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But I think of the body of Jackson Clarke, left to rot in a tomb of shit. I think of Luisa Ramirez, shot down in the street in San Antonio. Parker might not have pulled the trigger, but he was the mastermind behind the robbery that killed her.
I growl out in frustration and pain and throw my right arm up to the second rung. My hand grips it and I keep fighting. My other arm grabs the third, and I curl my body and lift my legs off the ground. Hanging only inches from the gravel, I hook my right foot onto the bottom rung and push upward. I grab the next rung and the next, holding on with numb hands. I keep climbing, each step an effort. It feels like the longest ladder in the world, but I finally get to the top and roll onto my back, my lungs heaving, my mouth as dry as the desert dirt.
I examine the damage to my legs.
My pants are shredded, my legs scraped and bleeding. They’ll hurt like hell tomorrow, and once they scab up, it will be hard to walk. But for now—my body fueled by adrenaline—I must go on.
I rise to my feet.
Standing atop the racing train, I look for signs of Parker. But from one end to the other, the tops of the train cars are empty.
Parker is gone.
CHAPTER 53
CARLOS TAKES A sharp curve and the tires squeal beneath him. He skids into the gravel shoulder and kicks up a cloud of dust. Then he recovers, stomping on the gas and flying down the bumpy road.
Up ahead, the motorcyclist decelerates around another curve, and Carlos tries to gain ground.
On flat highway, the bike would have lost him already. But here, on this cracked and curvy backcountry road, the motorcycle can’t reach its top speeds and Carlos has been able to stick to him.
But he’s not sure how long he can keep it up.
Gripping the wheel as hard as he can, he hits the curve, lets off the gas, and yanks the wheel. One tire hits the shoulder, spraying gravel.
The bike zooms over a small hill, disappearing on the other side. Carlos follows, and when he rockets over the crest—his insides lurching with the sudden change in elevation—he feels a disquieting sense of defeat from what he sees ahead. The road straightens out, and already the bike is taking advantage of it. The motorcycle engine whines, and the gap between the two vehicles widens.
Carlos floors the gas pedal, but it’s not enough.
But then the road in front of the bike takes a sharp turn. Through the windshield, Carlos watches as the motorcycle, leaning hard into the curve, slides off the road and into the sagebrush. Bike and rider tumble through the air, kicking up clouds of dust.
Carlos skids to a halt at the curve and runs out of the truck. He leaps over clumps of sagebrush and follows the gouges in the dirt where the bike and rider rolled. He passes the bike first, now a misshapen heap of metal hissing steam and bleeding oil.
Ten feet past that—at least thirty from the road—Carlos finds the rider smashed against a boulder the size of a minivan, his body contorted in unnatural angles. One glance and it’s obvious the person is dead. His head—still hidden behind the helmet—is twisted almost behind his back, like an owl rotating its neck two hundred and seventy degrees.
Carlos raises the visor to look at the person’s face.
He never met Ellis Kilpatrick, but he’d seen his official military portrait when he was digging into the former Navy man’s background. There’s no doubt the vacant face looking out from the motorcycle helmet—a trickle of blood running from his nose—is Ellis.
That’s two of the XYZ Bandits dead.
Leaving only one left.
As Carlos stares at the dead man, he can hear the distant chugging of the train.
He runs back to his truck, stomps on the gas, and tries to recall from the train model where the road reconnects with the track.
CHAPTER 54
I RUN TOWARD the front of the train, leaping from one car to the next. I look all around, trying to figure out what happened to Parker. Up ahead, the front of the train curves in a wide arc, and I spot, about four carriages back from the engine, an open side door of one of the freight cars. I catch a glimpse of a person inside. Then some kind of object—pale in color and about the size of a ream of paper—comes sailing out from the doorway, falling down into the canyon and hitting a rocky outcropping. Whatever it was explodes into a cloud of gray dust.
Then the train swings back the other way, and I lose sight of Parker.
I mentally mark which car it was and take off running. In the distance, the tracks curve toward a large arch bridge that spans the canyon at a wide point in the river.
I sprint down the cars, ignoring the pain in my limbs. When I get to the correct carriage, I take my boots off before jumping. When I make the leap, I land quietly and sneak over to the side of the train. I peek down. The door is still open. Something sails out of the opening. This close, I have an idea of what it is.
A brick of drugs—cocaine or heroin or meth.
