A Stunning Betrayal: Alone: Book 9 Read online

They were cold-blooded creatures. They didn’t have circulation systems which would burn calories to warm them. They relied on the warmth of the sun to do that.

  At night, when the sun went away, they relied on the warmth of rocks which absorbed some of the sun’s heat during the day to help keep them warm.

  Or, when they were lucky enough to happen upon one, the warmth of a sleeping human body.

  Campers in desert climes know to move slowly when they awake, and to be very careful when extricating themselves from their sleeping bags.

  For occasionally there will be a sleeping rattler curled up against their feet.

  In the new world people were finding themselves in situations they’d never encountered before.

  Being in places they’d never been before.

  And sleeping in places they’d never slept before.

  Dave took the girl from her mother’s arms and placed her tenderly in the desert sand.

  He instinctively knew there was no way to help her. No way to save her.

  He had no antivenin. No Ringer’s lactate. Not even saline solution, which would only have delayed her death but wouldn’t stop it.

  With her mother screaming for him to help her baby he felt helpless and hopeless.

  She was a goner.

  It was only a matter of time.

  Beth, as young as she was, wanted desperately to help.

  “What can we do, Daddy?”

  He looked at her and said, “Nothing, sweetheart. There’s nothing we can do. I’m sorry.”

  Even as he spoke, the venom made its way to the young girl’s heart. Her eyeballs rolled back into her head, and for a couple of seconds her eyes were a hideous white. Then, perhaps showing mercy for those she’d leave behind, she closed her eyes.

  She drew her last breath and went limp.

  Her mother went to her knees and started wailing louder than ever.

  She cursed the same God she was begging for help just minutes before.

  She cursed Dave.

  “Why didn’t you help her? Why didn’t you help my baby?

  “Oh, my God! She was the only child I had left! Why didn’t you save her?”

  Beth went to the woman. Tried to hold her hand. Tried to comfort her.

  The woman saw Beth’s efforts as an affront. She pulled away.

  She wanted to suffer alone.

  Dave wanted desperately to tell her there was nothing he could do. That he’d have given his own life to save the child.

  But that she was doomed as soon as she was bitten.

  He knew his words wouldn’t help. So he didn’t even try.

  Instead he walked back to the rig for a blanket to wrap her in.

  Chapter 13

  Another day they’d have taken advantage of the cool New Mexico morning to keep traveling.

  At least long enough to find a stand of trees.

  Or a place on the highway where the roadway went over a large draw. And the bridge provided some shade beneath it.

  Because in the heat of the afternoon it was almost impossible to sleep in the unrelenting sun without some type of shade to cool them.

  On this day, though, none of them would get any sleep at all.

  By noon, when the sun was high in the sky and beating unmercifully down upon them, they’d finished preparing the young girl’s body for burial and saying their prayers over her.

  By one p.m., Sal had moved the rig another quarter mile up the highway and parked it beneath a huge billboard.

  A billboard advertising sun screen, of all things.

  The monstrous sign provided little comfort now, but as each hour passed the patch of shade beneath it would grow ever larger.

  It wasn’t much, but in the desert one takes help when and where he can find it.

  And it was slightly better than nothing.

  By two p.m. the girl’s mother had calmed down enough to tell them her story.

  Her name was Adriana.

  The young girl was Rachel, named in honor of a grandmother she never knew.

  Adriana fled Albuquerque three weeks before after a shootout in Crip territory sent a stray bullet through the wall of her home and killed her three-year-old son.

  She and her children had only been allowed to stay because her boyfriend, and the boy’s father, was a member of the gang.

  After the boy died he decided it was time for Adriana and Rachel, who had a different father, to leave.

  They were chased away with nothing but the clothes on their backs, without the tools to survive.

  Through the kindness of others they were given enough food and water to keep them alive. But they no longer had a home in Albuquerque and joined the thousands of refugees leaving the city for safer environs.

  Adriana had a sister in Santa Rosa. At least she did before the blackout, though that was no guarantee she was still alive.

  Or even still alive, for that matter.

  But it was the only hope they had.

  They’d moved by day, because traveling at night scared them.

  They quickly learned how to pick through the trailers of the abandoned big rigs for food and water, and how to boil spring water when they had to.

  Adriana learned how to tell if one of the abandoned tractors was occupied by other travelers, by banging the heel of her hand against the sleeper cab to see if anyone inside called out.

  And they found two sleeping bags in one of the trailers, for the nights such accommodations weren’t available.

  Adriana said they could have grabbed a tent as well, and placed it in the baby stroller they took turns pushing down the highway each morning and evening.

  But a tent would have hindered the spectacular view of the moon and the stars each night.

  They preferred to fall asleep while watching for shooting stars, and wishing each time for happier days ahead.

  They knew the risks of sleeping in the desert and put their faith in a piece of common rope.

  Someone told them snakes will not climb over a rope, thinking it’s another of their kind.

  Each night, when they bedded down in the desert, Adriana encircled their camp with the rope, thinking it would protect them from the deadly rattlers and any other slithering critters.

