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They were near the bottom of the mountain when one of their burner phones rang. There were six phones, bought at separate times in separate places. They were all in the center console, and it took Scott a few seconds to fish out the right one.
He looked at the screen and said, “Rose” and pushed the speaker button and said, “Yes?”
Rose was screaming. “They’re on me! I’ve got the gun! They’re all over me, I can’t, I can’t…I’m going out there…In the parking lot, they got me…”
She didn’t hang up, but they heard the clunking sounds as she ran down the steps of the RV and seconds later, the first of the gunshots as she began firing Catton’s rifle at the enemy, whoever he, or they, were.
“The people who broke into my house,” Catton said.
“How far are we from the bottom?” Scott asked.
“Five minutes…”
“Gotta hurry…”
“What about Rose?” Foss asked.
“Can’t help her,” Scott said.
—
The phone wasstill connected, but they heard nothing but rifle fire, and then a clatter from an unknown cause, then heavy breathing and Rose gasping, “I’m in the woods, I’m running…”
“Who are they? How many of them?” Scott asked.
She didn’t answer, but the phone remained connected, and the Cadillac burst out of the canyon and onto the plateau over the deep valley full of houses and Catton said, “Arroyo Seco in one minute…”
Then Rose again, on the phone. “I’m walking, I can’t run anymore. They’re gonna get me, one way or another, I had to leave the RV…I shot at them, tried to kill their cars to slow them down so you could get out…best I could do.”
“Hide,” Scott said. “Climb high and hide. Keep the phone and hide. They can’t find you if you get deep into the brush up there.”
“I feel like my heart’s going to blow up, too high up here…I can’t run, I can’t climb…Gotta…They got the other three, they got the RV, never saw them coming until they were right on top of me…”
She went away again, and they heard more thrashing sounds, apparently Turney fighting her way through the forest. That continued for several minutes, then Turney cried, “I’m throwing the phone away.”
And she was gone.
From the back seat, Foss said, “They’ll make her talk.”
Catton said, “They can’t do that, there are laws…”
“If they know what we’re doing, and they apparently do, there won’t be any laws that apply to us,” Foss said.
Catton said, “We’re coming into Arroyo Seco…”
“If we go north, there’s only one road, and if they shut it down, we’re trapped,” Scott said. “We could go West on 64, across the gorge, there are back roads out there, but you can see the car for miles, if they have a description. And the gorge bridge is easy to close off—one car could do it.”
“If we go south, into Taos, there are police,” Foss said.
“Gotta go someplace,” Catton said. She was hunched over the steering wheel; she was shivering with the intensity of the situation. Not afraid, but fierce. “We need a decision, quickly.”
They all thought about it, then Foss said, “That house we looked at…been on the market for a while and it has a garage.”
They’d first thought to set up their vaccination site in a rental house in Taos but decided Catton’s more isolated ski valley house would be safer.
“Good, Randy,” Scott said. And to Catton: “We’d get the car out of sight, in case they find your credit card, which they will do, sooner thanlater. If anyone saw you driving down the hill, and they’re up there, they’ll be looking for a Cadillac SUV. There’s no reason to think they know about Dani or Randall. You and I can stay out of sight, with the car. Dani and Randall could scout around for us, if need be.”
“What if the real estate woman comes around?” Foss asked.
