When the Indians heard the bad news-that PaDaj O'othham were coming again to steal their crops-they held another council. Everybody came. U'uwhig-the Birds-told their friends the Indians about a mountain which was not far from their village and quite near their fields. The people went to this mountain, and on the side of it they built three big walls of rock.
Those walls of rock are there, even to this day.
Then all the women and children went up on top of the mountain, behind the walls of rock. But the men stayed down to protect the fields.
Soon the Bad People of the South came once again.
The Wasps, the Scorpions, and Snakes were leading them. ButNuhwi — the Buzzards-andChuk U'uwhig — the Blackbirds-and all the larger birds were on guard.Nuhwi — Buzzard-would catchKo'owi — Snake-and break his back.Tatdai — Roadrunner-watched for the Scorpions, andPa-nahl — the Bees-foughtWihpsh — the Wasps.
So at last the Bad People were driven away. The Desert People returned to their village and their fields. They built houses and were very happy. A great many of the Bad People had been killed in this fight, so it was a long time before they felt strong enough to fight again. But after a while they were very hungry. AndWihpsh — the Wasps-carried word to them that the Indian women were once again filling their ollas and grain baskets with corn and beans and honey.
This timePaDaj O'othham waited until it was very dry and hot. Then they started north.
This timeShoh'o — Grasshopper-had listened to the plans of the Bad People.Shoh'o started to jump to reach his friends, the Desert People, and warn them. The harder and faster Grasshopper jumped, the longer grew his hind legs. Still he could not go fast enough. So he took two leaves and fastened them on and flew. Before he arrived, he wore out one pair of leaves and put on another pair. To this dayShoh'o — Grasshopper-still carries one large thin pair of wings, and another thin small green pair.
One minute Deputy Fellows was wide awake, staring at the doors to the ICU waiting room. The next minute, Gabe Ortiz was shaking him awake.
"Brian?"
Brian's eyes flicked open. It took a moment for the face in front of his to register. "Fat Crack!" he exclaimed. "How the hell are you, and what are you doing here?"
"Delia Cachora, Manny Chavez's daughter, works with me out on the reservation. When we heard about her father, I offered to drive her into town."
Brian glanced around the waiting room. No one else was there. "Where is she?" he asked.
"A nurse took Delia in to see him," Fat Crack said. "How does it look?"
Brian shook his head. "Not good," he said. "It's his back. Broken."
"How did it happen?" Gabe Ortiz asked. "I heard it had something to do with Rattlesnake Skull."
Brian nodded. "At the charco. It sounds as though he came across someone-an Anglo-digging up bones there by the water hole. We think Mr. Chavez thought the guy was digging up ancient artifacts and tried to stop him. The guy attacked Mr. Chavez with a shovel."
Fat Crack was shaking his head when an Indian woman in her mid- to late thirties emerged from behind the doors to the ICU. "He's still unconscious," she said, addressing Gabe Ortiz. "No one knows when he'll come out from under the anesthetic. His condition is serious enough that somebody had a priest come around and deliver last rites. The nurse said he was really bent out of shape about that. My father stopped being a Catholic a long time ago."
Blushing, Brian stood up. "You must be Delia Cachora. I'm Deputy Fellows," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm afraid the priest business is all my fault. When we found your father, he was saying something over and over in Tohono O'othham. I thought he was calling for a priest- pahl. It turns out he was saying pahla."
"Shovel," Fat Crack supplied.
Brian Fellows nodded. "That's right. Shovel. I'm sorry if the priest upset him."
Delia Chavez Cachora gave him a puzzled glance. "Where did you learn to speak Tohono O'othham?" she asked.
"From a friend of mine," he answered. "Davy Ladd."
Delia's reaction was instantaneous. Without a word, she turned away from both men and stalked from the waiting room. Brian turned to Gabe.
"I'm really sorry about all the confusion. I guess she's upset. The problem is, I'm supposed to try to talk to her. The detective left me the job of asking her some questions, but it doesn't look like that's going to work. Was it the priest stuff?" Brian asked. "Or do you think it was something I said?"
Gabe Ortiz smiled and eased himself into the chair next to the one where Brian had been sitting earlier. He folded his arms across his broad chest and closed his eyes.
"No, Brian," Gabe replied. "I believe it was something I said. Sit down and take a load off. Delia's upset at the moment, but if we just sit here and wait, eventually she'll come around."
Quentin had told Mitch to wake him up as soon as they got to the turnoff to Coleman Road. It bothered Mitch a little that where they were going was so damned close to where the Bounder was parked. He had chosen that particular spot because there, on the edge of the reservation, was about as far from town as he could get. But it was natural that the edge of the reservation, rather than the middle of it, was where Quentin would have discovered his treasure trove of Native American pots.
Still, as long as Mitch played his cards right, it didn't matter that much. He glanced toward Lani. Obviously he had measured out a better dosage this time. The amount of drug Mitch had used, combined with his threat to kill Quentin, was working well enough. Lani Walker was docile without being comatose. That might prove beneficial. If the terrain was as rough as Quentin claimed it would be, Mitch would probably need Lani to be able to climb on her own power rather than being carried or dragged.
Quentin himself was Mitch's biggest concern as they drove west toward the reservation. Would he be able to rouse Quentin enough when the time came to get him to do what was needed? If not, he might have to do an on-the-fly revision of his plan and let the pots go. They had been gravy all along-an extra added attraction. What was not optional was how he left Quentin and Lani once Mitch was ready to walk away. He would arrange the bodies artfully.
Lani would be found right alongside the remains of her killer. The scenario would be plain for all to see. After murdering and mutilating his sister, the record would show that Quentin Walker had taken his own life.
