He leaned against a stall and folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.”

Sage threw him a look. “It’s her place, you’re her guest. If she wants you to go…” He shrugged and went back to brushing.

J.J. coughed, straightened up. “You know, it’s gonna have to be up to you, now, to keep her safe.” Sage nodded. “I mean, I’ll do my best to get back here as quick as I can, but…” His plan was to get some backup, some legal authority to hold Rachel, or at least keep her in his protective custody until they could find out what she knew about the shooting. Or until they got enough on Carlos to put him away without her help. Meanwhile… “You got any guns?”

“Couple deer rifles,” Sage said. “A shotgun.”

“These guys will have automatic weapons,” J.J. said.


The house was silent. Entering through the front door, J.J. could see across the courtyard to the veranda, where Rachel sat in the rocker nursing Sean. Since he was pretty sure there was nothing to be gained by another encounter with her, he went through the living room and dining room and into the kitchen, where he found Josie at the sink, stemming a bowlful of strawberries. She glanced up, and he thought he caught the shine of tears in her eyes.

“Sheriff J.J., I’m so sorry,” she began.

“Yeah, me, too,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ll be out of your way, soon as I can. Listen-is there any place in this house you could hide, if you had to?” Josie turned to look fully at him, the back of one hand, the one holding a paring knife, pressed to her nose. “You know-like a basement, or a safe room…”

She hesitated, then nodded and pointed the knife at the ceiling. “In the chapel-down at the other end of the house. There’s a secret door. It goes up to the bell tower. It’s Sam’s-it was Mr. Malone’s private place. The only way to get to it is stairs.” She twirled the knife to create a picture of a circular staircase.

“That’ll do,” J.J. said. “Listen-I want you to promise me, okay? If you see any sign of Carlos or his goons, I want you to get Rachel and the baby to that room. Get them up there, barricade the door and call 911. Don’t go out or open it for anyone until help arrives. Got it?”

Josie nodded and whispered, “Got it.”

He left her standing there looking after him and went down the corridor to his room. He took his duffel bag out of the closet and threw his clothes into it, dumped his traveling toiletry case on top of the clothes and zipped the bag shut. Then he got his service Glock and holster out of the drawer in the nightstand and laid it on the bed. He took out the magazine, checked it, put it back. Did the same with his backup Glock, then put it back in its holster where he always wore it, strapped to his right ankle.

He walked slowly to the French doors and looked out. Rachel was still there, rocking her baby. The way she was sitting he couldn’t see her face, and she wouldn’t know he was there unless he opened the doors or called to her. Which there wasn’t much point in doing. She’d made her feelings plain enough.

For the best, he told himself, ignoring the dull ache in his chest. Just as well. Last thing you needed…

He went back to the bed, picked up his duffel bag in one hand and his service pistol in the other and left the house by the same route as he’d entered. Josie, he noticed, was nowhere to be seen.

Outside in the shaded parking area in front of the six-car garage, he opened the door of his pickup and called to Moonshine. When he told her to get in the truck, she looked at him like he’d lost his mind, so he boosted her up by her hind end, tossed the duffel bag in after her and shut the back door. He got into the front, placed the Glock and its holster on the passenger seat, started up the engine and rolled away down the drive.

At the T intersection, he kept going straight, and when he pulled up to the big barn, Sage came strolling out to meet him, the border collie at his heels. J.J. waited for him to come close, then rolled down his window and handed him the Glock.

“You ever fire one of these?” he asked.

“I have not,” Sage said. J.J. showed him how to chamber a round and set the safety. “Keep it on you,” he said, looking the other man square in the eyes. “Don’t put it in a drawer or hang it on a nail. Put the holster on and wear it.”

“Will do,” Sage said.

“Goes in the small of your back,” J.J. said.

“Got it.”

J.J. nodded. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Meanwhile…keep her safe.”

Sage nodded. J.J. rolled the window up and drove around in a circle and headed back down the dirt lane.

He was about halfway down the mountain when he saw the chopper go by overhead. He stomped on the brake, rolled down the window and stuck his head out, watching the chopper make its way up the canyon toward the hacienda.

Black chopper, no markings. He could think of only one person it could be.

Carlos Delacorte.

Or his goons, which amounted to the same thing.

He swore, hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. Started up the truck. What the hell was he going to do? Couldn’t turn around-boulders the size of SUVs on both sides of the road. He had no choice but to keep going until he found a place where he could turn around, and in the meantime…

I’ll be too late. Sage with a couple of deer rifles and a Glock against God only knows how many trained killers armed with automatic weapons…

I’ve as good as killed him. And probably Josie and Rachel, too.

Careening down the rutted dirt road, steering one-handed, he managed to punch in 911 on his cell phone.

“What is the nature of your emergency?”

“This is San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy J. J. Fox, requesting immediate assistance.”

“I’m sorry, did you say-”

“Listen carefully, and don’t interrupt,” J.J. yelled into the phone. “I have a code-oh, hell, let me make this easy for you. I have a possible kidnapping in progress, June Canyon Ranch, off Highway 178. Multiple suspects, all armed and dangerous. Need immediate assistance. This is an emergency. If you have a S.W.A.T. team and a chopper, suggest you get ’em in the air-now.”

