“Do they check the list of the missing people—the ones who miss the deadline—against any other databases?” Nicky pressed.
“They check it against deaths and births, and cross-check it against last year’s PCD—” Savannah stopped and her eyes widened. “Oh, my gosh. Sandra’s list of the missing! She got it from the Distribution Day database.”
“That’s why the official missing persons reports didn’t help. Most of those people are addiction transients. They disappear for months on end, only to come home for Per Capita Distribution Day. They aren’t truly missing. But Fire-Sky members who don’t show up from one year to the next…” She let her voice trail off suggestively.
“We Indians have an unofficial name for distribution money,” Savannah said. “M’aat’i sá-wáka. Do you know what that means?”
Nicky’s heartbeat accelerated. She turned her head back to the stage. Juanita Benami and Squire were gone.
“Yes. It means ‘blood money.’”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fiesta security personnel gathered in the morning at the church’s Bingo Hall for breakfast and to go over assignments for the day. Nicky chatted with Ryan and Frank, a half-empty cup of coffee in her hand, when Savannah stalked inside and dropped the Albuquerque Journal on the table.
“Have you seen this? I thought you were going to stay away from Dax Stone.”
Nicky dragged the paper in front of her. Above the fold, there was a color picture of the governors, smiling and holding up their Fire-Sky burgers.
“Isn’t that one of the reasons you wanted Frank to be your partner? Your scary guard dog?” Savannah kept her voice low, but she was obviously upset.
From across the table, Ryan stood and craned his neck. Frank, who’d been sitting next to her, pulled his chair closer.
“Scary guard dog, huh?” he said warmly in her ear.
Nicky bumped his shoulder with hers and gave him a half smile. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Would you two stop flirting,” Savannah snapped, “and look at the photo? There.” She stabbed a finger at a spot between the governors’ heads.
Nicky studied the picture more carefully and it made her feel a little sick. She and Dax were standing behind the VIPs, his hands clasping her arms, his wedding ring prominent. Their pose was close, intimate.
“Wow. Isn’t it amazing how in focus everything is in the picture? Digital camera technology—”
“Shut up, Ryan.” Savannah handed Nicky her cell phone. “That’s not all. Did you know there’s an online gossip site, based out of Santa Fe? Mostly it tracks celebrities and actors, but not always. Look what showed up on it last night.”
A picture of Nicky and Dax silhouetted next to the white panel truck was displayed on the screen. Below, the caption read:
Divorce rumors have been swirling around New Mexico power couple Janet Randal Stone and Dax Stone, NM state police chief. Could this old flame be the reason?
She tried to hand the phone back to Savannah.
“No. There’s more. Keep scrolling.”
Nicky swiped through half a dozen photos of her conversation with Dax the evening before. She stopped on one where she was only inches from him, her face tilted up. Her stomach fell. The caption read, Prelude to a kiss?
“That’s where I stepped in. I thought you were going to deck the guy,” Frank said over her shoulder, loud enough that a couple of people nearby turned their heads toward them.
Nicky handed the phone back to Savannah. “I didn’t see a photographer. I thought we were alone.” Her face felt stiff.
“There was a guy with a camera, smoking under a tree,” Frank said.
“Do you think Janet is having Dax followed? Jeez, Nicky. That’s all you need is to be called as a witness in Dax’s divorce. All the old stories will be stirred up again.” Savannah’s brows crinkled and her lips pinched thin.
“Nothing happened last night. The best thing to do is ignore it,” Nicky said firmly. She glanced at her phone for the time. “Our shift starts at ten, Frank. Let’s go.”
Nicky caught a few surreptitious glances from some of the people in the room. Manny Valentine gave her an insolent stare, and the sick feeling returned. He would go straight to Captain with this information.
She tugged the Spirit’s Heart pendant from under her shirt and squeezed it. They’d had such a breakthrough yesterday when they’d figured out where Sandra had found her “lost” tribe members, but a lot of investigative work still had to be done.
