Chapter 1

  A crackling rope of electricity arced over the freeway and made impact in the night ahead. The resounding boom reverberated through the steering wheel Clinton Hayes gripped with an intensity. His sleep deprived mind imagined the demonstration was created by angry sky gods, displeased by his wretched deeds.

  Clinton checked the review mirror for the thousandth time. Sweat prickled his pores. His eyes burned and watered. Like it or not, it was fear. He was a crooked accountant with a gambling problem, turned hired gun and now this. A kidnapper. He had hit rock bottom and was doubling down.

  His heart squeezed in his chest as the car behind him finally made a move to pass. It pulled alongside the Audi, drifting. Clinton clenched the steering wheel and his teeth, torn between slamming on the brakes or flooring the gas petal.

  “Stay cool,” Clinton gritted, expecting a bullet to come through the driver’s window any second.

  His seat bucked, followed by muffled screams from the backseat, sending renewed pangs of guilt into his neck.

  “Shut up!” Clinton barked the order, anxiety about to break through the sunroof.

  A silver Ford Taurus finally moved ahead and signaled into the lane in front of him, then sped away. Clinton exhaled, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. A Rest Stop sign whizzed past. They had fled Las Vegas almost six hours ago. It was risky, but they needed to take a break.

  #

  Goldie felt the car slowing down. Her bladder strained with the hope that they might be stopping. She clenched her pelvic muscles to keep from peeing herself.

  The car rolled to a stop and Goldie heard the driver’s door open and close. Then a breeze drifted over her and the pillowcase was pulled from her head.

  “Quick stop.” The ravaged face of her captor looked down at her. The bastard, Clinton Hayes. Goldie grunted through the duct tape.

  Hayes hooked his hands under her arms and hauled her out of the car. Goldie blinked against the bright lights of a vacant rest stop. The night air was cool and fresh. Instinctively, she knew they were somewhere in the mountains. Maybe Colorado or Utah. It didn’t matter either way, Red would find her.

  Hayes pulled a knife from his boot and eyed her with those beautiful, liar’s blue eyes.

  “Play nice.”

  Goldie tried to flay him with her eyes. Unfazed, Hayes spun her around and slit the zip tie at her wrists and ankles. Free, Goldie rubbed her wrists and debated her ability to outrun him. Not happening she surmised. She wasn’t in any shape for that. Her arms and legs ached and tingled from the restraints. Goldie ripped the tape off her mouth and screamed.

  “Dammit!” She put her fingers over her raw lips, giving Hayes an accusing look.

  He shrugged. “Necessary, if we’re going to get along on this road trip.”

  Goldie laughed harshly. “Road trip? You kidnapped me!”

  “Also, necessary.”

  Goldie slapped him so hard her hand hurt. “Lunatic!”

  “Is this how you deal with your patients, doctor?”

  This time Goldie raised her fist, but Hayes grabbed her arm before she could swing. She jerked away from him.

  “Do you even know what a worthless piece of shit you are?!” Goldie spat. God how she hated him.

  Hayes glanced up at the starry sky as if taking serious consideration of the question. He returned to her burning gaze with a nod and one-sided grin.

  “Yep. About sums me up.”

  “Red’s going to hunt you down, you know that, right?” She folded her arms in front of her. “You might as well turn yourself in now, maybe you’ll go to jail in one piece.”

  “Your father is the least of my worries.”

  Hayes rubbed a hand over short, dark nape hair. Goldie knew what this meant. It was his ‘tell’. A gesture he made when things weren’t looking well for him, whether at the poker tables, or in life.

  “Didn’t you listen to anything I told you?” he asked.

  “Did I have a choice? I forgot to bring my earplugs for the road trip. Now, I have business to attend.” Goldie started toward the restrooms, but Hayes grabbed her arm.

  “Goldie, I didn’t have a choice. Understand?” His voice almost pleaded in a way she hadn’t heard before…even the night when begging might have made a difference.