How do you suppose you'll like them apples, Mr. Brandon Walker?Mitch Johnson grinned to himself. It should give you something to think about for the rest of your goddamned natural life.
The turnoff was coming up. "Okay now," Mitch said to Lani. "Nap time's over. Wake him up so he can give me directions."
Lani turned to Quentin. "Wake up," she said. He didn't stir.
"Come on, girl," Mitch said, once again grasping her lower thigh. "I know you can do better than that!" He didn't bother to tighten his grip. He didn't have to. Obviously, Lani Walker had learned how to take orders.
"Come on, Quentin," she said, shaking her brother's shoulder. "You have to wake up now."
Quentin tried to dodge the commanding voice. He didn't want to wake up. He was enjoying his sleep. There was no reason for him not to. And who the hell was this woman who was so damned determined to wake him up?
He opened his eyes and tried to focus on the face hovering in front of his. When the world spun on its axis, Quentin shut his eyes immediately. He tried to shut his ears as well.
"Quentin!" Another voice this time. A male voice. "Wake the hell up and get busy!"
Mitch. Mitch Johnson, and he sounded pissed. Quentin struggled to open his eyes. "Where are we, Mitch?" Quentin mumbled, not quite able to make his tongue and mouth work in any kind of harmony. "Whazza problem?"
"The problem is we're almost to Coleman Road, and I don't know what the hell to do next."
"Doan worry 'bout a thing," Quentin murmured, closing his eyes once more. "Just lemme sleep a little longer."
"Wake him up!" Mitch demanded. "Slap him around if you have to, but get his eyes open."
Quentin felt a small hand on his shoulder, shaking him. He opened his eyes once more.
A woman's face-a girl's, really-hovered anxiously over him. It took a matter of seconds for the dark hair and eyes to arrange themselves into a recognizable creature. As soon as that happened, Quentin could barely believe it. Lani! The shock of recognition stunned him and brought him out of his stupor, although as soon as he tried to sit up, a fierce attack of vertigo once again sent the interior of the Bronco whirling around him.
"What the hell is she doing here?" Quentin demanded. "I said I'd take you to the cave. Bringing someone else along wasn't part of the bargain, especially not her."
Quentin didn't like being around his sister. Lani was almost as weird as that old Indian hag named Rita who used to take care of her when she was little. Lani had funny ways about her, ways of knowing things that she maybe shouldn't have, just like Rita. If Quentin had been able to, he would have climbed in the backseat right then, just to put some distance between them.
"She's your sister, isn't she?" Mitch returned mildly. "I didn't think you'd mind if I brought her along for the ride."
"Mitch," Quentin said, speaking slowly, trying to make his lips and brain work in conjunction, trying to make it sound as though his objection were more general and less personal. "Don't you understand anything? She may be my stepsister, but she's also an Indian. Once the tribe hears about my pots, they'll raise all kinds of hell."
"Lani's not going to say anything to anybody, are you, Lani?"
Once again, Vega's warning fingers caressed the top of her leg. Dreading his viselike grip, Lani flinched under the pressure of his hand and shook her head.
"No," she said at once. "I won't tell anybody. I promise."
The turnoff to Coleman Road was coming up fast. Mitch Johnson switched on his signal. "Now what?"
"Go about half a mile up. There's a road off to the left. A few yards beyond that, there's a wash off to the right. Turn there."
"Up the wash?"
"Right," Quentin said, grateful that his tongue and lips seemed to be working better now, although he felt like hell. This was one of the worst hangovers he'd ever encountered.
"Before we turn off, though," he continued, "you'll need to stop and let me drive. The trail isn't marked. You won't know where to go."
Mitch glanced dubiously across the seat. "You're sure you can drive?"
"What do you think I am, drunk or something?" Quentin asked irritably.
"Definitely or something," Mitch Johnson whispered under his breath.
Lani sat quietly between the two men-between her brother and the man Quentin had just called Mitch. At least she now knew what the M stood for in Vega's signature. Mitch.
As the Bronco's heavy-duty tires whined down the pavement, Lani looked up at the shadow of mountain looming above them. Ioligam' s stately dark flanks were silhouetted against a starry sky.
They were going after pots. If they had been found here on the reservation, they were actually Tohono O'othham pots that might have been hidden inside the mountain for hundreds of years. Perhaps they had remained hidden from view in one of the sacred caves on I'itoi' s second favorite mountain.
She remembered once listening to Davy and Brian Fellows talking about the day Tommy and Quentin Walker had found a big limestone cave out on the reservation.
"They didn't go inside, did they?" Lani had asked.
Davy shrugged. "Of course they did."
"But that's against the rules," Lani had objected indignantly. "Nobody's supposed to go inside those caves. They're sacred. You should have stopped them."
Davy and Brian had both laughed at her. "What's so funny?" she had demanded. "Why are you two laughing?"
"Fortunately, you're much too young to remember growing up with Quentin and Tommy. When we were all kids, those two were a pair of holy terrors. As far as they were concerned, rules were made to be broken."
"So what happened?"
"As far as I know, they went there just that once," Brian said. "It wasn't long after that when Tommy ran away. If Quentin went back out to the reservation to go exploring the cave by himself, he never mentioned it."
"If they went inside the cave, maybe that's what happened to Tommy."
"What?" Brian asked.
"Maybe I'itoi got him," Lani said.
Brian shook his head. When he spoke, the laughter had gone out of his voice. "Don't ever say anything about this to your dad," he said seriously, "but from the rumors I heard, I'd say drug-dealing is what got Tommy. What I've never been able to understand is why it didn't get Quentin, too."
