“Hospital!”
She left everything on the viewing platform, including her cell phone, only having a moment of disappointment about not documenting evidence. This guy was clearly not from a UFO. It looked as if he’d been in the desert for days.
There was no question the man’s life was much more important than any research. She pointed the car east toward Alpine. Marfa was closer and had a doctor but no hospital. The dashboard lights showed smudges of the man’s blood on her hands and forearms. She felt the stickiness of a heavy damp saturation just above her hip.
“Are you bleeding to death?” she screamed at the unconscious stranger and threw on the brakes. “Were you attacked by coyotes or something?”
Twisting to look at him closer, she searched the middle compartment for anything, even napkins. There was nothing here to stem the loss of blood. She pulled her long-sleeve shirt over her head and shifted to reach his body, searching with her hands until she found a wound. Her fingers found a distinct puncture. She’d never seen one in real life, but there was no mistaking the bullet hole.
Dear Lord. “What happened to you?”
She pressed the shirt into his side, moving his arm into a position to hold it in place. He moaned.
“Thank God you’re alive, but who knows how long that will last.”
The lights were closer, then gone again.
Using all the training her father had taught her about control, she forced her thoughts to slow and hold herself together. She readjusted in the seat and buckled the seat belt in place before putting the car in Drive.
One at a time, she swiped her hands across her jeans to remove the man’s damp blood before pulling out of the parking lot. She dipped her head to her shoulder, trying to push a loose piece of hair, stuck across her cheek, off her sweaty face.
What in the world was she getting involved in? A secret chopper? Maybe a new stealth plane? “Are you military or something? I sure hope you’re not a fugitive or a drug runner. But whoever you are, you’re dying and I have to get you to a hospital.”
Nothing was around for miles. No homes, no businesses, no help. Help? She should call for help. Where was her stupid phone?
Oh, no. It was in the chair where she’d dumped Sharon’s bag. She needed to call, tell someone she had an injured man and get directions to the hospital in Alpine. She turned in the small lot, prepared to jump from the car and dial on the way back. A one-or two-minute delay was better than getting lost. Maybe they could send an ambulance to meet her.
Bright spotlights blinded her in all her mirrors. She couldn’t see and tilted the rearview up. Forget the phone. She punched the gas and could smell the smoking rubber of the slightly balding tires.
“It’s following us!” Whatever it was, it was practically on top of the trunk.
The road was straight so she couldn’t stop or it would crash into her. There was no way to outrun it in an old four-cylinder economy.
“Now what?”
Colored lights flashed. The inside of the car looked like a blinking neon sign. She could barely see the two-lane highway, and then whatever followed rammed the little car. Andrea’s neck jerked back. Her body smashed against the seat belt. Her wrists slammed into the steering wheel. Her father would be proud she didn’t scream—as much as she wanted to let out a string of obscenities at whoever was flying that thing.
Another hit. The thing had to be a chopper. The man in her backseat had to be in serious trouble and now so was she.
The car skidded sideways onto the shoulder and beyond. She maintained her grip, steering through the grass on the side of the highway. The chopper blocked her path back to the road. They bounced a few seconds before she aimed at the wire between fence posts and gunned the little engine again.
She had no idea what was out here. She could be headed straight to a small boulder or a ravine. The unknown was definitely frightening, but not as much as the chopper on her tail.
As suddenly as the thing appeared behind her, it was gone. No lights. No sounds. She wanted to slow down, but it wasn’t safe. Too late she wished she had when a slab of broken foundation forced the car sideways.
It rolled.
She screamed.
Driving this empty length of pavement could put him to sleep if he wasn’t careful. Pete Morrison stretched his neck from side to side, turned the squad car’s radio up a bit louder and rolled down the window for fresh air. A quick trip out to the Lights Viewing Area and back to the office for some shut-eye.
Probably just a plane and a waste of taxpayer gas.
“I saw some strange stuff out there,” a trucker had told Dispatch. “I don’t believe in UFOs or nothing like that, but if it is, I want the credit for seeing it first. Okay?”
“Sure thing” had been the standard reply to every driver who thought he’d seen a UFO. And each report had to be checked out. It was Marfa, after all.
Griggs would get an earful in the morning about honesty and the law. This was the third time in two weeks Pete had covered the son of a gun’s night shift at the last minute because of illness. Everyone knew the deputy had gone to Alpine to party. If he wanted to change shifts, he just needed to ask. There were twelve other deputies on the payroll, and yet Pete was covering. Again.
Partying hadn’t been something he’d personally wanted to do for the past couple of months. But since Griggs had transferred from Jefferson Davis County, he’d been covering his shifts a lot. Covering wasn’t the problem. He got extra pay and could normally sleep on the back cot. Nothing ever happened in Marfa beyond speeding citations and public intoxication.
Tonight was one of the exceptions. He’d make a quick pass by the official Marfa Lights Viewing Area, drive back and get some shut-eye.
“Dispatch, I’ve got an all clear. Not seeing anything unusual. But I might as well make a run to the county line.”
“Okey dokey, Pete. This is Peach. See you in a while.”
He laughed at Peach’s official acknowledgment. No sense trying to get her to change. Everyone called her Peach. She insisted on it. Her sister, Honey, got the day shift since she was older. He supposed nicknames were better than Winafretta and Wilhilmina. They’d been in Dispatch for as long as his dad had been a deputy or sheriff of Presidio County. Or longer. His dad swore no one could remember hiring either of them. They’d just shown up one day.
When his dad officially retired, the new sheriff could request replacements for them, but he’d like to see anyone tell Peach she was too old to handle things at night around the office. A shot of regret lodged like a clump of desert dirt in his throat. He’d have to withdraw his name from the election so someone else would step forward. Galen Rooney had only been on the force for a couple of years and just didn’t have the experience needed to run things.
No matter who the county elected, they’d most likely keep him on as a deputy. If not... Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought past quitting the race. The idea of withdrawing gnawed at his gut like a bad case of food poisoning. He’d never quit anything. His dad—he couldn’t ever think of the man who’d raised him as anything else—wouldn’t be happy.
“Crap. What the hell was that?”
He successfully dodged a long object in the middle of the road. He swiftly U-turned the squad car, flipped his lights on and drove a couple of seconds. Parking across the road, he turned the floodlight until it shone on a black bumper resting on the yellow line.
Joe Morrison had raised him riding shotgun in a squad car. The mental checklist of what