Undercover Scout

Was he trying to sell her on this scenario?

“Either way, he’s not here,” said Kee. “We should call Jake.”

Ty backed away. “If you’re calling tribal, I’m gone. They’re already trying to hang me for giving Kacey a ride. They’ll tie me up in this, too.”

A ride? Is that what he called kidnapping? Ava could not keep from gaping.

Kee stared at Ty. “What are you talking about?”

Didn’t Kee know?

Ty had been detained for questioning and released. He had not been arrested or charged. Tribal police would keep such matters private particularly if there was an ongoing investigation. She knew of Ty’s situation only because her chief had been told of a possible connection to the tribe’s gang and a known associate, Ty Redhorse. But the police here had taken steps to be certain Ty’s detention remained secret. She knew he was a suspect but Kee did not, which meant that his brother had not told him. Ty did not want Kee to know. Was Ty protecting him or hanging him out to dry?

Ty shook his head. “Just tell them you found the car and followed the trail. That you know he bikes this route and you were checking. But I was never here. Got it?”

Kee’s mouth was tight. “You want me to lie to the police?”

“Omit,” said Ty.

“It’s lying.”

“Hey, you do what you want. Just don’t call me for help again.” He turned to Ava and gave her a two-finger salute. “Officer.”

Then he disappeared back down the trail. Hemi followed, venturing out before him.

Kee turned to her immediately. “Why did he call you—”

“What’s that?”

Ava spotted a tiny speck of canary yellow visible between the treetops below the cliff upon which they stood.

Exactly the color Kee said Dr. Day had been wearing.

Chapter Four (#u0f8f67cc-2255-5562-b23f-1695a3594d33)

Ava didn’t think Kee had pushed Richard Day, but she kept him in front of her on the descent. When they reached the bottom of the trail it was nearly six at night. The sun had disappeared behind the opposite ridgeline and the colors were gradually fading all around them. Kee tried tribal police but there was no cell service out here. He offered Ava the last of the water he carried and she took a long swallow before returning the empty bottle.

“You know it will be really dark soon. We have thirty minutes,” she said.

“Maybe we should go to the police.”

Yeah, except she was certain how Detective Jack Bear Den or the chief of police would respond if they knew where her personal leave from her soon-to-be previous job had taken her.

She’d interviewed. Been hired here, and Tinnin himself had briefed her about her first case. This case. The missing women from Turquoise Canyon, but he did not know that the last girl taken was Ava’s niece. The niece that she had helped raise. So Ava was not playing by the rules on this investigation. So for now, she couldn’t let either of those men see her. Not yet.

“We could find him,” she coaxed. “He’s maybe ten minutes in that direction. It will be harder in the dark.”

Kee hesitated, glancing in the direction of the lot.

She gave one final push. “What if he’s alive?”

That set him in motion. She pushed back the admiration. Kee seemed kind and conscientious and really sweet. But appearances could be deceiving.

“Do you know if anyone would want to hurt him?” she asked.

“No. I don’t. He’s only been here since early October. You think it’s him, don’t you?”

“You said he was wearing yellow.”

Kee looked back along the trail. The sky still held a few bands of orange but that wouldn’t last.

“I don’t think anyone could survive such a fall.” He looked to her. “How can you be so calm?”

Because she’d seen death before, too many times.

“We should hurry,” she said, motioning. “Have you seen anyone strange around lately?”

“Outsiders?”

“Yeah. At the clinic or speaking to Day or maybe just in your neighborhood?”

“We only treat tribal members.”

Kee drew up short. “It’s him.”

Ava came alongside him. It was a body, battered and bloody, and wearing yellow spandex that seemed to glow with unnatural brightness in the twilight.

Ava had seen bodies in worse shape. Mostly natural causes, left inside a hot trailer for days before anyone went to check, and then there were the auto accidents. But her reservation was small and relatively quiet and flat. No one fell off anything high and she was not prepared for the damage to Dr. Day.

His body had clearly struck the rock face on the descent and possibly some of the tall pines, judging from the deep lacerations on his torso and thigh. There were branches and debris surrounding him. He lay on his stomach with his arms and legs sprawled as if he were about to use a horizontal Stairmaster.

Kee knelt beside his roommate and checked his carotid pulse, but Ava knew from the brownish stain on Day’s cornea and the pooling of blood in the lower half of his face that Day was gone.

Her Apache heritage included all sorts of beliefs that it was dangerous to touch the dead. That ghosts could follow you even if the deceased was a good friend in life. Ava didn’t believe that dead bodies and ghosts could haunt her but she dearly hoped that whoever did this would be haunted because she was certain Day had not fallen. He’d been pushed. That was her theory and she was going with it.

She swept the body with her gaze, looking for clues, and found them right there in Day’s hand. His nails were torn and bloody and there was skin and hair under them. That was what you’d see if Day had fought his attacker. So whoever pushed him would have scratches on their face or arms. Maybe both.

Ava tried to think of a way to take a sample from his nails.

“I have to call Hector,” said Kee.

That was an odd first call, she thought. Why not to Jake, his brother who was on the force?

He looked at Ava with wide, troubled eyes and swallowed, sending his Adam’s apple bobbing. “He’s our medical examiner.”

Of course he was, she thought.

Kee rocked back on his heels and wiped his mouth with his hand, looking truly unsettled. Rattled, she corrected. She knew he had faced death. All physicians did. But this death was harder. He knew the man, so it was personal. Day was young and he had been Kee’s colleague plus they’d shared a FEMA trailer. Add to that the damage to the corpse and you had a horror that would not soon be forgotten.