Naomi stared, surprised, at Jolene. “But I can’t. I don’t have any way of contacting him. I only see Russell when he comes to me.”
IT WAS ALMOST DARK by the time Jolene and Ryan pulled up in front of the GemCrest Toys warehouse. They’d spent the past couple of hours tracking down people who knew Red and trying to find someone—anyone—who knew where to find him.
Ryan parked beneath a streetlight and they sat for a minute, sizing up the activity in the parking lot. The warehouse was disturbing enough in the daylight. By night even the most hardened officers took extra precautions when they had to come here.
Unlike the last time Jolene and Ryan were here, people stood in clusters around the parking lot, watching Jolene and Ryan with suspicion. Like vampires, this segment of society came to life when the sun went down, and they trusted no one—especially not one another.
“What do you think our chances are of finding OC here at this time of night?” she asked Ryan.
Ryan unbuckled his seat belt and reached for the door latch. “How lucky are you feeling?”
That was the trouble. She wasn’t feeling lucky at all. With only a few hours until the end of their shift, defeat loomed in front of her. She didn’t think Naomi Beck’s claim that Red had some kind of deal in the works would be enough to convince Captain Eisley, and they still hadn’t found an iota of evidence. But she couldn’t return to the station empty-handed. She knew in her heart that Red’s life depended on what they found tonight, and so did her career.
“Let’s check around out here first,” Ryan suggested. “Maybe somebody knows where OC is.”
Jolene nodded and stepped out into the gathering darkness. She’d never been one to admit defeat easily; she’d never backed away from a fight. But tonight she could almost feel another life change in the offing.
She and Ryan worked together, moving around the parking lot from group to group, asking if anyone had seen Big Red or knew where to find OC, getting nowhere with the answers. Her mood dropped lower with each conversation, and she entertained thoughts of going back to the station and admitting defeat.
She was just about to suggest it to Ryan when she spotted a shadowy figure near the corner of the warehouse. He was a large crate of a man, wearing an oversize sweatshirt with the hood pulled low over his eyes, and dirty cargo pants at least two sizes too big. Everything about him, from his size to the way he moved, put her senses on alert.
She couldn’t see him well enough to know if it was Red or just someone who looked a whole lot like him, but she wasn’t about to let him get away until she found out. With her heart in her throat, she told herself to be cool. Don’t let him sense that she’d noticed him. But waiting for Ryan to finish talking with Misty, a working girl so hopped up on cocaine she barely knew her own name, was almost more than she could stand.
When he finally moved away, Jolene fell into step beside him, close enough to rub shoulders. Hopefully close enough to keep her voice from carrying.
“I think he’s here,” she said.
“Who?”
“Red. I think that’s him over by the corner.”
She moved away from Ryan, putting enough distance between them to let him glance around without being obvious. His gaze swept the parking lot, passed over the shadowy figure without pause, and he dipped his head almost imperceptibly. But Red must have been watching closely because that slight dip of the head was enough to spur him to action.
With surprising agility, he sprinted the short distance to the steps, bolted up them two at a time and disappeared inside the warehouse.
Ryan was on the move before Red even reached the bottom of the steps. “You take the outside,” he shouted over his shoulder. “I’m going in.”
Instinct kicked in, and with it a rush of adrenaline. Jolene drew her Beretta and raced along the length of the building, leaping over piles of rotting garbage, dodging clusters of empty beer cans, crunching through broken glass.
She’d skipped her run for the past few days, and she could feel it in her legs and lungs, but she ignored the discomfort and kept going. She’d lost one chance at Zika, she wasn’t going to lose another.
At the far end of the building, she stopped running. Every cell in her body screamed at her to hurry before Red got away, but she couldn’t afford to take chances. Keeping her back to the wall, she peered around the corner and tried to take stock of her surroundings. It was too dark to see much, but there didn’t seem to be much to see. She could make out the hulking shapes of two Dumpster containers in the distance, an abandoned loading dock and two sets of metal stairs flanking it, each one leading to a door to the inside.
She inched forward, watching for any sign of movement, straining to hear any sound besides her own breathing. Another five feet and she’d be caught in the glow of the moonlight, exposed and unprotected. She stayed close to the building, as deep in the shadows as she could, hoping they would hide her as effectively as they seemed to hide everything else.
Silence permeated the area, and her heartbeat seemed loud enough to set off car alarms. She climbed the first set of steps and tried the door, just in case. The knob must have been rusted because it didn’t even move beneath her fingers.
Between one breath and the next, the hair on her neck stood up and she realized that someone or something was behind her. She whipped around, Beretta raised, but she was too late. Someone roughly the size of a refrigerator slammed into her and sent her tumbling over the metal railing. She hit her head against it on her way down, and she felt the burn of pain as something sharp tore her thigh. The last thing she was aware of before everything went black was the sickening crunch of bone as she struck the pavement.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JUST AFTER NOON four days later, Jolene shut off the engine of the 4Runner in the long, narrow parking lot in front of the Cherokee Cultural Center and rested the cast on her left arm on the steering wheel. Her head throbbed. The bandage on her right leg pulled tight around the swelling, and the gash she’d sustained when she hit the concrete stairs pounded with every heartbeat, but by far the worst of her injuries was to her pride.