  The rope method of protecting oneself against rattlers has been around for a very long time.

  Cowboys in the old west used to do the same thing.

  And many of them died, for the rope trick does not work.

  It’s a myth.

  Adriana now knew that, but it was too late.

  No one told Adriana that rattlers like to snuggle with sleeping human beings on cool desert nights.

  Or that they can easily invade a sleeping bag without awakening its occupant.

  Had she known that she might have picked up that tent after all, or slept in the back of an abandoned trailer when the sleeper cab was taken.

  Hindsight, they say, is twenty/twenty.

  Adriana cried over Rachel for several hours, and around five p.m. finally gave Dave the okay to bury her.

  Since none of them got a wink’s sleep all day, they decided to stay the night and start fresh in the morning.

  Dave offered, and Adriana accepted, an invitation for a ride to Santa Rosa.

  But it wouldn’t work out that way.

  Around seven, not long before sundown, she said she wanted to say her final goodbyes to her daughter.

  Dave had an uneasy feeling, but said nothing.

  Sal started to say something but thought better of it.

  Ten minutes later a single gunshot rang out.

  Beth was the only one who was startled.

  Dave and Sal both hoped they were wrong, but weren’t surprised by the shot.

  Dave found the young mother sprawled across the fresh grave, her handgun still clutched tightly in her fist.

  When he returned, carrying the woman’s body, Sal looked at him questioningly.

  “It’s too dark to bury her tonight. But by morning the coyotes
will have had their way with her. We’ll wrap her in a blanket and watch over her tonight, and I’ll bury her next to Rachel in the morning before we head out.”

  Despite their exhaustion, nobody slept much that night.

  Chapter 14

  “Why’d she do it, Daddy? We were gonna give her a ride. Things would have been better once she got to her sister’s house.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not, honey. She said she wasn’t even sure her sister was still alive. That she was dependent on insulin to live. And from what I’ve heard, insulin is almost impossible to get anymore.

  “Maybe she was afraid if she got to Santa Rosa and discovered her sister didn’t make it, it would be too much for her to bear.

  “Or maybe she just didn’t want to leave her little girl alone, way out here in the middle of nowhere. Maybe she just wanted to be with her, and thought the only way she could do that would be if she died as well.”

  Beth grew quiet. She was deep in thought.

  Dave didn’t rush her.

  “Daddy, she looked like she was about my age. And I’ve seen rattlers before. I saw one when I walked into the desert to use the bathroom awhile back, remember?”

  “I remember, honey. You screamed louder than I’ve ever heard anyone scream before.”

  “What if he bit me, Daddy? What if I died like the little girl did? Would you bury me out here, all by myself? Would you go back to Kansas City without me, and forget all about me?”

  “Honey, let’s not talk about that. That’s not something I even want to think about.”

  “But it’s kinda important. On account of it could have happened. If I didn’t see the snake that day and walked close to him and he bit me, would you have left me out here? Or would you do what she did, so you could stay with me?”

  “I don’t know, honey. I honestly don’t.”

  She went silent again.

  Dave gave her her space. It was important to him that she resolve the situation to her own satisfaction before they moved on.

  “I think if the same thing happens to me you should leave me here.”

  “The same thing’s not gonna happen to you, honey. I’ll make darn sure of that.”

  “But that’s just it, Daddy. You can’t protect me from everything. I’m old enough to know that now.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning when I was little I believed in boogey men and monsters and all kinds of things. I used to think there was a scary sea monster who lived under my bed, remember?”

  Dave managed a half-smile.

  “Yes. I remember. Your sister convinced you of that. She even gave him a name: Slimy.”

  “Yes. She told me if I dared to get out of bed in the middle of the night, even if it was to go to the bathroom, that Slimy would reach out from under the bed with his claws and drag me under the bed with him and eat me and spit out my bones.”

  Sal, sitting on a boulder nearby and listening, raised an eyebrow and was thankful he never had his own big sister.

  Sal never had any sisters at all. He never had to grow up under the thumb of a big sister who delighted in his misery. He didn’t know that big sisters can be a royal pain in the butt.

  But Beth knew it well.

  “I remember all that,” Dave said. “But what has Slimy the under-the-bed sea monster have to do with all this?”

  “Because back then I was little and foolish. That was before I grew up a lot.

  “Back then I believed there were all kinds of monsters and bad people in the world and mean dogs and bullies and all kinds of dangerous things.

  “And back then I believed you could save me from all of them. I mean, when I told you about Slimy you grounded Lindsey for putting such a thought into my head, remember? You fixed my bed so I could sleep way up in the clouds, remember?”

  It was true. To prove to four-year-old Beth there was no way a sea monster lived beneath her bed, he built stilts for each of the bed’s legs.

  He raised it up four feet off the floor and placed a tiny work desk and a small dresser beneath it. He installed a light beneath the bed and gave Beth permission to turn the light on each night as she slept so no sea monsters dare come near.

