Hill Country Holdup Read online

  Stubblefield screamed and leaped on top of him, knocking him backward into a sawhorse, pulling a saddle and blanket to the floor. Steve gripped one of her arms and kept it from punching him. But she twisted, turned and eventually straddled his stomach, gaining the use of both hands again.

  He lost track of Jane, but hoped she still had the Glock and would stop this two-legged bobcat from tearing open his shoulder.

  “Anytime now, Jane.”

  “Hold it!” the true mother of his son shouted. “I said, hold it!”

  But it didn’t slow down the woman on top of him.

  “How does it feel having your child lost?” Stubblefield dug her nails into his arm, clawing skin as she ripped his shirt from his wound.

  “You bastard! You adulterer! You don’t deserve to ever see your son again.”

  A she-devil was on his chest. Demented and out of control. Stubblefield kicked, screamed, hit and punched. She formed her hands into claws and went for his eyes. In self-defense, he closed them and tried to buck her off. Her nails tore into his face. He punched blindly, not daring to actually look for a target. “Aren’t I the one you want to tear apart?” Jane yelled.

  The unfamiliar malice in Jane’s voice got his attention. It caused Stubblefield to look toward her just in time to catch a mouth full of bridle Jane swung through the air like a baseball bat.

  Stubblefield fell off him with the force from Jane’s blow, sprang to her feet like a cat and slowly advanced.

  “You won’t shoot me, bitch. You need me to find that whelp you call a son.” Stubblefield sounded possessed. Something straight from a B movie. Her speech was guttural, her hair frenzied from their fight. She shrugged her shoulders out of the raincoat, letting it fall to the floor, and stalked Jane, who still held the bridle in one hand and the Glock in the other.

  “Pull the trigger!” Steve shouted.

  Jane froze. He saw the hesitation in her eyes and the shaking of her hands. Stubblefield crept forward, yet Jane’s body didn’t shift an inch.

  “You’ve taken enough from me, Stubblefield.” He stood, catching her attention, and dove for her body. They landed against the wall, tack falling on top of them.

  She was stronger than he’d thought. Maybe he was just more tired. Stubblefield’s formal defense training seemed to have disappeared as they rolled in the dirt. She fought like a demented stranger, someone he’d never seen before. Several of her blows landed against his left shoulder and made him suck air through his teeth. Now he was on top and there was no way she could throw him off. His forearm went under her chin, cutting off her air.

  “Where’s Rory?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  But she shook her head and squeaked out, “Never.” Everything changed.

  Eyes wide, she stared at him with a look of wonder as if she couldn’t believe he would kill her. He could see her thoughts. Then the realization that he just might choke her to death sank in. She clawed furiously at his arm, but couldn’t budge him. Her struggles grew weaker.

  He kept his arm in place. Agent Selena Stubblefield was asphyxiating—and for an instant he wanted her to.

  Arms falling to her sides, eyes closed, she looked peaceful lying in the dirt—sane and unable to hurt anyone else. He backed off and saw the involuntary drawing of breath. Jane immediately knelt beside them and felt for a pulse.

  “She’s just unconscious.” He stood, wobbled and leaned against the wall. Then he scrubbed his face and pushed his hair back. “We need to tie her up.”

  Steve leaned heavily on the wall and made his way back to the tack room for rope. His body felt like roadkill. His left arm in particular hung at his side like a dead armadillo.

  “I thought I could do it. But she was right.” Jane joined him and put her arms around his waist, burying her face in what was left of his shirt. “I wanted to kill her for everything she’s done. But I just couldn’t pull the trigger.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that, Janie. We’ll find Rory.” He grabbed some tack to tie up Stubblefield. “If it takes the entire FBI combing this place inch by inch, we’ll find him.”

  He heard the barn door swing open and turned to catch Stubblefield’s backside as she hauled ass toward the hangar.

  “Why did I leave her alone?” He ran to the open outside door. Stubblefield was running like a wild Mustang and he was already breathing hard. He’d never catch her. “Call George from the house.”

