It is 114 degrees when we walk out of the airport. It hits me like a furnace blast. I gasp and put my hand up to shield my eyes.

I can't remember the last time I flew out west because I don't particularly care for the desert. I don't actually feel like a fish out of water, but close.

Jeannette says I have a death wish. I say I just want this over with. I'm determined now to put this to an end.

We don't think he's here, mind you ... not since he realizes we are not giving up. Not since he showed his face back in Memphis three days ago, standing on the sidewalk in front of our office building, calling in to my private desk line. And then when I picked up, asking me to look out the window. And when I did, he was just looking up at me for a long time, his cell phone to his ear, his tongue peeking out to lick at his bottom lip.

"Would you join me for lunch? I have reservations for two at the Rendezvous," he said. "I would like our negotiations to be pleasant for you, Grace."

"The cops already know everything I know about you, Ben. Doing this to me will not accomplish anything. It's a waste of time," I said, my voice hushed. I knew he could hear that tremble, though, the way I wasn't quite as cool as I'd like to have him think I was. It's just that I would never have expected this move on his part. I thought we were through with each other after him calling to scare me off his case.

"They don't know everything ... do they, Grace? Haven't you held back a rather important piece of information?"

"I gave them everything."

"Why would you not tell all, Grace? Were you hoping I'd call again?"

I knew, even then, that he was planning to set me up. He smiled at me. From across the street. In full view. On the phone with me. A smile. For me.

"You do not want to cross us this way, Ben. We don't play games with murderers."

"And just what is it you'll do, Grace, now that I've chased you down?"

"The first thing I'm doing is letting them know where you are right now."

"See? You didn't have to warn me again, Grace, did you? You being honest about why it is that you're trying to help me?"

Fucking bastard. Nothing I say that he doesn't have some spin on it to make me feel dirty. That is what I was thinking at that point. I slammed the phone down, called 911, then called Chad.

But of course, Ben was long gone from the sidewalk even before I finished the first phone call.

I was the only one who saw him. I was the only one who talked to him. They couldn't trace the call. Mike said they were working other leads. Chad said I needed to give it a rest. Stewart said we'd figure this out and we'd get him. But I noticed them all, how they reacted. It's something you pick up on. When people who trust you begin to see you in a different light.

And then they asked me if there wasn't something I hadn't said to them. Some reason why this man would take my tiny part in this case so personal.

Or maybe ... maybe, Chad suggested the next day, maybe I was holding something back, not telling him everything I knew ... because how else was it, really, that I was certain this man I'd seen one time in passing was the exact same man I'd seen days later in a grainy video while he was wearing a ski mask so I couldn't even see his face?

And then he called me - Ben, I mean - the next day ... on my private line again. And we were taping all my calls by then, so I'd have proof of ... of something. Only thing was, the tape caught his slinky voice asking me why I was holding back on his gang, not coming through with the information they needed about the next shipment to Chase in Little Rock ... why I was demanding more money.

So here we are, me and Jeannette. In Tucson, Arizona. Chasing Ben.

Don't ask me when I got so brave. Truth is, I'm just trying to end this.

I look at my watch. It is 1:17 in the afternoon. Sigh. I am melting. Heaven help me, I am in hell's armpit.

"Let's just get the rental," Jeannette says, leading the way resolutely toward the rows of cars that are identical but for the various shades of white, gold and red. I look at the paperwork in my hand, find the license number of the red car that we have rented. 

Off we go ... up into the mountains north of the city where Stewart has reserved rooms for us at one of the resorts set amidst cleanly scrubbed desert and cacti. Jeannette is driving as she's the one who knows all those fancy evasion maneuvers they teach you in the FBI. She is a former FBI agent who got out and came to work for our company. She is our regional security chief. She definitely carries a gun.

In the morning, not long after dawn, we slip out of the resort. We are heading for Benson, a small town only about an hour's drive from where we were staying. It is southeast of Tucson; hence, Stuart had booked us into a resort north of Tucson. Make it look we are casting around helplessly.

We are going to check out our most promising lead. Except we want to do this Jeannette's way ... which means being calculated and not dropping right into a small town where Ben and his gang will no doubt find sanctuary that is protected by locals who shut out all strangers. Like any small town, I suppose. We find the local café with no problem. We show Ben's picture to the waitress. She looks at it and then looks between us. Shakes her head, walks off, and refuses to give us any more refills on our coffee.

