Cold Case Reunion

by Kimberly VanMeter

  Mya already knew where Angelo would be staying but she wasn’t about to share that knowledge with Iris because her friend would read all sorts of nonsense into it. Mya huffed a short exasperated breath. She wasn’t going to change her mind. She waved and drove away from the clinic.

  Change her mind? Why should she? It’s not like Angelo had.

  Mya was nearly to her house when her cell phone jumped to life in her purse. She rummaged around in her bag, keeping her eyes on the twisty road, and pulled out the phone to check the caller ID. She grimaced, not because of who it was, but why he was calling.

  “Hey, big brother,” she answered, unable to hide the weariness in her tone. She didn’t want a lecture or a warning that Angelo was in town. “What’s up?”

  “I have bad news and I have worse news. Which would you like first?” he asked, his voice grim. She could almost see the frown and unhappy scowl that were no doubt creasing his familiar face.

  “Hmm, what choices…got any good news to cushion the delivery of the other two options?” she teased, hoping to lighten his mood, but no such luck. Sundance regarded his responsibility as a tribal police officer like a warrior—stoic and eyes-forward. She sighed. “All right, what’s the bad news?”

  “The bad news you already know—that no-good sack of garbage Angelo is on the rez—the worse news is I’ve heard that he might be in town longer than anticipated.”

  Mya chose to look past the insult to Angelo—she wasn’t his champion—and focused on the second part. “Why? The coroner the FBI brought in already did the autopsy and the body is on its way off the reservation for burial.”

  “Angelo and his partner think that agent was here for more than fishing,” he said.

  Oh? She frowned. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know but they think it warrants a few extra days sniffing around.”

  “And how do you know this? Somehow I don’t see Angelo sharing this information with you, of all people.”

  “He didn’t,” Sundance agreed gruffly. “But Porter told me that they went to the Tribal Center asking questions, checking if that agent had come around, and when someone mentioned that the agent had stopped by to gather a few pamphlets on the tribe’s heritage, Porter overheard Angelo say to his partner that they’d have to stick around for a few days to try and find out what the agent had been looking for.”

  She withheld an unhappy sigh. Iris had been right, she wasn’t totally unaffected by Angelo’s presence and it would become harder to hide that fact the longer he stuck around. “Well, I doubt he’ll find anything. The man was probably just enjoying a little fishing. Not everything is a big conspiracy. Sometimes people are just struck with plain bad luck.”

  “Listen, I talked with Angelo, made sure he knew I wouldn’t just sit back and let him run all over you while he was here.”

  Mya reminded herself that Sundance was merely looking out for her and that his intentions were good, but fatigue was sapping her ability to keep her tone from becoming sharp. She was chafing at everyone’s attempt to shield her from anything unpleasant as if she couldn’t handle it. And where, pray tell, did everyone get this impression that she was weak and needed sheltering?

  “Sonny,” she said, using her childhood nickname for him, “I’m a grown woman and I’m fine. What happened between Angelo and me is such old history it doesn’t hurt anymore,” she lied. She wished it didn’t hurt any longer. Maybe if the wound would finally heal, she could get on with her life. But as it was, she could only avoid direct contact with the raw pain in order to appear completely functioning. She’d become a pro at projecting a happy, healthy, well-adjusted facade—a fact she drew considerable comfort from. Only Iris suspected the truth. And maybe Sundance. She had to do her best to ease her brother’s apprehension before he said or did something foolish. It wouldn’t do to have her brother tangling with the FBI over an old tribal feud. “Listen, Angelo doesn’t mean anything to me anymore and it doesn’t matter that he’s here. He’s just a guy doing his job. That’s all he is to me. The past is dead, Sonny,” she assured him.

  “That’s what he said, too,” Sundance admitted, causing her to stiffen a bit.

  “He did?” she said, hating that Angelo’s disinterest stung just a bit. It was good for her to move on, but knowing that Angelo had done the same didn’t fill her with empowerment. No, actually it did the opposite.

  She heard him exhale and she assumed it was from relief. “I worry about you,” Sundance admitted. “I wish you’d just marry Porter. He’s a good man.”