She’d been lying around her apartment since Ryan brought her home from the emergency room, staring at her four walls, thinking way too much about Mason and Debra, wishing she had the nerve to call him. She hoped that Ryan and his temporary partner would be able to track Big Red down again. At least Captain Eisley finally believed Red was in hiding. That was something.
She’d overdosed on daytime television the very first day, she’d pored over the library books Mason had suggested for her and she’d even read a couple of good mysteries, but it all seemed like so much busywork. She ached to do something, but Captain Eisley wouldn’t let her come back to work for at least a week. Even that wasn’t guaranteed.
Maybe it was a good thing. She’d been avoiding coming here for nearly a month already. Time to stop running away.
She climbed out of the car and stood on the sidewalk looking at the long, low building, trying to absorb the fact that she belonged here. Just over there, her birth parents had posed for the cameras. Her mother had been younger than Jolene was now and, by all accounts, starry-eyed in love. With a stranger.
That stranger—Billy—should have been the man who’d come to talk to her on Friday night. He should have been the one to talk about the day she was born, about the joys of being her father, and about the frustrations.
For the first time, she felt sad for Billy. She also felt strangely irritated that he’d earned her mother’s love first.
She’d driven past this place at least a hundred times over the years, but she’d never paid much attention to it until now. How odd to think that the man who’d been responsible for building it was also responsible for her.
Everything hurt as she hitched the strap of her purse over her shoulder. She wished that she’d asked someone to come with her—but who? Her mother? Never in a million years. Not Trevor, either. No, there was only one person she wanted
here.
The Center had been built with two V-shaped wings stretching away from an octagon centerpiece, where she found an information booth staffed by two women.
Museum cases stretched down one corridor, a well-stocked gift shop took up another. The third corridor held what appeared to be meeting rooms, and she could see tables, chairs and vending machines at the far end of the fourth.
The older of the two women looked up with an expectant smile when she heard the door shut. She was probably a few years over sixty, an inch or two shorter than Jolene’s five-five. Her gray hair was bound in a thick braid that fell almost to her waist. “Osiyo,” she said. “Welcome. Can we help you find something?”
Uncharacteristically shy, Jolene shook her head. “I’d just like to look around—if that’s okay?”
“Of course. Take as long as you want.” The woman’s brow puckered when she realized Jolene was limping and her gaze landed on Jolene’s cast. “Are you all right? Can I get you something to make you more comfortable?”
“I’m fine,” Jolene assured her. “Just moving a little slower than usual.”
The woman didn’t look convinced. “Well, if you need anything let us know. Is this your first visit to the Center?”
“Yes, it is.”
“New to Tulsa, or just visiting?”
“Neither,” Jolene admitted, embarrassed. “I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve just never taken the time before.”
“Well, that’s all right. We’re always happy when neighbors come by. Is there anything special you’d like to see?”
“Nothing special. I’m interested in everything.”
“Wonderful. You chose a good time to come. We’re celebrating our anniversary this year, so we have several exhibits going on right now, and they’re all open to the public.” The woman let herself out from behind the counter and gestured toward one of the corridors. “We have a large display of paintings, baskets and jewelry made by local artisans, but you might want to look at the museum first. The history might help you understand the art.”
“Actually, a friend suggested several research books so I’ve read quite a bit in the past few days. Maybe I’ll start with the art exhibits. Where can I find them?”
“I’m going there myself, so I’ll be glad to show you. I’m Thea High Eagle, by the way,” the woman said, offering her hand.
The woman’s grip was firm. Jolene introduced herself and fell into step beside Thea who adjusted her own pace to match Jolene’s limp.
“You’re going to a lot of trouble for someone with only a passing curiosity. Are you a reporter?”
“I recently found out that I’m part Cherokee. I’m just trying to find out what that means.”
Thea’s smile inched up a little further. “I’d say that depends on what you want it to mean.”
“That’s the part I don’t know,” Jolene admitted.
“Luckily, you have a lifetime to figure it out. If you can prove your lineage, the first thing I’d suggest would be to join the Cherokee Nation, but you can only do that if you can prove your ancestry through an entry on the Dawes Roll.”
“That’s the list compiled by the government to keep track of the people who were moved here during the eighteen hundreds, isn’t it?”
Thea nodded. “The ones who were granted property ownership and who lived here between 1866 and 1900. So many of The People drifted off and blended into the white population to avoid being driven off their land, it’s impossible to trace ancestry without the Roll.”
“I think I can prove a link,” Jolene said. “But I’m not ready to take a step quite that big.” Worried that Thea might have been offended by that, she added, “It’s just that I’m still trying to work through all of this and I don’t really feel a connection yet.”