  “The line’s dead,” Jane shouted, and dangled something in her hand. She had the keys to the Cherokee parked at the house.

  They ran as fast as they could to the detached garage. Just as they slammed the Jeep doors, he heard an engine rev and wheels squeal over concrete. But where was Rory?

  Stubblefield wouldn’t have left him. She’d been scratching Steve’s eyes out to keep him from ever seeing his son again. He could see the top of a car seat through the back window of the Camry. She had Rory with her. Stubblefield made it to the main drive and floored the gas. She soared over the small rise by the mesquite grove.

  They topped the hill in time to see Stubblefield’s brake lights as she swerved away from Rhodes’s truck that blocked the driveway. Steve couldn’t speak. He watched the unbelievable scene played out in front of him. The car fishtailed in the mud and continued sliding. There was nothing to stop it from plunging straight into the swollen creek. It sank into the raging water, and was quickly swept downstream.

  Leaping from the Jeep, he reached the bank at the same time Jane did. He skidded to a stop and yanked at his boots.

  “You aren’t going after her?” Jane told him more than asked.

  She hadn’t seen.

  “There was a car seat.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “God, no.” Jane tugged off her shoes and jacket, prepared to rescue their son. This was her fault. If she hadn’t insisted on helping Steve… If they’d waited… “Oh, my God, he’ll die.”

  Steve turned her to face him. He squeezed her arms, his face tortured with fear and longing.

  “We’re not certain he’s in the car. I’m begging you to stay here.” He released her, stepping to the edge of the creek. For an instant he paused, his gaze finding and holding hers. “I love you.”

  The swirling water sent him spiraling downstream and jerked him under. The map she’d committed to memory indicated that Wasp Creek had intermittent water. It didn’t list depth, but it didn’t take a genius to know that it was prone to flash flooding.

  There was no sign of the car. It had to be completely submerged. She couldn’t see anything. Headlights. She ran back to the Jeep and drove it as close to the creek as she dared.

  How long could Steve hold his breath?

  Jane followed him into the water and was swiftly pulled under. She tried to find the car, Steve, Rory. Her weak stroke was no match for the current which swept her from the bank. She couldn’t see anything and latched on to a log, pulling herself to shore.

  Her knees gave way and she collapsed in a heap next to a tree. If she began crying, she wouldn’t be able to stop. She concentrated on taking one breath after another.

  The tree next to her was rough against her skin. Insects began to call to one another, and the sound of the raging current filled a night that was finally clear.

  A typical night, but nothing was normal.

  “Please, God. Please, God.” She couldn’t think of any other words to say. Where was Steve?

  If her son died in that creek, it would be her fault.

  GRIEF BROADSIDED HIM like an eighteen-wheeler. He hoped Stubblefield burned in hell for killing his son. He had minimal vision in the dark murky water as he smashed into the side of the busted hood. He could see in a dim, distorted fashion the car was jammed at an angle—front end lower—into a narrow portion of the creek.

  Suddenly the headlights reflected off the mud. The interior lights flashed on, then off, then on. The water must be shorting out the electrical system. He worked his way around to the driver’s side a
nd pulled at the door handles.

  The door was wedged shut or locked. Either way, it wasn’t budging.

  Selena was still behind the wheel struggling to free herself. Water was already at her chin. He banged on the window, pointing at the door.

  “Help me!” she screamed, her eyes desperate when she looked at him. She pulled at the seat belt, but never pushed buttons for the door locks or windows. “I don’t want to die! Help me!”

  The water was quickly filling the car. Rory was a bit higher and still crying in his car seat. Steve yanked at the tree limbs near the door. The car shuddered, then shifted. He didn’t want the car swept farther downstream so he stopped.

  Out of air, he surfaced. He pulled the switchblade from his pocket and opened it. He took several short breaths then one deep lungful of air before diving back to the car.

  Blindly he pried at the rubber seal trying to pop the glass aside.

