Turquoise Guardian

by Jenna Kernan

  She hesitated only a moment and then did as he asked.

  “Do you still have a weapon?” she asked.

  “They took it.” He motioned to the counter and sink that jutted from the wall. “Back behind that.”

  Amber wedged herself into the gap between the white refrigerator and end of the countertop with the wood grain Formica finish. Carter flicked off the lights and watched the door.

  “What should we do?” she whispered.

  “Wait.”

  They listened in silence to the voices. There were no more shots. Carter glanced to Amber who now squatted with one hand on the refrigerator and the other gripping the edge of the counter.

  She told him about the man she glimpsed, the one with the black eye.

  “You think it was Muir?”

  She nodded.

  This didn’t make any sense. They were in a police station. They were supposed to be safe.

  Someone opened a door down the hall. Carter couldn’t see who without revealing their position.

  “She’s not here,” said the unfamiliar voice. Was it the officer assigned to protect her or someone else?

  Carter lifted a finger to his lips, and Amber nodded.

  He backed away from the door as the footsteps approached. Doors opened. The footsteps again. A heavy tread. The door burst open, and Carter sprang. The intruder flicked on the light before Carter hit him in the chest carrying them both into the hall.

  * * *

  AMBER CROUCHED AGAINST the wall. She could see Carter’s legs but not the man in the hall.

  “I’m a cop,” said the downed man.

  “What are you doing?” asked Carter.

  Amber moved out to see Carter gripping the lapels of the man’s blazer in both fists.

  “Looking for the woman. The idiot plebe left her.”

  Amber recognized a Texas accent, and her skin prickled. She stood and peered around the refrigerator to see an Anglo man in a dress shirt, slacks and tie, now askew. A badge was clipped to his hip beside his empty holster. The man’s gaze flicked to her. Carter’s gaze did not waver, so he must have seen the odd look the man cast her. She couldn’t define it, but thought it seemed a sort of triumph, like a boy finding the last person in a game of hide-and-seek.

  His attention shifted to Carter. “I said I’m a police officer. Detective Casey, DPD.”

  “Get my brother,” ordered Carter.

  “I have to take y’all somewhere secure,” he said.

  Carter didn’t move. Had he picked up the accent?

  “We’re secure. Now get my brother.”

  “Y’all need to give me my gun back.”

  Carter shook his head and aimed the gun at the detective.

  “It’s a crime, what you’re doing.”

  Carter didn’t move, and he didn’t lower his gun.

  Detective Casey pursed his lips and blasted a great exhalation of breath.

  “My brother?” Carter prompted.

  “Sure.”

  He retreated a step. Amber wanted to ask what was happening but also did not want that man to linger any longer.

  Finally Casey released the door and stepped out of sight. Carter did not holster his weapon. Instead he took a position before her, pressing her body against the wall.

  “Texas accent,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  The voices outside had quieted, and so it was easy to hear the footsteps. More than one person, she judged. Amber drew a breath and held it. Who was out there now?

  “Carter? Amber? It’s Jack. Are you two still in there?”

  Amber’s shoulders sagged, and the wind left her. She wrapped her arms about Carter’s middle and pressed her cheek to his broad muscular back.

  “Yes,” he called, making his voice vibrate against her face.

  “Can we come in?”

  “Who?”

  “Me, Forrest, Chief Tinnin and Detective Casey from Darabee.”

  “Just you,” replied Carter.

  Amber released him, coming to stand at his side. Carter lowered his weapon.

  Jack entered, and Carter holstered his gun. Jack made a face.

  “I have to take that,” he said, motioning to the pistol holstered at Carter’s hip.

  “I don’t think so,” said Carter.

  “You almost shot one of their officers.”

  Carter shook his head. “Guy had a Texas accent.”

  Jack’s brow quirked, and Amber knew he understood the implications of that.

  “What happened out there?” asked Carter.

  Jack rubbed his neck as he answered. “Someone shot our suspect.”

  “Shot?” said Carter. “In a police station. How would that happen?”

  “Happened to Lee Harvey Oswald.”

  Carter glared.

  Jack filled them in. “Just outside the station, as they were bringing him in,” said Jack.

  “They brought him in the front door?” asked Carter.

  “We didn’t. It was Darabee’s bust, and they wanted to show him off.”

  “So they brought him past the news cameras.”

  Jack looked positively grim during his explanation.

  “We have his killer in custody,” said Jack.

  “Well, hurrah,” said Carter.

  “What about the suspect?” asked Amber.

  “Dead.”

  “Jack, Amber thinks she saw the guy that took us. The one I kicked in the eye.”

  “Where?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Carter paced from one side of the small staff room to the other. The FBI and Darabee PD had searched the station for the man Amber said she saw but came up empty. If he had been here, he was here no longer.

  Agent Forrest had joined them as well as Tribal Chief Tinnin and the Darabee chief of police, Jefferson Rowe. Amber sat at one of the lunch tables, and he stood next her. Jack flanked Amber’s other side as they faced Forrest, Rowe and Tinnin.

