Secrets in Four Corners

“Like a superhero?”

Maybe that was a stretch. But her son was into comics lately. “I guess you could say that.” Guilt pricked her again for allowing the conversation to remain in past tense…as if his father were deceased. Another selfish gesture on her part.

But life was so much easier that way.

“Am I named after him?”

Tension whipped through Bree. That was a place she definitely didn’t want to go. Her cell phone vibrated. Relief flared. Talk about being saved by the bell, or, in this case, the vibration. “Hold on, honey.” Bree withdrew the phone from the case on her belt and opened it. “Hunter.”

“Detective Hunter, this is Officer Danny Brewer.”

Though she was acquainted with a fair number of local law enforcement members, particularly those on the reservation, the name didn’t strike a chord. She couldn’t readily associate the name with one department or the other, making it hard to anticipate whether his call was something or nothing. That didn’t prevent a new kind of tension from sending her instincts to the next level. “What can I do for you, Officer Brewer?”

“Well, ma’am, we have a situation.”

His tone told her far more than his words. Something.

When she would have asked for an explanation, he went on, “We have a one eighty-seven.”

Adrenaline fired in Bree’s veins. Before she could launch the barrage of homicide-related questions that instantly sprang to mind, Brewer tacked on, “My partner said I should call you. He would’ve called himself but he’s been busy puking his guts out ever since we took a look at the…vic.”

Damn. Another victim.

Bree blinked, focused on the details she knew so far. Puking? Had to be Officer Steve Cyrus. She knew him well. Poor Cyrus lost his last meal at every scene involving a body.

One eighty-seven.

Damn.

Another murder.

“Location?” Bree glanced at her son. She would drop him off at school and head straight to the scene. Hell of a way to start a Monday morning. Frustration hit on the heels of the adrenaline. She’d worked a case of rape and attempted murder just this weekend. As hard as her team toiled to prevent as well as solve violent crimes it never seemed to be enough.

“The Tribal Park.” Brewer cleared his throat. “In the canyon close to the Two-Story House. One of the guides who checks the trails a couple of times a week during the off-season found the victim.”

“Don’t let him out of your sight,” Bree reminded. She would need to question the guide at length. Chances were he would be the closest thing to a witness, albeit after the fact, she would get. “Did you ID the victim?” She hoped this wasn’t another rape as well. Twelve days into the New Year and they’d had two of those already. Both related to drug use.

Bree frowned at the muffled conversation taking place on the other end of the line. It sounded like Brewer was asking his partner what he should say in answer to her question. Weird.

“Ma’am,” Brewer said, something different in his voice now, “Steve said just get here as fast as you can. He’ll explain the details then.”

When the call ended Bree stared at her phone then shook her head.

Damned weird.

“M-o-o-o-m,” Peter said, drawing out the single syllable, “you didn’t answer my question.”

She definitely didn’t have time for that now. More of that guilt heaped on her shoulders at just how relieved she was to have an excuse not to go there. “We’ll have to talk about it later. That was another police officer who called. I have to get to work.”

Peter groaned, but didn’t argue with her. He knew that for his mom work meant something bad had happened to someone.

As Bree guided her vehicle into the school’s drop-off lane, she considered her little boy. She wanted life on the reservation to continue to improve. For him. For the next generation, period. As hard as she worked, at times it never seemed to be enough.

“Have a good day, sweetie.” She smoothed his hair and kissed the top of his head.

His cheeks instantly reddened. “Mom.”

Bree smiled as he hopped out of the SUV and headed for Towaoc Elementary’s front entrance. Her baby was growing up. Her smile faded. There would be more questions about his father.

She couldn’t think about that right now.

Right now she had a homicide to investigate.

ONLY A FEW minutes on Highway 160 were required to reach the Ute Mountain Tribal Park. She turned into the park entrance near the visitor’s center, a former gas station that had been repurposed. Getting into the park was easy, reaching the ancient cliff face Ancestral Puebloan dwellings was another story.

A rough dirt road barely wide enough for her SUV was the only way besides making the trek on foot or horseback. The SUV bumped over the rutted dirt road. Twice Bree was forced to maneuver around ottoman-sized boulders from a recent rock slide. The road, which was more of a trail, was definitely better suited for traveling by horse or on foot. Since time was of the essence she would just have to deal with the less than favorable driving conditions. Every minute wasted allowed the possibility of trace evidence contamination or loss of that essential evidence entirely.

The harsh, barren landscape had a character wholly of its own. Basins with scatterings of sage and juniper and pine forests broke up the thousands of acres of desolation. Gray cliffs and brick-red buttes soaked up the scorching sun that even in the dead of winter and cloaked with snow somehow kept the temps comfortable enough most of the time. Not much otherwise in the way of color, but the amazing Colorado sky made up for it with vivid shades of blue broken only by the snow-capped peaks that added another layer of enchantment.

In the distance, providing a dramatic backdrop, was the giant Sleeping Ute Mountain. The name had come from the fact that the mountain’s shape gave the appearance of a giant warrior sleeping on his back with arms crossed over his chest. The stories about the cliff dwellings and the great sleeping warrior who’d become a mountain had kept her enthralled as a kid.

At close to fifty degrees, it could have been a nice day. Bree sighed as she caught sight of the official Ute Reservation police SUV. A beat-up old pickup, probably belonging to the guide, was parked next to the SUV.

Another murder.

The idea that Steve Cyrus wanted her on the scene before he passed along any known details nagged at her again. What was with the mystery?

She parked her vehicle, grabbed a pair of latex gloves from her console and climbed out. She headed toward the cliffs where the two-story, sandstone dwelling hung, a proud, crumbling reminder of the residents who built them more than a millennium ago. The dwellings here were every bit as breathtaking as Mesa Verde’s, but this park didn’t get near the tourist flow. Primarily because no one came in without an official Ute guide. Preservation was far too important to her people.

Both officers as well as the guide waited some fifty yards from the area where during tourist season folks scrambled up the cliff face to check out the condos of the past. The perpetrator apparently hadn’t been too concerned with concealing the body, though the location was definitely off the beaten path to some degree, particularly this time of year. Yet, most anyone who might have been out here could have stumbled over the scene. Or the act in progress.

Just another strange element.

As if her instincts had picked up on something in the air, her pulse rate quickened.

“Hunter,” Steve Cyrus called out as he headed in her direction. “I need a minute.” He hustled over to meet her.

“What’s going on?” She glanced to where Brewer and the old man waited. “You got a body or what?”

Cyrus sent an oddly covert glance in that same direction. “Before you take a look there’s something you need to know.”

This got stranger by the moment. Bree held up her hands. “Wait—have you called the lab? The coroner?” The realization that no one—no one— else had arrived as of yet abruptly cut through all the confusion.

Cyrus shook his head, looked at the ground before meeting her gaze. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t know who the hell to call first. This is…complicated. That’s why I called you before anyone else.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Cyrus?” Good grief, it wasn’t like this was the first deceased victim he’d come upon.

“The vic…” He scrubbed a hand over his chin. “She’s…”