As they turned up Coleman Road, Lani felt a growing certainty that the place where they were going was the same cave Brian and Davy had talked about. Off to the left was the dirt track that led off to Rattlesnake Skull charco, the place they used to go every year to redecorate the shrine dedicated to Nana Dahd' s murdered granddaughter.
"We shouldn't go there," Lani said softly, unable to keep herself from issuing the warning. Even someone as cruel as Mitch Vega deserved to be warned away from danger.
"See there?" Quentin yelped angrily, glaring at her. "I knew you shouldn't have brought her."
"Shut up, Lani," Mitch said.
Lani closed her eyes and tried to hear Rita's words. Listen to me and do exactly as I say.
Alvin Miller was a talented guy who was able to do his work in a seemingly focused fashion, all the while carrying on a reasonably intelligent conversation with whoever happened to be within earshot.
In this case, as he carried his gear into Brandon and Diana Walker's house in Gates Pass, Brandon was giving Alvin an earful. He had responded to former Sheriff Walker's call for help without asking for any specific details on the situation. Now, though, Brandon was venting his frustration over the way Detective Ford Myers was-or rather was not — handling the disappearance of Brandon's sixteen-year-old daughter, Lani.
Other than having been one once, Alvin wasn't especially wise to the ways of teenagers. Nonetheless, he did see some merit to Detective Ford's inclination to go slow and not push panic buttons. Although Alvin sympathized with his former boss, he could see that the whole thing might very well turn out to be nothing but a headstrong teenager pulling a stunt on her too-trusting parents. After all, armed or not, most missing kids did turn up back home eventually.
So Alvin listened and nodded. Betweentimes, he went to work. "What all would you like me to check for prints?" he asked.
"Lani's bicycle," Brandon answered. "That's outside in the carport. There's a pair of rubber-handled tongs in the kitchen sink. And back in my study, somebody went to the trouble of breaking up a couple thousand bucks' worth of custom-framing."
For comparison purposes, Alvin took prints from both Brandon and Diana Walker as well as prints from places in the daughter's room that would most likely prove to belong to Lani herself. He packed up the tongs, the bicycle, and the better part of the picture-frame display. Alvin knew he'd be better off dusting those in the privacy of his lab. What he couldn't take back to the department with him was the house itself and furniture that was too big to move.
"Where did you say you kept the key to the gun cabinet?"
"In the desk." Brandon had been following Alvin from room to room, watching the process with intent interest. As Alvin settled down to dust the desktop, Brandon left the room. The print-one with a distinctive diagonal slash across the face of it-leaped out at Alvin the moment he delicately brushed the graphite across the smooth oak surface.
Alvin Miller could barely believe his eyes. He knew he had seen that same print, or else one very much like it, on the wallet Dan Leggett had brought in earlier and on several of the bones in the detective's boxed collection. For a moment, Alvin was too flustered to know what to do.
He was here in Brandon Walker's home collecting prints as an unofficial favor to an old friend. The problem was, if he was right, if this print and the other one were identical, then Alvin Miller had stumbled across something that would link the newly discovered bones with the break-in here at the Gates Pass house. Not only that, connecting those two sets of dots could put him in the middle of a potentially career-killing cross fire between two dueling detectives-Dan Leggett and Ford Myers.
In addition, if Lani Walker was somehow involved in an assault and a possible homicide, the chances of her disappearance being nothing but ordinary teenaged rebellion went way down. Whatever was going on with her was most likely a whole lot more serious than that. The same went for Brandon Walker's missing.357.
Feeling as though he'd just blundered into a hive of killer bees, Alvin considered his next move. For the time being, saying anything to Brandon Walker was out, certainly until Alvin actually had a chance to compare those two distinctive prints. In the meantime, he took several more reasonably good prints off the desktop and drawer.
"Getting any good ones?" Brandon Walker asked, reappearing in the door to his study.
"Some," Alvin Miller allowed, "but my pager just went off." That was an outright lie, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. "I'll stop here for now. I'll come back tomorrow sometime. Just don't touch anything until I do. The stuff I've already picked up I'll work on in the lab."
"Sure thing, Al," Brandon Walker said. "I appreciate it."
Alvin Miller drove straight back to the department. There, after simply eyeballing the two dusted prints, he picked up the phone and dialed Dan Leggett's home phone number. "Who's calling?" Leggett's wife asked in a tone that indicated she wasn't pleased with this work-related, late Saturday-evening phone call.
"It's Alvin Miller. Tell him I'm calling about the prints."
"So there were some?" Leggett asked, coming on the phone. "Did you get a hit?"
"Not yet. I haven't had a chance to run them yet, but there's a problem."
"What kind of problem?" Dan Leggett asked.
"How well do you get along with Detective Myers?"
"He's a jerk, why?"
"Because I've got a match between one of your prints and prints on a case he's working. Actually, a case he hasn't quite gotten around to working on yet."
"This is beginning to sound complicated."
"It is. The matching print came from the top of the desk in Brandon Walker's study in his home office. Somebody broke into the place, smashed up some of his stuff, and stole a gun. But the real kicker is that Lani Walker, Sheriff Walker's sixteen-year-old daughter, is among the missing and has been since early this morning. Myers refused to take the MP report because of the twenty-four-hour wait. Claimed it was probably just kid bullshit. But with the matching print…"
"You think her disappearance may be linked to our assault case from this afternoon?"
"Don't you?" Alvin asked. "It's sure as hell linked to your bones and wallet."
Detective Leggett considered for a moment. "So how did you get dragged into all this? Into the Walker thing, I mean?"
"Myers told Brandon Walker that the soonest anybody could come check for prints was Monday, and Walker called to see if I could do it any earlier. I couldn't very well turn the man down, now could I?"
"Ford Myers is going to be ripped when he finds out," Leggett said. "He'll be gunning for you."
