by Aimée Thurlo
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, as they reached the outskirts of Shiprock, Fox spoke again. “You’re not going back to the safe house, are you?”
“Sure. Nobody knew we were there before.” Travis shrugged.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. There’s a good chance the safe house has been compromised. The guy in the bus was waiting for everyone in the back parking lot of the courthouse. He knew our plans, or else was incredibly lucky to be at just the right place at the right time.”
“I don’t believe in luck, so your point’s well taken.” He considered their options. “There’s only one other place I can think of where no one will think of searching for us.”
“Where’s that?”
“Our old home, the Johnson house. It’s been locked up, now that none of us are using it. Most Navajos will be avoiding it, too, since nobody wants to be near a place where people have died. You know about fear of the chindi, the evil part of a person that remains earthbound after death.”
Fox nodded. “We’ll have privacy there, that’s for sure. And it’ll give me a chance to go back through all of Mom and Dad’s stuff. I have to start digging hard into my past, and I might as well begin there. Too many secrets lie buried with Mom and Dad—and with my real parents.”
Fox ducked down as they entered the Reservation town of Shiprock. “Let me know when we get to the turnoff. I don’t want anyone to see me this close to home. They may guess where we’re going.”
“Now you’re using your head,” Travis said.
“Why don’t you duck your head, too, smart aleck?” Fox glared over at him.
“I could do it, and still stay on course, but it would look weird to any passing car. So I think I’ll pass. Navajos aren’t supposed to show off, you know,” Travis said with a straight face.
Fifteen minutes later they reached the end of a gravel road and pulled up beside the Johnson home. Travis and Fox hurried up onto the porch, and while Travis took a quick glance around the yard, Fox produced a key and unlocked the door.
As soon as they stepped inside, Travis got on the phone, which had not yet been disconnected, and called Ashe to let him know where they were. Fox stood by, and hit the speaker button as soon as Travis greeted Ashe.
Travis filled his brother in quickly.
“Stay on your guard and consider any approaching vehicles potential enemies,” Ashe said. “You shouldn’t have anybody dropping by since everybody in the area sees that house as one contaminated by the chindi.”
“How’s Prescott?” Fox asked.
There was a long silence before he answered. “He was hit by the first shot. The rifle bullet penetrated the vest Casey had him wear. The paramedics couldn’t stabilize him and he died en route to the hospital.”
Fox felt the blood rush away from her head. She sat down and then, after a moment, spoke. “They don’t want me dead, you know,” she managed in a thin voice. “What they really want is to destroy me by killing everyone I’m associated with.”
“No, I disagree, Fox,” Casey answered, apparently having picked up an extension. “I don’t think there’s anything even remotely personal about this. They’re after something else entirely. But the attack on Prescott clearly indicates that there are more people involved in this conspiracy than we originally thought. Someone else started shooting after Prescott went down and pinned us long enough to give the sniper a chance to get away. Prescott was the intended target. We have no doubt of that.”
“So what happened to the gunmen?” Travis asked. “Did you catch them?”
“No,” Casey replied. “They abandoned the bus for another vehicle a few blocks away, and escaped before any of us could catch up to them.”
“We did find the real bus driver, bound and gagged, but otherwise unhurt,” Ashe added. “He was on his way back from dropping the kids off at school when he was hijacked at gunpoint by two men wearing masks. He couldn’t identify either of them. The men are still at large, but we’ve got roadblocks set up everywhere.”
“This shooting can’t have anything to do with Mom and Dad’s death. Prescott killed them over a month ago,” Fox said, her voice shaky. “That means it goes back to my natural parents and the reason my family was in the Witness Protection Program. They testified against a group of Russian criminals, I know that. But it’s becoming clear that they must have had other secrets, as well.”
“Your father was their accountant,” Casey said, “but we don’t believe he skimmed any of their money. He wouldn’t have been living under the protection of WITSEC with just enough funds to get by if he had.”
“If this is tied to your parents and your past, you’re still not safe, Fox. We need to keep you hidden for a while longer,” Ashe said. “But there is a chance that this has nothing to do with you. It may simply be a matter of Prescott’s enemies wanting to make sure he couldn’t cut a deal and testify against them. The bottom line is that, at this moment, we really don’t know anything for sure.”
“Not even where to start looking,” Fox finished for him. She looked down at her hands, lost in thought. When she finally looked up, she held Travis’s gaze with a steady one of her own. “I don’t want any more protection. If whoever it is wants to find me, here I am. I won’t spend the rest of my life running away from something that will endanger everyone who comes into contact with me. From what we’ve seen, they’re prepared to murder anyone who gets in their way, but they don’t really want to kill me. If they did, they could have done it before now. That’s our one ace in the hole, and we need to let it work for us.”
“Just because they don’t seem to be aiming at you, Fox, doesn’t mean your life is safe,” Travis said. “Take today, for instance. Getting hit by a stray bullet could have been just as deadly. The wreck and the fire could have been fatal, and were very nearly so. You may not be their intended target, but they’re quite willing to gamble with your life.”
