Tempting Fate

by Meryl Sawyer

  It was childish, she knew, but it went back to the days when her parents had suddenly been taken from her. Pop insisted they were in heaven, like the stars above, watching over her. She smiled in spite of the emptiness welling up inside her. It was comforting to think of Daniel and her parents being together. In a way she was jealous she'd been left behind.

  "Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself."

  She turned to leave without looking into the hogan or calling out. There was no car or bike or anything to indicate anyone was inhabiting this godforsaken spot. It was utterly stupid to be standing out here with a huge gun in her waistband, waving her flashlight. She should be home; Pop would be getting up soon and they could have breakfast together.

  "Time is running out," she whispered. "One day Pop will be a twinkling star who can't talk to you."

  She took two steps, then sniffed, inhaling deeply. In the cool, still air, she detected a smell, faint but distinct. Smoke. She turned toward the hogan again, thinking about the firepit in the center and the smoke hole directly above it. The nights were still too warm to build a fire in the hogan.

  With a broad sweep of her arm, she flashed the light around the area, checking for a campfire. Not far from the windmill, she spotted a neat circle of stones.

  Someone had been here! When?

  She walked softly up to the campfire, curious. Most gulchers scavenged in trash cans outside Sedona's upscale restaurants. A logical explanation came to mind. Some hunter had probably shot one of the hordes of jackrabbits that lived out here, then cooked it.

  She knelt down by the campfire, noticing it was still slightly warm. The beam of light caught something on a flat rock nearby. She trained the flashlight on it.

  "Yuck!" she cried, surging to her feet.

  Someone had skinned a large lizard, then roasted the meat. The remnants of the food she'd eaten at the Arts Council gala roiled in her stomach. What kind of person ate a lizard?

  The fine hairs across the back of her neck stood at attention. She whirled around, splashing light across deserted area. Nothing. If the lizard eater was still around, which didn't seem likely, he must be inside the hogan.

  "What should I do?" She put her hand on the butt of the pistol in her waistband, noticing her fingers were trembling. Going into the hogan, even with the gun drawn, was pure stupidity. Her only choice was to wait for the sun to rise and see if anyone came out of the hogan.

  She turned to inspect the lizard. It had been skinned smoothly and cleanly; the pool of drying blood and entrails beside the rock indicated the person had taken care to drain the body fluids and gut the lizard properly before roasting it.

  Could it be Logan McCord? What was he doing all alone out here, eating lizards?

  "Suppose it is Logan," she whispered to herself. She desperately needed several good photographs of him. She hadn't lugged her camera from the Jeep because she really hadn't expected to find anyone. Before the sun rose, she should return to the car and get her camera.

  As she turned, something slammed into her back. The air whooshed out of her lungs with a startled gasp, and she dropped the flashlight. The gun was yanked out of her jeans. The cold blade of a knife was at her throat, the sharp point pricking the skin just under her earlobe. The hot trickle of her own blood on her neck made her knees buckle with fear.

  "You're as good as dead!"

  The man's deep growl unnerved her even more, but she hadn't lived in New York without taking a self-defense course. She rammed her elbow backward into a rock-hard gut. A rough hand grabbed her throat in a death grip.

  The last thing she saw was exploding stars behind her closed eyelids, then the dark velvet embrace of the night.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  Kelly's tongue swept over sandy particles of grit, tasting the dirt coating her lips. It took a second for her to realize she was facedown on hard-packed earth. She squinted, eyes straining and saw a patch of gray light overhead.

  She had to be inside the hogan, seeing dawn's light through the smoke hole. In a dizzying rush images came back to her. The deserted hogan. The skinned lizard. The knife at her throat. With trembling fingers she checked and found nothing more than a small scratch. Beneath her ear a sticky scab was already forming.

  She hadn't fainted from such a tiny cut, had she? Of course not. He'd choked her … or something.

  She levered herself up on her elbows, praying he'd gone, but knowing she couldn't be so lucky. If he'd taken off, he wouldn't have carried her into the hogan and dumped her facedown. Was the man Logan Stanfield or just some lunatic?

