Delaney had been sleeping soundly when he left her this morning, well before dawn. Even in slumber she didn’t appear completely at ease, curled in a ball facing away from him, as if unused to sharing a bed with another. She was going to have to get used to it.

Just a few months and then she’d walk away. She’d made that clear enough. And it was what he wanted, too. Exactly what he wanted. No ties. No pretending the relationship meant more than it did.

And if the thought of that day had his chest tightening, his thoughts darkening, it was because he hadn’t had his fill of her yet. Hadn’t unlocked all the secrets that he sensed she was still hiding. He could only wonder if a few months was going to be long enough.

“In my next life, I want to be a special investigator. Lots of desk work. Probably drink coffee all day.” FBI agent Delmer Mitchell leaned over his shoulder to peer at the computer screen. “You aren’t downloading porn, are you?”

“Of course. I always do it at work because we have a faster connection here.” Rising, he surveyed the fed. “You look like… hell.”

“If it makes you feel better, I feel worse than I look. Where can we talk?”

Joe checked the staff room, found it empty and motioned him in. The man placed his briefcase on the table and sank into a chair. “I am getting too old for this job, or the victims are getting too young. Either way, it’s been a helluva few weeks.”

Multiagency cooperation had been key to the case Joe and Arnie had been assigned. The DEA was working the undercover drug connections and the FBI had been brought in to cover the felony aspect. The NTP had focused on the local angle, with the hope that by comparing information they would more quickly stop the supply of ice to the reservation, before the problem spiraled out of control.

That hope had been extinguished when the three young men were found murdered and their bodies dumped at the side of a road. The FBI had quickly claimed jurisdiction in the case while Joe and Arnie concentrated on the supplier of the drug found in the boys’ systems. That investigation had led to Quintero.

“So what have you got?” Joe asked bluntly. This was the first time Mitchell had surfaced since Quintero’s shooting, and if Joe had to guess, he’d say the agent had slept in the same rumpled suit since.

“Murder weapon was a 9 mm. Hasn’t been found. Same weapon was used on all three. The road was a secondary scene, which we’d already figured.” Joe nodded. There had been almost no blood at the site where the bodies were dumped, indicating they’d been shot elsewhere and then transported.

Mitchell opened his briefcase. He showed Joe some close-ups of the victims’ knees. “Examination of their clothing and bodies indicates that they were forced to kneel for some time prior to their deaths, with their hands tied behind them. Maybe to plead for their lives.”

Joe frowned, studying the pictures of abraded skin. “Sounds even more like gang-style killings.”

“Or some gangsta wannabes. We’ve discovered the three didn’t necessarily hang together, except to get high. Hosteen would score the drugs and the others paid him.”

“So Hosteen could have been a little bigger than you think. Maybe he encroached on someone else’s territory.”

Mitchell looked doubtful. “C’mon, he was only sixteen. How big could he have gotten?”

“Maybe he owed money? Didn’t pay his dealer so they were shot and dumped at a public place as a lesson to others?” Joe’s voice was doubtful. That bespoke of the kind of savagery that was foreign to this area. Not unheard of. But still uncommon.

When drugs were involved, however, violence escalated alarmingly. One statistic estimated that as many as twelve percent of the Navajo teens were using meth. And with the purer form of ice showing up in the area, the brutality was bound to rise significantly.

“Anything else in the tox reports?”

“No, just that they’d all smoked ice a few hours before death.”

Joe nodded. “Did any of them carry cell phones?” When Mitchell shook his head, he pressed, “What about landlines? Do you have phone records for Hosteen?”

“Right here.” The agent produced a sheaf of paper. Joe rose and went back to his desk to get the stapled pages Tallhorse had prepared. Rejoining Mitchell, he looked up the Hosteen number and found it listed three times on the phone’s incoming records. Six outgoing calls had been made from Quintero to Hosteen.

Mitchell linked his fingers and cracked his knuckles loudly. “Those six calls from Quintero to Hosteen might mean you’re on the right track about him not paying. Is this Quintero’s pattern?”

Joe slowly shook his head. “Never has been. I’ve heard of him beating a man half to death over a territorial dispute, but from all accounts he was high when he did it. But then, Oree appears to have gotten much bigger than he used to be. Maybe his tactics changed.”

“Or someone else is pulling his strings. Find a gun when you tossed his place?”

“Two rifles.”

“Well-” Mitchell gathered up the pictures and documents and placed them back in the case “-keep me posted. The trail on those homicides is going cold fast.”

He stood and walked to the door. With his hand on the knob, he turned back. “Oh, I meant to tell you…saw your ex and your son when I was called back to the Phoenix field office yesterday. Cute kid. Thought you told me they were in Window Rock.”

Joe stilled. “Phoenix,” he repeated carefully.

“Recognized them from the picture you used to have on your desk. I was at Kmart because I forgot toothpaste again. Do that every time.” He waved a hand. “Anyway. Heard your ex giving the clerk her new address for a check she was cashing. Wilshire Heights Boulevard…” He shrugged, continued out the door. “Doesn’t matter. Could have sworn you said they were in Window Rock, though.”

Joe followed him out the door, his limbs feeling wooden. “They were. They…moved again.”

“I figured. Well, keep in touch. I’ll do the same.” Lifting a hand in farewell, Mitchell walked away, leaving Joe staring after him, thoughts fragmented. He didn’t for a moment consider that Mitchell was mistaken. He’d seen that picture on Joe’s desk at least a dozen times over the years, before it had been replaced with one of Jonny alone. And how many blondes did one see with a young Navajo boy in tow?

Rage seethed, a scalding tide threatening to overflow. Heather had lied to him. The knowledge pounded in his blood, hammered in his brain. If she was living off the reservation, without telling him, he could only conclude one thing. She was poised to take off with his son if the custody agreement didn’t go her way.

His fists curled so tightly that his nails bit into his palms. She had to realize that tribal law was going to award custody of a Navajo child to a tribe member living on the land. She stood a chance of sharing custody if she remained on the reservation.

She stood no chance of custody off it.

Had Bruce known this yesterday when he’d come to visit? Had his odd request been an oblique warning that Heather was planning to whisk Jonny away from both of them?

With effort, Joe tamped down the mingled temper and fear that threatened to divert logic. After a moment of weighing options, he headed to the phone on his desk, to the list of contacts in the side drawer. Then calmly, coldly, he dialed the number of a private investigation firm in Phoenix.