Before Sunrise

by Diana Palmer

  “The butt hadn’t been touched by water,” Cortez replied. “So far, so good.”

  “Can I at least go back to work?” Phoebe asked when she’d packed her toiletries and three changes of clothing. She had them in a suitcase, which Cortez picked up with his left hand.

  “She’d be around people,” Drake pointed out.

  “Good point,” Cortez said after a minute. “All right, but you don’t leave the office unless one of us is with you.”

  It wasn’t her choice, but then, she didn’t seem to have one. She glanced from one of them to the other. Talk about being stonewalled…

  “All right,” she agreed.

  Cortez checked his watch. “We’d better go. I’ve got an early appointment.”

  “With another developer?” Drake asked. “Should we tail you, in case there’s another shooting, too?”

  Cortez chuckled. “That was below the belt.”

  Drake shrugged. “Just checking.”

  “I’ll lock up,” Phoebe said. She went from room to room, checking windows and doors until she assured that they were all secure.

  “It doesn’t look like anybody lives here,” Drake murmured. “No photos, no souvenirs, no keepsakes…”

  “Most of my stuff is at my aunt Derrie’s place,” Phoebe remarked. “It seemed sort of useless to bring along a lot of stuff that I’d just have to move again, eventually.”

  “You’re planning to leave?” Drake asked.

  “Not today,” she said wryly. “I meant someday. It was a figure of speech.”

  Cortez didn’t say anything at all. He opened the front door and walked out onto the porch.

  TINA MET THEM AT THE DOOR of her room, giving Phoebe a curious look. “So you’re the famous Phoebe,” she murmured dryly. “I’m really happy to meet you. He doesn’t tell me anything,” she indicated Cortez.

  “You are not to pump her for information,” he cautioned his cousin. “You aren’t to let her out of your sight, either,” he added firmly.

  “Yeah, I know why,” Tina said, quickly sobering. “I’m glad you’re still in one piece. Good thing Jeremiah’s father is a shaman, huh?”

  “A very good thing,” Phoebe replied. “I’m only bruised. It could have been so much worse.”

  “You’ll be safe here,” Tina assured her. “I’m Christina Redhawk. That’s his last name, too, but he won’t use it,” she told Phoebe, indicating Cortez. “He has a really vicious sense of humor.”

  “He does?” Drake asked, grinning at Tina, who actually blushed.

  “Well, the great-grandfather who kidnapped Jeremiah’s great-grandmother was named Cortes, with an s,” Tina mused.

  “Kidnapped her?” Phoebe asked, glancing curiously at Cortez.

  “Held her in a log cabin for two weeks until she was disgraced and had to marry him,” she continued. “They had ten kids. He lived with her Comanche people, learned the language, even went on raids with his in-laws. Jeremiah’s grandfather was the youngest of those kids.”

  “Were they together a long time?” Phoebe asked.

  “Fifty years,” Tina said, sighing. “Isn’t it romantic? They were enemies. Her people had just attacked his and killed several of his extended family, too. I guess love does conquer all.”

  “Stop jabbing and let her go to bed,” Cortez told his cousin, tweaking a lock of her long black hair. “She’s had a rough day.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on her,” Tina promised.

  “I can keep an eye on myself, thanks,” Phoebe told Cortez firmly.

  The other three adults exchanged knowing glances.

  “Nobody can see a bullet coming,” Phoebe defended herself.

  “Jeremiah’s dad did,” Tina piped up.

  “Bed. Now. How’s my boy?” he added, stepping into the room behind Phoebe and Drake.

  Joseph was sitting in the middle of one of two queen-sized beds, playing with some cloth blocks. He looked up at Cortez and grinned, opening his chubby arms wide.

  “Daddy!” he exclaimed.

  Cortez swept him up, hugging him close, and kissed his little cheek. “How’s my boy?” he asked in a tone so soft that it made Phoebe’s heart ache.

  “Daddy, I can count to five!” He held out four fingers. “Where was you? I was lonely! She wouldn’t let me have the cake!”

  “Chocolate cake,” Tina defended herself. “He’d have been up all night.”