  Goldie snorted. She wasn’t falling for it. Raised by a casino owner, she had spent her life surrounded by gamblers. Hayes was as bad as they came. A professional liar, a womanizer, and probably an alcoholic, too, for all she knew. She wouldn’t trust anything that came out of his mouth, ever again. His type never said or did anything unless there was a pay-off. In for the win, her father would say.

  She threw him a bone to see where he’d run with it.

  “If Brad is so dangerous, why didn’t you go to Red? Or the police, for that matter?”

  Hayes’ eyes dropped and, turning slightly from her gaze, took his time dragging a slim cigar from his vest pocket. Words were as slow to pass his lips as the motion of extracting a match from his ear and bending to strike its tip against the heel of his leather boot.

  “Blackmail, gambling debts, and cooked books.” Hayes lit the cigar and looked at her through a curl of smoke. “There’s a lot of things a man’ll do to keep his hide intact.”

  Goldie refused to be sucked into his web. “My father doesn’t make partnerships with criminals. Brad is a respectable businessman. Everyone knows that about him.”

  “Come on, Goldie. You’re not that na?ve, are you?” Hayes chuckled. “People pretend all the time, show you what suits them.”

  “Well, you’re the authority on that subject,” Goldie said, bitterly. His single-handed destruction of their relationship two years ago had more than proven that point.

  Hayes stared at her at her a moment. “Goldie, I…”. He reached put to touch her as if to brush the back of his fingers against her cheek. She slapped it away.

  “Don’t touch me. You make me sick.”

  Golding pushed past him, marching in the direction of the restroom hoping to give the impression of embodied fury and not a woman desperate to pee. Fucking bastard! The back of her eyes burned with a new threat. She slammed the stall door and pounded it with her fists, biting back the urge to scream. She would not give him the satisfaction.

  #

  Clinton slouched against the car, finishing off his cigar. Maybe, she was right, he was a lunatic for taking her with him. He should have gone Red and pleaded his case. Problem was he had been around creeps like Bart long enough to know how they think. In narcissists mind Goldie had betrayed him. Blackmailing Clinton to kill her was the ultimate sick twist. He was sure some part of Bart thought Clinton was the reason she’d split. Like she still had a fire for him or something.

  “Yeah, she’s got a fire, all right. Hate,” Clinton muttered, tossing it his cigar onto the asphalt. He walked over to the dark side of the bathrooms to relieve himself. Decency was for people who didn’t need to keep a lookout. He took a long deep breath and slowly released it, along with some pent-up tension. He zipped his jeans and rinsed his hands in the outdoor drinking fountain. Nobody drank out of these things anymore, did they? Not since good ol’ COVID.

  Maybe he was a damned fool for taking her with him. She was a stubborn woman and would never see his intention to protect her. In the end, she would only find a way to hate him even more, but he’d take that bad bet. The alternative was a dead woman. Clinton had no doubt Brad Bart would have paid someone else knock her off. That stout little psychopath couldn’t handle rejection. Nobody dismissed the midget kingpin and lived to tell-the-tale. The ultimate irony was blackmailing Clinton to perform the heinous deed adding a true-crime docudrama twist and demanded unbreakable loyalty to save his skin. He would, of course, have to take the fall in the end. The desperate, debt-ridden ex-lover, who murdered his rich former sweetheart when she rejected his plea for money.

  But the ultimate treachery would be the clandestine attack on the Silver Stallion empire. Red Silver would suffer a loss that no amount of money could restore. Bart’d buy up more Silver Stallion shares, taking control away from Goldie’s grief-stricken father.

  “Hayes!” Goldie’s scream sliced through the night. Clinton pulled the gun from his vest and ran into the women’s restroom.

  “Goldie?” His voice boomed against acoustical walls. She didn’t answer.

  All four stall doors were closed. He bent down, looking for feet. None. He tossed a paranoid glance over his shoulder, half expecting to see Goldie creeping up with a boulder between her hands, ready to smash in his skull. She wasn’t there.

  Clinton kept his back to the tiled wall and the entrance door in his peripheral vision as he systematically kick each stall panel open. The last stall opened with a rush of cool air that brushed the contours of his face with Goldie’s signature mockery. The open window was a small but not a problem for a woman her size.

