Turquoise Guardian. Jenna Kernan

it belonged on a showroom floor.

      They left the small lot and turned away from Darabee. That was bad, she thought, because to the south was only Red Rock Dam and the resort community of Turquoise Lake. Beyond that, down the highway which many called the Apache Trail, lay Phoenix.

      The Subaru accelerated. Amber glanced at the digital speedometer, seeing that they had reached sixty, and the speed was still increasing. Outside her window the town of Pinyon Forks quickly gave way to pastureland dotted with the tribe’s cattle. Past the open stretch, the mountains rose, thick with lush green Douglas fir and ponderosa pine that grew in abundance on their land. The tribe’s land, she corrected. Not hers. Not anymore.

      “What will they do to us?” she asked in Apache.

      Carter’s jaw set, and she had her answer. They were dead unless Jack found them first or she or Carter did something. Muir still sat with his back toward the windshield. Gun pointed at Carter.

      “Attach your harness,” Carter said in Apache.

      “English,” said the driver.

      Amber drew a breath at the implication and reached for her safety belt. Whatever Carter planned, it involved a quick stop, maybe worse.

      She fastened her seat belt that included a shoulder restraint. Carter, of course, could not do the same. She grabbed the armrest tight and waited. They were going so fast now, the seconds taking them farther and farther from Pinyon Forks.

      Amber cleared her throat. Whatever Carter planned, it needed to be soon. But Muir kept his weapon raised and his attention on Carter.

      “I’m going to be sick,” she said.

      Muir didn’t bite. “Go ahead.”

      “Pull over, right now!” she shouted.

      His eyes flicked to her, but the gun stayed pointed at Carter. Leopold did not even flinch but kept both hands on the wheel as Muir gave her a ferocious glare. In that moment of inattention, Carter clamped both hands around the handgrip, lifted one booted foot and kicked the driver with such force the man’s head impacted the side window, cracking the glass.

      Muir looked to his partner as Carter swung the pointed toe of his boot in his direction, the tip impacting Muir’s eye socket. The man yelped and slapped his free hand over his eye, his pistol dipping out of Amber’s line of vision.

      Amber gasped at the violence of the attack and because the car was swerving now, leaving the highway at dizzying speeds.

      The SUV veered across the center line as the driver’s head lolled back in the seat, his hands dropping from the wheel. Muir lifted the pistol, and Amber lunged, leaving the shoulder restraint behind as she grabbed his arm with both hands and yanked up as the first shot went into the roof. Carter was now wrapping his legs around both the seat and passenger, trapping Muir’s arm beside his head.

      The SUV careened off the opposite shoulder and slid down the short embankment of grass. The jolting ride pressed Amber back into her seat. She grabbed at the door handle, but the door did not open. They bounced and jerked as the SUV thrashed through the long grass and weeds before breaking through the barbed wire fence. Her shoulder harness engaged, pinning her back in her seat and giving her an excellent view of the looming drop-off to the stream she knew ran cold and deep all year.

      Amber screamed as the earth fell from beneath the front fender. The vehicle tipped to a right angle, and she glimpsed the rocky creek bed visible only because the snowpack had not yet melted with the spring runoff. An instant later, they hit the rocky bank. Her shoulder harness bit into her chest and squeezed her hips as the vehicle came to an abrupt halt at the same moment the front air bags inflated, throwing the unconscious driver and struggling passenger back. Their side air bag inflated, dislodging Carter. He was thrown sideways so hard it looked as if he were being hauled by a rope. He didn’t move again.

      The car’s metal groaned, and the car fell back, the rear tires striking the bank behind them before coming to rest.

      White powder filled the cab, and she couldn’t see. Carter slumped beside her.

      She shook him, screaming his name, then remembered it was dangerous to shake an accident victim. Then she shook him again. He didn’t rouse.

      White swirling dust began to settle on them like frost. The stillness deafened.

       Chapter Six

      Amber had to find the handcuff key. The guys in Benson had kept theirs in their wallets.

      She released her seat belt. When she rolled her shoulder, she winced. Where was Muir’s pistol?

      First things first. She pushed the unconscious Muir forward into the deflating air bag and groped his back pockets, finding nothing. On her second try she located his wallet, in the front pocket of his blazer. She opened the worn brown leather and saw the license which read: Warren Cushing.

      “Muir,” she muttered and continued her search, locating the small handcuff key that most resembled a tiny luggage key.

      How long until one of them woke up? She kept the wallet and used the key, more worried when Carter’s hands dropped limply to his lap.

      “Wake up, Carter!”

      She tried the door again to the same end and then stared at the gap between the seats. It took only a moment to vault through the opening and lunge across the driver to reach the door release. The latch clicked, and she felt like crying in relief. Instead, she continued, head first out the door, clasping the armrest in passing to keep from sprawling on her face.

      Once outside the SUV she spotted the driver’s gun in a holster clipped on his belt. His face was a bloody mess as it seemed the air bag had broken his nose. She reached Leopold’s gun, or whatever his name really was. His pistol went in the back of her waistband as if she were a gangster. She shut the door and hurried to the rear door where Carter slumped. Amber tugged Carter’s door open and reached for him. He was heavy, and she realized she could tip him out, but then what?

      She considered shooting both the unconscious impostors and dismissed the notion as she wrinkled her nose in disgust. She couldn’t. She knew that much.

      Her eyes caught the glint of something shiny, and she spotted the gun on the floor mat by Carter’s feet. That pistol went in the front of her waistband. She could hear Warren Cushing groan as he started to regain consciousness.

      She felt the pressure of time and the choice of leaving Carter or staying here with these two strangers. Well, she had the guns. What if Carter had been wrong and these men were really FBI and she and Carter had just attacked federal officers and wrecked a federal vehicle?

      Amber’s shoulders slumped. She wiped back tears and retrieved Carter’s phone from his rear pocket. For the second time in one day she called for help, only this time she used Carter’s favorites list to find and dial Jack Bear Den’s cellular phone.

      “Where are you?” asked Detective Bear Den.

      She told him as best she could, not liking the high frantic quality of her voice. “We crashed the car. These men said they’re FBI. Carter says they aren’t, and one has an ID reading Warren Cushing, and he told me his name was Muir and—”

      “Slow down,” said Bear Den.

      She grabbed a breath and swallowed, then started again. Her words came out a jumbled mess, and it took a moment for her to realize that Detective Bear Den was shouting her name. She stopped talking.

      Then she noticed something, the meaning rising to fill her consciousness.

      “I smell gas.”

      “What?” asked Bear Den. “Get him out of the vehicle!”

      She thrust the phone in her pocket as the implications made her heart beat in her throat, choking out the stench. She gave Carter another sharp poke in the ribs. This time he groaned.