Alvin Miller laughed. "That's nothing new. He already is."
"So what are you going to do with the prints you have?"
"Get them ready, scan them into the computer, and run them."
"Tonight? How long will it take you?"
"An hour or so to get them ready. After that, it's just a matter of waiting for the computer to do its thing. Do you want me to give you a call later on if I get a hit?"
"You'd better," Dan Leggett said. "But do me one favor."
"What's that?"
"Don't tell Ford Myers until I give you the word."
"Don't worry," Alvin Miller said. "Why should I? After all, he isn't expecting fingerprint results before Monday morning. Do you want me to call you there and let you know what I find?"
"Don't bother. I'm heading back out."
"Where are you going?"
"Back over to the hospital to see if Brian Fellows has had a chance to talk to Mr. Chavez."
A few yards beyond the turnoff to the Rattlesnake Skull charco, Mitch swung the wheel sharply to the right. Pulling over to the side, he stopped. "Time to switch into four-wheel drive," he said.
Quentin reached for the door handle. "How'd you know this was it?" he asked.
"I can see your tracks heading off across the wash, dummy," Mitch Johnson replied. "And if I can see them, so can the rest of the world."
Lani was dismayed to see that once on his feet, Quentin could barely stand upright. She stayed in the car while Quentin struggled with the hubs. Finally Mitch ordered Quentin back into the truck, the backseat this time.
"You come with me," he said to Lani. Once she was on her feet, he handed her a branch he had broken off a nearby mesquite. "I want you to follow behind the truck," he said. "Brush out the tire tracks, and yours, too. Do you understand?"
Lani nodded.
"And if you do anything off the wall, if you try to run, not only will I shoot your brother with his father's own gun, I'll come get you, too. Is that clear?"
"Yes."
Lani watched Mitch climb back into the truck, knowing that he was wrong about that. Quentin Walker was Brandon Walker's son, her father's son, but as far as Lani was concerned, Davy Ladd was her only brother. Still, she couldn't stand the thought that some action of hers, even an action that might save her own life, could cost Quentin his. She didn't like him much and she owed him nothing. And had she turned and fled into the desert right then, she might very well have managed to hide well enough and long enough to get away.
But how would she feel when she heard the report of gunfire, a shot that would come from her father's own gun, one that would snuff out Quentin's life? It didn't matter if he was drugged or just drunk. Either way, he was almost as incapable of defending himself against Mitch as Lani had been earlier.
While Mitch backed up and turned the Bronco to head off across the wash, that was Lani's dilemma-to run and try to save herself or to stay and try to save Quentin's life as well as her own. There was a part of her that already knew Mitch's real intention was to kill them both. He had no reason not to.
The Bronco bounced across the wash and then paused on the far side. "Come on," Mitch yelled out the window. "Hurry it up."
The moment Lani Walker heard his voice, shouting at her over the idling rumble of the Bronco, she made up her mind. Brother or not, she would try to be Quentin's keeper. If they both lived, she might once again be able to tell her parents in person that she loved them. If not, if she and Quentin were both doomed and if seeing her parents again was impossible, then she was determined to leave some word for them, some farewell message. Slipping one hand into the pocket of her jeans, Lani pulled out her precious O'othham basket. Resisting the temptation to press its reassuring presence into her palm once more, she dropped it, allowing it to fall atop the small hump of rocky gravel that formed the shoulder of the road.
If someone happened to find the basket and was good enough to give it to Lani's parents, then perhaps Diana and Brandon Walker would understand that it was a last loving message sent from Lani to them. If not-even if the carefully woven hair charm came to no other end than to grace Wosho koson 's-Pack Rat's-burrow-Lani could be assured the sacred symbol of the Tohono O'othham, the maze, would not be defiled by Mitch's evil Ohb touch. He might manage to claim other trophies, including some ancient Indian pots, but Lani's basket would never be his.
Fighting back tears, Lani bent herself to her assigned task, wielding the makeshift broom. As she scraped the tire tracks out of the sand, Lani realized that with every stroke she was also erasing any hope that some rescuer might find them in time.
That meant she and Quentin would most likely die. If it came down to a fight between her and Mitch, there could be little doubt of the outcome. He would win. Lani and Quentin would die, but the terrible pain in her breast told her that in the hands of someone like Mitch Vega, there might be far worse things than death.
That awful knowledge came over Lani in a mind-clearing rush, calming her fears rather than adding to them. Perhaps she would not be able to save either Quentin's life or her own from this new evil Ohb, but by leaving the basket behind, she had at least saved that.
As long as those few strands of black and yellow hair stayed woven together, then some remnant of Lani's own life would remain as well, for she had woven her own spirit into that basket-her own spirit and Jessica's and Nana Dahd 's as well.
No matter what he did, Mitch would never be able to touch that.
For some time after Alvin Miller left, Brandon and Diana simply sat in the living room together, sharing many of the same thoughts, but for minutes at a time, neither of them spoke.
"Should we call Fat Crack?" Diana asked at last.
"I don't see what good that would do," Brandon said.
"But what if…"
"If what?"
Diana paused for a moment before she answered. "What if he's right and this is what he meant yesterday when he was talking about the evil coming from my book?"
"How could it be?" Brandon returned. "I don't see how Lani's disappearance now can have anything to do with Andrew Carlisle showing up here twenty-one years ago."
"I don't either," Diana said. "Forget I even mentioned it."
Again they were quiet. "What if we've lost her forever, Brandon? What if we never see her again?"
Swallowing hard, Brandon Walker leaned back and rested his head on the chair. He had already lived through this agony once when they lost Tommy. It had never occurred to him that he might lose a second child.
"Don't say that," he said. "We'll find her. I know we'll find her."