  Mya tensed without thought. If she heard one more person extolling Porter’s virtues she’d scream. Yes, he was a good man. She was well aware of this, having dated him for nearly six months now, but she wasn’t about to be pushed into marriage simply to relieve everyone else’s irrational fear that the minute Angelo showed up again she’d forget about the last fifteen years and jump into bed with him. She tried not to be insulted but it rubbed her raw just the same. “Yes, well, I’m not ready to marry anyone and I’m sure Porter feels the same. I rather wish everyone would mind their own business.”

  “I know you’re not some fragile piece of glass, Mya,” Sundance acknowledged with a heavy sigh, mollifying her a little. “I know you’re a highly capable woman. You take care of the entire tribe.” And yet… She waited for him to continue. “I couldn’t help myself. I see that man and I want to put my fist in his mouth.”

  Her ire faded and she smiled with a slight shake of her head. “You are a good brother and you always have been. But you don’t have to worry. I can handle this. Truly.”

  “I believe you. I’ll keep my mouth shut from here on out. I promise.”

  At that she laughed. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, my brother. If I know the capacity of your heart to love, I also know the limits of your ability to control your mouth.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled, totally caught. “Drive safely. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She clicked off, her smile disappearing as her problem remained.

  Angelo. How could one man cause such a stir?

  Because Angelo had never been just one man.

  As a kid, he’d been ridiculously beautiful with his fine-boned yet solid features, a benefit from his white Irish mother whose genetics had lent a caramel-mocha coloring to his Native American heritage while his Hoh father had given him proud cheekbones and straight white teeth. And things hadn’t gone downhill the minute he hit puberty. An unwelcome shudder traveled through Mya, awakening sleeping parts of her that she would’ve preferred remain dormant.

  “Damn it, Angelo…why couldn’t you have stayed away?” she muttered, briefly giving in to the private anguish that she never shared. She wasn’t the broken-hearted girl he’d left behind. But Mya couldn’t deny that that broken-hearted girl was in there somewhere, because it was her hands that shook as she gripped the steering wheel and her stomach muscles that clenched against the quivering nervousness…not the Mya of today who was strong, confident, in control.

  And, she noted almost desperately, at the moment, absent.

  Chapter 6

  Back in the car, Grace glanced over the pamphlets she’d grabbed while in the Tribal Center, which doubled as a visitors’ bureau for wayward tourists. At one time, the tribe had made a good living on the salmon-fishing trade but the salmon numbers were no longer robust and they couldn’t rely on fishing to sustain them.

  “So, no casino, huh?” Grace said, reading over the literature while Angelo drove. “I thought all Indians got a casino, part of that government apology for wiping out the Native Americans with smallpox and whatnot.”

  Angelo gave Grace a short look, his mind on the case, not a history lesson, but when he saw true curiosity in her eyes, he relented, if only to get back to the case. “There’s not much room for a casino on a reservation only a square mile long,” he said. “So, no, not every tribe gets a casino.”

  “Bummer.” Grace continued perusing the paper. “So what’s this
I hear that you’re some chief or something?”

  He started, unable to disguise the internal shock of her discovery. She arched an eyebrow as if to say What’s that all about? and waited for his answer. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, taking great care not to grit his teeth. “It’s stupid, means nothing, and has no bearing on the case.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe so, but, I don’t know, sounds like a big deal. Does this mean you’re a prince of your tribe or something?”

  “No. Drop it.”

  “Touchy. Can’t fault a girl for being curious. It’s not something you hear every day.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not something I like to talk about. There’s hard feelings on both sides,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road.

  Silence laden with curiosity on Grace’s part filled the car. He wished Grace hadn’t caught that little tidbit about his life, but, of all people, he trusted Grace the most. Still, he hated talking about it, because when the subject was brought up, he was forced to acknowledge how royally he’d screwed up. Knowing Grace would follow his lead, he brought the case back to the forefront. “I think tomorrow we may need to pay a visit to the wife. I’ve had Hicks’s financials emailed to me. We can spend the rest of the afternoon going through them to see if anything stands out. I want to get a better sense of the man.”

