They lapsed into silence, each lost in his own troubling thoughts, grappling with the personal demons they'd been forced to acknowledge.

"Where in New Mexico?"

"What?" Tiel turned to him. "Oh, my destination?

Angel Fire."

"Heard of it. Never been there."

"Mountain air and clear streams. Aspen trees. They'd be green now, not gold, but I hear it's beautiful."

"You hear? You haven't been there either?"

She shook her head. "A friend was lending me her condo for the week."

"You'd be there by now, all tucked in. Too bad you placed that first call to Gully."

"I don't know, Doc." She glanced at Sabra, then looked at him. Closely. Taking in every nuance of his rugged face.

Plumbing the depths of his eyes. "I wouldn't have missed this for the world."

The urge to touch him was almost irresistible. She did resist, but she didn't break eye contact. It lasted a long time, while her heart thudded hard and heavily against her ribs and her senses hummed with a keen, sweet awareness of him.

She actually jumped when the telephone rang.

Clumsily she scrambled to her feet, and so did Doc.

Ronnie grabbed the receiver. "Mr. Galloway?"

He listened for what seemed to Tiel an eternity. Again she curbed the impulse to touch Doc. She wanted to take his hand and hold on to it tightly, as people are wont to do when waiting to hear life-altering news.

Finally Ronnie turned to them and placed the earpiece against his chest. "Galloway says he's got the district attorney of Tarrant County, and whatever this county is, plus a judge, himself, and both sets of parents, agreed to meet and hammer this thing out. He says if I admit to wrongdoing and submit to counseling, maybe I'll get probation and not have to go to jail. Maybe."

Tiel nearly collapsed with relief. A small laugh bubbled from her throat. "That's great!"

"It's a good deal, Ronnie. If I were you, I'd grab it," Doc told him.

"Sabra, is that okay with you?"

When she didn't respond, Doc nearly knocked Tiel off her feet as he brushed past her and knelt beside the girl.

"She unconscious."

"Oh, God," Ronnie cried. "Is she dead?"

"No, but she's got to get help, son. And I mean fast."

Tiel left Sabra in Doc's care and moved toward Ronnie.

She was afraid that in his despair, he might yet turn the pistol on himself. "Tell Galloway you agree to the terms.

I'm going to cut the tape binding them," she said, gesturing to Cain, Juan, and Two. "Okay?"

Ronnie was transfixed by the sight of Doc lifting Sabra into his arms. Blood immediately saturated his clothes.

"Oh, Jesus, oh, God, what've I done?"

"Save the regrets for later, Ronnie," Doc said in a stern voice. "Tell Galloway we're coming out."

The dazed young man began mumbling into the mouthpiece.

Tiel quickly retrieved the scissors they'd used earlier and knelt down beside Cain. She sawed through the tape around his ankles. "What about my hands?" His tongue seemed thick. The man probably had two concussions.

"When you get outside." She still didn't trust him not to try and be a hero.

His eyes narrowed to slits. "You're in deep shit, lady."

"Usually," Tiel quipped, and moved to the Mexican men.

Juan was enduring his leg wound stoically, but she could feel resentment emanating from him like heat from a furnace. Keeping as much distance as possible between him and herself, she cut the tape around his ankles. It took some effort. Vern had done an excellent job.

She felt even more aversion for the one she'd nicknamed Two. His dark eyes roved over her with unconcealed malevolence and an intentionally demeaning, sexual suggestiveness that made her feel in even more need of a shower.

That chore completed, she said, "Doc, go first," and motioned him toward the door. "Right, Ronnie?"

"Right, right. Get Sabra to someone who can help her, Doc."

Tiel moved to the door and held it open for him. Sabra looked like a faded rag doll in his arms. She looked dead.

Ronnie lovingly touched her hair, her cheek. When she didn't respond, he moaned.

"Hang in there, Ronnie, she's alive," Doc assured him.

"She'll be okay."

"Dr. Giles," Tiel told Doc as he moved past with the girl.

"Got it."

In a blink, he was gone, running across the parking lot carrying the unconscious girl.

"You next," Ronnie said to Tiel.

She shook her head. "I'm staying with you. We'll go out together."

"You don't trust them?" he asked in a voice made high and thin by fright. "You think Galloway will try and pull something?"

"I don't trust them." She hitched her head back toward the other three hostages. "Let them go first."

He contemplated that, but only for an instant. "Okay.

You. Cain. Go."

The vanquished FBI agent skulked past them. Because his hands were still bound, Tiel once again held the door open. More injurious than the two clouts to his head was the blow his pride had sustained. No doubt he dreaded facing his fellow agents, particularly Galloway.

Ronnie waited until Cain had been swallowed up by a crowd of paramedics and officials before he motioned Juan and Two toward the door. "You next."

After trying twice to escape, they now seemed reluctant to leave. They shuffled forward, muttering to one another in Spanish.

"Come on," Tiel said, impatiently motioning them through the door. She was frantic to know how Sabra was faring.

Juan went first, limping noticeably. He hesitated on the threshold, his eyes darting to various points on the parking lot. Two, she noticed, was practically on Juan's heels, standing belly to butt as though using the other man as a shield. They stepped through the door.

Tiel had turned to speak to Ronnie when suddenly the front of the store was seared with blinding light. The SWAT team, looking like black beetles, came scurrying from every conceivable hiding place. Their number amazed her. She hadn't seen a third of them when she'd gone out to confer with Galloway.

Ronnie cursed and ducked behind the counter. Tiel screamed, but from outrage, not fear. She was too livid to be afraid.

Oddly, however, the tactical officers surrounded Juan and Two, ordering them to lie facedown on the ground.

The injured Juan had no choice but to comply. He practically crumpled.

Heedless of the warnings shouted at him, Two took off at a dead run but was almost immediately tackled and knocked to the concrete. Before Tiel could assimilate what had happened, it was over. The two men were shackled and dragged away by the SWAT team.

The lights went out as suddenly as they'd come on.

"Ronnie?" His name was bellowed through a bullhorn.

"Ronnie? Ms. McCoy?" It was Galloway. "Don't be alarmed. You've been in the company of some very dangerous men. We saw them on the videotape and recognized them. They're wanted by the authorities here and in Mexico. That's why they were so eager to escape. But they're in our custody now. It's safe for you to come out."

Far from being calmed by this information, Tiel was furious.

How dare they not warn her of the potential danger!

But she couldn't vent her anger now. She would take it up with Galloway and company later.

With as much composure as she could muster, she said to Ronnie, "You heard him. Everything's okay. The lights, the SWAT team had nothing to do with you. Let's go."

He still looked afraid and uncertain. In any case, he didn't move from behind the counter.

God, please don't let me make a deadly mistake now, Tiel prayed. She couldn't push him too hard, but she had to push hard enough to get him moving.

"I think it would be best if you left the pistols here, don't you? Lay them there on the counter. Then you can walk out with your hands up, and they'll know that you're sincere in wanting to work things out." He didn't move. "Right?"