"Let's just go on," I say to Jeannette as we stand in front of the café later. She's looking down toward the main drag, with its line of little shops all in a row. "Why not just head straight to Sierra Vista? What can it really hurt?"

Jeannette gives me her searching study. I fidget.

She presses her lips together and turns toward the shops. When I catch up and match her strides, she says softly, "You agreed to do this my way."

"I'm fine."

"If we go there right away, we show our hand. And we have limited our chance to pick up helpful information."

"But what could they know here?"

"That waitress recognized him."

"No, she didn't."

"Yes. She did." Jeannette glances at me.

"Okay. She did."

"We need to find out about the others, too. You with me on that?"

"You're right. I'm just ..."

"I know. But that's why you brought me along. And now you see that I've got us on the right track."

She's right. Jeannette, former FBI, and good friend ... deadly shot, calm under pressure, does her best thinking when the risks are high. And takes no nonsense when she's on the job. But also a hell of a lot of fun when she's out just letting off steam. The only person who's not looking at me any differently now than before Ben's last taped call. Knows me too well.

Trusts me.

I trust her.

We stroll along in front of plate glass windows for tourist shops and curio stores. At the local hardware store, Jeannette goes in. We show Ben's picture. There's a teenage boy behind the counter. He looks at it and starts stammering in response.

Fear, I tell Jeannette later.

But not just of Ben, she says. Of his whole gang. Of them as a team. Of their reputation.

Of their tentacles, I say to her just as she pushes the door open to the bar not too far off the main drag. Inside, we are identified as strangers, hopefully wayward tourists about to leave after a drink out of the killer heat.

We sit at the bar. It is cool and quiet. This could be a backwater bar in any place not on any map. Benson's not that small but it's all relative. I think every town in the West is small and insular in a way you don't find in the mid-South. Here, a man's respected for being a loner. There, a man who's not a friendly neighbor would be reviled.

Jeannette turns on the 'aw shucks' charm for the bartender. Chatting him up at my expense. Wanting some advice on a guide to take us down one of the canyons in the Huachuca mountains. The bartender is probably 50 something. He kind of likes being amused at us and he leans in toward Jeannette at some point, asks if she wants to meet him later.

She gives me a look and I cough. Say we gotta get going. Need to press on. Got someplace to be over in Soniata. Nothing over there, he says in response, still staring at Jeannette, at where her hand is playing on her top button, like she might pop it open for him to get a good view of her bosom.

We are about all that's left in the bar just at that moment. Only a table of three dusty guys, probably from a ranch nearby. They cannot hear us. They can only guess at why Jeannette giggles and the bartender bends in closer. And why I'm looking around, as if I'm nervous but what I really am is making sure no one is near. And then I slip the picture out, while the bartender's distracted. Put it on the bar, in front of Jeannette.

He glances down and his entire demeanor changes.

We are out on the sidewalk maybe five minutes later. 

Ben Wade.

We have a full name now.

The bartender gave it to us without knowing we didn't know it yet. He just asked us, "What you want with him? Ben Wade ... you take that stuff outta here, and I won't drop a nickel on you."

Jeannette tells him that he's left me in the family way and didn't even have the common decency to return my calls. Says she's my big sister and down here to get him to do what's right.

I don't think he buys it but then he studies me and for a moment, I am afraid he will say something like I'm not Ben Wade's type. For some reason, it's important to my pride that he not say something like that.

We are heading back for the rental. Jeannette is looking around behind her sunglasses. I'm trying to put a finger to the pulse of all this. How can this group, this big group, of bad men stay so hidden down here if people know and fear them?

At the resort, Jeannette and I brainstorm. We finally conclude that the group must have made a reputation ... and then branched out. Maybe the locals don't quite know they're roaming other states ambushing armored trucks and stealing everything inside.

"Maybe we should go to the local sheriff down there. Surely he'd know about them?" I say.

"I never trust the local law without checking 'em out with the Bureau's regional people," Jeannette says, cleaning her gun, sitting in the armchair by the big window through which I can see cacti and dark brown sandy soil that has no weeds growing.