With all that was happening on the Sandra Deering case, she did not need a Dax Stone distraction right now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Bernalillo Starbucks was crowded for a Sunday morning. Nicky swirled her latte, waiting until Frank sat down with his coffee before she took a sip.
Ready for another day of patrol—the final day of the fiesta—he was dressed in his black polo and camo cargo pants, sunglasses perched in his hair. He rested his muscled forearms on the table, fingers laced around his coffee cup. His hands were large, nails blunt and clean. No ring.
“Sure you don’t want anything else? Since you got up early, I’m buying.” His light blue eyes smiled.
“I’m good.” She pressed her lips together, but couldn’t completely stop them from quirking up on one side. The heat from her coffee tingled against her tongue as she took a sip, and she fleetingly wondered if the warmth in her chest was from her drink or from Frank’s presence across the table. They’d spent Saturday at the fiesta, partnered again, and he hadn’t pressed her about Dax or the mess Friday night. In fact, despite all the hours they’d spent together in the last couple of days, their topics of conversation had been impersonal. Safe.
Maybe it was time to change that.
They both had agendas. She, to figure out why he was at Fire-Sky, and he—she gave an internal shrug—probably to find out what she knew about the Sandra Deering case and how it related to the Chiricahua murders.
But there was something else going on she wanted to explore. Her attraction to this man ran fast and deep. Either he was a great actor and she was reading him wrong, or the feeling was mutual. If it was mutual, she would use it against him and hope it wouldn’t come back to bite her. She had a strict no-fraternization rule. Still …
She swirled her coffee again, her smile coy.
“So. Do you really want to talk about your assignment today, or…?” Nicky let her voice trail away.
“Or?” he answered, his tone light.
“Or do we get to know each other better? Like, who is Frank Martin?”
He chuckled. “Can you narrow it down a little?”
“Wow. That much to tell,” she teased playfully.
“No. Not really.” His smile deepened.
“Okay. Let’s start with an easy one. Where are you from?”
“Tucson. I grew up there. How about you?”
“Albuquerque, born and raised. Family?”
“Dad and Mom live halfway between Benson and Tombstone. Three older sisters.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Hand-me-downs were the worst.” Nicky burst out laughing. “How about you?”
“My mom and dad divorced when I was about ten. Dad passed when I started high school.” Frank murmured condolences. “My mom traveled, so I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. Siblings…” Nicky toasted him with her cup. “Too complex for coffee, so let’s move on. How’d you come to be a conservation officer on an Indian reservation? It’s not a career many people know about.”
“It wasn’t a straight path by any means. I played baseball in college. Had a scholarship. Catcher. Thought I was going to be the next Pudge Rodriguez.” At her blank look, he said, “Gary Carter?” She shook her head with an apologetic smile. “Johnny Bench?”
“I’ve heard of him!”
“You’re not a baseball fan?” Frank’s voice held an incredulous note.
“Not really. Is that a deal-breaker?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe. Are we making some k
ind of a deal here?”
“Maybe,” she repeated softly. “But you haven’t made the connection, Agent Martin. How do baseball and conservation go together? Please continue,” she directed, using her best interrogation tone.
“Uh-oh. That law-school background is coming out.”
Nicky couldn’t stop the tightening of her expression. She turned away from him and scanned the early morning crowd, sipping her coffee to cover.
Frank stretched a hand across the table.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that the guys talk.”
“And with Dax Stone showing up at the fiesta, the photos in the paper … I’m sure the gossips are working overtime.” Nicky set her cup down and checked her phone. Taking a deep breath, she managed a bright smile. “Ancient history is not the topic of study this morning. Baseball is.” She put her phone down, screen up, and tapped it. “Ten more minutes and we need to get to work.” Deliberately softening her expression, she said, “I’m still interested.”
His eyes flared as he picked up her underlying message. Good. For a moment she’d lost sight of her goal. It wouldn’t happen again.
