Читать книгу The Stronghold - Lisa Carter - Страница 10

Chapter 2

2

Arizona

Pilar To-Clanny had been murdered when she was about the same age as the dead girl lying face down in the shallow grave.

Only difference?

Pilar’s body hadn’t died.

Just everything else.

The wind whistled off the escarpment behind Pilar. She shivered and wrapped her arms in her uniform jacket. The sun had yet to make its way above the rim of the rugged mountains. Shadows engulfed Pilar and the makeshift burial site.

An inexplicable foreboding teased at the edges of her consciousness. She’d learned the hard way to always trust her gut. Tensing, she scanned the unspoiled wilderness of her people. Her eyes darted in the remote canyon for movement or any sign she wasn’t alone.

Nothing.

And yet . . . she couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes. Of lingering malevolence. An eerie stillness hung suspended.

Her eyes flicked to the partially unearthed grave. To the bundle of skin and bones. A lonely, helpless place to die.

She wondered sometimes if the ground—blood-soaked since the Ancient Ones—somehow retained the essence of the violence perpetrated upon it. If the evil committed between the dark cliffs continued on—past the barbarism of the Conquistadors or the wickedness on both sides of the Indian Wars. If an unholy force yet preyed upon those unlucky enough to lose themselves in the forbidding ramparts of this mountain fortress.

Where were Special Agent Edwards and his team from Phoenix? Why was her heart pounding? Why was it so difficult to breathe?

Her hand flexed above her duty belt. She wasn’t defenseless. Not anymore. Or as ultimately helpless against her fate as the girl rotting in the desert tomb.

Pilar had fought—and would continue to fight—to survive.

Never allow yourself to be taken was the mantra she taught the women at the tribal center self-defense class. The mantra by which she lived. Yet she also told them that, if taken, they must adapt quickly or die.

Buffeted by a gust of wind, Pilar huddled inside her jacket. An unearthly howl pierced the air. She flinched. Coyotes? A cougar?

Flipping off the safety catch, she drew her gun and whirled. The air pulsated with palpable menace. The harbinger of death, an owl hooted somewhere in the pine-topped ridge above.

And a memory too terrible for words forced itself to the forefront of her mind. Of another time and place. Of utter desolation.

Sucking in a breath, she squeezed her eyes shut.

Flashes. The smells. The terror.

This wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening again. She was better, stronger than this.

But sometimes retreat was the better part of valor. Her eyes flew open. Maybe best to wait for the feds at the road in the safety of her cruiser.

Adapt or die. Adapt or die.

Canvassing her escape route with her gun extended, she backpedaled across the scrub grass. Clambering across an arroyo, she struggled to regain control of the distorted images filling her mind. She hurried around a massive butte, desperate to push the horror once again into the black pit of nothingness. But unable to deflect the inexplicable panic, finally she just ran.

Out of the canyon. Toward the road. Toward sanity.

And the farther she traveled from the canyon, the farther the darkness receded.

Reaching the sanctuary of the tribal cruiser, she reholstered her Glock and gathered the carefully constructed shards of her numbness once more. Her breathing rapid, she willed herself to think of Manny. To remember her life now.

She scrambled inside the car and concentrated on taking even breaths to slow her heart rate. Slamming and locking the door, she cranked the engine. Pilar threw the car into drive and gunned the vehicle. Ten minutes later, on the cusp of the San Carlos rez, she parked off the graveled shoulder of the road.

As the sun rose over the dusky pink horizon, so too did the September temps. Loosening the collar of her uniform, she got out of the car to wait for the feds. Here in the sunlight, where you could see friend and foe coming for twenty miles, she felt foolish over her sudden terror in the canyon. Maybe not so over the PTSD as she’d hoped.

Sound, too, traveled far over the desert floor. Her breath whooshed out in relief at the red haze preceding the feds’ arrival. She shaded her eyes with her hand and watched the dust cloud kicked up by the tires as the black SUV drew closer. Typical fed vehicle.

Took them long enough. Always a federal case when a major crime occurred on the rez. Special Agent Edwards wouldn’t be pleased to find “his” crime scene already tampered with.

And as first responder for the tribal police, she’d be blamed for the trampled evidence. She blew out a breath. As if anyone, much less the tribal archaeologist from the college, had expected to find a fresh corpse amid a nineteenth-century Apache campsite.

