Before Sunrise

by Diana Palmer

  “He sold an effigy figure to Phoebe at the local museum,” Cortez said. “That must have been the serpent that undid paradise. It was risky, a sale so soon after a notorious theft of easily recognized artifacts.”

  “Especially when I discovered the loot and called my cousin to come and look at it. I didn’t let on that I thought it was stolen so Dan truly believed the artifacts were a genuine discovery. He initially thought the danger came from the developers not wanting the discovery of the artifacts to halt the construction project. He had no idea what was really going on…until it was too late.” Walks Far added quietly, “He’s dead because of me. I had no idea my wife was connected to the robbery. I was scouting the caves on the back of all three construction sites and I came across the stash in the cave on Yardley’s construction project. I saw Fred’s car there,” he muttered. “I suspected the artifacts were stolen, so I had Dan come down and identify them, to confirm it. I didn’t think he’d get in any trouble. Obviously he was checking the stolen merchandise and figured out what was really going on when he was discovered. Fred must have caught him in the act and killed him.”

  “Actually, we believe Fred killed him at his motel. Fred obviously knew that he’d seen the stash, though. He murdered Dan, then the killer planted the body on a dirt road,” Cortez said. “But he didn’t know it was on Indian land and that the FBI would be called in on the case. That must have hit him hard.

  “How did Fred die? And who hit you?” Cortez persisted.

  Walks Far gave him a long, sad look. “I don’t know who hit me, or how I got back to the trailer. I had a strange phone call, about some artifacts in a cave on Yardley’s property. They said it was being moved. I rushed out there, alone, to check it out. I walked into the cave with a flashlight. The next thing I knew, I was here. Least of all do I know who killed Fred.”

  “But we have a suspicion. A terrible one,” Bennett said heavily.

  “I think it was Fred who knocked me out when I walked into the cave. I was just going to see if the loot was still there, and then I was going to call the police,” Walks Far continued. “The lights went out when I was barely inside the cave. I woke up in here,” he added, looking around the hospital room ruefully.

  “You think your sister may have killed Fred,” Cortez said to Bennett.

  The other man nodded slowly. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. She made a comment about men not being trustworthy and that if she wanted anything done right, she had to do the job herself.” He met Cortez’s eyes. “I hope you’re having Miss Keller watched,” he added. “Claudia let slip that she’d been to the museum and saw an effigy figure there and told Miss Keller about it being stolen. She said Miss Keller could identify Fred. It didn’t make sense at the time, but it does now. Miss Keller can positively identify Fred, but she can also identify Claudia as the one who made those suspicious inquiries about the effigy figure. If she killed Fred, what’s one more death to get rid of the witnesses who could tie her to Fred?”

  Cortez felt sick. He’d made that remark himself, about Phoebe and the effigy figure, right in front of Bennett’s sister in the hope of luring the real killer to the cabin. But that was when he’d assumed Phoebe would be safe and sound at the motel!

  “I’ll testify against her,” Bennett said solemnly, “if you can catch her before she does anything more tragic.”

  “How was Fred killed?” Walks Far asked curiously.

  “He was shot in the back of the head at close range,” Cortez told him. “I’d speculate that your wife had him stoop down to look at something and then shot him.”

  Walks Far had to agree. “She’d do anything to stay out of prison. She’s terrified of it. Not that it’s ever stopped her from taking what she wanted.” He shook his head and winced at the pain. “I never should have taken the rap for her the first time. If she’d had to face the consequences of her actions, perhaps it would never have gone this far. Two men are dead.”

  “I’m afraid it will take more than a false confession to get her out of this,” he said, turning. “I’m sorry. I’ve got probable cause and I’m going to take out a warrant for her arrest as quickly as I can.”

  “It’s the only thing left to do,” Bennett agreed. “I’m sorry I didn’t level with you sooner. She’s the only living relative I have left,” he added curtly.

  Cortez remembered his own brother, Isaac, and the boy’s brushes with the law until the final one that took his life. “I understand better than you realize.”