But even as he said the words, Brandon's own heart was drowning in despair. He had heard those same platitudes spoken by other grieving parents about other missing children, some of whom had never been heard from again.
"At six o'clock sharp, I'm going to be on the phone to the department, raising hell. Ford Myers may not be the one who comes out here to take the Missing Persons report, but someone sure as hell will be, or I'll know the reason why!"
Diana glanced at her watch. It was ten of one. "Maybe we should go to bed. Even if we can't sleep, it would probably do our bodies some good if we lay down for a while."
Brandon looked at Diana. Other than having kicked off her shoes, she was still wearing the dress she had worn to the banquet, but she looked bedraggled. Her hair had come adrift. Brandon was startled by the dark shadows under her eyes and by the bone-weary strain showing around the corners of her mouth.
"You're right," he said quickly, standing up and helping her to rise as well. "If there's a phone call, we can take it in the bedroom just as easily as we can take it here."
They walked into the bedroom together. Brandon stripped to his shorts while Diana undressed and hung up her dress. The bed was still in disarray as a result of their afternoon lovemaking. As Brandon set about straightening the covers, a plastic cassette tape slid out from under Diana's pillow.
"What's this?" he asked, picking it up. Other than the manufacturer's label, there was no marking on it of any kind. "Did you leave this tape here, Di?" he asked.
Diana, dressed in a nightgown, came out of her walk-in closet. "What tape?" she asked.
"This one," Brandon said, holding it up so she could see it. "I found it under your pillow."
Diana Ladd Walker swayed on her feet and groped for the door-jamb to keep from falling. Her face turned deathly pale. "Where did that come from?" she whispered.
"I told you. I found it under your pillow. Maybe it's a message from Lani."
"No," Diana said. Shivering, she looked at the tape and shook her head. "No, it isn't."
But Brandon's mind was made up. "She probably decided to leave us a tape instead of a note," he said.
Tape in hand, Brandon was already on his way to the living room, headed for the stereo deck with the built-in cassette player. Diana came after him. "It's not from Lani, Brandon. Don't play it."
The brittle note of warning in her voice was enough to cause him to turn and look at her in alarm. "Why not?" he asked.
"Don't play it," she said again. "Please don't."
Brandon looked at his wife impatiently. "What's gotten into you?" he asked.
"The tape isn't from Lani," Diana said. "It's from Andrew Carlisle. I know it is."
Disgusted and impatient, Brandon turned to the stereo. As he inserted the tape into the player, he glanced back at his wife. "You and Fat Crack," he said. "Dead men don't do tapes. How could he?"
Hunching her shoulders and doubling over as if in pain, Diana Walker sank down on the couch. "Brandon, listen to me. It is from Carlisle. You don't want to play it."
"Diana, if there's a chance this is going to help us locate Lani, of course we're going to play it," he said.
As the sound filled the room, they both recognized Lani's voice almost at once, but it was muffled and difficult to understand, as if it had been recorded from a great distance. Pressing the remote volume control, Brandon turned it up several notches.
"What was that?" he said, frowning with concentration. "Didn't it sound as though she said something about Quentin?"
Still bent over and staring at the floor, Diana shook her head and said nothing. Brandon hit the "stop" button, rewound the tape a few rotations, and then hit "play" once more.
And he was right. It was Lani's voice, louder now, but still fuzzy and indistinct, saying her brother's name over and over. "Quentin," she was saying. "Quentin, Quentin, Quentin."
"What the hell does Quentin have to do with all this?" Brandon asked.
Almost like a sleepwalker, Diana got up off the couch and walked over to where Brandon was kneeling in front of the stereo. "Shut it off," she begged, leaning against him, putting both hands on his shoulders. "Please, Brandon. Don't listen to any more of it. You don't understand. I can't stand to listen to any more."
"Diana," Brandon said curtly. "This is bound to help us find Lani. We've got to listen to all of it-every single word. Be quiet now for a minute so I can hear what they're saying."
Trying to decipher the tape over Diana's continuing objections, Brandon punched the volume control one more time. And that was where it was when the unearthly scream came tearing through the speakers.
The sound ripped into Diana's whole being, robbing her legs of the strength needed to stand upright. Her beseeching hands went limp on Brandon's shoulders and slid down his back. While Brandon stared uncomprehendingly at the now silent speaker, Diana dropped to her knees, leaning against him.
"Oh, my God," she sobbed. "He's killed her. I know Andrew Carlisle's killed her."
Slowly, an ashen Brandon Walker turned around to face her. Grasping his wife by the shoulders, he shook her. "You knew what was coming, didn't you? That's why you didn't want me to play the tape. How did you know?"
It was a question, but the way he said the words turned it into an accusation. At first Diana didn't answer. "How?" he demanded again.
"We've got to call Fat Crack," she murmured. "He's the only one who can help us now."
She reached out then as if to cling to him, but he moved away from her. The sudden fury rising in Brandon Walker's soul was so overwhelming that he no longer dared allow himself to touch her.
"It's got nothing to do with Andrew Carlisle!" he snarled back at her. "You heard what she said. Quentin was the one who was with her. Whatever happened just then, Quentin is the one who did it, the little son of a bitch. And once I lay hands on him…"
The rest of the uncompleted threat hung in the air as Brandon got to his feet and headed for the kitchen. Diana was still sitting there when he returned. Without another word, he ejected the tape from the player and then put both it and the carrying case into a paper bag.
When he headed for the kitchen once again, Diana got up and followed him. "Where are you going?" she asked, when he took his car keys down from the Peg-Board.
"I'm going to take these to the department so Alvin Miller can check them for prints. Then I'm going to ask him to run Quentin's prints as a comparison."
