Before Sunrise

by Diana Palmer

  Phoebe was shocked. “How did your brother know…?”

  “Oh, we know everything,” she said. “It’s a small community. Somebody from one clan finds out and tells somebody from another clan, and it’s all over the mountains.”

  “Worse than a telephone party line,” Phoebe said, still gasping.

  “Really,” Marie agreed. “You could stay with me,” she added. “Your place is way out.”

  “Drake’s going to teach me to shoot.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “You didn’t like him.”

  “He grows on you.”

  She smiled. “He’s my cousin. I think he’s terrific. He may strut a little, but he’s smart and brave. You could do a lot worse,” she added.

  Phoebe glared. “He’s only giving me shooting lessons,” she said firmly. “I’m still not ready to get interested in a man, overused or not.”

  Marie ignored that. “He’ll look out for you. So will my other cousins and my brother, if you need it,” she told her. “You’ve done a lot for us. We don’t forget favors, especially with family.”

  “I don’t have a drop of Native American blood, Marie,” Phoebe said firmly.

  Marie grinned. “You’re still family,” she mused, and turned away. “I’ll get to work.”

  Phoebe watched her go absently, her mind still on the dead man. It was upsetting that someone she’d spoken to the day before had been murdered. What was also upsetting was the destruction of a potentially precious site. If there were Neanderthal remains at a construction site—although she seriously doubted it—it would rewrite the history not only of North Carolina, but of the continent. Certainly it would shut down the developer, no question. Was that a reason to kill a human being? Phoebe, who had no love of money past being able to pay her bills, couldn’t comprehend what some people might do for great wealth.

  SHE WENT ABOUT HER BUSINESS for the next two days. Drake stopped by to tell her that the FBI agent had arrived, but he was oddly reticent about anything else. And he gave her a look that kept her awake. On Friday morning, she understood what it meant.

  Just as she was getting ready to welcome a group of elderly visitors from a local nursing home, a black car pulled up at the steps. It had a government license plate. The FBI no doubt, she thought idly, watching for the tour bus.

  But the man who got out of the car froze her in her tracks. He had long black hair in a ponytail. He was wearing a gray vested suit and sunglasses. He came up the steps and stopped dead in front of Phoebe. He took off the glasses and hung them by one earpiece from his vest pocket.

  “Hello, Phoebe,” Cortez said quietly. He didn’t smile. His scarred face looked leaner and harder than she remembered it. There were new lines around his eyes and mouth. He looked as if he’d never smiled in his life. His black eyes were penetrating, cold, all business.

  She lifted her chin. She didn’t scream and throw things, which was how she felt. She forced herself to look composed and professional. “Hello, Cortez,” she replied, with equal formality and deliberately not using his first name. “What can I do for you?”

  “A deputy sheriff named Drake—” he pulled out a pad and made a production of looking for the man’s name, which he knew quite well already “—Stewart said that you spoke to the victim the night before his body was found. I’d like to have a word with you, if you have time.”

  She swallowed hard. “You’re investigating the case?”

  He nodded. “I’m back with the FBI. I’m part of a new unit being set up specifically to investigate violent crime on Indian Reservations nationwide.”

  She wanted to ask why he’d given up law, when he loved it so. She wanted to ask why he’d deserted her with nothing more informative than a newspaper clipping, when he’d looked at her as if he loved her. But she didn’t.

  “Come into my office. Just a minute, please.” She stopped and called to Harriett, who was taking a break. “Harriett, there’s a busload of people coming from the nursing home. Can you take it? I have to speak to this gentleman.”

  Harriett lifted an eyebrow as she looked at Cortez, who towered over both women. “At least the government’s taste has improved,” she murmured dryly, and went out front to meet the bus, which was just pulling into the parking lot.

  Cortez didn’t react to the comment. Neither did Phoebe. She went into her office and offered him the only chair in front of her cluttered desk. He didn’t sit down because Marie walked in abruptly with a payroll report, since it was Friday. She paused when she saw their visitor. Her quick eyes took in his long hair and dark complexion, the suit and his businesslike bearing. “Siyo,” she said in Cherokee, a word of greeting as well as goodbye.

  He lifted his chin and his eyes were hostile. “I don’t speak Cherokee. I’m Comanche,” he said bluntly.

  She colored and cleared her throat. “Sorry.”

  He didn’t say a word. He moved aside to let her put the report on Phoebe’s desk.

  Marie exchanged a bland glance with Phoebe and beat a hasty retreat, closing the door behind her.

