“Why did you return? After they got you out. What drove you to fly back into the same danger and spend all those months there again?”

She’d been asked that question dozens of times before, and it was on the tip of her tongue to offer him the same answers she’d devised to deal with it. That immersion journalism gets in your blood. That she was unwilling to leave a job undone.

But because of all he’d offered her, here, tonight, she owed him the truth. “It was the only thing that helped me make sense of it,” she said simply. “That’s what people do, I guess, when faced with something horribly, unnecessarily tragic. All those people dead, and for what? I wanted something to show for our presence in that hotel. Because if I hadn’t after all that suffering, what was the point of it?”

“So you risked your life again so those deaths weren’t in vain.”

“No.” Her voice was sharper than she intended. “You make it sound heroic, and believe me, I was anything but. I was scared all the time. Always. And the only way I got through it was to spend my nights crawling into the bottom of whatever bottle I managed to score on the black market.”

“And yet you stayed.”

“I stayed.” In an alcohol-induced haze most nights, but she’d stayed. She’d remained several more long months reporting on the violence and devastation and then had politely flown back to the States before breaking down completely.

“Few could manage what you did.”

The words warmed her, even while she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe they were true. Yes, she’d managed to do her job even as she struggled with ghosts that had taken up permanent residence in her mind. And that had been a victory of sorts. But she knew exactly how far she was from vanquishing those specters completely. Charley was right. Coyote was always waiting. He was a constant presence inside her, ready to pounce when defenses were lowered.

“I think my ex plans to steal my son.”

Shocked at his non sequitur, she twisted her head to look up at him, but Joe’s gaze was fixed on the sky. “I learned by accident that she’s moved from Window Rock. A private investigator I hired confirmed it. She’s living in Phoenix at a furnished condo unit that rents by the week.”

“Have you talked to her? Maybe she just-”

“She lied when I called her cell. Mentioned that she’d found a different place in Window Rock that was closer to a park for Jonny.” Sarcasm laced his words. “Of course when I asked for the address she skirted that by saying she was planning to bring him here for his visit this coming weekend. She’s biding her time. The custody hearing is in a few weeks and the only chance she has to share custody is to remain on reservation lands. But once the hearing is over she’ll be gone. It’s all she talked about during the final months of our marriage. She wanted us to move away from here, to a larger city, off Navajo lands.”

The demand amazed her. “She didn’t know you very well, did she?”

He looked down at her then. “And you think you do?”

Though a voice inside her whispered caution, she nodded. “You’re a part of this place. It’s a part of you. It’s not something I can articulate or completely understand. But I know that much.” And she envied it, too. What must it be like to have such a powerful sense of belonging? To a place and to a people that shared the same rich past?

“She doesn’t know me well at all if she thinks I’ll let that happen,” he said flatly. “She didn’t cover her tracks well enough and I have someone watching her around the clock. For Jonny’s sake, I was willing to work out a compromise that would give him some stability with both parents. But she can’t have my son.”

She could hear the fear mingling with the determination of his vow, and she stroked his chest, soothing the muscles that had gone tense.

After a time he rolled to face her, his hand sweeping down her thigh and then up again, chasing the last remnants of chill from her skin. And when his face lowered, when his mouth settled against hers she gladly twined her arms around his neck, welcoming the embrace.

There was a slightly pagan feeling to making love outdoors, beneath the silent moon and scattered constellations. A sense of wicked pleasure in watching his skin gleam in the thin beams of moonlight slanting across it.

The world narrowed its focus until there was only the two of them, backdropped against the infinite beauty of the night. And when he moved over her, inside her, the breath rushed from her lungs and all she could see was the stars beyond the breadth of his shoulders, his face in the shadows, stamped with the primitive expression of a man claiming his mate.

The alarm shrilling insistently in the back of her mind was muted, but present. Because she knew then, with mingled certainty and sadness, that he was destined to leave a mark on her soul that time and distance would never completely erase.

“Captain said he wanted to see you as soon as you get in.”

Vicki’s words greeted Joe and Arnie as they entered the Navajo Tribal Police headquarters the next afternoon. The two men looked at each other. “We just got here,” Arnie said.

“Then he wants to see you now.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Arnie said, glancing at the clock. “I promised to check in with Brenda. It’s the only way to keep her from coming down here and following me around to make sure I don’t overexert myself.”

“If she thinks there’s any danger of you overexerting yourself on the job, she should follow you around,” Joe suggested. “Be a real eye-opener.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The other man headed to his desk. “How about some respect for the fallen hero wounded in the line of duty?”

Joe rapped at the captain’s door and entered when commanded, closing it behind him on the rest of his partner’s good-natured complaints. “Arnie will be here in a minute.”

Tapahe gestured for him to sit. “What have you gotten today? Anything?”

The report was depressingly meager. “Nothing on Graywolf or the van belonging to that tread we found. And Lee hasn’t returned to his parents’ home. Arnie and I have been concentrating on abandoned mines, focusing on a seventy-mile radius, but so far nothing.” Time was running out, and this method of investigation was too slow and uncertain. They had approximately thirty hours until the next trip to the border. And he didn’t like their chances if they had to sit back and hope Border Patrol spotted the van along the nineteen-hundred-plus miles of border.

“I think we need to get Graywolf in here again.” Tapahe still hadn’t said anything. “Maybe use that connection to Quintero we established with the cell phone call log and throw in the rumors we’ve heard linking him to the deaths of those three local youths. He might slip and give us something we can use.”

“And maybe he’ll be tipped off and the whole operation gets postponed.”

Tapahe had a valid point, but the feeling that they were chasing their tails in the intervening hours was beginning to wear on Joe.

Arnie opened the door and joined them. The captain waited until he was seated before continuing. “I think you were right yesterday. We need to get a look at the Graywolf property to decide if we’re on the right track before this all goes down tomorrow night.”

Joe felt hope stirring. Leaning forward in his chair he asked, “You got us a warrant?”

“Do I look like a magician to you, Youngblood?” the captain said testily. “We’ve got nothing to take to a judge and you know it. But someone gave me an idea this morning that I think has merit.”

Trepidation replaced hope and Joe sat back. “And that someone was?”

“Delaney Carson.”

Stunned, he could only stare at his superior. Dimly he heard Arnie ask, “Carson?”

“Apparently some private property owners offered her free access to their land while she was working on the book.” He looked at Joe. “That’s what took her to the Nahkai property.”