"Lani's dead, isn't she?" Diana said.
Brandon Walker bit his lip and nodded. The agony in that scream left him little else to hope for.
"Yes," he said at last. "I suppose so."
For a moment husband and wife stood looking at each other. The fury Brandon had felt earlier was gone. "You knew what was coming, didn't you?" Diana nodded wordlessly. "How?"
"There were others."
"Others?"
Diana looked away then, refusing to meet his eyes. "Other tapes," she answered.
"Of other murders?"
"Yes."
"But you never mentioned anything about it."
Diana shook her head, still refusing to meet her husband's probing gaze. "They were so awful, I never told anyone about them, not even you. I didn't want anybody else to know or to have to listen."
"You mean like snuff films, only on audio?" Brandon's voice trembled as he asked the question. He felt suddenly slack-jawed. "You mean you've heard them?"
"Yes." Diana took a deep breath. "Two of them. There was one of Gina Antone's death. The other was about that costume designer that he killed in downtown Tucson. This one makes three."
"But that's Andrew Carlisle. Lani was talking to Quentin. To my son."
"Quentin and Carlisle were in prison together," Diana suggested quietly, in a voice still choked with emotion. "Carlisle had an almost hypnotic effect on Gary Ladd. He was there with Gina when she died, and I'm sure that's why he killed himself. Maybe Carlisle did the same thing to Quentin."
The anger that had been holding Brandon upright collapsed inside him and sent him lurching drunkenly into Diana's arms. Still holding the paper bag in one hand, he used his other arm to pull Diana against his chest while he buried his head in her hair.
"We're going to need help," he murmured. "Go get dressed now, Diana," he said, pushing her away. "I'll start the car and we'll go do whatever it is we have to do. We'll take this thing to the department. We'll take it to the FBI Missing and Exploited Children unit. If it's the last thing I ever do, I'm going to find Quentin and put him away."
"I'm sorry," Diana said. "I'm so sorry."
"Not nearly as sorry as I am," he murmured back, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Not nearly."
The ICU waiting room Dan Leggett returned to was far more crowded than when he had left it several hours earlier. Off to one side of the room sat a group of Indians that included an attractive woman in her mid- to late thirties, a solidly built man in his mid- to late forties, and an elderly woman. The three of them were talking together in low voices.
In the middle of the room, Deputy Brian Fellows snoozed in a chair next to another Indian, a portly man somewhere in his sixties, who was also dozing.
Leggett stopped in front of Brian Fellows's chair. "What's happening?"
Brian's chin bounced off his chest. Blinking, he straightened in his chair. "Sorry about that, Detective Leggett. I must have fallen asleep."
"So I noticed. What's going on?"
"That's Delia Cachora over there," he said. "The younger woman. The older one is Delia's aunt, Julia Joaquin. And that's Julia's son, Wally Joaquin. And this," Brian added, motioning toward the man seated next to him, "is a friend of mine named Gabe Ortiz."
Dan Leggett nodded politely and held out his hand. "Any relation to the Tohono O'othham tribal chairman?"
Fat Crack straightened himself in the chair. "I am the tribal chairman," he said. "Mr. Chavez's daughter, Delia, works for me," he added as if to explain his presence. "I gave her a ride into town."
"Has anyone been able to talk to him yet?"
Brian shook his head. "Not as far as I know, although you might try talking to Ms. Cachora."
"Let's do it then," Dan Leggett said. "Come over and introduce me. There's no time to lose."
"Why? What's wrong?"
Dan Leggett shook his head. "You're not going to believe it," he said. "Lani Walker's turned up missing, and she may be involved in all this."
As soon as he made that last statement, Dan noticed that Gabe Ortiz came to attention, but the detective was too focused on Delia Cachora to wonder at the connection. "I'm Detective Dan Leggett from the Pima County Sheriff's Department," he said, stopping in front of the trio of Indians and not waiting for Brian to make introductions. "I'm in charge of investigating the assault against your father. It's important that we ask him some questions as soon as possible. When's the last time you tried to speak to him?"
"It was almost an hour ago now. Why? What's so important?" Delia asked.
"We're working on what may be a related case. I need to know if there's anything he can tell us about the attack. We're wondering if his assailant acted alone or if there was someone else involved."
"Lani Walker isn't involved," Gabe Ortiz declared forcefully. "She couldn't be. I've known her since she was a baby. She would never do anything like this."
Accustomed to Gabe Ortiz's usually soft-spoken ways, Delia looked at the tribal chairman in some surprise. "You think a woman is involved in the attack on my father?"
"It's possible," Dan said.
Delia stood up and leveled another questioning look in Gabe Ortiz's direction. "I'll go check," she said. "The problem is, even if he's awake, they probably won't allow anyone in other than family. Do you want me to ask whether or not a woman was there?"
Dan shook his head. "Don't put words in his mouth. Just ask if he remembers anything about it, especially whether or not his attacker was operating alone."
Delia left. The waiting room was silent for a long moment after the doors swung shut behind her. "Lani didn't do it," Gabe said again.
Brian Fellows nodded. "I know her, too, Dan. The Lani I know wouldn't harm a fly."
Dan Leggett turned to face Gabe. "Mr. Ortiz," he said, "we have a fingerprint from the bones that matches one found in the Walkers' house. I said she may have been involved. What I didn't say is that her involvement may have happened under duress."
"Duress? What does that mean?"
"It means Lani Walker may have been kidnapped," Dan Leggett said. "No one has seen her since she left to go to work sometime around six yesterday morning. She didn't show up for her shift or for a concert date with a friend yesterday evening."
"Kidnapped?" Brian Fellows echoed.