“Baseball, right. So, the athletic department encouraged certain degrees and classes that—let’s just say—wouldn’t interfere with practices or the season and would make it easy to keep up our grade-point average. Math appreciation, communications … I took one called Forests and Society. Really liked it. That led me to the conservation biology degree at the University of Arizona.”
“So you got your degree and went into the military.” At his quick look, she smirked. “You’re not the one only who hears gossip.”
“No. I dropped out of college and went into the military.”
“Why?”
“Convergence of bad luck?” He shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. “Honestly? Immaturity. The coach brought in a new kid. He was a better catcher than me and took my first-string position. I didn’t get to play much anymore, so I quit.” He hitched a half smile. “And there was this girl.”
“Let me guess. Your one and only true love. Life wouldn’t be worth living if she wasn’t in it. And she broke your heart.”
He chuckled. “Right in one. She dumped me after I left the team. Next thing I know, she’s dating my replacement. That was pretty devastating. I dropped out of school and joined the army as a grunt.”
“You were in Afghanistan.”
“Three tours. Demolition. With the scouts. We were dropped in the backcountry to find Taliban hideouts. I blew up caves.”
“Was it rough?”
“Surprisingly—most of the time—it was amazing. The places I was stationed were very much like the mountains in southern Arizona. Still, it was no walk in the park.”
His smile was gone. Had he lost buddies out there? She didn’t know him well enough to ask.
Nicky tried to lighten the mood. “Well, you came to the right place if you want caves. Scalding Peak is riddled with them.”
“Except they’re off limits to non-Natives, right? Because they’re sacred and the war chiefs do rituals up there. That’s why I’m paired with PJ for the duration of my training. He was a war chief, so he still has partial access in case we need to go in.”
Nicky shook her head. How could she explain PJ Santibanez to Frank?
“No. PJ has never been a war chief. He might have trained to be one—” She glanced down at her phone. “Ten minutes is up. We’ve got to get going. Looks like we’ll have to finish this fascinating conversation later.”
“How about over dinner?” he said. “I owe you for the Fire-Sky burger.”
Her heart rate sped up. “Not tonight. The fiesta goes till ten.”
“Later this week, then. Give me a call when you have a free evening. Let’s exchange numbers.”
“Okay.” Nicky told herself she was accepting his invitation because she needed to gather information.
If she could only keep the stupid smile off her face. She took a sip of her latte and wrinkled her nose.
“Do you mind watching my stuff? I need to get a warm-up for my coffee and hit the ladies’ room.”
At his “No problem,” she walked to the back of the shop, her step light. She stopped to hand her drink to a girl behind the counter to microwave, before she ducked into a narrow corridor.
* * *
“Here’s your coffee, Officer.” Nicky smiled her thanks to the barista and took a sip. Too hot. She swirled her drink and looked for an opening in the line of customers, neck craned to find Frank.
A phone rang, and she automatically slid her hand to her belt. Her skin prickled. The clip was empty. She checked her pockets. Not there. Had she dropped it?
No. Relief swept over her. She’d left it on the table, her purse and jacket hung on the back of the chair. Jeez, her little chat with Frank had really messed with her head this morning.
Nicky sidestepped between two large men with the Santa Ana Star Casino logo embroidered on their shirts. Frank stood by their table. Her phone was in his hand.
“I’ll take that,” she rapped out, palm up.
“Oh. Sorry. It started ringing, so I just…” He handed her the phone and flashed a sheepish grin.
Nicky checked the screen.
Julie Knuteson, MD, OMI
505-555-8891
“Excuse me.” She walked a few steps away from him and answered. “Julie?”
“I’ve got something.” There was barely suppressed agitation in Julie’s voice. “Can you come by the lab today?”
Nicky glanced at Frank. His head was down but tipped in her direction. The barista called out an order, and a guy picking up his coffee blocked her view of Frank for a moment. “I can’t talk now. And I can’t come today. How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow after work,” Julie said. “Text me.”
“Okay. Gotta go.” Nicky hung up. She took a deep breath and deliberately relaxed her body. “Ready, Frank?”