  “Help, Hayes!” Goldie’s voice came from behind the building. Clinton charged out of the bathroom and into the growth of birch trees shrouded by darkness. Probably broke her damn leg, trying to make a run for it, Clinton thought as he dodged through the trees. Suddenly, his feet hit thin air and he tumbled down a steep embankment to the river’s edge.

  “Hell, and dammit!” He struggled to stand up, but his boots slipped in the mud and moss covered river rocks, sending staggering into the water. Luckily, the river was more of a stream and he wasn’t in any danger of being swept away by the current. Finally, regaining a solid stance on land, he called out to Goldie.

  “Over here!”

  He saw Goldie kneeling on the opposite bank a few yards up the river, looking like an angel in prayer in the pale moonlight. A soft blue glow filled the space directly before her. Clinton vaguely wondered where she had found a flashlight as he made his way across.

  “Are you hurt?” Clinton asked, slowing as he neared. Something didn’t feel right about the situation. He stumbled up the bank toward Goldie, night-blindness not the least benefited by the weird blue aura surrounding her.

  “She’s still alive.” Goldie turned to him, eyes full of concern. Clinton looked into the blue light that rose from her lap, as if she cradled it. Something was way off, his senso-meter alarms going gangbuster at this point.

  “We don’t have time for this…” Clinton grunted, wanting to get out of there. Still, he leaned forward for a closer look, half expecting to see a wounded animal sagging within the curve of her arms. She was a sucker for pitiful beasts, which probably explained her past attraction to him.

  Goldie shifted, looking at him with pleading eyes. “We have to help her.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Her slight movement made the revelation that shocked him. The pale face of a young woman cradled between her hands. Long, pale blond hair caked with mud and…Was that blood? The blue light came from a stone pendant necklace resting at her chest. The amulet pulsed and swirled with what appeared a tiny universe inside its luminescent shell.

  Clinton splashed into the water to the other side of Goldie and squatted next to the woman. Young, with delicate features, and bronzed skin. He carefully moved her hair back with his fingers. There was a gouge on the left side of her scalp about three inches long

  “Is it bad?” Goldie asked. “What is it?”

  “Looks like a bullet graze,” He yanked at the thin sleeve of his button up shirt until it tore away and dipped it into the rushing water. He dabbed at the wound. The girl’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Wakinyan.” Her voice was weak. She reached out and clamped her hand onto Clinton’s arm with amazing strength and repeated the word.

  Surprised, Clinton rocked onto his heels. Grandmother had spoken the Lakota word when he was a boy. The girl looked at Clinton’s with urgent eyes and struggled to sit up, more words tumbling from her pale lips. Clinton could not understand them. He had never fully learned the language of his people. Twenty years had wiped away anything he had learned from childhood. Regardless, Clinton understood fear and the bullet wound. They were all the explanation he needed. Someone bad was nearby.

  “What is she saying?” Goldie looked at him, aware of his heritage.

  He shook his head slowly, staring at the encapsulated galaxy the girl wore. Light pulsating rhythmically, as if filled with life itself. A strange calmness came over him, the stress he carried for long began slipping away. Though this was the wrong time to find serenity, it enveloped him anyway. And it was good to let go…

  “No.” Clinton whispered.

  Grandmother’s story of the Wakinyan, Thunder Beings, drifted back to him. Wisps of smoke and ash on the wind coming together to reform, restore their existence. A sky spirit came to grandmother’s village long ago, when she was a girl. He rode across the sky on a bolt of lightning. Her description of the Wakinyan had been so detailed Clinton could easily conjure the vision his mind assembled as a boy. Even though Clinton was fascinated by the story as a kid, he had not truly believed it was more than an exotic tribal legend. He had never taken to fantasy characters. Santa, the Easter Bunny, or grandmother’s Thunder Being, held little weight in his youth. Stories that the elders told to entertain children.