Delia came to the door and motioned to her elderly aunt. "He's talking, but in Tohono O'othham. I don't remember enough of that to be able to understand."
Again the people left in the waiting room drifted into silence. Gabe Ortiz walked across the room and sat down in a chair, burying his face in his hands. "Mr. Ortiz seems very upset about all this," Dan Leggett observed. "Is he related to Lani Walker somehow?"
Brian Fellows nodded. "He and his wife are Lani's godparents."
"Oh," Dan Leggett said. "That explains it then."
A few minutes later, Julia Joaquin emerged from the ICU. Walking stiffly, she passed directly in front of the waiting detective and deputy, going instead to where Gabe Ortiz was sitting. Dan Leggett and Brian Fellows trailed after her.
"Manny only remembers seeing a man, not a woman," the old woman said, speaking to the tribal chairman, addressing him softly in Tohono O'othham rather than English. "The man was tall and skinny-a Mil-gahn. And he was driving an orange truck of some kind."
"The girl wasn't there?" Gabe asked.
Julia Joaquin shook her head. Gabe Ortiz sighed in obvious relief.
"What are they saying?" Dan Leggett asked, and Brian translated as well as he could.
"Manny Chavez's back is broken and he may be paralyzed," Julia Joaquin continued, still addressing Gabe Ortiz, rather than any of the others. "Do you know of a medicine man who is good with Turtle Sickness?"
"I do not," Gabe answered. "But I will find out."
"Thank you," Julia said. She turned to the detective just as Brian finished translating once more.
"Turtle Sickness?" Dan Leggett repeated.
Julia Joaquin nodded.
"How can you call it a sickness? Somebody hit him in the back with a shovel!"
"Turtle Sickness-paralysis-comes from being rude," she explained firmly. "My brother-in-law has always been a very rude man."
Just then Delia Cachora returned to the waiting room. "Aunt Julia told you what you needed to know?" she asked.
Dan Leggett nodded. "She certainly did," he said.
Gabe stood up and took Julia Joaquin's hand in his. "I'm glad the ant-bit child wasn't there."
Julia nodded. "I am, too," she said.
"Ant-bit child?" Delia Cachora asked. "What are we talking about now?" She seemed almost as puzzled about that as Dan Leggett was about Turtle Sickness.
Julia Joaquin turned to her niece. "There was an old blind medicine man, years ago, who was always telling people that an ant-bit child would someday show up on the reservation and that she would grow up to be a powerful medicine woman."
Delia glanced warily at Detective Leggett. "Aunt Julia," she cautioned, but Julia Joaquin disregarded the warning.
"Kulani O'oks,"she continued. "She was the woman who was kissed by the bees. Looks At Nothing said the ant-bit child would be just like her, that she would save people, not harm them, not even someone like Manny."
"Thank you," Gabe Ortiz said to Julia. "I'm sure you're right."
The tribal chairman left then. Dan Leggett handed Delia Cachora a business card. "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep us posted on your father's condition," he said. "In the meantime, Deputy Fellows and I will head back out to the department to see if there's anything else we can do."
The two officers left the waiting room together. Once outside, Dan Leggett stopped long enough to light a cigar. "So Lani Walker's supposed to be a medicine woman when she grows up," he said. "That one takes the cake. Have you ever heard anything like it in your life?"
As the cloud of smoke ballooned around Detective Leggett's head, Brian Fellows realized there was a certain olfactory resemblance between that and wiw — the wild tobacco Looks At Nothing had always used in his evil-smelling, hand-rolled cigarettes. The smell brought back a string of memories, including Rita Antone saying much the same thing Julia Joaquin had just said, that Davy's new baby sister would one day grow up to be a medicine woman. It came as no surprise to him that Looks At Nothing would have been the original source of that story, and it hardly mattered that the old medicine man had been dead for years before Lani Walker came to live in the house in Gates Pass.
"Actually, I have," Brian Fellows said. "I've heard it before from any number of people."
"The medicine-woman part?"
Brian nodded.
With the cigar now lit, Dan Leggett waved the flaming match in the air until the fire went out. "And you believe it?" Dan asked.
"As a matter of fact I do," Brian Fellows said.
With a quizzical frown on his face, Detective Leggett stared hard at the young deputy. "I think you're all nuts," he said at last. "From the tribal chairman right on down."
After laboring up the steep mountainside for what seemed forever, Mitch finally parked the Bronco in a grove of mesquite. By the time Lani reached the truck, Quentin and Mitch were both outside, with Quentin directing Mitch as they placed several pieces of camouflaged canvas from the back of the Bronco over the top of the vehicle.
Quentin was still none too steady on his feet, but he was clearly proud of his ability to plan ahead. "This way, nobody will be able to spot it," he said. "Not from down below, and not from up above, either."
"Great," Mitch said. "Which way now?"
"Up here," Quentin said. He staggered off across the brush-covered slope, somehow managing to stay upright. "The entrance is hard enough to spot during the daylight, but don't worry. We'll find it."
"You go next," Mitch ordered, shoving Lani forward behind Quentin. "I'll bring up the rear."
For what seemed like a very long time, the three of them clambered single-file on a diagonal up and across the flank of mountain. Mitch and Quentin both carried flashlights, but they opted to leave them off, for fear lights on the mountain might attract unwanted attention. Instead, the trio accomplished the nighttime hike with only the moon to light the path. After half an hour or so, Quentin suddenly disappeared. One moment he was there in front of Lani, the next he was gone. Looking down the side of the mountain, she expected to see him falling to his death. Instead, his unseen hand reached out and grabbed hers.
"In here," Quentin said, dragging her into what looked like an exceptionally deep shadow. "It's this way."