  Or was there a difference?

  "I could have slit your throat back there."

  The masculine whisper cut through the darkness with a rasp to it like the blade of a rusty knife. Why do people always whisper in the dark? The irrational thought came to her as she turned to face him, every nerve tingling, her pulse throbbing in her ears. As she sat up, a blast of light hit her in the eyes, a light too intense to be an ordinary flashlight.

  All she could make out was a large shadowy figure sitting near her holding a deadly knife. The backwash of light revealed powerful hands with blunt fingers and clean, close-clipped nails. The dusting of hair on the back of his hands was dark. He wore no rings, but she noticed an unusual watch on his wrist. It had several smaller dials on the face and glowed in the darkness.

  "Why did you drag me in here?"

  "I want to know who sent you." His voice was rough as if he were recovering from a bad case of laryngitis.

  "No one sent me," she assured him, struggling to keep her tone calm.

  He was silent for a long moment, and she wondered what he was thinking. All she could sec beyond the blinding glare of the light was the blade of the knife with a ruby red droplet of her blood drying on the gleaming steel.

  And the unusual watch with all the dials.

  Off to the side, just visible beyond the circle of light was the pistol he'd taken from her. She told herself not to look at it and let him know she'd spotted Pop's gun.

  "You are Logan Stanfield, aren't you? I want to interview you for an article for the local paper."

  "The local paper?" he repeated in his rough voice as he turned the beam of the flashlight against the hogan's wall.

  In one swift movement, he was on his knees beside her. A large hand cupped her chin, and she had the craziest notion that he was going to kiss her … or something. This was hardly a romantic encounter. Kissing was out of the question. If anything, he intended to rape her.

  "You're lying," he said, his fingers tightening his grip on her chin.

  "No, I'm not." She shook her head in a futile attempt to get him to let go. "Your disappearance was big news around here. Your return will be even bigger. People will want to know just where Logan Stanfield has been all these years … and who kidnapped him."

  His hand slowly slid down her throat, and she nearly panicked, thinking he was about to strangle her. An unsettling silence filled the small hogan. All she could hear was her own labored breathing. She expected the hand circling her throat to tighten and choke the life out of her, but it didn't.

  Finally, he spoke. "I never said I was Logan Stanfield."

  His voice was hoarse and barely more than a whisper, but the lethal undertone to his words dared her to contradict him.

  "What are you doing way out here, packing a gun?" he asked, his warm breath fanning her cheek.

  "This place is in the middle of nowhere. I brought the gun for protection. That's all."

  He let go of her neck, but in a heartbeat the blade of the knife was at her jugular. "Stop lying! Tell me who sent you."

  She didn't dare tremble for fear she might slit her own throat on the razor-sharp blade. She slowly scooted backward so the knife was no longer pressing against her skin. She was breathing far too loudly, making her furious, furious with herself because he was so calm and so in control of himself that the beam of light never wavered, the shadow
behind it never moved.

  "I wasn't sent exactly…" She kept her eyes trained on the blinding light, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pop's gun. If only she could divert him for a moment and grab the gun.

  "I wasn't sent exactly," she repeated, inching sideways closer to the gun. "Jim Cree, he's in charge of the Stanfields' Arabians, you know. Well, he told his third cousin. I mean… I think Uma is his third or perhaps fourth cousin." She knew she sounded like a ditz, hoping it would distract him enough to give her the split second she needed to get the gun. "There are sixty-odd Navajo clans and many of them are related, producing a galaxy of cousins. It's—"

  "Cut the crap. Who sent you?"

  "Ah … Matthew Jensen sent me."

  She could almost hear the wheels of his brain turning as he tried to make sense of what she'd told him. As well known as Matt was in publishing circles, the average person wouldn't recognize the name. Taking advantage of his confusion, she lunged for the gun.

  She grabbed it and spun around toward him. He switched on the blinding flashlight. She stared directly at it. For one insane moment she wished she knew what he looked like before she shot him. The dark shadow behind the light said he was a very large, tall man, but didn't give a clue about the color of his hair or his eyes.