  Then he built a rail for the side of her bed to keep her from falling out, and a ladder she could use to climb in and out.

  It was, essentially, an upper bunk without the lower.

  Once done he pronounced that she could sleep way up high, “among the clouds, where princesses always sleep.”

  “And you did all that,” Beth said, “so I’d sleep better. And because you were my hero.”

  “Or at least a great father,” Sal added.

  “My point,” Beth went on, “is that back in those days I depended on you to fix everything for me. To scare away all my monsters. But I’m eight now. I’m practically all grown up.

  “I see things differently now.

  “I can see that there are some things you can’t fix. Like you couldn’t fix the little girl. And if that rattlesnake I saw bit me you probably wouldn’t have been able to fix me either.

  “And I’ve have died, and you would have had to bury me too, just like you buried her.”

  “Beth, I…”

  “Hold on, Dad. Let me finish.”

  “Okay.”

  “I understand things better now than when I was younger. I know that all of us die. And once we’re gone we go to a better place. A place where there’s no pain and no more misery.

  “After Grandma Nellie died I heard Benny tell Grandpa Sal he had to force himself to go on without her. He said life is for the living and he no longer had the desire.

  “At first I didn’t understand what he meant, but I thought about it a lot and I think I know now.

  “If I die out here I want you to leave me here and go back to Mom and Lindsey. Help them, and be their fixer, because once I’m gone they’ll need you more than I do.”

  Dave was at a loss for words.

  Beth finally fell silent, finally gave him a chance to speak, and he didn’t know what to say.

  Finally, he managed a question.

  “How old are you again?”

  “Oh gosh, Dad. You know I’m eight.”

  “Because you sure do seem a lot older, and a lot wiser, than a child of only eight years.”

  Chapter 15

  “Sarah, can I talk to you?”

  Sarah looked around to make sure no one was within earshot, then whispered to her sister.

  “Sure, but I only have a minute. I have to meet Santos in the back for our daily game of kick-his-ass at poker.”

  Her smile was swept away when she saw the deadly serious look on Karen’s face.

  “It’s about you… and John Parker.”

  “Oh.”

  She looked around again, then asked, “What about him?”

  “There’s a rumor going around that you and Parker have become more than just friends.”

  Sarah had never been able to lie. To many people lying comes almost natural. Lies roll off their tongues with ease.

  But Sarah, in the few times in her life she chose to lie, was terrible at it. She fidgeted and looked away and choked on her words.

  She’d have made a terrible criminal or politician.

  And she was never, ever able to lie to her big sister Karen, even when they were small and growing up in their grandmother’s house in Oregon.

  Faced with trying to lie, knowing Karen would see right through her, Sarah opted instead for defiance.

  “What business is that of yours?”

  Karen was caught short.

  She was incredulous but undeterred.

  “Let’s just say it’s my business because I love your girls almost as much as you do. And Dave is one of the finest men either of us have ever known.

  “And I don’t want to see any of them get hurt. I’d have thought you wouldn’t either. You know, you being their mom and wife and all…”

  “Don’t hit me below the belt, Karen. You’re not
perfect either. Don’t you dare get all high and mighty on me.”

  “Sarah, honey… just tell me why.”

  Sarah gave pause and took a deep breath before answering.

  “I… I don’t know. I guess I’ve… well, I’ve been lonely…”

  “For Christ’s sake, Sarah, don’t you think we’re all lonely? Don’t you think I miss Tommy? Don’t you think Kara is still unable to sleep through the night without crying out for Jacob?

  “For that matter, how do you think Dave is feeling, out there on the road all alone looking for Beth? At least you’ve got family around to help comfort you. Your husband is out there all alone. If anyone in the world has a right to feel lonely it’s him. Not you. Being lonely is a piss-poor excuse for cheating on your husband.”

  Sarah winced at the words “cheating on your husband.” As though she wasn’t aware that was what she was doing.

  Or would have worded it differently. Less harsh, perhaps.

  “Karen, you don’t understand.”

  “Then explain it to me, little sister. Make me understand. Because you’re absolutely right. I don’t understand why you’d cheat on an incredible husband with a killer and escaped convict.”

  Sarah looked down, as though examining a spot on the floor. And while there were certainly plenty of spots she could have examined, she was really only diverting her eyes.

  Out of shame.

  “Maybe I’m just tired.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Maybe I’m tired of getting my hopes up that this shitty world we’re living in is going to get better. Maybe I’m tired of believing there are still good people left in the world.

  “People who aren’t just out to take what doesn’t belong to them. People who aren’t just out to hurt others.”

  “Hurt others, like your new boyfriend does?”

  “Maybe I’m finally becoming a realist, Karen.

  “Maybe I’ve finally accepted the fact that Dave’s chances of finding Beth in that big bad world out there are non-existent.

  “Maybe I’ve accepted the fact he’s probably dead too now. He told me how dangerous it was for him to get here from San Antonio. How he almost died more than once. Now he’s supposed to go on a journey to who-knows-where, that could last for who-knows-how-many months?