  “I wanted cake,” Joseph muttered. He looked past his father’s shoulder. “Who are you?” he asked Phoebe.

  “This is Phoebe,” Cortez told the child, turning him toward Phoebe. “She’s been hurt. She’s going to spend the night with you and Tina. You have to help take care of her.”

  “Okay,” Joseph said at once. He studied Phoebe carefully. “You got blond hair.”

  “Yes. I have blond hair,” Phoebe said. She didn’t want to like the child. But he had beautiful dark eyes and a smile like an angel.

  “You like to read?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She realized that she was beginning to sound like a parrot. “Do you?”

  Joseph grinned. “I like Bob!”

  Phoebe glanced at Tina. “Bob the Builder,” she was informed. “It’s a cartoon show on TV.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can you tell stories?” Joseph persisted.

  “She can, but we’re going to bed soon,” Tina said, rescuing her. She took Joseph from Cortez. “That means everybody who isn’t a little boy or a woman has to leave.” She gave the two men a pointed look.

  “We’re being evicted,” Drake puzzled it out. “Okay. If you need us…”

  “I’ll be right next door,” Cortez told the women.

  “And I’ll be right next to my phone,” Drake added. “He’s got the number.” He jerked a thumb toward Cortez. “One last thing, stay away from windows.”

  Phoebe saluted him.

  He chuckled and went out the door. Cortez gave her a wink and followed suit.

  “Men are a lot of trouble,” Tina told Phoebe as she carried Joseph back to the bed. “And it looks like you’ve got two of them on your case.”

  “I’m off men for life,” Phoebe said firmly.

  Tina’s eyes twinkled. “That’s what they all say!”

  “I’m really sleepy!” Phoebe broke in.

  Tina chuckled. “Okay. I get the message. I’m a little sleepy myself. Joseph’s teething again. Jeremiah and I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Teething?”

  “It’s an ongoing process, I’m afraid,” Tina said. “You’ll see.”

  Phoebe didn’t understand the statement until two in the morning, when Joseph let out a wail and started bawling.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JOSEPH WAS CRYING in great sobs. His little face was hot and he was drooling.

  “Hurts, Tina,” he muttered against Tina’s shoulder.

  “I know, baby, I’m sorry,” Tina said. “I’ll get the medicine. Phoebe, can you hold him? Here, sit down so you don’t strain your stomach. I guess it’s really sore now.”

  “It is,” Phoebe replied, reluctantly letting Tina put Joseph into her arms.

  “Hurts,” Joseph sobbed, clinging to Phoebe.

  His little head was pressed hard against her breasts. He smelled of soap and baby powder. His hair was very clean, kind of medium brown in color. His face was wet against the soft cotton of the T-shirt she slept in.

  Phoebe hadn’t had much to do with little children. There were none in her family. She’d seen them at the museum, of course, but she hadn’t interacted with them. This was Cortez’s child, even if only by adoption. He was the child of Cortez’s brother. He shared the same blood, the same family, the same history.

  Her body had been stiff at first, but now she relaxed and took the child’s weight quite naturally. Her hand went automatically to his back. She smoothed over it gently.

  Tina came back with a teaspoon full of medicine. “It’s cherry,” she coaxed, ladeling it into Joseph’s mout
h. “You swallow that, my baby, and I’ve got something to make your poor tooth feel better, too.”

  He made a face. “Don’t want it,” he moaned.

  “A lot of things we don’t want are good for us,” Tina said comfortingly. She ran her finger into Joseph’s mouth and rubbed the clear liquid on it into his gumline.

  “Yuuck,” Joseph muttered.

  “It will help,” Tina assured him. She looked over her head at Phoebe as she wiped her finger on a tissue. “Just a minute and I’ll take him in with me…”

  “No!” Joseph wailed when she tried to separate him from Phoebe. “Don’t want to go with you.”

  The women exchanged puzzled glances.

  “Bee-bee’s nice,” he said drowsily. “Bee-bee smells good.” He burrowed his face closer against her chest.