Only when she was right there in front of it was Lani able to see Quentin crouching just inside a three-foot-wide hole in the mountain. "Watch yourself," he added. "For the next fifteen yards or so we have to do this on hands and knees."
Plunged into total darkness, Lani crawled forward into the damp heart of the mountain. At first she could feel walls on either side of her, but eventually the space opened up and the rocks underneath gave way to slimy mud. A light flickered behind her and was followed by the scraping of someone else coming through the tunnel. Moments later Mitch emerged, flashlight in hand. Standing up, he shone the light around them. When he did so, Lani was dumbfounded.
They were standing in the middle of a huge, rough-walled limestone cavern with spectacular bubbles of rock surging up from the floor and with curtains of rock flowing down from above. The place was utterly still. Other than their labored breathing, the only sound inside the cavern was the steady drip of water.
Dolores Lanita Walker had grown up hearing stories of Elder Brother and how he spent his summers in the sacred caves on Ioligam. Rita had taught her that the Desert People, sometimes called the People With Two Houses, were called that because they had two homes-a winter one on the flat and a cooler summer one high up in the mountains. It made sense then that I'itoi, the Tohono O'othham' s beloved Elder Brother, would do much the same thing. In the winter he was said to live on Baboquivari-Grandfather Place Mountain. But in the summertime he was said to come to Ioligam — Manzanita Mountain.
Lani had spent all her life being told that caves like this were both dangerous and sacred; that they were places to be avoided. Now, though, looking around at the towering, ghostly walls, lit by the feeble probing of Mitch's flashlight, Lani Walker felt no fear.
She felt not the slightest doubt that this was a sacred, holy place. And since it was summer, no doubt I'itoi was somewhere nearby. That made this a perfectly good place to die.
By the time David Ladd emerged from the bathroom shaved, showered, and dressed, Candace's suitcases were zipped shut and stacked beside the door. Candace herself was on the phone with her sister, Bridget.
"Thanks, Bridge," Candace was saying. "You know I wouldn't ask you if it weren't an emergency. And yes, we'll let you know what's going on as soon as we know exactly what it is… Sure, that'll work. We'll leave the parking receipt in an envelope for you at the front desk," she said. "Just drive the Jeep home. We'll make arrangements to come get it later."
While Davy finished throwing the few things he had brought to the room into his small bag, Candace gave him a quick thumbs-up, all the while staying tuned to the telephone conversation.
"Sure I know Mom will kill me," Candace replied. "But another wedding like yours would kill Dad, so there you are… No, we don't need a ride to O'Hare. I've already called for a cab. It'll be here in a few minutes, so I'd better go. Tell Larry thanks for being so understanding about me waking you up at this ungodly hour."
"You'd better decide what you're going to leave and what you're going to take," David suggested when Candace put down the phone.
"Oh," she said. "I'll take them all. Two checked and two carry-ons. What about you?"
David looked down at his single bag. What he'd brought upstairs for one night wasn't enough to see him through more than a couple of days. "I'd better go down to the garage and see about repacking," he said.
"Sure, go ahead," Candace told him. "I'll call for a bellman and meet you down in the lobby."
In the parking garage, Davy hauled out one other suitcase to take, along with the shirt and shaving gear he had taken upstairs. That'll do, he thought. At least until I can get back here to pick up the rest of my stuff.
He closed and locked the door and started to walk away, then he stopped and went back. Unlocking the cargo door, he rummaged through the boxes until he found the one he was looking for. It was a small wooden chest Astrid Ladd had given him, one that Davy's father had made in wood shop while he was still in high school and had given to Astrid as a gift. "Happy Mother's Day, 1954" had been burned into the bottom piece of wood.
Astrid had given Davy the box only three days earlier, and it contained only two items-Rita Antone's son's purple heart and Father John's losalo — his rosary. David Ladd stuffed the purple heart in the outside pocket of his suitcase, then stood for a moment staring down at the olive wood crucifix and the string of black beads. He had been only five years old, but he still remembered the day Father John had taught him to pray.
His mother had opened the front door and discovered Bone staggering around drunkenly outside. She had no idea what was wrong with the animal but Father John, who had come to the house to give Davy his first-ever catechism class, did.
"That dog's been poisoned," Father John had told them. "We've got to get him to a vet."
Before they could even lead Bone to the car, the hundred-pound dog collapsed in helpless convulsions. It took both Davy's mother and the priest to lift him, carry him to the priest's car, and load him inside. Davy had wanted to go along, but Diana had turned him back, ordering him to stay with Rita.
Worried about the poor dog, Davy was in tears as Father John started the car. Before driving out of the yard, however, the priest stopped the car beside the devastated child.
"Remember how we were talking about prayer a while ago?" the priest asked, rolling down the window. "Would you like me to pray for Bone?"
"Yes," Davy had whispered. "Please."
"Heavenly Father," the priest had said, bowing his head. "We pray that you will grant the blessing of healing to your servant, Bone, that he may return safely to his home. We ask this in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
David Ladd had learned a good deal more about prayer since that fateful day long ago, when God had spared not only his dog but the rest of the family as well. He had learned, too, what Father John meant when he said that the answer to prayer could be either yes or no.
Davy had never forgotten the priest's powerful lesson, and it came rushing back to him now, out of the distant past. Closing his fist around the smooth crucifix, David Ladd closed his eyes, envisioning as he did so both his parents and his little sister, Lani.
"Heavenly Father," he whispered. "We pray now for the blessing of healing for your servants Brandon, Diana, and Lani Walker and for Davy Ladd and Candace Waverly. See us all safely through this time of trouble in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
Then, putting the rosary in his shirt pocket so he could feel the beads through the thin material of his shirt, David Ladd locked the Jeep Cherokee, picked up his suitcase, and headed home.