"And? When are you going to call to check on them?" I ask her.

She chuckles. "Why you think we haven't gone to them already?"

"You asked before we left?"

Her eyes rise and she blinks like she cannot believe I asked that.

"Oh. So ... we can't go to them."

"Cochise County ... out of bounds, baby. Perfect place for an outlaw, if you think about it. Local law turns a blind eye like it's some Wild West tradition they hold on to, right? And you're a short hop from the Mexican border. Slip over there if you find out someone's on your tail ... outlaws been doing that in this county since the old West."

"Like the outlaws riding off from the posse?"

"Sure. The border's not far. And it's porous, so you know they'd know right where to head."

"You think that's what they'll do when they realize someone's here asking about them?"

"I hope not. I want to catch them."

"But how? We'd need the law with us to take them on ..."

"That's why God created the U.S. Marshal. And the FBI. Hey, if we can get proof they're involved, we can get help."

"Dammit. There's not a single good possible as our Ben Wade," I say, frowning at the laptop before me. Every records check has been a dead end so far. "The only ones I can find are either way the wrong age group or the wrong race."

"So he's using a fake name."

"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know ... guess I thought ..."

"You thought he'd be using a name anyone can trace?"

"It was just so neat the way it fit together. Same first name. Just woulda been nice if it'd been easier."

Late that night, I hear silence in the room. Jeannette's connecting door is open. I cannot sleep. I am tired of dreaming of him. It seems to invade me, being this close and not understanding why he's become an enigma.

I have changed my cell phone number. If he wanted to call me, he couldn't. Why then am I feeling like some teenager waiting on Bobby the lifeguard to call me up after our first date to ask me out again?

Dressing in my new hiking boots, the ones Stewart insisted I bring for any excursions into the desert, I am ready to stretch my legs, hoping I can walk myself into exhaustion and sleep. I am grateful for the jeans and pullover I wear to fight against the chill. Slipping out of my room, I tuck the key into my pocket and tug the baseball cap I wear more snuggly down atop my head.

The moon is a crescent. It looks a faded white against the violet blue sky. I walk along the weed-less dirt, a path I noted when we checked in. It meanders around the property. Tiny lights stuck in the ground throw diffuse glows to make the path easy to follow. It isn't far to the lookout they told us about when we checked in.

The view of Tucson below is breathtaking. Lights crackle in the clear air. Tiny jewels of white, green, red, blue ... it almost looks like a grid. It is flat and wide.

I am facing south.

I wonder if he's out there. If he knows he didn't scare me off. If he cares. If he's killed anyone else.

If he will kill us.

In the morning, we dress for the desert. I am glad I have broken in my hiking boots. I wear two pairs of socks and Band-Aids over the areas that rubbed red during last night's aimless walk.

I am yawning over coffee. Jeannette is quiet. She studies a map. I am trying to concentrate on the file folder before me. The latest information from Stewart. It's not like our regular work just stops because we're out here trying to deal with a killer who threatened me.

Stewart is convinced that we should look into the banks in Little Rock. He thinks maybe it's something that just slipped out from Ben, a taunt that held some little truth. Maybe it won't be a Chase bank, he says in his email, maybe it's another one if he's really moved to targeting larger transports. He's found a possibility that sounds reasonable. It's another transport from the federal reserve. This one's under a transport company we insure. It's heading into Little Rock tomorrow.

He's convinced them to hold it in the airport hangar longer. Then to send a decoy transport out first. Then the real one sent out twenty minutes later.

I cannot convince him that there is no way that gang is in position to move so quickly on another job. Nor does he buy my reasoning that they will not break their pattern to do a job so close to their last one. He points out the time they did two in a row in south Texas.

"You realize what this means?" Jeannette asks me, not even looking up from her map as I recount his emails to me. "Means he is convinced you are right about this."

"It's only because of your report on the reaction to the picture."

"No, I think maybe he's just remembering something about you that he should never have forgotten except sometimes he does stupid things."

"Yeah? What would that be?"

"That you have an uncanny instinct about people. Baby, if you say this man is the one in the video, I will take that ID to the bank."

It makes me smile at her. She catches the cheesy grin and shakes her head at me.

