Lone Star Christmas Rescue Read online

  *

  The intense sun beat down on Drake as he examined the crime scene at Big Bend National Park. A hiker had found the bodies of Clarence and Susan Moore—what was left of them. Drake had seen his share of dead people, but the sight before him churned his gut. This retired couple had helped him when he’d needed it. If at all possible, he wouldn’t let their deaths go unsolved.

  “As you see, they were tortured,” the park ranger, Don Calhoun, said, “and from the condition of the bodies, not long after they left the visitor’s center yesterday.”

  After bringing him and Kay to it. “Why tortured? Has anything like this happened recently in the area?”

  “No. That and the connection to what happened with the lady made me decide to call you in on this.”

  Was this connected to Kay somehow? “I appreciate being notified. I’d like to help with the investigation.”

  Don combed his fingers through his hair and plopped his hat back on his head. “The investigator appreciates your offer.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Me. I was a police officer for five years before I became a park ranger. We’ll process the crime scene, but something tells me this isn’t over.”

  Drake glanced at the couple’s red sedan parked fifty yards away. He’d checked it earlier. “I agree. This is savage, and it doesn’t look like anything was stolen from their car.”

  Taking pictures of the couple and the surrounding terrain and gathering what little evidence there was, Drake worked with Don and another park ranger. When the bodies were transported from the scene, Drake put his gear back in the rear of his SUV. “I’ll let you know if the lab finds anything. Whoever did this was careful.”

  “A pro?” Don asked.

  “Probably. I don’t think this is a crime of passion. It seems cold and calculated.” Hence the lack of evidence. Drake opened his driver-side door. “I need to get back to Cactus Grove. I’ll dig into Clarence and Susan’s lives and get back to you about the lab report. Let me know what the autopsy reveals.” It wasn’t unusual for different law enforcement agencies to work together to solve a crime.

  “Will do. I’ll keep you informed of anything having to do with the case.”

  As Drake drove out of the park, he pushed his SUV over the speed limit. An urgency gripped him. When his cell reception returned briefly, he noted that Kay had called several times. Something was wrong. He tried calling her hospital room.

  No answer.

  Then he tried the nurses’ station and asked for the head nurse. “I’m sorry. She’s tied up right now. Can I help you?”

  “Yes, where’s the woman in room 236? I called its number, and no one answered.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe having some tests done? Who is this?”

  “Texas Ranger Jackson, the man who found the patient.”

  “Are you coming here?”

  “Yes. I’m about an hour away.”

  “Good. Rosa hopefully should be here, and you can talk to her. She’s been dealing with the patient in 236.”

  “About what?” Frustration tangled with a foreboding feeling.

  “I can’t reveal any information over the phone.”

  Drake gave the woman his cell phone number. “Have Rosa call me as soon as possible.”

  After he hung up, he put his lights and siren on and floored the accelerator. He entered another dead zone that would last most of the way to Cactus Grove.

  When he arrived at the hospital, he quickly parked and hurried into the building. He checked his cell phone. Only a message from the El Paso headquarters was new. Nothing from Kay or the head nurse. The elevator doors swished open on the second floor, and his attention zeroed in on the police officer going into Kay’s room.

  Heart thumping against his rib cage, Drake quickened his pace, and when he entered 236, he came to an abrupt halt. Her bed was empty, with two police officers standing around it talking.

  “Did something happen? Where is Kay?” Drake interrupted.

  Officer Emert, whom he’d worked with before, faced Drake. “She’s gone. And so is the baby.”

  THREE

  After seeing Kay making her escape on the camera footage of the hallways in the hospital, Drake paced the small security office, wondering what had caused her to flee with the baby. The brief expression he’d glimpsed on her face as she’d sneaked out of her room was one of fear. Had someone frightened her? Had she remembered something about what happened to her? “I need the footage of the second-floor hallway for the few hours before she left.”