  “And I’m sorry. I didn’t let on about the professor being my cousin when you first showed me his picture,” Walks Far said sheepishly. “I was afraid it would incriminate me, and I wanted to do some digging myself before I went to the authorities.”

  Cortez nodded. “Thanks for clearing everything up. I’ll be in touch.”

  CORTEZ WENT to the superior court judge’s office and spoke to the man, laying out his evidence. The judge was convinced that arresting Miss Bennett was the next logical step to take.

  He walked out of the courthouse with the warrant and called the sheriff’s office, asking for Drake.

  “You need to watch Phoebe as carefully as you can,” Cortez told him when they were connected. “I’ve just taken out a warrant for the arrest of Bennett’s sister for the murder of Fred Norton, the so-called art dealer who sold Phoebe the effigy figure. She’s the only person who can positively identify the art dealer and Miss Bennett and tie them together with the murders. Her life is going to be in danger until I have Miss Bennett in custody.”

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. I’ve got some more news,” Drake said quietly. “Miss Bennett drives a black SUV with a worn tread.”

  Cortez’s heart jumped. “Phoebe’s at the museum, isn’t she?”

  Drake groaned. “That’s why I was trying to find you!”

  “Tell me!” Cortez said at once.

  “Phoebe left a message for me about thirty minutes ago. I was away from the radio on a call and I just got it. She took off an hour early to do some pruning in her rose garden. She’s at her house, alone!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CORTEZ FELT HIS HEART SINK. “She’s alone?” he repeated it as if he couldn’t believe it.

  “I’m on my way out there right now,” Drake promised. “You go and get the Bennett woman. Trust me. I won’t let anything happen to Phoebe!”

  “All right,” Cortez said heavily.

  “Listen, Phoebe and I are friends,” Drake added curtly. “That’s all we’ve ever been. We thought maybe Tina had something going with you…”

  “Tina’s my first cousin,” Cortez interrupted grimly. “Her father and my father are brothers.”

  Drake felt sick. “She was rude to Phoebe, hateful. Phoebe and I talked about it. It didn’t make sense unless she was jealous of the time you were spending with Phoebe. She started talking about you constantly, how great you were. We didn’t know you were first cousins. We thought she’d decided she wanted you instead of me.”

  “She was jealous, you idiot!” Cortez shot back. “She’s in love with you!”

  There was an audible intake of breath. “She…she is? She loves me?”

  Cortez smiled in spite of himself. “That kiss she saw you share with Phoebe tore her up.”

  “Well!” Drake felt elated. “And it was only a little kiss on the forehead, too!”

  Cortez felt better. It was all a misunderstanding. He could get Phoebe back, and could explain it to her. But first, they had to make sure she was protected. “Get out there and keep Phoebe safe! I’m going to work.”

  “You bet!” Drake said at once.

  “And get a BOLO out on that SUV, just in case,” he added, meaning a “be on the lookout for” radio alert. “I’ll swing by the local police department and have an officer go to Bennett’s house with me to serve the warrant. I’ll be on my way to Bennett’s. His sister and Walks Far were staying with him.”

  “Will do.”

  He h
ung up, got into his car, and broke speed limits getting out of town.

  PHOEBE WAS GLAD to have a little time to herself. The breakup with Cortez, the argument with Tina and the pressures of her job had combined to make her miserable. She’d planned to do some long-needed pruning in her rose garden. But she couldn’t do it in her flimsy gray slacks and white shell blouse under the suit coat she was wearing with flat dress shoes. She’d have to change first. She still had the pistol Drake had loaned her and she was fairly certain the killer or killers wouldn’t be crazy enough to go after her in broad daylight.

  But when she walked into her house, after shedding her jacket and purse, she heard an ominous click as she walked past the hallway into the kitchen.

  “Just hold it right there,” a woman’s voice said from behind her.

  Phoebe didn’t have to be told who it was. She recognized the voice. She started to turn.