We spend the next two days going to three small towns around Sierra Vista. We essentially repeat what we did in Benson. We find a reason to ingratiate ourselves and then show his picture. We have several stories of why we're looking but Jeannette seems to find the story about me being in the family way to be the one that gets a response. So it becomes the cover, especially the closer we get to Sierra Vista and the smaller the town.

In Millville, the lady behind the bar stops breathing when we show her his picture. Jeannette tells her about him loving me and leaving me. The lady looks up into my eyes, maybe thinking she's seeing something there that she can understand. "Whatever he's done to you, just chalk it up to experience," she warns me.

"Does he come through this way often?" Jeannette asks.

The woman smiles. Her lips part, close. Her eyes flicker toward a lone man leaning against the other end of the bar, sipping a whiskey and watching us. Three women, talking, our heads together. He winks at me when he realizes I'm examining him. Cataloging his body.

"Let's just say that when he's around, you know it."

"I remember that feeling," I say softly, my eyes on hers. "You sweet on him, too, eh?"

"He knows how to charm a woman. And what to do with her after he does."

Caught up in the act, I sigh and look down as if remembering what he knows how to do after he charmed me.

"Well, that's special," Jeannette says, her voice making that a snide comment.

"He's got a soft spot just where you least expect it," the woman says, blushing enough that even in the low light, I can see it on the fringes of her cheek. "You'd know that if you'd spent any time with him."

"Maybe you know where I can find him?" I ask her. "Or one of the guys he runs with? I just want to get him a message ..."

"Yeah, message," Jeannette says, in her big sister role now. "My foot up his backside's the message."

"He'd eat you for lunch," the woman says, glaring at Jeannette. "Don't ever think you could threaten him. He'd never stand for it. None of them would. So don't be going around talking that ... gets back to him and he won't like it."

The man at the end of the bar is closer. I slide Ben's picture back inside my purse. Pays to be careful. Maybe he's just trying to hook up with us. Or maybe he's just nosy. But I catch the way the woman's heated face turns ruddier as she studiously avoids looking at the man even as she backs away from us.

He's dressed in faded, work hardened jeans. His face is leathery brown and etched with lines. His hands grip his whiskey glass. He looks at me as he lifts it to his lips. He lets the edges of his mustache dip inside the glass as he tilts it to sip. He licks the fragments of whiskey from the mustache as he puts the glass back down on the bar top. His t-shirt shows evidence of recent sweat. He is even wearing cowboy boots. Dark brown that are filthy with the lighter brow of the dusty soil of this area.

A group of men come in, bursting through the door, laughing, smacking the dust from their jeans and seeing the two unknown women hanging on the bar as soon as their eyes adjust to the light. They give us varying looks of interest and smiles before settling in at a table near the jukebox. There are five of them. The bartender goes over when they settle in to get their drink orders.

I choose that moment to visit the restroom. I know we're going, me and Jeannette, now that we've gotten a hit from the bartender. And it's a long ride back to the resort so I need to get the bladder ready for it.

On the way back out, I find my way in the short hallway is partially blocked by the guy who'd been near us at the bar. I am not afraid. Jeannette is watching.

"You asking after Wade?" the man says, his voice low. It is gravelly and sharp.

"I wasn't asking you anything," I say, trying to edge around him but curious what he will have to say.

"Maybe you're just here looking for an adventure?"

"We're just traveling through. Trying to see the attractions."

"You thinking about going on down all the way to Ramsey Canyon?" he asks.

I am not sure what he means. "Maybe," I say. "You think it's worth the drive for us, considering?"

"Could be," he says, now moving past me toward the restrooms. "Considering."

To the cowboys at the table, it probably looks like we were passing each other and the guy figured he'd try his luck with me. When I get to Jeannette, I see the question in her eyes. We pay up and head out. I tell her what the guy said when we are in the car, heading north.

"Ramsey Canyon?" she says as I study the local map.

"South of Sierra Vista. Before Bisbee ... you have to leave the highway to make it over there," I say. "Only thing I see on the map down there is a national preserve."

We don't say anything for a while. I don't know what she's thinking but I'm wondering why the guy would want to hook us up with a gang everyone else is afraid of even talking about. A few miles from Tucson, Jeannette says, well, we came this far, we gotta do this.

I know she's right.

This is why we came.

So why is it I wish we were back in Memphis?