  “Just a sec,” the security guard said and punched some keys. “Here it is.”

  Drake stopped and faced the monitor. When a large man barged into the room without knocking, Drake leaned closer to the screen, counting down how long he remained inside. Rosa and an orderly hurried toward the room. The head nurse paused at the entrance and then entered, leaving the orderly in the corridor. Not long after that, the man left 236 but didn’t go far. He slipped inside a storage room a few doors away from Kay. Again, Drake noted the time stamp until the guy reappeared in the hallway and went toward the elevator. What did he do in there for twenty minutes?

  The only person who might shed light on the man was Rosa. “Thanks. I need you to send me a photo of the man who came out of the storage room. Also, a picture of Kay leaving her room. Send it here.” Drake gave the security guard a card with his cell number and email address. “Keep this footage until I say otherwise.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Drake knew Rosa had left work about an hour ago. Earlier she’d told Officer Emert that she hadn’t seen Kay leave with the baby, and from the footage that appeared correct. But she hadn’t said anything about that man visiting Kay’s room earlier. Maybe the nurse could tell him what she’d seen.

  First, Drake stopped at the storage room and went inside. He examined what was really only a large walk-in closet for evidence the guy from the tape might have left behind. Everything appeared in its correct place, so he took latent prints from the inside doorknob, then headed downstairs to the main office to get Rosa’s home phone number and address. He was glad she didn’t live very far from the hospital.

  Soon he pulled up in front of the head nurse’s ranch-style house and parked in the driveway. The bright Christmas lights around the front welcomed him as he rang the bell.

  A teenage boy opened the door with earbuds stuck in his ears, the sound of a current popular song loud enough for Drake to hear.

  “Is your mom home?”

  “What?” the kid shouted.

  The teen was in his own world. He hadn’t even bothered to look at Drake other than a brief glance when he answered the door. Drake pulled out his credentials and waved them in the boy’s line of vision. “I need to see Rosa Martinez.”

  Eyes wide, the adolescent yelled, “Mom, the police are here.” He remained in the entrance to the house.

  Rosa hurried from the back, waving her hand at her son. “Thanks, Samuel. You still haven’t shown me your English paper. It’s due tomorrow.”

  The teen stepped back from the entryway and removed his earbuds, his attention now glued to Drake.

  “I need to talk to you about Kay,” Drake said to Rosa.

  “I’m sorry I had to leave, but I had to pick up Samuel from the school library. I don’t know what happened. I went into her room to take Kaleb back to the children’s wing. She and the baby were gone. I notified security, and then an emergency took most of my time after that.”

  Samuel still hung around, moving slowly toward the hallway.

  Kaleb? Had Kay remembered the baby’s name? “Can we talk in private?” Drake asked, remembering the times he would do anything to get out of writing a paper for school.

  “Sure. The kitchen should be private enough.” Rosa sent a glare in her son’s direction. He left quickly.

  “Is he your only child?”

  “Yes, how can you tell?”

  “Too quiet here.” Drake followed Rosa to
the kitchen. “I have a sister near my age who has four children. She lives in Houston. When I visit, the house is always noisy, except when they’re all asleep.”

  “You don’t have any children?” Rosa gestured at the table while she walked to the counter and filled a mug. “Do you want some coffee?”

  “Sounds good.” As Rosa handed him a cup and sat, Drake joined her. “I’m not married. I was once.”

  “What happened?”

  “She was killed in the line of duty. She was a highway patrol officer like I was before I became a Texas Ranger. She stopped a truck driving too fast. The driver shot her.”

  Rosa took a long drink. “I’m so sorry. Did they catch the killer?”

  “Yes, he’d been transporting illegal immigrants.” Another reason Drake had wanted to be on the human trafficking task force besides the suspicion about what happened to his younger sister.

  “Being a police officer is dangerous. I’m so glad my husband has a boring job reading X-rays. He’s a radiologist and should be home from El Paso soon.”