  His mind shot to the moment, just a half an hour ago, when lightning and thunder had manifested from a cloudless sky. Too stressed to give it much thought in the moment, until now…Now what? This strange girl with silver strands shimmering through her hair, grey eyes flashing with inexplicable lights, like the descriptions of the Wakinyan from grandmother’s stories.

  “Hayes! What’s wrong with you?”

  “I know her,” Clinton said, absently.

  “What? From where?” Goldie tone was full of scorn. “She doesn’t look like a stripper.”

  “I can’t explain right now,” Clinton shook his head to regain his senses. Goldie would never again question his insanity if he tried to express his bizarre theory.

  “What are you doing?”

  Clinton scooped the woman into his arms. “She’s freezing. The women’s bathroom is warm and fairly safe.” He negotiated the river with care and climbed up the embankment.

  “Right.” Goldie stumbling after him. “I can clean her wound, while you call 911.”

  “There isn’t another rest stop for miles. Someone with find her within the hour.”

  “Are you suggesting we leave her here?” She charged up the steep embankment. “This woman needs medical assistance!”

  Clinton swung the ladies’ restroom and set the girl onto the tiled floor with gentle hands. Her glazed eyes opened and rolled over the bright room.

  “It’s not a suggestion.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” Goldie threw her hands in the air. “Give me your phone. I’m calling 9-1-1.

  He turned to Goldie with a warning in his eyes. “I’m running this show, remember?”

  Goldie put her hands on her hips. “Letting an injured woman bleed to death in a dirty bathroom is probably a crime, you know.”

  “It’s a flesh wound, she’s gonna be fine.” He clamped his hand onto her elbow and pulled her outside. “We gotta get out of here. The person that shot her might not be far away.”

  “Let me go!” Goldie jerked out of his hold. “I’m not getting in that car without her. You’ll have to shoot me, too.”

  “Don’t tempt me, woman.” Clinton regretted the words the instant the came out of his mouth.

  Goldie glared at him. Wispy, gold tendrils fluttering around her face stirred in in the night breeze. Clinton waited for the slap.

  “You are many things, Hayes, but a killer is not one of the them.”

  He sighed in relief. “Exactly what I’ve been saying.”

  Goldie was quiet, looking at him with those wide, gold speckled eyes that always won with Clinton.

  “Then why are you doing this? Ransom?” Car lights flickered over them as a vehicle turned toward off the freeway.

  “Shit!” Clinton’s heart sank as his mind dealt out a myriad of scenarios. Too far into the game for Clinton to believe anything positive was about to go down.

  “Red’s men.” Goldie’s tone lifted with hope. “How did they find us?”

  “Found a tracker under the Audi, outside of Salt Lake City,” Clinton told her. “I’d go all in on a bet that your dad didn’t put it there.”

  “But who would...?” Goldie’s voice trailed off. Was she considering the possibility that he could be right? Clinton wondered.

  “We’re about to find out.” He stared at her with the sobriety of a man stuck in a snake pit. “Do me a favor and go inside the building. Don’t come out until…” Something behind Goldie caught his attention and she turned around.

  “What is this place?” The injured woman stood silhouetted in the doorway of the women’s restroom. “Where is Sky Thunder?”

  “Oh, hell.” Clinton rubbed the back of his head. Gravel crunched under the tires of the car rolling into the parking lot.

  #

  The car pulled into a parking stall directly in front of them. Clinton pressed a protective arm across Goldie and pushed her back. Seconds ticked by before the car engine shut down and the driver’s door opened. Glossy, black cowboy boots hit the asphalt, and Goldie did not know whether to feel relief or panic when she saw the Highway Patrol badge glint at the man’s chest. .

  “Everything alright, here?” the officer asked, looking from the women to Clinton.

  “Evening, officer,” Clinton said, smoothly. “Just a quick pitstop before heading home. Ready ladies?”

  “Oh, sure.” The officer’s comment was benign, but his eyes remained hard fixed on Clinton. “Where’s home?”

  “Evanston,” Clinton said, without missing a beat.

  “Right.” The officer dragged his gaze to the girl muttering softly behind them. “She alright?”