The SUV braked and shuddered to a stop. She closed her eyes as the dust cloud billowed. Voices emerged from the vehicle. Male and female. Car doors banged shut.

Out of habit, she kept her elbow against her ribcage. Her hand hovered within easy reach of her Glock. She coughed to clear her throat. She opened her eyes.

And when the dust particles dissipated, he—not Edwards—stood not six feet away from her. Plus two blond women, one on each side.

Pilar blinked to clear the grit from her eyes.

It couldn’t be—her stomach muscles tightened. A mirage. The dust and sun playing tricks on her mind. Conjured by her subconscious, as happened so often in the years since she’d seen him.

But then he tilted his head in that way of his.

And her heart raced.

His eyes lit as the air cleared between them.

Alex was supposed to be on assignment out of the country. Not here. Not close enough to—She ground her teeth.

Where was Edwards? Why was Alex here? How—?

Her mouth tightened. Abuela.

Abuela knew everything. And Pilar recognized an ambush when she saw one. She’d deal with Alex’s grandmother later.

Pilar took a step back. “Still a blonde on each arm, eh, Alex?”

The warmth in his eyes seeped away.

Alex—Special Agent Alex Torres—lifted his chin a fraction. “Is that, too, a crime on the rez these days, Officer To-Clanny?”

She met his glare with an unfriendly glower of her own. “If it isn’t, maybe it ought to be.”

An uncomfortable silence ticked between the members of Alex’s team. Five, including Alex. The two blondes, an Asian man, and a real Indian—the ones Columbus had been looking for when he stumbled upon her people’s continent.

“Where’s Edwards?” Pilar widened her stance. “Why are you here?”

A muscle pulsed in Alex’s jaw. “We’re working a serial. The description your tribal archaeologist gave of the body matched another case we caught. So they sent me. Deal with it.”

One of the blondes disengaged from the pack. “I’m Dr. Emily Waters, a forensic anthropologist.” She extended her hand to Pilar.

“Don’t,” Alex barked. “She—they—Apaches don’t like to be touched.”

Emily Waters stopped mid-stride and dropped her hand.

The look Alex threw Pilar seared her flesh. “Isn’t that right, Officer To-Clanny?”

She quivered as the memory dangled between them, taut as a bowstring. Across time and distance. The caress of his hand against her cheek as real as if yesterday.

Emily Waters’s gaze ping-ponged between them. “I take it you two already know each other?”

The connection between Pilar and Alex snapped.

Adapt or die. Adapt or die.

Folding his arms across his blazer, Alex leaned against the hood of the SUV.

Pilar’s lips twisted. “You could say that.”

She gave them a nice view of her back as she pivoted toward the trail where the corpse waited. “A lifetime ago, when we used to be married.”

***

Alex jerked and straightened.

His forensic specialist, Emily, threw him an uncertain glance.

Alex fought to remind himself of his purpose here.

Pilar nudged her chin toward the butte. “You’ll need to follow me in the rest of the way.” She gave him a look. “If you think you can keep up.”

“I’ll keep up.” He broadened his shoulders. “I’m not as easy to get rid of as you think.”

Uncertainty passed over her face before the aloof Pilar regained control. “You can try.”

His hands gripping the steering wheel, he ate the dust of Pilar’s tribal car as they hurtled toward the crime scene. She veered off the main highway and onto a gravel road, which led nowhere as far as he could tell.

Emily, a brown-eyed blonde, fanned her face. “This red dust.” She coughed. “It’s everywhere.”

“Yeah.” He angled. “Welcome to Arizona.” His teeth rattled as they bounced over a cattle guard.

Pilar swerved south onto what amounted to little more than a washed-out arroyo. The hard-packed trail jolted the occupants of the SUV. Emily grabbed hold of the dashboard to steady herself as the car lurched forward. The rest of his team—Charles Yao, Sidd Patel, and Darlene White—muttered imprecations in a varied mixture of their mother tongues—Mandarin, Hindi, and Texan.

Typical Pilar. She never slackened her speed over the rough places, just charged ahead. Alex set his jaw and accelerated, determined not to allow her to lose him.

He pulled in alongside Pilar’s vehicle behind a clump of junipers at the mouth of a box canyon. He and the team exited the SUV.