  Phoebe had never felt such a warm sensation in her life. The child clung to her. He didn’t want to be taken away. He even had a name for her—Bee-bee. It felt odd to be needed. She wasn’t sure she ever had been before. Her father had always been independent and the picture of health. Even her mother hadn’t had much illness before her death. Her stepmother, long since remarried, ignored her. Derrie, her aunt, had her own interests and never needed caring for. But here was this tiny human being whom Phoebe had resented from the day she knew of his existence. What an irony that he needed her.

  “Want Bee-bee,” Joseph muttered again, burrowing into Phoebe’s chest and holding on with all his small might.

  Phoebe drew him closer instinctively. A pulse of pure joy overwhelmed her. “It’s okay,” Phoebe said when Tina looked ready to make a second try for Joseph. “Really. He can sleep with me. I don’t mind.”

  “Nice Bee-bee,” Joseph whispered, his little eyes closing as he slumped securely in Phoebe’s embrace.

  “It will hurt your stomach,” Tina said reluctantly.

  “No, it won’t,” Phoebe said tenderly, brushing the child’s hair. “Come on, little man,” she whispered. “Let’s try to go to sleep, okay?”

  “Okay,” he murmured.

  Phoebe climbed back into bed, settling Joseph against her shoulder. She smiled at Tina and closed her eyes. Scant minutes later, she was dead to the world and so was the child.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Cortez stood in the doorway gaping at the sight in the bed next to Tina’s. Joseph was draped over Phoebe’s slight breasts, sound asleep. So was Phoebe. They looked like a work of art.

  “He wouldn’t let go of her,” Tina explained softly, laughing. “At least he’s sleeping.”

  Cortez studied her in a stunned silence. His heart ached to gather them both close and hold them, never let them go. It was a revelation. He hadn’t expected Phoebe to take to the child. She’d been reluctant even to stay in the same room with him, although she’d pretended it didn’t bother her. Joseph had found a way to reach her, it seemed.

  Tina noted the expression on her cousin’s face with hidden amusement. In recent years, he’d lived like a hermit. He hadn’t even dated anyone. But when she saw him with Phoebe, all her questions were answered. Tina could see what he felt for the blond woman. It was written all over him. No wonder Drake had looked so odd when she told him about the blond woman Cortez had loved and lost. It was Phoebe and he knew her! He liked her a lot, too, or Tina was no judge of character. She wondered how Phoebe felt about Drake?

  “I have to wake her soon,” Tina said regretfully, “or she’ll be late for work.”

  “I’m going to drop her by the museum on my own way to work.”

  Tina gave him an amused glance. He ignored it. He moved to the second bed and touched Phoebe gently on the shoulder.

  She opened her eyes. They were the pale blue of an autumn day. She blinked. “Jeremiah?” she murmured drowsily.

  He brushed back her tangled hair. “How do you feel?”

  She moved, felt Joseph’s weight, and grimaced as her leg shifted and aggravated the bruising. “Ouch,” she muttered.

  Joseph felt the movement and opened his eyes. “Daddy,” he murmured, smiling. “Bee-bee smells nice.”

  “Bee-bee?”

  Phoebe managed a smile. “That’s me. Feel better, baby?” she asked Joseph, brushing back his damp hair.

  “Better,” he nodded. He yawned. “Sleepy.”

  Tina came forward and took him, cradling him against her shoulder. “Bee-bee has to go to work.”

  “No,” Joseph protested. “Bee-bee stay!”

  Phoebe dragged herself to her feet, hurting. She touched Joseph’s face with her fingertips. “I’ll be back later. I’ll bring you a surprise.”

  “Surprise? Tiger?”

  She laughed. “We’ll see.” She glanced at Cortez with quiet curiosity. He looked…odd.

  He turned. “I’ll wait in the car,” he said. “I’ll drop you off at the museum on my way.”

  “Where are you going?” she wanted to know.

  “To talk to some more construction people.”

  “Wear body armor,” she retorted.

  He just closed the door, without comment.

  “He’ll get himself killed,” Phoebe muttered as she gathered up her clothes and got into slacks and a neat embroidered top with a jacket to put over it. Dressing was difficult, because of the bruising.

  “He’s no cream puff,” Tina assured her. “Didn’t that doctor say you were to rest for a couple of days?” she added.