  As he took several sips, Drake relished the coffee. “I know you talked with the two officers in Kay’s room, and they passed on what you told them, but I’m here about an incident that happened a couple of hours before you discovered Kay was gone.”

  Rosa’s forehead puckered. “Incident?” She paused, then said, “Oh, you mean the stranger who came into her room looking for another patient.”

  “Yes, he was about six feet with dark hair.” Drake clicked on the photo the security guard had sent him and showed his cell phone to Rosa.

  She nodded. “He was looking for an Amy Grafton. We didn’t have a patient on my floor by that name. Later I found there was a patient called that, but on the third floor in room 336—an older woman who was being discharged. He probably wrote down the wrong number.”

  “You didn’t see him after that?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because on the security tape, that man left Kay’s and went a couple of doors down into a storage closet. He stayed there for twenty minutes, then left.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “I agree. I’ll check with Amy Grafton to see if she knows this man.”

  “If she doesn’t, do you think he took Kay and the baby?”

  “Kay left with the child. The man had already disappeared, but something doesn’t feel right.” Why hide in a storage closet for twenty minutes? Drake sighed. “I won’t take up any more of your time. You’ve put in a long day.” He rose.

  “Please let me know when you find Kay and Kaleb.”

  “Did she remember the baby’s name?”

  Rosa pushed to her feet, tired lines carved into her features. “‘Kaleb’ came to her, and the child responded to it. It was obvious the baby knew her. But she hadn’t recalled anything else. At least that I know of.”

  Had she recognized the man who entered her room? “If you think of anything else unusual that happened on the floor today, give me a call. You have my card?”

  She nodded and walked with him to the foyer. “I’m off for the next two days, but I’ll help any way I can. I’ll be here.”

  “Thanks.”

  Weary, Drake needed sleep after the past two long days, but he still wanted to see if Amy Grafton could help him ID the man in the photo. The police were working on identifying the man. At the moment, he was the only lead Drake had other than the security camera showing Kay leaving the hospital by the back door, dressed in the clothes she’d worn the day before. Then she’d disappeared.

  At least she had three hundred dollars. But the money without having ID was strange. Had she been faking not knowing who she was? Was the baby hers? The locket indicated she knew the child somehow. He hoped he would hear soon about the latent prints he took off the inside door handle of the storage closet. He couldn’t shake the sense of urgency he felt, as though someone was homing in on Kay and the child—someone she’d been fleeing when he found her?

  *

  Kay shrank farther into the shadows of the dimly lit café, the ambience more for couples looking for a night of romance than a woman with a baby. She’d cased the place for an hour before she’d come inside to get off the street and order something to eat. Kaleb was finally asleep, strapped against her chest. The only other place she’d gone after leaving the hospital was a store where she’d used the money she’d found in her jeans pocket to buy necessary items for Kaleb and a clean shirt that didn’t look like she’d rolled around in the dirt. She used less than a hundred to equip herself and Kaleb to disappear somewhere in the area until she decided on her next move.

  She had no idea who was after her, but deep inside she knew someone was hunting her. She didn’t have to remember how she ended up on the canyon floor with a head wound or who she was. That man’s appearance earlier sent every alarm bell ringing in her head.

  The waitress put the hamburger in front of Kay. “Anything else, miss?”

  “Please keep the water glass filled. That’s all.”

  “Be thankful it’s not as hot as it was in early fall. I’m looking forward to the holidays and colder days.”

  What had her previous Christmases been like? As usual when she tried to remember, nothing came to mind.

  Kay gave the waitress a smile, then took a bite of the hamburger, thick and juicy. Although she ate as fast as she could because she didn’t want to stay too long, she savored the delicious flavors of her meal, especially the onion rings, while trying to figure out where she would sleep tonight. If she got a motel room, her three hundred dollars wouldn’t last long. She needed to lie low until she figured out who she was. Maybe she could go to a shelter. Earlier she’d seen one while walking here, across the street from a church.