“Travis is right. You can’t leave yourself open to these people,” Casey said. “If it’s information they want from you, once they get it, you’ll be expendable. They won’t leave a potential witness alive to testify. We saw that evidenced today.”
A marble coldness enveloped Fox. “I can’t just sit here. I have to take some kind of action. Too many people have died on my account, and it won’t stop unless I do something.”
“Fox, you’re thinking like a rookie cop,” Ashe interrupted. “You’re ready to take on the world with no backup. Give Casey and me a little time to scout around. In the meantime, we’ll increase our patrols around the house. If anyone tries to get at you there, Travis can handle it until backup arrives.”
“We’ll be here only for a short time. I can’t wait. And you can’t expect Travis to be patient and rely on backup. He could get himself killed, following those orders.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Ashe replied. “It would be extremely foolish to make a move before you know exactly what you’re up against. All I’m asking for is a bit of time.”
“He’s right,” Casey added. “If you are valuable to a criminal still at large, we need to find out why. I expect we’ll have more information in a few hours. Give us a chance to do some work on this and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”
Fox watched Travis as he hung up the phone. “Casey and Ashe are well matched. They make great partners—in work and love.”
“My brother is crazy about her. I’m really glad they found each other.”
A twinge of envy filled her as she realized that Casey and Ashe would be husband and wife in just a few months. They would probably have been married already if not for her and the murder case. The pair had banded together to keep Fox safe and to find Prescott, the murderer of her adoptive parents—Ashe and Travis’s foster parents. As they’d worked to find the truth, they’d discovered love.
Wishing she could foresee a happy ending like Ashe and Casey’s for herself, Fox went to her room, leaving Travis in the kitchen making coffee.
She s
at at her desk, wanting desperately to feel some connection to her past. The emptiness inside her was like a chill that had settled permanently over her soul.
As her gaze fell on her high-school yearbook in the corner, she began leafing through its pages, allowing her thoughts to drift.
Soon she reached her favorite section—one filled with baby photos of her classmates side by side with their graduation portraits. Her stomach flip-flopped as she vividly remembered a scene from her past. At the time it had seemed inconsequential but now, under the circumstances, it took on a different meaning.
One day after school, in preparation for that special collage planned for the yearbook, she’d asked her mom for a baby photo. She’d never seen one of herself anywhere, but the question had never really come up before then.
As memories unfolded in her mind’s eye, she recalled her mom’s strange expression as she’d explained that the pictures had been lost in a fire.
Fox knew better than to believe that story now. For the first time, she understood the echoes of sadness that she’d always carried inside her, weighing her down even on the happiest of occasions. It had been her soul crying out for the past only her heart remembered.
She picked up Chance, the scruffy dark gray teddy bear that lay against her pillows, as it had all through her childhood, and held it close. When the past was nothing but shadows, it was nice to have something familiar to hold on to.
“Fox?” Travis stood at the door to her room. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen and have a cup of coffee with me?”
She smiled. “Okay, but I’ll have to dilute it. Yours tastes like sludge.”
“No problem. I just heated water for instant. I can make a decent cup for myself and you can have the wimpy stuff.”
“My coffee’s not wimpy. You just haven’t realized that the spoon isn’t supposed to stand up straight in coffee like it does in ice cream.”
Several minutes later, Travis and Fox sat at the table together. Travis stared at the words painted on her coffee mug and smiled. “‘To move mountains, carry away small stones,’” he read. “I like it.”
“It’s an old proverb I’ve always liked. Harvey Billey painted it on the mug and gave it to me as a present.”
“So, you’ve been seeing Harvey?” Travis asked.
“Now and then,” she replied.
“Is it serious?”
“Don’t make it sound like a disease. We went out a few times but we really didn’t have enough in common.”
As she sipped her coffee, Travis saw the strain of the last few weeks mirrored on her face. The dark circles under her eyes looked even more pronounced against the pallor of her skin. He would have given anything to hold her until her tension gave way to that look of hazy passion he’d seen in her eyes when he’d kissed her a lifetime ago.
“I’m so frustrated!”
Travis stared at her in surprise, then realized she was talking about something else entirely.
“The answers I want are inside me, Travis. I was there when my natural parents were murdered, and I shared their life, if not their fate. Why can’t I just reach back into my memory and get the answers I need? Then I’d know who these criminals are, why they’re still out to get me, and what they want from me.”
“Remembering may not be the solution you think it is,” he warned. “It could just end up giving you a whole new set of problems.”
“Maybe, but it’s easier to fight an enemy you know than an enemy you don’t know.”
“You’re right about that.” He’d always preferred open confrontations. The cat-and-mouse games they’d been forced to play with the killers were not his style at all.
“I’m going to search this house from top to bottom. Mom told me once that all my baby pictures were lost in a fire but, in view of what I know now, I realize that may not have been true. She never threw anything out, so my guess is that she’s got all kinds of mementos hidden here.”
“It’s possible. But it may also be that she never had anything from your past.”