  “That’s just great,” said Carter. “The shooting suspect is dead, and you can’t find the two men who kidnapped us yesterday.”

  “What about the guy, the one who came to the door? He had a Texas accent.”

  “Yeah,” said Chief Rowe. “He’s one of mine. Detective Eli Casey. He came to find you two when your guard left his post.”

  Carter and Jack exchanged a look. Having a Texas accent wasn’t a crime, but he knew Jack was on it.

  “He have a brother?” asked Jack.

  Rowe’s eyes narrowed. “Not sure. Why?”

  Amber broke in. “But he’s dead. The shooter from Lilac, I mean. So they don’t need us as witnesses. Right? We can go home.”

  Carter glanced at Amber and saw the weariness in her posture and in the dark smudges under her eyes.

  “We still need you,” said Forrest. “We need a positive ID on the suspect to start.”

  “But he’s...” Amber’s eyes widened and then her gaze flashed to Carter. He made it to her in two steps and grabbed a hold of her arm as she swayed. She slipped her hands around his biceps and squeezed. He tried to ignore the aching want that she triggered. Amber was done in by a day that would bring most women to hysterics.

  “We can use photos,” said Forrest, talking fast, his hands raised to assuage Amber’s obvious agitation.

  “You don’t have to view the body,” added Rowe.

  At the word body, Amber’s strength finally went out. Carter caught her, drew her in and held on.

  “We’d like to move you back to the...ah, the room you just vacated,” said Forrest.

  “The interrogation room? The one that locks from the outside?” asked Carter. “Nope. That won’t w
ork for us. Bring the photos here. And get Amber a water or something.”

  Carter helped Amber to a seat at one of the circular tables and drew up a chair next to her. She sagged against him, and he curled an arm around her waist.

  “I’ve never seen a dead body,” she whispered.

  “I’ll be right here.”

  He glanced at Rowe who shook his head. “She needs to make the ID separately from you.”

  Amber shuddered and buried her face in Carter’s chest. He stroked her head as she struggled to bring her breathing back under control. The water arrived in a plastic bottle, and Carter coaxed her to drink. By slow degrees she pulled herself together. She sipped her water, and Carter kept an arm around her narrow shoulders and his eyes on her.

  “It will be all right,” he said.

  She turned her dark, worried eyes on him. “Will it?”

  He nodded. “I’m not letting you go, Amber. We’ll get through this together.”

  By the time Jack returned with Tinnin, Amber was sitting erect with an expression of grim determination on her face. He’d seen that same expression on his mother’s face before she went in for some outpatient surgery. It was that “let’s get this over with” look.

  Jack spoke in a soothing tone, or what passed for soothing. Jack’s voice was too gruff to be comforting, but he managed to kick it down from threatening to neutral.

  “They have the photos ready,” said Jack. “Carter, you’re first.”

  Carter stood. “I’m not leaving her alone.”

  “I’ll...” Jack turned to the door. “I’ll stay. Two of Rowe’s men have the door. That work?”

  “That guy Casey doesn’t come in here,” said Carter.

  “All right,” said Rowe.

  “Then I’ll be quick.” He turned to Amber. “You be all right?”

  She lifted her chin and gave a stiff little nod. He’d never met a braver woman. Damn but she was magnificent.

  With that he gave Amber’s hand a squeeze and followed Chief Rowe out to see if he could make an ID of the prime suspect in the Lilac Copper Mine shooting.

  * * *

  AMBER WAS ABSOLUTELY certain that she’d have nightmares featuring those faces for a long time to come.

  Amber had been nervous about the ID. But it was simple to spot the man who she had seen outside Mr. Ibsen’s home and again yesterday afternoon. The harder part was knowing that she looked at the face of a dead man. They were all dead, each photo of a man about the same age, weight and ethnicity and all a little too pale, grayish and glassy-eyed to still be breathing.

  “That’s just great,” said Jefferson Rowe, the chief of the Darabee police force. He seemed to realize he needed a shave, because he scratched at the whiskers that were mostly black.

  “Is that all?” she asked.

  He gave her a long look. “All for now. I’m sure the Feds will be taking you to a safe house. We’ve suggested a few spots, but I think they’re going back to the same hotel you were in on Tuesday night. Nice place, I hear.”

  She didn’t like his smile, and it took a moment to realize that was because it didn’t reach his eyes. They were a glacial blue and just as welcoming.

  The chief glanced at Field Agent Forrest, but he neither confirmed nor denied Rowe’s surmise. Now Amber did smile at Forrest’s poker face.

  “Can I ask you about the man who killed him?” asked Amber.

  The chief’s jaw pulsed as his teeth came together.

  “Active investigation,” he said.

  Of course the shooting had happened on this man’s watch, right here in front of his police station. Judging by the color of his face, he found that embarrassing, and well he should.

  Forrest led her out, and a second federal officer flanked her other side as they walked down the hall.

  “His name is Karl Hooke,” said Forrest, answering her question. “And he’s a member of the Turquoise Canyon Tribe.”

  “What?” She couldn’t believe that. It made no sense for someone from their tribe to want to murder the man who attacked a copper mine. “Did he have family there, in Lilac?”