  When she finished her dinner, she relaxed, stroking Kaleb’s back. For the past half hour, she’d been able to forget she was totally alone. In the hospital room, she’d contemplated staying and waiting for Drake to return, but as time passed and he hadn’t come back, she’d realized she really could only depend on herself. But he was a Texas Ranger. A good guy. Surely she could rely on him to help her.

  At the moment, she didn’t know whom to believe. Good men had turned bad.

  Where did that come from?

  Did she have firsthand experience with that?

  Her head still throbbing, she retrieved a couple of over-the-counter pain relievers and took them with a gulp of water.

  The café door opened, and a large party entered, followed by a single man. Nothing about him seemed familiar, but the more people who came into the restaurant, the more she took a risk—why did she feel that way? Overriding every confusing feeling bombarding her, she knew she couldn’t sit here any longer. She needed to find a place for the night—even if that meant backtracking into the more populated part of Cactus Grove—and come up with a plan.

  She put ten dollars on the table on top of her bill and made her way to the restroom. Inside the family one, she locked the door, laid the blanket on the changing table and put Kaleb on it. He’d been sleeping for the past hour. His eyes slid open, and he began to screw his mouth into a frown.

  “I’m here, sweetie.” Kay splayed her hand over Kaleb’s chest and gently patted him as his eyes closed again. “I won’t leave you.” As she said those words, she meant every one of them. She didn’t need to know officially that Kaleb was her child. Every time she looked at the little boy she saw glimpses of herself in Kaleb’s face. Kay’s heart swelled with an overwhelming love.

  Carefully so Kaleb didn’t wake up again, Kay changed the baby’s diaper. It was nice being in a room where she didn’t have to be constantly vigilant for anyone who could be after her. The café, on the outskirts of town, was getting crowded. She couldn’t put off looking for a place to stay any longer.

  She strapped Kaleb against her chest, swung the backpack she’d bought for their belongings over her shoulder, then shoved her hand into her pocket to make sure her money was there. Her fingers grazed a card—the
Texas Ranger’s.

  Call him. He said he would help.

  I did, and he didn’t call back. Where could he have gone that he’d be out of cell reception that long?

  Okay, maybe she hadn’t given him that much time to call her back before she left the hospital. But when she’d cracked open the door, peeked into the hallway and seen the stranger who’d come into her room sneaking out of a storage closet, she’d known her decision to leave was the correct one. Something wasn’t right. He’d gone to the elevator. She’d used the stairs after she was sure the stranger wouldn’t return.

  No, she couldn’t depend on anyone. Someone close to her had recently said that to her. Who?

  She closed her eyes and tried to imagine who it had been. Nothing materialized.

  Lord, I need more than a brief glimpse. Help me.

  When nothing came to mind, she covered the remaining distance to the door and inched it open. The short hallway was empty. She left the family restroom and crept toward the large room, which held more diners than earlier. All she needed to do was cross the expanse and get outside without drawing attention. She scanned the café, filled with couples and families.

  It was now or never. She took a step forward. The main entrance opened, and the stranger from the hospital entered.

  Kay froze.

  *

  Drake pulled up to his family ranch house, needing to catch some shut-eye, but he didn’t think he could sleep. Not when he couldn’t find Kay and the baby. Amy Grafton had only confirmed what he suspected. The stranger who had barged into Kay’s room didn’t have any ties to Mrs. Grafton. So why had the guy been on the second floor? The latent prints he’d taken off the storage closet doorknob had all belonged to people who worked there, except one. It was a partial that didn’t match anyone in the database.

  Before coming home, he’d gone to his office and grabbed the satellite phone, since there was no cell reception at the ranch—only a landline—because it was too far out of town. He’d wished he’d thought to do that earlier today—then maybe he would have received Kay’s call for help. When he’d worked in Fort Worth, he hadn’t had to worry about so many dead zones.