Thea’s smile banished her fears immediately. “I understand completely.” She took Jolene’s uninjured arm and led her through a set of doors into a large room that had been divided into aisles by rows of temporary dividers. Displays of baskets and beadwork lined one long wall; oil paintings, watercolors, pencil sketches and photographs had been hung throughout the rest of the display. Only a handful of people were milling about, and nobody seemed even slightly interested in Jolene’s arrival. Just the way she wanted it.
“Here you are,” Thea said. “You can take all the time need, so don’t rush. It will come to you. What would you like to see first?”
“You don’t have to stay with me,” Jolene said. “I’m sure you have other things you should be doing.”
“Not for a few minutes. I was just killing time when you came in. Why don’t you let me show you some of my favorite pieces before I have to leave?”
Jolene wanted to experience this alone, but she couldn’t think of a graceful way to refuse, so she followed Thea and soon lost herself in the artwork. Some of the paintings seemed almost primitive while others were complex and detailed, but the connection of each artist to the earth and to the past was easy to see.
They reached the end of the first aisle and had just started up the second when Thea paused in front of a large frame. Her expression changed dramatically. She stared at the painting with such intimacy and sadness, Jolene felt like an intruder.
Curious to see what had affected Thea so deeply, Jolene moved closer. The canvas was painted in bold colors, portraying a cluster of people looking on as a small group of boys danced around a fire. In the foreground, a lone pine tree stood sentinel, its branches heavy with needles. What made the painting remarkable was the onlookers’ faces, twisted in anguish.
Their grief was so vivid, Jolene sucked in a quiet breath. “It’s very realistic, isn’t it?”
Thea nodded. “This is my favorite piece in the exhibit.”
“It’s magnificent. But the pain on their faces is…well, it’s almost like you can feel it.”
“They are mothers who are losing their sons. It’s a depiction of an old Cherokee story, Anitsutsa, the legend of the boys. Have you heard it?”
“No. I haven’t come across that one yet.”
“It’s a story my father used to tell me when I was a child. Of course, I shared it with my children when they were young, and now my grandchildren tell it to their children. So much of our past has been lost already.”
“You have this place to keep it alive,” Jolene said, surprised to discover she felt proud knowing Billy was partly responsible for that.
“It’s a blessing, that’s for sure.”
Jolene moved closer to the painting. “Was this done by a local artist?”
“It was painted by my granddaughter.”
“Really? Then you must be very proud.”
“I’m proud of all my grandchildren. I’m a very lucky woman.” Thea pointed toward the circle of dancers on the canvas. “The legend says that when the world was new, there were seven boys who spent all their time down by the townhouse playing the gatayû’stï game. The boys would roll a stone wheel along the ground and try to hit it with a curved stick. Their mothers scolded the boys for playing instead of working, but boys then were the same as boys now, I guess. They ignored their mothers until one day the women collected some gatayû’stï stones and boiled them with corn. When the boys came in, their mothers served the stones and told them that since they liked the gatayû’stï better than working, they could have the stones for dinner.”
Jolene could just imagine Trevor’s reaction to a supper of stones, and the image brought a smile to her lips. “I guess mothers are the same everywhere, too, aren’t they?”
Thea laughed softly. “Some things never change. The boys were very angry, and they decided that if their mothers were going to treat them that way, they would go where they wouldn’t trouble their mothers again. They began to dance round the townhouse, praying to the spirits. When the mothers went to look for the boys, they were still dancing, their feet off the ground. With every circle they made around the townhouse, they rose higher in the air. Of course, the mothers tried to get thei
r children back, but it was too late. The boys were already above the roof of the townhouse.”
She turned away from the picture. “All but one boy, whose mother managed to pull him down with the gatayû’stï pole. He hit the ground with such force that he sank into it and the earth closed over him. The other six boys kept circling, higher and higher, until they went up to the sky. Most people know them as the Pleiades constellation, but the Cherokee call them Ani’tsutsä.”
Seven dancing boys, caught up and carried away, leaving their parents to grieve. She thought about Naomi Beck’s concern for her son, about Mason’s fear when he thought Debra was using drugs, about her parents’ sadness. Jolene didn’t know what the Cherokee meaning behind the legend was, but for her it would always represent the struggle between parent and child.
“What about the parents?” she asked.
“They grieved for a long time. The mother whose boy went into the ground came to cry over the spot every morning and evening until the earth was damp with her tears. After a while, a green shoot sprouted up and grew every day until it became the tall tree that we now call the pine.”
Jolene slanted a glance at the older woman. “And that was the bedtime story you told your children? Did they actually sleep afterward?”
Thea laughed and stepped away from the painting. “It’s the story I told my boys when they chose to disobey me. There are worse things than losing a little sleep, I’m afraid.”
Jolene opened her mouth to say something else, but when she saw a tall man with dark hair and broad shoulders walk past the far end of the aisle, she forgot what she’d been about to say.
“Jolene? Are you all right?”
With an embarrassed laugh, she looked away from the now-empty spot. “Yes, I—I thought I saw someone I knew, but I’m sure I was mistaken.”
“Here? Would you like to go find out?”
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