His gaze swept her face. “Everything all right?”
She clipped her cell to her utility belt, grabbed her jacket and bag, and started for the door.
“Yeah. My contact at OMI. A dead body brought in last night could be a Fire-Sky overdose. I’m the tribe’s liaison, so she gave me a heads-up call.” Nicky tried to inject enough ruefulness in her voice to make her story appear true.
He made a noncommittal sound and held the door for her.
Nicky glanced at Frank as she stepped outside. Even though he’d had her phone, he hadn’t learned anything important. And he’d backed her up with Dax on Friday night. Still, she vowed to be more careful around him going forward.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Nicky and Frank headed into the village of Salida for patrol. The crowd had thickened after the conclusion of Sunday Mass, and tourists and residents mingled on roads blocked off from vehicle traffic. The tent canopies and booths that lined the narrow streets displayed Native crafts and painted pots, homemade clothes, jewelry, and leather goods. People gathered at stalls selling breakfast burritos and bags of deep-fried sugar donuts, their sweet-savory scent like a siren’s call in the crisp morning air.
“Bitch!” A woman stepped into the street and jerked her hand in an arc.
A shower of dark liquid seared the skin of Nicky’s left hand and splashed in the V of her shirt. The arm and shoulder of her jacket steamed where it caught the bulk of the fluid. She hissed and twisted away.
Training kicked in immediately. With a burst of adrenaline, she lunged at her attacker and slammed her to the street. The woman screeched and scored the side of Nicky’s face with long red nails. Nicky quickly flipped her over, knee in her back, and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. The woman kicked mightily, and Frank fell on her legs.
“You got this?” Frank asked.
“Yeah.” She jerked one wrist behind the woman’s back and clicked on a cuff, before she grabbed and twisted the other arm. Her fingers bit into skin.
Frank reared up behind her and knelt across
the woman’s calves, radio in hand. “Ten eighty-two, repeat, ten eighty-two on the north side of the plaza.”
“Copy that. On our way.”
“Get off! You’re hurting me! Police brutality! Bitch, get off me! It was an accident! I swear it was an accident. Dax! DAX!”
Her screams drew a crowd. Some of them held up cell phones to record the spectacle.
Nicky heard running footsteps. Breathing hard, she clicked on the second cuff, stood, and hauled the woman to her feet. Three men raced toward them, Officers Manny Valentine and Cyrus Aguilar close behind.
“Get off her! Let her go!” Dax yelled, his face ashen. “Janet, honey, are you all right?”
Frank stepped in front of Nicky and the woman, one hand out, the other on his ASP baton.
“All of you, stop right there. If you take another step, I’ll arrest you for interference with the lawful duty of a police officer.”
They slid to a stop. “You and what army?” growled one of the guys with Dax.
From his aggressive demeanor, Nicky guessed he was one of Dax’s state cops, maybe even a bodyguard. Except Dax and his men were dressed in jeans, so they weren’t here in any official capacity. Her brows knit. Then why—?
She stiffened, muscles rigid. No. It couldn’t be.
“She attacked me. It was an accident, and she attacked me.” Sobbing, the handcuffed woman struggled to reach Dax.
Nicky spun her around, and stared at the lovely, gamine face. Her cap of white-blond hair was mussed, and dirt streaked her skin and clothes. But the hatred blazing from the blue-green eyes jolted Nicky. Coldness slid to her core. “Janet. You changed your hair. I didn’t recognize you.”
“Bitch!” she screeched again, before she lifted her head up and wailed plaintively. “Dax. Please help me. Save me.”
Dax and his men stepped forward again, but Valentine and Aguilar had circled around and created a shield with Frank at its center. Nicky glanced to either side. Two more Fire-Sky officers—Gallegos and Montoya—flanked her and Janet Stone on the left and right.
“What the hell is going on? Nicky? What have you done to my wife?” Dax inched closer, his tone harsh now.
Hearts of the Missing Page 13