  “Don’t do it,” the woman said, sounding cold and calculating. “I’ve killed before, I can do it again. You just head right out the back door. Don’t stop.”

  “My jacket,” Phoebe said, hesitating.

  “You won’t need it where you’re going,” came the sarcastic reply. “Open the door.”

  Phoebe did, with her heart racing, trying to be alert so that she could take advantage of any opportunity she got to escape. She couldn’t outrun a bullet, though. She ground her teeth together. Maybe, once they were underway…

  There was a black SUV out of sight behind the corner of the house. The blond woman jerked open the back door and stood too far away for Phoebe to grab at the gun.

  “Get in,” she said, motioning with the pistol. A .45 caliber one, Phoebe noticed, and the woman held it with a very professional grip.

  Phoebe turned her back to climb up into the SUV when she felt a sudden hard blow, and the lights went out.

  SHE CAME TO VERY SLOWLY. She felt the vehicle slow down and stop. Her eyes opened. There were trees. Fir trees. They were in a forest. There was a mountain nearby.

  Claudia Bennett Walks Far jerked open the back door. The .45 was clenched tightly in her hand. “Get out,” she rasped.

  Phoebe’s head was splitting. She felt sick at her stomach. But she knew the woman was going to kill her. She had to think of a way to save herself in time.

  “Get out!” Claudia raged, jerking at her foot violently. “You’ve ruined everything, you and your FBI boyfriend! I had to kill Fred because of you, damn you! He was going to leave me and take the artifacts for himself! He’d already killed that archaeologist. I told him not to move that stash for a year, but he got greedy and sold you an effigy figure. I got scared and thought maybe I could get you to point him out and get him arrested. But it backfired. He knew you could identify him and he lost his nerve! He was going to take the stash and run for it and leave me holding the bag. He was going to tell everybody I killed that archaeologist,” she sneered. “Well, I wasn’t about to go to prison. Now he’s dead, thanks to you, and you’re the last witness who can connect me to anybody. So you have to be got out of the way. I’m not going to prison. I’m getting out of here!”

  Phoebe was thinking as she slid out of the big SUV. She leaned against the side of it, as if she could barely stand up.

  “Get moving!” Claudia raged, poking her in the back with the gun.

  If she could turn, whip around and hit that gun…

  Claudia moved back and cocked the pistol.

  Phoebe pushed herself drowsily away from the big vehicle and started walking down a dirt road.

  “That way, down the path,” Claudia motioned her into a grove of oak and hemlock trees.

  It was getting dark. Snow was blowing around them. It was freezing cold and the frigid winds seeped right through Phoebe’s sleeveless blouse. She rubbed her arms and shivered.

  “You won’t be cold for long,” Claudia laughed with black humor. “Keep walking.”

  “What good will it do to kill me?” Phoebe tried reasoning with her. “You can get away!”

  “You can identify me. Nobody else can.”

  “You’re insane,” Phoebe muttered. “By now, they’ll probably have connected you to the murder and traced this SUV to you. It’s all over. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

  “I’ll get away. They’ll be too busy looking for you to look for me,” she said with chilling certainty.

  “I’ll be missed…”

  “Not right away. You’re home early, aren’t you? I called the museum to see where you were. Your assistant was so helpful,” she added, laughing.

  They were under a big oak tree now. There was a series of slight ridges that fell down a hill that seemed to go on forever, from one leaf-blanketed level to another. There were holly bushes and scrub pine and fallen trees all around. Phoebe’s heart was racing madly. Maybe if she ran…

  “Stop!” Claudia called at once.

  Phoebe felt the woman close behind. She had to be quick. She had to be accurate. She couldn’t afford to hesitate even for a second.

  “Get down on your knees,” Claudia said firmly.

  Phoebe’s head turned toward her bravely. “Haven’t you got the guts to look me in the eyes while you kill me?” she taunted.

  Claudia’s eyes darkened with fury. “Get on your knees!” she screamed, fumbling the pistol to a higher position.

