Before Sunrise

“He’s loaning me a pistol.”

He thought for a moment. “I’ll see what I can do about some protection.”

She stood up. “You and I both know that no law enforcement budget is going to provide around-the-clock protection for me. Marie’s cousins have offered to keep an eye on me,” she added.

His eyes narrowed. “This is not a civilian matter.”

“That’s good, because they aren’t civilians. They belong here. They live on the reservation,” she replied sweetly. “And you may have jurisdiction there, but you’re not going to be met with open arms, either. They don’t like feds.”

He glared at her and she glared right back.

“Three years,” he bit off.

“Your choice,” she returned icily. “Haven’t you got a crime to investigate, Special Agent Cortez? Because I’m quite busy myself.”

She walked to the door and jerked it open, her face so hostile that Marie, walking toward her, actually turned in midstep and went the other way.

Cortez unhooked the sunglasses from his vest pocket and shot them over his eyes and nose. “I’ll be in touch,” he said curtly.

She almost made a sarcastic remark, but it wouldn’t help. Nothing would help. Dragging up the past would only make things worse. She had other concerns, not the least of which was her own well-being.

He walked out, apparently not expecting a reply. A minute later, she heard the engine start and the car pull out onto the highway. He didn’t even spray gravel when he left. He was more controlled now than he had been when Phoebe knew him, and that was saying something.

Marie came into the office a few minutes later, watching her boss warily.

“So that was him.”

Phoebe wanted to deny it, but there was no use. “Yes.”

“No wonder you came up here in the middle of nowhere to work,” she replied. “That’s more man than I’d want to try to handle.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“Drake isn’t going to like him, I think,” Marie mused.

Phoebe wasn’t listening. “I’ve forgotten a lot of my training,” she murmured to herself. “But I do remember that nothing has ever been found in North Carolina older than the last Ice Age, around 10,000-12,000 Before Present Era. The man did mention something about finding the skull in a cave…” she added slowly.

“This whole area is honeycombed with caves,” Marie reminded her. “Don’t you remember those stupid stories about our huge stockpile of lost Cherokee gold? As if we had anything left after we were rounded up like cattle and walked all the way to Oklahoma in 1838!”

“Of all the tragic stories I know—and I know some—that hurts the most,” Phoebe said quietly. “I can’t even walk through the Museum of the Cherokee Indians without being reduced to tears. It was a terrible mistake on the part of Andrew Jackson and local governments.”

“Gold fever,” Marie said. “We were in the way.”

“Yes. But your family escaped,” Phoebe reminded her gently. “So did a few others.”

“Not enough of us did,” Marie said sadly. “But, about that gold—there are lots of caves.”

“Any at those construction sites?”

“There’s a mountain that adjoins all three of them, near a river, and it’s honeycombed with caves,” Marie said. “They were bulldozing near them last week. Chances are that no matter what that man found, if it wasn’t inside a cave, it’s a pile of rubble by now.”

“What if,” Phoebe wondered aloud, “we could get an injunction to halt construction everywhere until we had time to look?”

“What if we got sued by starving construction workers?” Marie asked, putting things into perspective. “Plenty of men from the reservation work for those companies. It’s going to hit a lot of families hard if we shut those companies down. And how would you get the authority to do it, anyway?”

Phoebe grimaced. “I wish I knew.”

They went back to work. Alone in her office, Phoebe tried to come to grips with Cortez’s unexpected presence in her life. It had wounded her to have to see him again with the past lying between them like a bloodied knife.

She wondered why he’d come here. He couldn’t have known she was working nearby. He’d obviously been back with the FBI for some period of time, to be assigned to this case. But where was he working out of?

She tried to recall every single word the murdered man had said. She pulled up a blank file on her computer and started typing. She was able to reconstruct most of their brief conversation, along with putting color into the man’s accent. He had a definite Southern accent, which would help place him. He had a way of talking that sounded like a bad stutter, or a lack of cohesive thought. He’d mentioned two people, a developer and another person who was apparently feeding him information. That might be useful. He’d opened the door and someone had called to him while he talking to her, definitely a woman’s voice. It had been at exactly 3:10 p.m. the day before. None of it was worth much alone, but it might give the authorities something more to go on.

She wasn’t going to phone Cortez. How could she, when she had no idea where he was? But she could give the information to Drake when he came by her house the next morning. He’d give it to the proper people.

She saved the file and went back to her budget plan. Unfortunately she forgot all about it in the sudden arrival of a late group wanting a tour of the facility.

The next morning, she was just finishing her small breakfast when she heard the sound of a truck coming down her long dirt driveway. Jock, her black chow, was barking loudly from his vigil on the front porch.

Phoebe went onto the porch in sock feet, jeans and a sweatshirt, a cup of coffee in one hand. Drake drove up in a black truck and parked at the steps.

“Got some more coffee?” he asked as he dragged out of the truck in boots, jeans, and a black T-shirt under a black and red flannel shirt. “I need fortifying. I’ve just been flayed, filleted and grilled by the FBI!”

CHAPTER FOUR

PHOEBE STARED AT HIM. “The FBI?” she asked warily.

“Your buddy Cortez,” he replied, following her inside. He’d been wearing dark glasses, but he folded them and tucked them into his shirt pocket. He sat down heavily at her kitchen table. “That man would intimidate a timber rattler!” he exclaimed.

“What did he want to know?”

Drake gave her a wry glance as he poured cream in the coffee she’d given him. “We could make a list of the things he didn’t want to know—it would be shorter. I gather you told him I was giving you shooting lessons?”

She grimaced. “Sorry. I did.”

“He doesn’t think you’ll shoot another person regardless of the incentive,” he added.

Her jaw fell. She wanted to argue with that premise, but she couldn’t.

He shrugged. “I had to agree. Sorry,” he added wryly.

“I’m a wimp. What can I say?” She sighed. “But I think I might be able to shoot to wound somebody.”

“That would probably cost you your life. We’re talking split seconds here, not deliberating time.”

She studied him curiously. He’d looked very young when he was coming by her office to check on things, but in the morning light, she realized that he was older than she’d first thought.

He gave her a grin. “You’re thinking I’ve aged. I have. Cortez put ten years on me. See these gray hairs?” He indicated his temples. “They’re from last night.”