  The girl touched fingers to her head, then held their bloody tips in front of her eyes Seeming unfazed, to weaved between Goldie and Clinton, toward the police officer.

  Goldie grabbed the girl’s arm, looking apologetically at the lawman. “My sister slipped in the wet grass and hit her head,” she said, stunned at spontaneous lie.

  As much as she wanted to help the girl, filling out reports at a police station would put them at risk of. . .of what? Being found. Isn’t that what she wanted? Yes. But regardless of how angry she was, or how crazy Hayes’ story seemed, she realized something. He had knowingly accepted a death sentence by kidnapping her. Ransom was meaningless. He would be hunted down. Under any scenario he was a dead man.

  The girl frowned, raising her arm to point at the officer. “Canl waka.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. He held up his right palm in warning. “Stay where you are.” His left hand slid to the butt of his revolver.

  Even though Goldie thought his response was over-the-top, at this late hour caution was viable. Still, something seemed off. Goldie couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She place a soft hand on the girl’s shoulder.

  “Sarah, honey,” Goldie cooed, snatching a random name out of the air. “Let’s go to the car. We are going to Sky Thunder’s home, remember?” She looked at the officer and tapped a finger to her temple, indicating the girl was touched in the head in some way. She redirected Sarah toward the Audi.

  #

  Another pair of lights flickered from the freeway exit. Indigestion bubbled up in Clinton’s throat, even though he hadn’t eaten anything for hours. He wished Goldie would hurry up with getting the girl she had dubbed Sarah into the car.

  The UHP officer started walking back to his vehicle.

  Clinton’s exhaustion battled against him. Something was not right but he couldn’t figure it out. Wariness prickled up his spine and into the back of his head. He scrubbed at it with his hand.

  “You got a first aid kit, or something?” Clinton took a few steps in the other man’s direction. “A little gauze will do the trick better than my shirt sleeve, until we get Sarah home.” He gestured to his sleeveless arm with a grin.

  “Sure, hang on.” The trooper called over his shoulder. He continued to walk to the back of the cruiser, popping the trunk.

  A black Chevy Charger pulled into the parking lot. It passed the patrol car slowly and parked a few slots down from the Audi, which sat rebelliously horizontal on the white parking lines. When the passenger door swung open, Clinton immediately recognized the bald-headed, sunglasses-at-night scumbag, Bull Johnson. Bart’s head of security. A gun barrel rose over the top of the car door.

  “Gun!” Clinton pulled out his gun and sprinted toward the Audi. “Get down!

  A loud roar split the night and something slammed into Clinton’s chest with the force of a sledgehammer, taking him down. He was hit and he knew at that moment why the whole situation had been off. The girl had said canl waka, pointing at the UHP officer. The Lakota word for coward. He was certain of this thought as he took his final breath and the asphalt lost its texture.

  #

  Goldie was about to open the passenger door of the car when the Hayes yelled. Every nerve in her body sparked to life as the world around her shifted gears. She saw Hayes running toward her with the gun in his hand. The sound of nearby gunfire exploded, and she dropped into a crouch, pressing against the car.

  She grappled with the passenger handle as second shot answered the first. This time from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Clinton standing with his back to the Audi. Had he fired?

  “Clinton!” she cried, wanting him to move. Another shot cracked, and Clinton spun around, facing Goldie.

  “Go.”

  He collapsed onto the trunk and slipped limply to the ground. The UHP trooper stood facing Goldie, his smoking gun aimed at the spot where Clinton stood was now pointed at her.

  A strangled scream caught in her throat. She yanked open the car door and jumped inside, locking the doors and scrambled across the center counsel. In the driver’s seat, Goldie groped into every nook and flap. No key.

  “No!” she screamed, pounding her fists against the steering wheel. Logically, Hayes would not leave the keys in the car, all things considered. Goldie raised her eyes to the windshield. Bull Johnson, Brad’s right hand man, stood in front of the Audi. His trademark long barrel .45 toward raised to the night sky. He waggled his finger, as if commanding Goldie to exit the vehicle.