  “Right now there’s a chance you might escape the death penalty,” Phoebe said as she got down to her knees. Her heart was raging in her chest. It might be her last few seconds of life. She was keenly aware of the danger. “If you give yourself up…”

  “I’ve already killed one person!” Claudia said angrily. “What’s one more? They can’t kill you twice, can they?”

  She played her last card. “Listen, my fiancé is with the FBI.” She felt herself shivering with mingled fear and cold. “If you kill me, he’ll hunt you down if it’s the last thing he ever does in this life.” As she said it, she realized it was the truth. She’d been stupid to believe he could go from her to any other woman. He loved her. She loved him. If only she’d had time to tell him one last time…

  “I don’t care” came the cold reply. Claudia took a long, steadying breath and lowered the barrel of the pistol until the back of Phoebe’s head filled her frame of vision.

  Phoebe heard that telltale breath. She knew what was coming. It was now or never, the last chance she’d get to save herself. If she hesitated, her life was gone. She spared one last thought for the consequences, because she was likely to die no matter what she did. Her life didn’t flash before her, though. She didn’t have time for memories. She didn’t have time for anything.

  With a silent prayer for help, all at once, she pivoted and threw her arm up as hard as she could, twisting her upper body at the same time. Her forearm connected sharply with Claudia’s forearm. Claudia cried out with surprise and pain as the heavy pistol went flying through the air, over the ridge and down into the detritus and leaf mounds below.

  While Claudia was momentarily shocked speechless, Phoebe took off at a dead run, throwing her body over the ridge and tucking her head as she rolled and rolled and rolled. Her head was really throbbing and she couldn’t see as well as normal. But at least she’d escaped for the moment. If only Claudia didn’t have another gun hidden in that big SUV, she might get away.

  “No!” Claudia screamed. “You bitch!”

  Phoebe tucked her head and flattened her body, ignoring her throbbing head and the nausea that welled in her throat. She closed her eyes and thought about Cortez, about the day they met, about his strength and comforting arms. She would love him forever…

  “I’ll get you!” Claudia raged. She struggled down the first shallow bank and looked around for the pistol. She kicked at the leaves, trying to find it, but she couldn’t see it. The clouds were getting thicker now, the sky was darkening. It was spitting snow.

  “Come back here!” Claudia screamed furiously. She stopped, panting from her exertions, and looked around her wildly. Sh
e looked a little more, but she was wearing high heels and a neat gray suit, hardly the outfit for the forest.

  “What the hell!” she spat. “You’ll freeze to death out here, anyway. You don’t even know where you are! Rot in hell, you bitch!”

  She ran back to the SUV, climbed in, started the engine and roared off with a blaze of dust lifting behind her.

  Phoebe was tempted to get right up and follow the SUV out of the forest. But she wasn’t certain that Claudia wouldn’t come back, just to check and see if she’d peeked out and made herself a target. There was every possibility that the woman would come back, just in case Phoebe got brave enough to stick her head up.

  Sure enough, not five minutes later, the SUV roared back down the dirt road and screeched to a halt just above where Phoebe was lying perfectly still, not moving.

  The SUV sat there, the engine idling, for another five minutes. Then, all at once, it turned and roared away.

  But Phoebe still gave it another few minutes before she moved. The snow was really coming down now, and the heat of adrenaline had left her. She was freezing. Being out in the elements all night might kill her. Hypothermia was deadly. She didn’t have anything to cover herself with. Her arms were bare and the slacks were lightweight. She’d probably freeze to death. She didn’t know where she was. Neither did anybody else. Surely Cortez and Drake would search for her, but there wasn’t much chance that they’d find her out here in the wilderness in time.

  She sat up, listening, as the sky slowly began to darken. But the SUV didn’t come back. The other woman didn’t return this time.

  Now it was a question of whether to stay put or try to walk out. Nobody had any idea where she was. If she stayed in the forest, she might die there. It was deep in the woods, she knew that already. Probably it was in the national forest. There were black bears at this altitude. Cougars had been seen. There were bobcats and even coyotes and wolves in the deserted places.