  Precious air from his lungs bubbled to the surface when he looked upon his son’s face for the first time. The car was full of water and his cry had been silenced. His short brown hair flowed back and forth in slow motion. His chubby little arms seemed to wave at Steve and his eyes were closed as if in sleep.

  With each beat of Steve’s heart he pounded the handle between the passenger window and car frame. He needed air, but he wasn’t going back up without his son.

  Fighting the surging water, he dug his toes between the tree limbs on the driver’s side, anchoring himself at the rear window of the flooded car.

  Summoning the last vestiges of his strength, he turned upside down and used his knee to push against the glass and felt it give way. It floated into the car.

  Air.

  He needed air.

  So did his son.

  THEY WERE DEAD.

  All of them.

  There was no way Steve could hold his breath for that long. She thought he’d surfaced about thirty feet downstream and had run in that direction. But now there wasn’t anything.

  No sign of a car. No Steve. No bodies.

  Jane paced the creek bank, rocks stabbing her bare feet. She dodged the low limbs, hanging on to them when she had to step into the water.

  She tried to preserve a slim thread of hope they would survive. He’d said that he loved her.

  Why now and not before? He thought he wasn’t going to make it. She’d jump in again, but what if he needed her?

  Oh, God.

  STEVE REACHED THROUGH the window. It was a tight fit, but the only way to his son. In the front, Selena’s body was covered from the rushing water. She swayed with each movement of the car.

  Rory’s arms floated to either side of his seat as Steve cut the straps that imprisoned his son. Lungs bursting, he refused to give in to the urge to breathe. With a fist full of his son’s overalls, Steve pulled Rory through the window, tucked him tight into the crook of his arm, pushed off the car and felt the vehicle being carried farther downstream.

  He struggled to the surface.

  “Steve!”

  He barely had the strength to fill his lungs with oxygen as he struggled to keep Rory’s face as much above the water as he could. Suddenly, Jane was with him in the middle of the creek. She pulled him by his belt loop. He kicked. It seemed like hours before they made it back to shore.

  He choked back the mournful howl attempting to break out of his throat. Regret for a child he’d never know tore at his insides wanting to escape.

  CPR. THE MEDICAL TEXT came off the shelf, opened to page 253, and stayed as a picture in Jane’s mind. The pages for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and drowning lay open next to it. CPR for a child was different from that of an adult.

  She tugged Steve onto the rocky bank, leaving his legs in the water, but far enough away from the edge so he wouldn’t be pulled back into the stream. He took air deep into his lungs with each breath.

  “You can let go now, Steve.” She pried his fingers from their son’s overalls. “He’s safe.”

  Even in the faint light, Rory’s face was pale, his lips an oxygen-deprived blue. With her son in her arms, she continued up the bank and laid his head on a tuft of grass. Right behind her, Steve scrambled up the incline on his knees.

  Look. Listen. Feel.

  She turned Rory on his stomach and pushed upward on his back, expelling some water, then turned him on his back again. She stared at Rory’s precious little face, his rosy color faded to ash. His laughing breath now completely still.

  Fighting back a wave of helplessness and despair, she checked her son’s carotid artery in his neck. No pulse. Steve searched her face. Could he see her doubt reflected in her eyes? She took a calming breath because his eyes showed too much. She could see his faith in her. But neither of them spoke. Neither of them vocalized the slim chance of reviving their son.

  Two rescue breaths.

  Rory’s sweet rosebud lips were still blue.

  Begin cardiac compressions.

  She placed the heel of her hand over the lower half of his sternum and depressed his chest rapidly at a rate of one hundred times per minute. “One, two, three, four, five.”

  One breath every five compressions.

  She pinched his nostrils closed, covered his mouth with hers and blew.

  “Breathe,” Steve said like a prayer.

  “Steve, I need you to breathe for him.” Jane found Rory’s sternum again, repositioned her hand. “One, two, three…”

  Steve was in place, but looking lost. “It’s been a while since… Never on a kid.”

  “…four, five. Come on, Rory.” She demonstrated a breath for him. “Don’t be afraid to blow, but not too hard and don’t tilt his neck back any farther. He’s in the correct position.”