  Murmuring arose from the back seat and the cabin filled with a blue illumination. Sarah’s voice grew more powerful and Goldie realized she was chanting something. Her voice grew stronger, fiercer with every syllable.

  “Nah-wah’-hon wah-kee’-ahn, nah-wah’-hon wah’-ku-yune-tu’-kah. Nah’-hohn mee’-ah.”

  Bull Johnson shouted at Goldie to get out of the Audi. She didn’t move, her mind spinning. The Utah Highway Patrolman had possibly killed Hayes. She wanted to believe these men were here to help her. Hayes was a wanted man. Dangerous in their eyes. Still, doubt clogged the cogs of her brain. Neither man had asked for Hayes’ surrender. They could have taken him in alive.

  She turned to Sarah, the simple motion slow as if time had suddenly changed its rhythm. Everything took on a dreamy, underwater quality, and even Sarah’s eyes glowing white did not surprise Goldie. Pale hair floated up around the girl’s head as though charged with electricity. The energy in the car was tangible, vibrations pressed against Goldie’s body and moved over her skin. She looked down at her right arm and saw the skin rippling. It should have been unnatural, but strangely was not, in these moments before her death.

  The highway patrolman pounded the driver’s side window and yanked at the door. Another man appeared at Bull’s. Their muffled yells seeped through the glass.

  “Do it!” The other man shouted into Bull Johnson’s ear.

  A one beat pause before the towering goon lowered the guns’ hollow nose and squared it with Goldie. No pause between the first flare of gunfire and the next.

  A strange peace enveloped her as the bullets squeezed through the windshield. Bullets pounded her chest and neck but out of sync with the explosions erupted within the cabin of the vehicle. Pain seared through her body, taking her breath. Though a rippling haze, Goldie watched the men fly backwards through the air. Like puppets yanked by the master. She gapped in awe as a glossy cowboy boot floated by in slow-motion. Its trajectory suspended before her eyes just long enough for Goldie to puzzle out what was wrong with the highway patrolman. The cowboy boot was wrong…not standard police issue.

  Cool black fingers caressed Goldie’s face, soothing her. Then, resting on her shoulders, they pulled back into the calm waters of forever.

  #

  Estella removed the strap that crossed her chest and stepped out of the steel machine. The night surrounded her in silence as she walked to where the golden-haired woman lay on the ground. Pushed from the machine when the electromagnetic pulse had blown the doors away. Estella squatted next to her and brushed the hair from her face.

  “Keeper of Love,” Estella said softly, using the language she had learned from her grandfather. This woman must cross the skies with the man called Hayes. Estella had only been with them a short time, but she saw the golden woman had him clenched in her heart.

  Love was a rare thing, and she was determined to preserve it for these people who had helped her. Estella lifted the woman easily. Her body weight was no burden. She carried her to Hayes and placed her next to him.

  Estella did not bother to go to the bad men. They were gone from this world, she knew. The eruption of her power had shattered every bone of their bodies. She meant to kill them, of most the one with the metal disk on his chest. He had come before and hurt her. Injured and still weak from crossing the sky, she had hidden in the river until he was gone.

  She touched her hand to the side of her head. The wound was almost healed, only dried blood remained. The pain was gone. Her quest to find grandfather would have to wait. Crossing the sky was dangerous, but necessary. She had important matters to care for now.

  Estella raised her face to the starlit sky, stretching her arms above her head, and spoke, this time, in the language of her own people. The Adi. The people of the sky.

  “Val yeda lu vok!” Her voice boomed powerfully to the heavens.

  The air crackled around her, then gradually tendrils blue electricity began to expand from her fingertips. She swung her arm in wide circles. The streams of light weaved into each other to become two thick bands shooting from her palms. Estella clapped her hands together, melding the bands into one blaze of light that arced high into the cloudless night sky.

  Estella drove the arc into the ground before her, creating a shaft that would carry her back to her world, but only for a few moments. Fingers of electricity crawled over the man and woman, centering the electrical portal over them. Estella stepped into it.

  The arc expanded and flashed brighter, then, with a resounding roar of thunder, they were gone.