“Sir, if you’ll just stay on the line-”

“Can’t do that. Just get me some help. That’s June Canyon Ranch-don’t have an address, but it belongs to Sierra Sam Malone. Gotta go.” He dropped the cell phone into the center console and took hold of the wheel with both hands. Sent up a prayer and yanked it to the right, steering into a relatively clear patch of sand. Backed up into the resulting dust cloud, shifted into forward gear and hit the gas. Moonshine whined as the truck went bouncing and jouncing up the winding road, back the way they’d come.


Rachel saw the helicopter pass overhead as she sat on the veranda rocking Sean. She knew instantly whose it was. She knew, because she had flown in it-or one just like it-not so long ago. The one that had whisked Nicky and her from their wedding reception at Carlos’s Malibu beach house to the airport, where Carlos’s private jet had been standing by to fly them off to Tahiti for their honeymoon.

Cold enveloped her. She held on to Sean as if someone might try to rip him from her arms. She didn’t remember leaping to her feet or going inside or crossing her room, but when she opened the door, Josie was standing there with her fist raised to knock.

“Carlos-” Rachel gasped.

Josie grabbed her arm, motioning with her other hand. “I thought so. Bring him. Come with me. Hurry.”

Rachel followed her blindly, back onto the veranda, then across the sunlit courtyard. The wing of the house opposite the kitchen and living room was higher than the rest of the hacienda. Josie opened arched double doors in the whitewashed wall and motioned Rachel to go in ahead of her. Inside it was cool and dim, and as her eyes adjusted to the light, Rachel saw that they were in a small chapel. Josie gave her no time to get her bearings, but took her arm and urged her to the left, toward a beautifully carved wooded altar. She hurried ahead of her up the steps, reached up and turned a candle sconce on the wall to the right of the altar. To Rachel’s bemusement, the altar creaked slowly outward to reveal an opening behind.

“Come,” Josie whispered, gesturing urgently. “You’ll be safe in here.”

Rachel gave a sobbing laugh. Once again, it seemed, she would be putting her trust in Carlos’s respect for his Roman Catholic upbringing.

Holding Sean for dear life, she ducked through the opening and found herself at the foot of a wrought-iron staircase that wound upward into shadows. Josie waited for her to begin the climb, then pulled the altar and secret door back into position and secured it with a heavy old-fashioned wooden bar before following.

The stairway ended at a landing, with a single door, also of heavy, old-fashioned wood. Josie opened the door and once again waved Rachel into the room ahead of her before closing and barricading this door, too, with a sturdy wooden bar.

“This is Sam’s room,” Josie said, breathless with excitement, or from the climb. “It used to be the bell tower, but Sam had the bell taken down. It’s mounted on the front patio downstairs.”

Rachel nodded, barely listening. There were small windows on three sides of the tiny room, set in walls nearly a foot thick. Other than that, she noticed very little, except that the room was sparsely furnished, with a twin bed covered by an old-fashioned handmade quilt, a nightstand and a straight-backed chair and a small writing desk. There were framed photographs on the walls, but she didn’t take the time to look at them. Still holding Sean, she went to join Josie at one of the windows.

The window looked out toward the front of the house. To the left was the curving flagstone walk and shallow steps that led to the front door. Straight ahead, the driveway wound through the stands of poplars and pines before reaching the barbed wire fence that bordered the meadow pasture and arrowing off to the right toward the old ranch house and barns. From this vantage point, they had a clear view of the meadow, and the black helicopter that was just settling onto it like a dragonfly onto a pond.


Sage was in the house, standing in front of the open gun safe, when he heard the chopper fly over. He went to the window and watched the black bird hover, then set itself down in the meadow across from the big house. He was pretty sure the chopper didn’t belong to anybody he wanted to see.

He went back to the safe and took out the only weapon that was inside. Then he got out a box of shotgun shells, loaded the gun and put a handful of cartridges in his shirt pocket. The rifles were gone, both of them, and he knew who had them. No use wishing for what wasn’t there. He knew the shotgun wasn’t going to be much good against assault rifles, but he figured it might come in handy at close range, if it came to that.

He went to the front door and whistled for the dog. He came bounding from the direction of the barn, evidently excited over the prospect of visitors from the sky. Sage held the door open for him, said, “Stay, dog,” and shut him inside.

He could hear the dog whimpering as he set out for the big house at a dead run, cradling the shotgun in one arm while he pulled the Glock out of its holster in the small of his back with the other.

He was outnumbered and outgunned, but he had knowledge of the terrain on his side. That, and maybe the instincts of his ancestors. If he could make it to the trees, he figured he could flit from tree to tree, picking the gunmen off one by one as they came up the lane. He’d seen a documentary one time about how the Natives had shown the American colonists how to fight like that against the British. It had evidently worked for them, so he figured he had as good a shot as any at holding off these guys until help arrived.

Only one problem. There was a stretch of open ground along the road to get across before he reached the cover of the trees.

Even so, he almost made it. He was about fifty yards from safety when he heard the first shots. He didn’t fire back, figuring it would just waste what ammo he had, just put his head down and ran like the wind, praying all the way. The bullet hit him just as he reached the trees. It didn't hurt, just felt like someone had whacked him with a shovel. He spun around and the shotgun went flying, but he held onto the Glock as he crashed onto the pine-needle cushioned ground.


High in the bell tower, Josie uttered a sound like a wounded animal and clamped her hand over her mouth.

Rachel felt as though she’d been slugged in the stomach. Breath gusted from her lungs; instinctively, she tightened her arms around Sean. Oh God, oh God, oh God, was all she could think, at first. Then: I can’t let this happen!