Lost Horizon: Drama in the Desert (Travels and Travails of Maile Spencer Book 9) by Hadashi Kay

Author:Hadashi, Kay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The head of the guards looked down at the lifeless body on the ground in front of them. “Amazing how much blood comes out of a man in that condition.”

“What do you want us to do with him?” one of the cellblock guards asked.

“Get a burial detail arranged and take him outside the city walls. Dig a hole, drop him in, cover him up, and leave him to the sands of the desert.”

“Memorial stone to mark the site?” the guard asked.

“Lawyers don’t deserve them. Certainly not ones that represent filthy foreigners.” The head guard took one last drag from his cigarette and flicked it down at the body before them. “History will forget both of them soon enough.”

A pair of guards lifted the dead lawyer and tossed him into the back of a pickup truck, along with his head and a pair of shovels. Before they could drive off, the head guard came to the driver’s window.

“Don’t waste any prayers on him.”

▪▪▪

With Undersheriff John Tucker and Park Ranger Dan O’Brien on their way to the hospital, and the revelation of who was behind the serial killings of all the women Tucker had discovered in Rattlesnake Gulch, Maile’s problems should’ve been over. But Sheriff Ann Brown was still at large, and would be looking for her next victim.

That victim should be Maile, and she knew it. She knew of Brown’s involvement, and Brown knew that. Brown also believed Maile to be one of Tucker’s ‘girlfriends’. Maile knew there would be no way to convince a psychotic wife otherwise.

Brown was still a respected member of law enforcement, at least until O’Brien and Tucker’s story about Brown could circulate and she was finally picked up. Brown also had easy access to weapons and sturdy vehicles, while Maile spent most of her time alone, often in isolated places.

For that reason, she decided to limit her training runs to the middle of the night and stick close to the campground during the daytime.

It was the middle of the afternoon when she finally gave up trying to sleep on her cot. She sat on the edge of it and wiped sweat.

“Where is this all coming from? Drying more sweat than the water I’m drinking.”

She wrung out her sweat rag onto the ground and wiped again.

“This is stupid. If I’m going to sweat this much, I may as well get the exercise to make it worthwhile.”

She dressed in her latest rendition of running togs: T-top and nylon running shorts, thick socks, her newest pair of shoes that were still being broken in, and her boonie hat that tied beneath her chin and behind her head to hold it in place against the relentless desert wind. She put protein bars, first aid kit, gel energy packets, and sunscreen in her fanny sack, along with two bottles of Gatorade. That was just for a short run that afternoon. She knew there would be more on race day, but she’d worry about that later.

If sleeping in relentless heat was one problem with camping in Death Valley, it was matched by everything that she drank was hot.

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