Impassive and remote as the jagged mountains surrounding them, Pilar leaned against the clicking, cooling engine of the tribal car. She pursed and jutted her lips, Apache-style, toward the blue tarp-covered grave in the distance. “Have at it, Torres.”

His jaw tightened. Time to assert his jurisdiction and exert control over this crime scene. Over Pilar? Fat chance of that.

Since the day they met as children, to the best of his knowledge, no one had ever managed to rein in Pilar from doing exactly what Pilar wanted to do. Not her brother, Byron. Certainly not Alex.

“I’m going to do an initial walk-through first.” He motioned toward the shade of a cottonwood. “Let’s establish a command post over there, Em.”

He felt rather than saw Pilar stiffen. In for a peso, might as well go in for a pound as Abuela would say. “Walk with me, To-Clanny.”

Pilar clenched and unclenched her hand.

She wanted to smack him. Even after all these years, he could still feel the sting of her hand across his cheek. Best to keep things professional.

For now.

She stalked alongside him, struggling to match his long strides.

He assessed the canyon surrounding the crude grave. Desolate. Forsaken.

Alex repressed a shudder. Squatting, he peered beneath the tarp someone had rigged to keep out the elements until his team arrived on site.

“You’ll find out who did this to her?”

He rested his hands on his thighs. “How do you know the vic is female?”

“It’s usually a her, isn’t it?”

He lowered his eyes to the grave. “How long since the body was unearthed?”

At his deliberate tone, she uncoiled a notch. “Late afternoon yesterday. Dr. Chestuan didn’t realize the remains were fresh”—she searched for a more palatable word—“from a more recent homicide until he uncovered a cell phone tossed in the grave underneath the shoveled dirt.”

Her mouth twisted. “Thrown in and thrown away like somebody’s old garbage.”

“Where’s the cell now?”

“He and I left everything we found as is for your agents to bag and tag. But it’d been crushed. A job for the geek squad to decipher.” She brushed her hands against her pants. “I’ll get out of your way and let you do your job.”

“Don’t leave.” His tone came out harsher than he’d intended.

“I-I won’t.” A frown creased her forehead. “I’m the tribe’s liaison until the tribal detective returns from a case in Peridot.”

“Lucky you.”

Her look speared Alex. “Yeah. Lucky me.”

Over the next few hours, the early morning sunshine topped the ridge and blazed high in the turquoise sky. As team leader, he directed the exhumation and designated crime scene responsibilities. Photographer. Evidence Recovery. Evidence Recorder.

Surveying the scene, he prepared a narrative description of the crime scene and instructed others on the crew to cordon off the perimeter. He set Charles to sweeping the immediate area—just in case—with ground-penetrating radar. Sidd sketched and photologged the canyon.

With painstaking precision, Emily dug out one body part at a time, freeing the cadaver from the confines of the grave. Shifting the soil to a ground cloth and sifting the particles through a wire screen, she documented her findings in a running commentary on her digital recorder.

As more of the victim surfaced, Darlene took photographs to document the body in situ. Using her pick and shovel, Emily found the outer edges of the body. Only scraps of denim encircled the victim’s legs. The remnant of a tattered blouse covered the torso.

Finally at her signal, Alex, Charles, and Sidd hunched over the pit and helped Emily remove the body to an adjacent body bag. With the corpse flipped onto its spine, Emily did a cursory check of the remains.

“Hypodontia.”

“English, Em.”

“Missing teeth.” Emily feathered sand off the jawbone with her brush. “Shoveled enamel on the incisors. Ridge on the edge of the teeth. Native American ancestry probably. But physiology in a melting pot nation can be deceptive and unreliable.”

“Makes sense.” Alex glanced around. “Considering where we are. But for the record, they prefer American Indian. Better yet, their own tribal affiliation.”

Strawberry-blonde Darlene looked at him sharply. “What makes you such an expert?”

Alex nudged his chin in the direction of the evidence tent. “Her.”

Her elbows clamped to her side, Pilar lingered out of the way, yet close enough to answer the team’s questions. Although Pilar had never been a traditional Apache with their deep-seated aversion to the dead, she didn’t get any closer than necessary. Probably not taking any chances.

Emily gestured to the long forearm bone. “Growth caps fusing to the end of the ulna.”

Alex growled at his Midwestern forensic specialist.