  “Why? We already have the wife’s statement,” Grace said, frowning.

  “Because obviously something was missed. I want to talk to the woman myself. The key is staring us right in the face. I can feel it.”

  “Is that your Indian mojo talking?” Grace joked, but he wasn’t laughing.

  “No. It’s called solid investigative work,” he said, not quite able to keep the sharpness from his tone, which he immediately regretted.

  Grace dropped the jocularity, catching the not-so-subtle hint that he didn’t find any humor in the situation and her mouth firmed in a thin line. “Hicks lived in Beaver, Washington. It’s about forty-five minutes from here. Listen, I can handle a grouch. I didn’t spend two tours in the army without leaving with a thick skin, but I’m not in the army any longer and I don’t take kindly to being snapped at for asking the obvious questions.”

  She was right. He was being a jerk. “I’m not used to people knowing my business and that’s all I get here. You can’t sneeze around here without someone hearing about it on the other side of the reservation. It makes me twitchy.” Not to mention, he’d forgotten what it felt like to be judged every minute of the day. It created a pressure in his chest, as if an elephant had planted its butt right on his sternum, and he didn’t like it.

  “All right,” she allowed, accepting his attempt at an apology. That was the great thing about Grace, she wasn’t like a lot of women who dealt in emotional currency. She was blunt and when she had a point to make, she didn’t beat around the bush. “Sorry if I was trespassing. We’ve all got skeletons, I suppose.”

  Amen to that. “It’s hard being here,” he admitted. “My whole family is buried in this soil.” And then there was Mya to contend with. Not so much a skeleton but a living, breathing reminder of what a coward he was. “Can we get back to the case now?” he asked, almost begging.

  “Do you have cell service at your place?” she asked. “Something tells me there’s no coffee shack with free Wi-Fi anywhere around here.”

  “You got that right, and yeah, I’ve got service. I checked last night before going to bed,” he said, silently thanking Grace for knowing that he’d begun to squirm talking about his past. He blinked the grit from his eyes, a reminder that he’d slept poorly the night before.

  “The town of Beaver isn’t much to look at, just a spot in the road, really. I used to drive there to get away from the reservation,” he shared, almost as a bone thrown to Grace for shutting her out so completely earlier.

  He remembered Beaver from a youth spent anywhere but the reservation. He’d told Mya he just liked to drive, using the excuse to spend time alone together, but the real reason was that the reservation was a weight on his shoulders he didn’t want and his grandfather knew it. The knowledge hadn’t sat well with Papa though Angelo knew Papa had been hoping that with maturity would come acceptance. But then Waylon died, and Angelo had known his path was elsewhere.

  The fact of the matter was, Waylon should have been the next chief. His soul had been grounded in Hoh soil. He’d loved the stories, felt the pride of his heritage and would have gladly sat at the head of the Tribal Council without complaint.

  A hollow ache rang in his chest for the loss of his little brother, reminding him how empty he’d felt since that day. Now all he had was his work. And that had to be enough.

  Mya tried to give her full attention to Porter. Guilt at putting him off several times this week had prompted her to accept his lunch invitation, but her thoughts kept wandering to Angelo and his investigation. She told herself her curiosity was only based on the fact that a homicide on the reservation was rare and she hoped he found answers quickly. But that would be dishonest, and she was too smart to play such mind games with herself. Still, it wasn’t fair to Porter, so she refocused in the hopes that he hadn’t noticed she’d checked out for a minute or two.

  No such luck.

  “You’re a million miles away today,” Porter teased, reaching across the table to touch her hand.

  She resisted the urge to pull away and instead forced a smile. “I’m sorry. Patients are on my mind, I guess,” she said, offering a white lie in deference to Porter’s feelings and ignoring the bigger twinge of guilt that followed. “So I hear you’re going to participate in the Tribal Canoe Journey this year?” she asked, being polite.

  His smile widened as he said, “I have room on my canoe for one more if you’d like to come along.”

