Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(86)

Liv never did that. Something was wrong. He jammed the accelerator to the floor while calling her back. She didn’t pick up and his call went to her voicemail.



* * *



—

Even from a distance, as he topped the hill that led to his compound in the sagebrush prairie, he could tell that things weren’t right at home. The symmetrical lines of his falcon mews were crooked and the wire mesh that had been stapled to the frame of it was torn away.

The Yarak, Inc. van Liv usually drove was parked in the open outbuilding next to his home. Meaning she was there but not picking up.

Two of his red-tailed hawks strutted around on the roof of his house. Their hoods had been removed and they’d been set free but had apparently returned.

He blasted by the mews with a sidewise glance as he passed by. There were no live birds inside sitting on their stoops, but there were at least three lifeless falcon carcasses on the ground, their feathers rippling in the wind.

With a flood of adrenaline and outright dread roaring through his body, Nate slammed the pickup to a stop in the front yard and bailed out with his weapon drawn. There was no movement from the closed drapes in the window, because no one was looking out.

He followed his gun through the front door, ready for anything.

Liv was seated in a kitchen chair in the middle of the front room. Her eyes were swelled shut, but he could see her pupils on him through the slits. Her face was bruised and the left side of her hair was flat with matted blood. Her ankles were duct-taped to the legs of the chair and her wrists to the arms of it. Silver duct tape had been wrapped around her head so she couldn’t speak.

He was enraged.

“Are they still here?” he whispered.

She emphatically shook her head no. He shoved his revolver into his shoulder holster and removed the tape from her face. It left a two-inch mark and indentations in her cheeks.

“Kestrel,” was the first word she said.

He went cold. “Did they take her?”

“No. I think he would have, but he didn’t know about her. I hid her before he came in.”

They’d discussed their safe place before, a place Liv was to hide in if danger came to their house. He closed his eyes for a second in relief that both Liv and his baby girl were there.

“I heard him out there in the mews,” Liv said as he cut the tape from her wrists and ankles. “When I looked out, I saw him loading the falcons he wanted into his vehicle. He took a bunch of them and he snapped the necks of those he didn’t want. That’s when I called you the first time. You didn’t pick up.”

“I’m sorry,” Nate said.

“Nate, he scared me. He had a really cold look in his eyes and I think he would have taken Kestrel if he’d known she was here.”

“You did the right thing. Are you hurt?”

“I think I’m okay, but he beat the shit out of me,” Liv said. “He must have tied me up when I was unconscious.”

“Who was it? How many?”

“One man,” she said. “But he was strong and he was a demon. When I yelled at him to leave the falcons alone, he came after me and started swinging. I don’t think he realized anyone was at home. The SUV had green Colorado plates.”

The second she was free, Liv stood up and ran to their bedroom. Nate followed.

Before she could throw the rug back and grasp the steel ring on the floor, he heard Kestrel say, “Da!”

“I’ll do it,” he said as he opened the panel that led to the crawl space beneath the house. It was dark down there and Kestrel sat on the dirt floor. She clutched her plush dinosaur companion and looked up at him and beamed. When she saw Liv’s face, Kestrel was startled and she began to cry.

He snatched her up and his impulse was to hug her so tightly it might crush her. He kissed her chubby cheek and handed her over to Liv. Kestrel clutched handfuls of loose dirt in each hand.

“She’s okay,” he said.

“She didn’t yell out at all,” Liv said, nuzzling her baby. “She’s such a good girl.”

“You both are,” Nate said.



* * *



—

On the way to the emergency room with Kestrel strapped into her car seat, Nate said, “After you get looked at, I’m taking you both to Joe and Marybeth’s for a few days.”

“Joe’s okay?”

“Joe’s okay.”

“Thank God.”

“I can’t say the same for some other guys.”

He briefly told her what had happened in the mountains, and while she took it in, she listened with disbelief. He tried to keep his voice calm as he fought against the cold black rage building up inside of him.

“How long will you be gone?” she asked.

He took a moment to answer. “Just as long as it takes to kill Axel Soledad for what he did to you. And to get my birds back.”





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


The author would like to thank the people who provided help, expertise, and information for this novel.

Sources include “The Egg Thief” by Joshua Hammer, which appeared in Outside magazine on January 7, 2019, as well as Horses, Hitches, and Rocky Trails by Joe Back, Packin’ in on Mules and Horses by Smoke Elser and Bill Brown, and Meat Eater: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter by Steven Rinella.