“I must have brought something along with me. I was a six-year-old kid, not a newborn. At the very least, I’d be willing to bet that there are photos of me when she first brought me home.”
“Alice was always tacking things away, that’s for sure. She saved the first report cards Ashe and I brought home after we moved here from Rock Ridge. And I know she kept bits of the first bouquet of flowers a boy ever sent you.”
“She put the petals in her Bible,” Fox said, nodding. “I’m going to start by looking there. But let me do this alone. It’s my memories we’re trying to trigger, and that’s something you can’t help me with.”
“It’ll go faster if we both search,” he argued. Not that he wanted to search through the Johnsons’ belongings. It seemed wrong, somehow.
“You’ll only interfere with what I’m trying to do. Besides—” She stopped speaking and shook her head. “Never mind.”
The fact that she was so adamant about not letting him take part in the search puzzled him. Then, in a sudden flash of inspiration, he understood why. For some inexplicable reason, she was trying to protect him. The thought was galling. He was a soldier. He didn’t need protection. But, though he wanted to be angry with her, he couldn’t quite manage it. She was an incredible puzzle to him. All steel and fire one minute, then as gentle as only a woman could be the next. Somewhere along the way, she’d turned into the most captivating woman he’d ever met.
“Just remember, Fox, your job is not to play detective. Anything you find out goes to Casey and Ashe.”
“I’ll tell them what I can, but I’m not sitting on the sidelines. I’ve been the protected witness already and look where it got me.” Fox went to the Johnsons’ bedroom.
Travis followed her inside and, as he did, felt a cold chill envelop him. He wasn’t like his brother, Ashe. Travis harbored no fear of the chindi, the evil in a man that remained on earth to corrupt the living. Yet, strangely enough, it was taking every bit of willpower he possessed to stay in that room with Fox.
“The pages of this Bible are so thin, I’m surprised Mom was able to keep it in such good condition,” Fox commented, her attention focused on not damaging it in any way. “I know this Bible was in her family for years. She told me once that, someday, it would be her legacy to me,” she said, her voice trembling.
“This is harder on you than it is on my brother or me. She was the only mother you’ve ever known. Would you like me to look through it?” Travis asked, forcing his voice to remain even and not betray his discomfort.
“No. I owe it to myself, and to her, to do this on my own.”
Although she found a number of little reminders of her childhood on the Rez, by the time she reached the last page, she’d discovered nothing of particular significance. Disappointed, Fox placed the Bible back on the nightstand.
“I’m going to take this room apart. You don’t have to stay for this. You can’t help now.”
He took a deep breath. He had no desire to stay here, but knowing that she thought he couldn’t handle it, exasperated him. He remained where he was.
“Look, I don’t want your help,” she said brusquely.
Despite her harsh tone, he saw the truth in her eyes. She intended to do what she thought was best for him, whether he liked it or not
“Have it your way.”
He strode out of the room, wondering how he could be so attracted to a woman who could make him so crazy at times.
GOING FROM ROOM TO ROOM, Fox looked everywhere for items that might have some significance to her, and provide a clue to her past. Finally, while carrying a box of old papers, she collided with Travis in the hall. The papers flew everywhere, despite Travis’s attempt to catch the box.
“Where were you going?” Fox muttered.
“I’ve been watching you run around this house, opening drawers and boxes and mumbling to yourself. You need a plan.”
“I have a plan. It’s just not one of you
rs.”
“I was only going to suggest you narrow your search and look for specific items, like your old clothes, or maybe photos.” Travis kept his voice deliberately low. She needed his help whether she realized it or not
An exhaustive search of the closets revealed nothing. “What we have to figure out is where she would have kept the things she never wanted anyone else to find,” Travis said.
Fox sat on the edge of the bed, lost in thought. As he studied her expression, he saw a glimpse of the little girl she’d once been—the kid who could ace any science test, no matter how difficult, but who still longed to believe that elves and fairies could be real. The dreamer in her had always been at war with the practical, intellectual side of her nature.
Yet, from that unlikely combination of traits, came her strength as well as her greatest weakness. She was apt to joust with windmills, convincing herself that even miracles were statistically possible if she remained persistent. And, lately, she was jousting with him, too, on just about every issue that presented itself. The little girl was gone, replaced by a very strong woman with a mind of her own. Keeping her safe wasn’t going to be any picnic if she insisted on playing Sherlock Holmes.
“The key to my past is here in this house,” she said. “It has to be. But where?”
“We could try the special photo albums, the ones that have those old black-and-white and sepia photos of her family,” Travis suggested at length. “She always kept those out of reach, so she may have hidden something else there.”
“Yes, of course!” Fox went to the bookcase in the living room and looked around. “They were here, weren’t they?”
“On the top shelf,” Travis answered, reaching up and bringing one album down for her. “But, on second thought, you probably won’t find anything in these. I doubt she would have risked having something that could compromise your identity so easily accessible.”
“Sometimes hiding an object in plain sight is the best strategy.” Fox took the album from Travis, then went to the couch.