  “Oh,” she said, briefly entertaining the idea. The Tribal Canoe Journey was a yearly event celebrated by multiple tribes to promote cultural, spiritual and personal growth. She’d never actually been on a canoe team before and the idea appealed to her, but her schedule didn’t allow for much wiggle room so she’d never volunteered. “I’ll think about it. How about I let you know?”

  “You’ve got plenty of time,” Porter said. “The event isn’t until July, so no rush.”

  Their lunch arrived and Mya gratefully turned her attention to her salad. Why she felt riddled with guilt she had no idea, but it made sitting here with Porter an excruciating ordeal rather than an enjoyable experience.

  “So, the reservation is experiencing a bit of excitement, what with the big guns coming in to investigate that homicide,” Porter said, taking a bite of his sandwich. “Have you managed to pick up any details? I know the clinic is the information hub around here,” he teased, but she heard a note of seriousness beneath the light joke.

  Damn. She’d hoped to get through lunch without having to bring up Angelo or the investigation. A discussion would only stir up questions, and she wasn’t ready to answer any that involved Angelo. She shrugged. “I don’t know more than anyone else. A man was found shot and he turned out to be an FBI agent. I’m sure it’ll all blow over quickly enough. Sad about the man, though. I feel bad for his wife.”

  “How do you know he was married?”

  Damn it. She knew because of Angelo. “Sundance told me,” she fibbed, cringing at how easily the lies were flowing from her mouth at the moment. She never lied to Porter and the fact that she was starting now because of Angelo only served to further ruin any hope she’d held of enjoying her lunch.

  Porter stilled when her fidgeting fingers drew attention to her discordant thoughts. She withdrew her hands from the table but it was too late.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Something is bothering you.”

  She risked a short smile. “It’s nothing,” she said, but Porter wasn’t buying it. He pulled away, his handsome face somber, his eyes troubled.

  “I know you and Angelo Tucker have a history. Everyone on the reservation knows that. But I didn’t want to be like eve
ryone else and assume that it’s a problem for you. Was I wrong in my assumption that the past is the past?”

  She almost scoffed at his question—the very fact that he’d asked irritated her—but he, of all people, had cause to wonder. She wanted to reassure him unreservedly, but there was an infinitesimal part of her that prevented her from giving him the assurances he needed. Her hesitation caused the corners of his mouth to turn down. He swore lightly under his breath. “The past is the past,” Mya said, in an almost desperate bid to patch what she’d just punched a hole through. “I’m totally over him. It’s just hard for me to have him here after all this time.” Perhaps if she kept telling herself that, it would become true. “I care for you deeply, Porter. Trust in that.”

  His frown intensified, her words having the opposite effect. “You care deeply for me? We’ve been dating for six months. I was hoping for a bit more,” he said, bitterness leaching into his tone.

  She couldn’t give what she didn’t feel. And she knew she wasn’t in love with Porter. But maybe with more time…

  “Porter, let’s table this conversation for a later date,” she said quietly, hating how their luncheon had been ruined.

  “Later when?” he inquired, his solicitous tone betraying a level of sarcasm that was hard to ignore. “I suspect this is a conversation we should’ve had a long time ago.”

  “Why? I was happy with our arrangement,” she said stiffly. “But I sense that’s not the way you feel.”

  “No. It’s not. I was hoping things were moving in a different direction.”

  She plucked at her napkin under the table, wishing she wasn’t having this conversation, but how could she blame him? He needed honesty and she ought to give it him. She heard her brother’s advice in her head, chastising her for not giving Porter a chance, but she couldn’t get her lips to move. Wouldn’t it be a simple—and smart—thing to give Porter what he needed? He was a good man, solid and dependable. He’d be a good father if they chose to have children and he respected their heritage. But for all those admirable qualities, she knew with a certainty that she couldn’t tie herself to him permanently. Her eyes watered and her mouth worked soundlessly, searching for the words but she needn’t have bothered. Porter’s expression fell and his gaze dropped to his plate where his half-eaten sandwich remained. “Let’s finish up so I can take you back to the clinic. I’ve lost my appetite.”