  "Drop the knife! Now!"

  "You haven't the guts to pull the trigger." He didn't sound the least bit fazed by having a gun aiming point blank at him.

  "Don't bet on it." She firmly believed she could shoot in self-defense, but did this man pose the kind of threat that justified killing him? What if he really were Logan Stanfield? How could she shoot a child who had been kidnapped no matter what type of man he'd become?

  She opted to bluff, wiggling her hand as though she were terribly nervous, but training the gun to the side so she wouldn't hit him. She slowly pulled back the hammer, giving him time to throw down the knife, but he refused to budge. She pulled the trigger, bracing herself for the powerful recoil, thankful she was still sitting down.

  Click! The hammer snapped down on the empty chamber with a sharp metallic sound. She frantically squeezed the trigger again and again—click—click—which made no sense. She had loaded the gun herself. On the third click, the light dawned. He'd tricked her, removing the bullets, then deliberately putting the gun where she could get it.

  "You have two seconds to tell me the truth, or I'll cut your heart out."

  She truly believed this maniac would kill her if she didn't tell him what he wanted to know. Squinting against the glare of the light, she said, "I am with the local paper, but Exposé magazine hired me to do a feature article for them. A secret source told them you had applied for a higher level security clearance and the updated check revealed your fingerprints matched those of Logan Stanfield."

  The flashlight snapped off and there was a flurry of activity in the hogan. It took a moment for her eyes to recover from the harsh light followed by darkness. The gray light seeping in from the smoke hole overhead helped, and she blinked rapidly, not quite believing what her adjusting vision was telling her.

  The dangerous man had vanished. She was alone in the hogan. Her sigh of relief bounced off the adobe walls, and she hugged herself for a moment, not knowing if she should be thankful to escape a killer or curse about losing her chance to interview him.

  She spotted Pop's gun, its barrel jammed into a chink in the wall. Even though it was useless without bullets, she scuttled across toward it on all fours. She vaulted to her feet, intending to grab the gun.

  That's when she realized the creep had taken her shoes.

  * * *

  Kelly slipped into her grandfather's home, easing the heavy plank Pueblo-style door closed behind her. Through the archway between the back patio and kitchen, Kelly watched the housekeeper take out her silver vial of pollen from her purse. Uma tapped a pinch into the palm of her hand, then blew it into the air. Closing her eyes, the older woman chanted a prayer in Navajo.

  The morning blessing. It was the Navajo habit to rise before dawn and welcome the first rays of the new day with the traditional prayer and sacred pollen just as Father Sky blessed Mother Earth with sunshine.

  "Kelly?" Pop's voice took her by surprise. She looked into the dining alcove next to the kitchen and saw he was already up and dressed, a cup of coffee in his hand. "What happened to your shoes?"

  She stared down at her once-white socks. They were now red from the rust-colored dust along the rocky trail. Ignoring her tender feet, she walked over to the table where he was sitting and dropped into a chair. Slowly and carefully she explained what had happened out at the hogan.

  "Do you think the man was Logan Stanfield?" Pop asked.

  "I couldn't see his face," Kelly replied, "but when I mentioned Exposé and a secret source, the man took off. I'll bet it was Logan, and he doesn't want to be found. The question is why?"

  Her grandfather touched the spot on her neck where she had been nicked by the knife, lifting broad yet bony shoulders against the fabric of his shirt. She realized once again how frail he had become. His hair was totally white now, a sharp contrast to the dark eyebrows framing his light brown eyes.

  The doctor's prognosis was excellent. Pop just needed to rebuild his strength. She hoped consulting him about this case would rekindle his interest in the newspaper he'd published for almost fifty years.

  "I don't know why Logan Stanfield doesn't want to be found." Pop buttered a tortilla as he spoke. "I think he's got a screw loose, threatening you like that. He better not let me get my hands on him."

  Kelly could help smiling at the concern in Pop's voice. He loved her so much.