  Phoebe sat down behind her desk and looked at Cortez. She folded her hands in front of her on the desk. They were working hands, with short nails and no polish. No rings, either.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked professionally.

  He looked at her for just a few seconds too long. His eyes darkened. There were shadows in them.

  He pulled the notepad out of his pocket, crossed his long legs, flipped the pad open and checked his notes.

  “You spoke to the man the day before his body was found,” he repeated. He took out a pen. “Can you tell me what he said?”

  “He told me that a construction company was trying to cover up a potentially explosive archaeological site,” she replied. “Neanderthal remains.”

  The pen stilled and he lifted his eyes to hers. He didn’t say a word.

  “I know, it sounds preposterous,” she replied. “But he was quite serious. He said that the company was deeply in debt and afraid for the site to be discovered, for fear of being bankrupted during the excavation that would follow.”

  “There are no recorded Neanderthal remains anywhere in North America,” he replied.

  “I have a degree in anthropology,” she replied coldly, insulted by the insinuation that she wouldn’t know that. “Would you like to see it?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’ve changed.”

  “So have you,” she bit off. “Back to the subject at hand, please. I know it sounds outlandish, but the man seemed to know what he was talking about. I tried to trace his number. He’d blocked it.”

  “They found your number on a pad beside his telephone, in a motel room. he registered under a false name and address. His ID is missing, except for a card designating him as a member of a national anthropological society.”

  “If someone stole his credentials, why didn’t they take that, too?” she asked.

  “It was under the bed. His wallet was thrown on his bed, empty of everything except a twenty-dollar bill. They must have emptied it there. Maybe they tore up the anthropology society ID card and that piece of it fell and they didn’t notice. Pretty good work otherwise, though. No obvious clues, although I had our crime technician check the room with a blue light for latent prints. There were none. I sealed off the room and I’ve already got our crime unit on the scene,” he added, naming a group whose purpose was specifically to gather and process trace evidence.

  “How about footprints? Tire tracks?”

  He shifted restlessly. He was recalling, as she must be, their cooperation in tracking down a polluter outside Charleston by following tire tracks. It was a time when she was young and full of life and hope and ambition. It was a different world.

  He forced himself not to look back. “It’s early days. We’re checking that out. Had you ever heard his voice before?” he added.

  She shook her head.

  “He didn’t mention the developer’s name, anything that would help find him
?”

  She shook her head again.

  He grimaced. “There are a number of possibilities, I’m told. Meanwhile,” he added, putting up the pad and pen to pierce Phoebe’s eyes with his own, “you’re the only link we have to a murder.”

  “I could be the next victim,” she assumed.

  “Yes.” He bit off the word, as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “I’ve already been told that. I have a dog,” she said. “And one of the deputy sheriffs is giving me shooting lessons tomorrow.”

  Something touched his face, something cold and angry. “Do you have a gun?”

  “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.”

  “He’s a little abrasive,” she agreed.

  “A little abrasive,” he muttered. “Right. And the Smoky Mountains are little hills.” He traced the rim of his coffee mug. It was faded, like most of her dinnerware, but serviceable. “Obviously you’ve met him before.”

  She nodded. “He’s a sort-of friend,” she said evasively.

  “He knew you were here before he ever came to investigate the murder,” he said abruptly.

  Her eyes widened with surprise. “How?”

  “He didn’t say. But he’s worried about you. He can’t seem to hide it.”

  She didn’t know how to take that. She stared at her coffee cup.

  “Most people who come to small towns like this—people who aren’t born here—are trying to get away from something that hurts them,” he said slowly. “Marie and I figured that’s why you’re here.”

  She lifted the cup to her mouth and took a sip, ignoring the sting of heat.

  “And now I understand the reason,” he added with pursed lips. “It’s about six foot one and has the cuddly personality of a starving black bear.”

  She laughed softly.

  “I could think up lots more adjectives, but they wouldn’t suit the company,” he mused. He shook his head. “Damn, that man goes for the jugular. I’ll bet he’s good at his job.”

  “He was a federal prosecutor when I knew him,” she revealed. “And he was good at it.”

  “He went voluntarily from a desk job to beating the bushes for lawbreakers?” he asked, surprised. “What would make a man do that?”

  “Beats me. Maybe his wife didn’t like living in D.C.”

  He was still for a few seconds. “He’s married?”

  She nodded.

  “Poor woman!” he exclaimed with heartfelt compassion.

  She laughed in spite of the pain.

  “That explains the kid, I guess,” he mused.