mountain. These are now your new orders, so listen up…”

Nikki handed Alexis a sheet of paper. Alexis scanned the sheet, and ran to fetch her Red Bag.

Kathryn picked up the sheet and read it aloud. “We’re leaving here, one by one in crop dusters! That’s how we’re going to get to Utah? It’ll take us a week to get there. We’ll be so windblown we won’t know what our names are when we finally land!”

Annie blanched. “Those little paper planes that look so…so rickety?”

Nikki nodded. “If you can come up with a better plan, let’s hear it. Avery said it’s the best he can do on such short notice.”

Annie snorted. “I suppose if one is looking for adventure, one might surmise that flying in a crop duster is it.” Ever the fashion guru, her next question came as no surprise to any of the Sisters. “What’s the attire?”

“Camo, goggles, and one of those leather helmets the flyers used to wear,” Yoko giggled.

Kathryn tried not to laugh. “I hesitate to bring this up, but does anyone besides me think we’re a bit scattered at the moment? Usually things run a little more smoothly. Charles always had it laid out, and we just fell in line.”

Nikki picked up a folder and threw it at her. Murphy barked, uncertain if this was a new game or something else entirely. When he heard his mistress burst out laughing, he lay down, his huge head between his paws.

“For the moment, everyone in…our little…uh…group is going to Utah. Then we’ll kick everything up a few notches and go on from there, but first we have to get there undetected and safe and sound. Charles has forty years’ experience under his belt whereas I’ve had”—Nikki looked at her watch—“fifteen minutes. I rest my case.”

“You’re doing just fine, dear,” Annie said. “I just wish I wasn’t so worried about Pearl.”

Three thousand miles away Pearl Barnes, aka Harriet Woonsocket, aka Rosa Sanchez found herself being eaten alive by sand fleas as she huddled in the scrub brush along the side of the road. Overhead, the sun blazed as it baked her surroundings. She was down to her last two bottles of water and had to pee.

The only vehicles she’d seen in the last hour were two farm tractors moseying down the road at ten miles an hour, one kid on a motorized scooter followed by a mean-looking dog, and a farm truck full of hay. She wondered if traffic would pick up once the heat of the day passed. What bothered her more than anything was that she was drenched in her own sweat and was sure she smelled to high heaven. God, if the other justices could only see her now they’d die laughing. Well, let them. That was her other life, and this was now. So what if she was soaking wet and smelled. She was alive and still had her reputation intact.

More minutes passed. More sand fleas. Pearl continued to sweat. She looked at her watch. Ninety minutes were almost up. Where was her help? She fished out her cell and was getting ready to punch in Annie’s number when she heard it, the sound of a car. Not a pickup, not a tractor, not a kid on a motor scooter but the purr of a car’s engine.

Pearl sucked in her breath as she scrunched down in the spiky, dry, crackly undergrowth. Her salty sweat dripped into her eyes, burning them unbearably. She swiped at her eyes as she tried to blink to clear her vision. She saw the flashing blue light but there was no siren. An unmarked police car. From the little she knew about police cars she rather thought they used Crown Victorias. The car was still too far down the road to make out what it was. It was moving slowly, as though the driver were eyeballing both sides of the road, looking for someone.

Pearl tried digging herself deeper into the ground, but the sand was too hot, dry, and packed solid to allow for any indentation. She prayed the driver of the approaching car had less than twenty-twenty vision.

Overhead, the sun continued to blaze. What looked like two buzzards flew overhead. “Just what I need, buzzards to pick my bones clean,” she muttered.

She was so low to the ground that her ears picked up another sound. She flattened her head against the ground and listened. Two wheels. Maybe it was her help. Maybe it was the cop’s reinforcements. Pearl’s heart kicked up an extra beat. Her death grip on the handheld GPS tracker didn’t slacken one iota.

The two wheels were closer, almost on top of her. She heard the engine throttle back. Her help. She was almost sure of it. One hundred minutes. To gamble or not to gamble? She got to her knees as she waved her hand crazily. The engine stopped, idled, and she heard a voice that sounded all gravelly and hoarse. An old voice that had seen too much whiskey and way too many cigarettes. Like she cared.

The blue light came to a stop right behind the motorcycle. Oh, God, Pearl thought, a standoff.

“Okay, olly, olly out! Come on, Rosa, enough of this bullshit,” the gravelly voice shouted so the officer, if that’s who he was, could hear. “There’s rattlesnakes out here and you know how afraid you are of snakes. Come on, Sweet Cheeks, climb aboard and let’s kiss and make up. Rosa! I’m sorry I looked at that young girl. All I did was look. It’s okay to look, honey, as long as you don’t touch. Hey, there’s a police officer here. Come on, honey, old Jess is just waiting to wrap his arms around you before he decides to run us in for something or other.”

That was good, the man on the cycle had given up his name. Pearl straightened up and stepped out of the brush. She knew how to play the game. “Swear on the dog you won’t look at another woman, ever again, Jess!” Pearl deliberately avoided looking at the officer in his spiffy uniform. This discussion was between her and her man.

“Okay, okay, I promise. Now get your skinny-assed butt on back, and let’s go get us a little drink. I’m parched.”

Pearl was about to swing one leg over the back of the ferocious-looking Harley when the police officer spoke.

“Not so fast, you two. Show me some ID, and, mister, I clocked you at ninety-seven miles an hour on that bike. That’s a two-hundred-dollar ticket in these parts in case you’re interested.”

Jess, if that was his name, removed his helmet and lowered his Ray-Bans.