  She reached down and petted Jasper, thinking that Pop's illness had nearly sapped his will to live. Even having a new puppy to train hadn't helped. Kelly decided fate had brought her home for a good reason. Until she returned, she hadn't realized how much Pop needed her.

  True, this article for Exposé would certainly help restore her reputation as a journalist, but she wasn't going back to New York and leave Pop again. She would continue to run the newspaper and write freelance articles when she could.

  "Eat your eggs," Pop interrupted her thoughts. "That's what you're always telling me."

  She took a forkful of the scrambled eggs laced with mild Chimayo chiles that Uma had freshly diced. "I don't think Logan Stanfield ever intended to seriously hurt me," she said, but Pop shook his head and frowned. "He believed I meant to kill him. Even so, he's a strange man." Inwardly she shuddered, thinking about the lizard.

  "Everything about him was strange—right from the beginning."

  "Really? Tell me more. If I don't want someone to steal my scoop, I'm going to have to write an article fast and I need an angle. Heaven knows, I'm not going to get a current photograph of the man, or be able to interview him."

  "Call it reporter's intuition, but I detected something was wrong from the moment Ginger and Haywood Stanfield adopted that child," Pop began. "Why take a year-old child instead of a baby? They already had a boy and a girl. The twins were already ten years old when they adopted Logan."

  "Maybe they'd been trying to have more children," Kelly responded, thinking about handsome Tyler Stanfield and his beautiful sister, Alyx. Who wouldn't want more children like that?

  "Bull-pucky!" Pop waved his hand as if swatting a fly. "Ginger has always been obsessed with her appearance. She tolerated the twins, but Luz Tallchief, the nanny raised them. Ginger refused to ruin her figure with another child. It had to have been Woody Stanfield's idea."

  "Maybe," she conceded. After all, Pop knew the family much better than she did. He'd been challenging Haywood Stanfield's political decisions for years.

  "From the start, Logan was a problem child who always got into scrapes that landed him in the emergency room."

  Kelly imagined the cold, calculating man behind the beam of the powerful flashlight. A sense of ruthlessness and unleashed power had emanated from the dark shadow. She could easily imagine what a diffi
cult, problem child he must have been.

  "Logan's disappearance seemed odd to me," Pop said. "He went out riding on his pony with the twins even though Luz Tallchief told him not to leave the house."

  "A little brat who wouldn't listen. Since the twins were ten years older, going with them must have been quite a lure, so he disobeyed his nanny. He was five and they were almost fifteen. To him they were adults, right?"

  "Probably," Pop conceded. "But the twins were too young to handle a crisis. When Logan fell into the ravine, the twins rode off to get help. They returned to the estate and found Ginger was asleep."

  "Are you politely saying she had passed out?" Kelly asked. Ginger Stanfield's long battle with alcohol and drugs was common knowledge. Kelly could just imagine two frightened teenagers returning home for help only to find their mother was incapable of comprehending the situation.

  Pop reached down and petted Jasper, and the dog stared up at him with soulful brown eyes. "No one ever admitted Ginger was drunk, but the twins lost time waiting for her to wake up. Luz Tallchief found them sitting outside their mother's room. The nanny was the one who summoned the stable hands to search for the child. The twins led them to the spot where they thought Logan had tumbled into the ravine. There wasn't any sign of the boy."

  Kelly struggled to imagine herself at fifteen and wondered how she would have handled the situation. "In the late afternoon, shadows become longer in minutes, they might have mistaken the ravine for one of a dozen others."

  "True." Pop slowly nodded. "But when they returned to the ranch, Ginger was awake, yet she failed to call the Coconino Sheriff. Instead, she asked—"

  "Don't tell me. Ginger ran to Benson Williams."

  The look in Pop's eyes told Kelly the answer. During Haywood Stanfield's first senate campaign, Benson Williams had moved in with the family—and stayed. Before the term "spin doctor" had been invented, Benson had mastered the art.

  "Right," Pop confirmed. "Ginger called Benson and he insisted the stable hands conduct another search before contacting the sheriff."