Her lips curved. “Means she’s young. Late teens?” She pointed the end of her pick at the exposed white bones of the pelvis. “Large sciatic notch. Definitely female.”

No scraps of fabric there.

“Sexually assaulted?”

“Like the others. Probably her, too.” Emily’s mouth thinned. “When I get to the lab, I can determine more fully.”

“Cause of death?”

She sighed. “There’s a slash that cut to the bone. I’m guessing her throat was cut from ear to ear. And from the marks, a knife blade. Long. Serrated. Like a hunting knife.”

He caught her eye. “Did you find the mark on her? His calling card?”

With the tip of her gloved finger, Emily brushed aside a portion of the mauve blouse. “Like the other girls. Carved so deep he hit bone.”

He fought the bile rising in his throat at the savagery and cruelty. “Premortem?”

Emily nodded and bent over the desecrated body.

Alex’s eyes strayed to Pilar, the most perplexing, confounding woman he’d ever known. Her eyes, the blackest he’d ever seen, searched the terrain. For what he didn’t know. Looking everywhere, anywhere but at him.

He couldn’t keep his gaze off her, however. With a strange mixture of joy and pain, he beheld Pilar once more, the flowing black hair bound in a tight bun per police regulations.

But instead of the vivacity he remembered, this Pilar wore a brooding expression. Something—grief, bitterness, rage—had worn grooves around her mouth. Put there by someone. His stomach clenched. Someone like him.

Underneath the bulk of her patrol jacket, she was as fit as ever. Slim and petite in stature. He’d towered over her then and now.

But from the set of her jaw, probably as tough as ever. The toughest girl in school. Who ran, played, fought as hard as any boy—himself included.

And because he couldn’t help himself, Alex gradually drifted closer to the tent until he found himself next to Pilar. She bristled at his proximity but kept her eyes trained on the desert horizon.

“Pilar . . . I need to talk to you later . . .” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I want to apologize for what happened . . . to explain . . . to—”

“No apology’s going to change what happened, Torres. What’s done is done. You and I got nothing to say to each other.”

Guilt surged anew. No surprise she hated him. He hated himself for what had happened.

“We’ve got nothing to talk about except the case. Let’s try to do our jobs and keep this professional.” She cleared her throat. “How long has the victim been dead? Any ID on the body?”

The contralto huskiness of her voice did funny things to his nerve endings.

His heart hammered. He wasn’t sure he could be this close to her and live with that. He’d hoped maybe—

Alex swallowed. He was a fool. “Em—”

Pilar shot him a look out of the corner of her eye.

“Dr. Waters says at least a year.” Alex strove to match her detachment. “No ID. We’ll need to look through the tribe’s Missing Person register. But you were right. The vic is female.”

“Apache?”

He shrugged. “The teeth indicate Indian. Apache, Navajo. Puebloan, or Tohono O’odham. This is, after all, Arizona. Prelim will require DNA confirmation.”

“But she was found on San Carlos land.”

“The probability is strong she’s Apache,” he conceded. “And a teenager. You got any missing San Carlos girls?”

Pilar stiffened. “Too many, Torres.” The radio on her shoulder crackled. She stepped away to answer the call.

She moved toward her parked cruiser. “Gotta go.”

“Wait.”

He caught her arm and she reared.

Stupid.

He withdrew his hand. He knew better. Pilar of all people didn’t like to be touched, especially after . . . “Where’re you going? My team may have questions.”

She squared her shoulders. “Much as I enjoy watching you and your Anglo women do hard labor, there’s a domestic dispute in Bylas. I’m closest.”

He grimaced. “I’m not Anglo.”

“No, you just act like one.”

He ignored the jibe. “Domestic dispute? Those can be dangerous.”

She gave him a look that could’ve singed the wings off a butterfly. “No duh, Torres.”

But at her caustic tone, he relaxed. This Pilar he knew. The give-as-good-as-she-got Pilar.

“Need backup? Cause I can spare—”

“Don’t need federal help, much less yours, with a rez issue. You grew up here. You know the drill. Not enough manpower for the vastness of the territory. We make do.” Her lips flattened. “Like always.”

She’d been gone only a few minutes when Charles shouted and waved him over.

Alex came at a run.

Charles paused in his radar sweeping and pointed to a narrow depression in the sand. “I think we’ve found another one.”