Page 22 of Hawk and the Cougar

Chapter Six

Hawk walked alongside Liz as they crested the rise. The instant before Hawk caught sight of the two flat tires on the Land Cruiser, he sensed something was wrong. Liz gasped, and he grasped her arm, bringing them to a stop.

Hawk cursed. How had he missed hearing a vehicle pull up to their cars after the kids had left? Easy. He’d been so focused on Liz that a Mack truck could have rumbled past, and he would have missed it. He scanned the area. The Chevy sat parked twenty feet beyond the Cruiser. No other cars were within view of the old road or the desert beyond. It was unlikely anyone would be hiding around the cars, but who the hell knew what these crazy assholes would do?

He dropped to a squat and looked beneath the Land Cruiser, then across the open space to the truck. No one hid beneath the two vehicles, and the truck’s four tires were okay. He didn’t like that. Whatever they’d done to the old Chevy wasn’t obvious, which probably meant the slashed tires were an afterthought. An afterthought motivated by a reason he felt certain he wouldn’t like. Hawk rose and started to tell Liz to stay put while he investigated, then realized, if anyone came up over the slope while he was at the cars, he couldn’t get to her before they did.

“Come on.” He started them forward. When they reached within twenty feet of the Toyota, Hawk stopped. “Wait here.”

“But—”

“Let me take a look,” he ordered.

Her lips pursed, but she nodded.

“Don’t move,” he emphasized.

“I promise.”

He handed her the cooler he carried and silently cursed the worth of her promise and depth of his stupidity. After he’d delivered her safely home, he planned to find Vance Reid and beat him senseless.

Hawk approached the Land Cruiser. He looked inside, found nothing, then went around the truck and looked inside the cab. As expected, empty. He finally motioned Liz forward, then strode back to her car, where he squatted beside the front tire and ran his fingers along the gouge on the lower section of the rubber where it had been slashed with a knife.

Liz set the cooler on the ground and knelt beside him. “My God.” She touched the hole, her long, slim fingers pale against the dark rubber.

“Yeah.” Hawk rose and went back to his truck.

He opened the hood and scanned the engine. Nothing obvious was out of place. He knelt on one knee, braced a palm on the ground, and looked under the car. A dark circle stained the desert floor beside the passenger-side tire. He lowered himself onto his back and scooted under the truck near the stain. As suspected, fluid dripped from a cut brake line. Hawk grasped the fender, pulled himself out, and stood.

“What do you think happened?” she asked.

He considered lying, but she wouldn’t be fooled by a sugar-coated answer. Only he didn’t have to tell her that her slashed tires were a message concerning her. His only living family was his grandfather who lived on the reservation. Vance Reid didn’t have a big enough army to get to him there, and Hawk’s friends could take care of themselves as well as he could. Hawk’s jaw tensed. He’d finally given Reid what he’d been after for the last three months, a way to get at him.

“They cut my brakes and slashed your tires,” Hawk said.

“Your brakes?” she burst out.

“Did you bring a cell phone?” he asked.

“Sure. But there’s no service out here.”

“Let’s take a look.”

He followed her to the Land Cruiser.

She opened the driver’s side back door, then swung to face him. “My purse is gone.”

Hawk nodded. “I would have been surprised if they’d left it.”

“You don’t have a cell phone?” she asked.

“I hate the things.”

She looked nonplussed. “You’re kidding.”

“I used to have one and couldn’t get a damn bit of work done on a dig.”

She glanced around. “Why do all this then leave? That doesn’t make sense.”