  “One, two, three, four, five.”

  Tears mixed with the creek water dripping from her hair. She couldn’t see. She kept her hand in place on Rory’s chest and wiped at her eyes with the other while Steve blew oxygen into their son’s lungs.

  She didn’t care how long it took. She wouldn’t stop.

  “Breathe, Rory,” she said as much to convince herself as Steve. His strong hand shook on Rory’s chin.

  “Kids are resilient. He can do this.”

  She watched Steve blow a steady breath into Rory’s mouth. She felt his little body jerk. She checked his pulse. “It’s weak, but there. Keep breathing for him.”

  Steve blew three more breaths.

  Rory coughed. He was back. Jane rolled him to his tiny side and he coughed water from his lungs.

  “Thank God,” Steve sighed in front of her.

  Rory whimpered. Cried. Threw up. Screamed. It was the most heavenly sound in the world.

  Lifting Rory to her lap, she turned him facedown and patted his back as he continued to cry between coughs to get up more fluid. Rory cried and fussed to be lifted. “Just a bit more, sweetheart. You need to get all that nasty water out.” She wondered if he actually understood the danger he’d been in.

  Then it hit her. Not just danger. He’d died. Her precious little boy had died. She tried not to hurt him when she hugged him close to her chest and remembered how good it was to have him in her arms.

  Steve kissed her forehead, then feebly stood.

  Jane clung tight to their little boy. Steve wouldn’t risk his life to save the woman who wanted her dead? Was he really considering it? She grabbed his arm, intent on not letting him out of her sight.

  Mixed emotions coursed through her. Agent Stubblefield had stolen her son. But Jane wanted to preserve life, not…Selena had tried to kill them and had succeeded in murdering others. “Is there any chance for her?”

  “The car was swept downstream. I barely got Rory out. Another thirty seconds…” They slowly walked up the bank.

  “I don’t want to lose you, Steve.”

  “You won’t.”

  “I love you.” She had to tell him. Had to say the words aloud and should have told him earlier. She should have said them four years ago.

  She didn’t n
eed a response from him. He had so much to process. I’m not here for me. As long as he accepts Rory, that’s all that matters.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Wait at the house. Hear any bugles? Or choppers? This is one time I wish the cavalry would ride up over the hill.”

  “How long?” She tried to calm Rory, but she couldn’t even calm herself. “He’s normally not this fussy.”

  “It’s a beautiful noise.”

  She couldn’t tell what his reaction was to Rory. Too much had happened. Steve looked around on the ground, most likely searching for his boots.

  “Here, you take Rory back to the car. You both need to warm up.” Jane caught up with Steve and handed him their son. “I’ll find our shoes.”

  Steve walked back to the vehicle. “Everything’s okay now Rory.” Holding kids wasn’t a new thing for him. Between his family and his job, he’d held hundreds of children, but this was different. How did he begin to catch up?

  He snagged Jane’s jacket along the way. He removed the 9 mm and stuffed it in his jeans at the small of his back, then climbed into the Jeep. He turned the key and cranked the heat. He peeled the cutesy clothes off that no kid should be forced to wear. Then he wrapped his son in the windbreaker Rhodes had loaned Jane.

  The kid was a squirmer. He didn’t want to lie peacefully in Steve’s arms. It had to be a good sign that he fought to climb all over him and the steering wheel.

  God Almighty, what would it be like to be a father? He hadn’t allowed himself to think of that possibility. And now…Shoot, he was too tired to think about it.

  But he’d gladly take it on with Jane’s help. She’d said she loved him. That was a start, right?

  “Hey, kid.” He pushed his hair back from his face as Rory looked up at him. “Meet your dad.”

  Rory’s small hand scrapped the stubble on his cheek and skimmed his nose. “Mommy says you’re my daddy.”

  Something smacked his heart and twisted it in his chest. This feeling was totally different than anything he’d ever felt before. Indescribable? You bet. Impossible for words.