  “I just sit at a desk all day—it can’t do much damage,” Phoebe reassured her. She ran a brush through her hair and put on light lipstick and powder. “Have you known him a long time?” she asked.

  “Jeremiah, you mean?” Tina laughed. “All my life. He used to take me to school in the mornings when he was still at home. The bus was sort of hit or miss because we lived so far out in the sticks. His dad still does. His father really hates modern society. He says it’s the cause of all our problems, that people were never meant to live in cities.”

  “He’s got a point,” Phoebe had to admit. She pressed her fingers against the big bruised place under her slacks. “But he’s got amazing foresight. I’d be dead if not for him.”

  “He’s spooky sometimes,” Tina commented. “He knows stuff.”

  Phoebe searched for her purse. “We had a woman like that near where my aunt grew up, in South Carolina. She could read the future—not like those people you see advertising their services on television, she could really read the future. She said it was a curse. Most of the things she knew beforehand were bad things. She wasn’t Native American, or a shaman. She was just sensitive.”

  Tina cocked her head. “I guess you know a lot about indigenous people, with your background.”

  Phoebe nodded. “I think the wisdom of the earth resides in ancient, indigenous cultures,” she replied. “Maybe someday, the knowledge of indigenous people will allow a portion of mankind to survive.”

  “Survive?”

  Phoebe picked up her purse. “Mankind has evolved into a very small niche, dependent on exhaustible fuel. One of my anthropology professors said that any culture so specialized is doomed.”

  “You’ll like Jeremiah’s dad…he talks just like you,” Tina chuckled. “He’s always telling us the story of the Rainbow Warrior.”

  Phoebe smiled. That was the basis of her opinion about the wisdom of ancient cultures, that one day they would be called on to save the human race. Native people called it the legend of the Rainbow Warrior.

  “He really wanted Jeremiah to go to college—just like he did,” Tina added.

  That was surprising. Phoebe, despite her exclusive education and her intimate knowledge of native peoples, had pictured Cortez’s shaman father living at less than standard levels. She was ashamed of herself for stereotyping him. “He really went to college?”

  Tina pursed her lips. “Yes, he did. Education is the only escape from poverty, he always says. He loves history.”

  Phoebe’s eyes brightened. “Imagine that.”

  “He knows all about you, of course,” T
ina persisted. “You were all Jeremiah talked about when he came back from Charleston that time.” She winced. “It was terrible, Isaac getting killed like that.”

  “Like what?”

  But before Tina could answer, the door opened and an impatient Cortez peered in. “I’m on the clock.”

  Phoebe started for the door. “God forbid that I should keep you! Lead on.”

  Tina laughed. Cortez didn’t. He’d had more than enough to make him irritable the past two days.

  HE STOPPED IN FRONT of the museum and cut off the engine. It was raining all at once, with lightning flashing crazily in the distance.

  He looked at Phoebe with narrowed eyes. “I don’t like letting you out of my sight,” he said bluntly.

  “I’m not going to get shot in my office,” she promised him. “But speaking of being shot, aren’t you pushing the edge of the envelope going to yet another construction site? You’re asking questions that somebody doesn’t like.”

  “Do you think there’s a Neanderthal skeleton hidden somewhere around here?” he asked seriously.

  “No,” she said at once. “I won’t deny the possibility that indigenous people were here long before the last ice age ended, but it’s improbable that we wouldn’t have found evidence of it by now.”

  “Then why do you think that professor made such a flat statement about it?”

  She pondered that. The rain was falling harder. It was loud where it hit the metal of the car body. “I think he wanted someone to investigate a crime, but he didn’t think he’d get help unless he made it sound sensational. I do think human remains have been covered up. But not Neanderthal ones. Someone’s breaking the law trying to keep construction on schedule. That much I’d bet on, and they’re willing to kill people to prevent any holdups.”

  Cortez looked pensive. “That’s what I thought.”

  “You must have spooked somebody at that site we went to yesterday,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Any idea who?”

  He traced a pattern on the steering wheel while he thought. “The construction boss is from Oklahoma and he has Cherokee blood. Our visiting professor appears to have had Cherokee kin as well. I think there’s some sort of a connection.”