He stared at the cop for a full minute as he tried to take his measure. Mean little eyes, cocky as sin, Elvis on steroids was his final assessment. Jess knew without a doubt he could take that cop on, and with only one or two moves reduce him to dust, if need be. He slid off the bike in one fluid motion. “I’m going to reach into my hip pocket for my wallet, Officer. Is that okay? I guess maybe I was speeding but I was worried about my woman here. Like I said, she’s afraid of snakes. Hell, she’s afraid of just about everything but me.”

He laughed to show what he thought of that statement. The patrol officer remained stoney-faced.

The officer backed up a few steps, his hand on the gun at his hip. “Do it. Nice and slow. Have the woman hand it to me.”

Jess swiped at the sweat on his forehead before he pulled the wallet from his pocket. He handed it to Pearl who in turn handed it to the cop.

The officer flipped open the wallet and said, “You’re Jess Dewey, aged sixty-six, and you reside where?”

“Yuma, Arizona. At times. Other times I’m on the road. I head up biker conventions. Me and Rosa, that’s what we’ve been doing until she got all prickly with me and lit out on her own. Plan is to go on up to Montana and spend some free time before the next event. Something wrong with that, Officer?”

The policeman ignored Jess. “Ma’am, I need to see some ID.” Pearl dug into the pocket of her cargo pants and came out with a wallet and a cruddy-looking passport that looked too shoddy to be a fake. The stamps showed she went back and forth to Juarez, Mexico, once a month.

“You two stay put. Give me those keys until I verify this information.”

Jess tossed the key to the officer and turned away. Pearl followed him.

“He’s a cop, but he’s also a polygamist,” Jess told her. “I saw his picture in the paper about two weeks ago. He wants to run us in so bad he can taste it. I don’t know about you, but I think our best bet is to cut and run. I can take the guy with no sweat. What do you want me to do, ma’am?” Jess asked.

“Exactly what you just said, and get me someplace safe. I don’t think either one of us should use a cell phone right now. What do you think?”

“I have to use mine. I might do freelance work, but I have people I have to account to. If I’m going to take this guy out, those people have to be able to pick up the pieces. Capisci?”

The cop was walking back toward them, Rosa’s passport and both their wallets in his hand. “I’m going to have to ask you to come along with me back to the station. The chief has a few questions he’d like answered.”

Jess’s eyes swept the cop. He was smiling, but it did not reach his mean little eyes, and Jess wasn’t about to take any chances. As Jess reached for his wallet, he grabbed the man’s wrist at the same time and bent it backward while his other hand chopped at his throat. The man went down, gagging and gasping for air. “Watch him,” Jess hissed, as he ran to the patrol car. Quicker than a snake he removed the flashing blue light and disabled the two-way radio. He pocketed the cell phone that was on the seat as well as the road map. He rummaged until he found a set of FlexiCuffs. He carried them back to where the cop was still gasping for breath.

“Listen to me, you child-abusing son of a bitch. I know you’re one of those damn polygamists because I saw your picture in the paper along with those of six or seven other cops. You have eight wives and about twenty kids if I remember correctly. No way were you taking us back to your little jail. You were going to drop us off at that hellhole where your polygamy people live. Well, Mister Law Enforcement, that ain’t gonna happen today.”

A second later the cop’s gun was in Jess’s hand and he was dragging him back to the unmarked car, where he shoved him inside and hooked him up to the door handle with the FlexiCuffs. He rolled down all the windows and let the engine idle so the AC could operate. He glanced at the gas gauge. A quarter full. The AC would eat that up in fifteen minutes. Oh, well. Then he shot out all four tires, the sound ricocheting across the flats.

Jess turned to Pearl to see how she was reacting to what was going on. He decided she was okay with everything that was playing out in front of her. The lady had guts, he had to give her that. “The reason I remember this guy so well is, his eight wives are on welfare. The local paper got feisty a few weeks back and did a big spread on the sect; then the paper clammed up, and there was no follow-up. You and me and all the other citizens are paying for all his kids and wives. There’s something wrong with that picture. Look, I’m expecting a new ride any minute now, so I’m going to have to knock this guy out cold before they arrive. Much as I hate to do it, we have to leave this bike behind even though it’s untraceable.”

Pearl flapped her hands in the air to show she didn’t care one way or the other. All she wanted was to get out of there to someplace safe. She took a few seconds to wonder if she was getting a little too old for this life she’d chosen over finishing out her days on the Supreme Court.

Jess walked back to the unmarked car, reached in the window, and delivered a bone-crushing slam to the polygamous cop’s face. He felt an unholy satisfaction when he saw blood from a broken nose spurt all over the car. The policeman fell back against the seat. “That,” Jess said, “is for all you damn welfare cheats.”

Then Jess reached down in his pocket for the key to the Harley and tossed it as far as he could. He dusted his hands dramatically as he made his way back to where the Harley waited.

Pearl pointed down the road. Off in the distance a motorcycle could be seen traveling fast. Then she saw two more cycles. Jess quickly shot out the tires of his Harley and grabbed the saddlebags with his gear. Putting on a pair of skintight latex gloves, he reached inside the crankcase and did something Pearl couldn’t see, after which he dusted down the Harley’s surfaces.

The three Harleys ground to a halt. The roar of the idling engines was deafening. Jess motioned for Pearl to climb on the back of the lead bike, while he climbed on the second in the three-vehicle convoy. Engines revved and off they roared, the sound almost more than Pearl could stand, but she hung on for dear life.

Well, she’d always wanted to feel the wind in her hair and face. While a convertible would have been more to her liking, she accepted what she was given because she was safe—at least for the moment.