  Forrest shook his head.

  “Then why?”

  Agent Forrest took her elbow and guided her along. “We aim to find out.”

  She stopped. “Wait. Hooke. Not Morgan Hooke’s father.”

  Forrest narrowed his eyes on her. “He has one child. A daughter, and her name is Morgan.”

  Amber reeled. “I know her. Or I did know her, in high school.”

  Agent Forrest did not seem to like that at all.

  “You know her father.”

  “No, not really. Just by sight.”

  “So he wasn’t the driver or one of the men who abducted you?”

  She shook her head. “Those men were Anglos.”

  When she returned to the kitchenette, it was to find Carter and Jack Bear Den conversing in Apache. Carter was in body armor again, which meant they were moving.

  Carter broke away to greet her, taking both her icy hands in his. Just the sight of him made everything seem better.

  “How did it go?”

  “Good,” said Forrest for her. “She ID’d the same photo. We’re confirming with latents we have recovered, but we are reasonably sure he’s the one.”

  “What about the other men?” she asked. “His driver and the man who hit us last night.”

  Forrest stopped talking so Jack answered. From Agent Forrest’s sour look she assumed he did not approve.

  “We have a suspect. Searching for him now,” said Jack.

  And if they found him, they could find the other man.

  “That’s good,” she said finally allowing herself to smile. “Very good.”

  Jack seemed to want to say more, but Forrest stepped between them.

  “For tonight we are bringing you to a safe house. It’s more secure than a hotel.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “It’s on Turquoise Canyon Rez. We need you to put on this vest.”

  She’d worn the same vest on the trip here from Turquoise Canyon. She accepted Carter’s help suiting up in the body armor. They waited while final arrangements were made. Then they were led through the prisoner holding area and out through a side entrance to a waiting van. There Chief Rowe and several officers guarded the exit. By the vehicle waited two more unfamiliar FBI agents in blue windbreakers with bold yellow lettering announcing their affiliation. Amber gave them a good looking over, but there seemed nothing obvious out of order. Still she wouldn’t relax until she was back in some kind of building, preferably one on tribal land and with a steel door.

  Carter and Jack both stopped at once.

  She followed the direction of their gaze. They both gaped at the vehicle. This time they were moving in a Hummer. The really big kind.

  Amber glanced from one to the other. Both men had gone pale, and she recalled Carter telling her of the night they lost Hatch. They’d been in Humvees. Was that the same thing?

  “Carter?” she said, taking his elbow.

  He glanced at her, his face now covered with sweat.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Get in, Mr. Bear Den,” said Agent Forrest, his gaze shifting from them to scan the area. Amber understood the message. They were in danger here.

  “Carter, we have to go,” she said.

  He nodded and took a hesitant step forward.

  Jack did not move. She glanced back. “I’ll follow,” he said.

  He wasn’t getting in that Hummer. She could tell by the rounding of his eyes and his stiff frame. It was the first time she’d ever seen them afraid. Both of them.

  She helped Carter up and followed. Was she sitting in the spot where Hatch Yeager had been or was Car
ter?

  “Let’s go,” she said, still holding Carter’s arm.

  Forrest stood next to the opened side door. “What’s wrong?”

  “Insurgents attacked Carter and his brother in this sort of vehicle.”

  Forrest swore.

  Once they were both inside, the chief poked his head in, his smile broad and his blue eyes cold.

  “Good luck, you two, and good job today.” He turned to Agent Forrest, now moving up behind him. “Sure you shouldn’t go to that hotel? Seems safer to stay put.”

  “No changes,” said Forrest and swept up into the seat behind them.

  “Well, we’ll bring you to the boundary. Tinnin’s guys will have to take it from there.”

  Carter’s brother nodded, shouldering the responsibility, and then hurried off, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  Forrest’s partner climbed into the third row and closed the door. A few minutes later they were under way.

  They had not left the police lot before Agent Forrest told them to move. He wanted them in the back and both on the floor.

  “Why?” asked Carter.

  “Theory we are working,” said his partner.

  “Too many people know where you were seated.”

  She thought of all the police officers from the station. Did they think someone there was involved?

  Carter relocated first and sat on the floor, and she moved beside him. Forrest handed over helmets.

  “Really?” said Carter. But when Forrest and his partner put one on, Carter fixed one on Amber’s head and then his own.

  “We have an escort?” asked Carter.

  “Better,” said Forrest.

  The Hummer made a turn and Amber cuddled close to Carter who leaned against the door. He wrapped her up in his arms and pulled her onto his lap. Somehow the beating of his heart was more comforting than the Kevlar and helmet.

  “You okay?” she whispered.

  He pressed his nose into her neck and inhaled. “Now I am.”

  “Going to be a long ride this way,” she said to their escorts.

  “If we’re right it won’t be long,” said Forrest.

  “You want to fill us in down here?” said Carter.

  “Your brother, Jack, remembered Orson Casey because he arrested him once on tribal land. D and D. Texas boy, Bear Den said. Jack says he had priors. After the arrest, Orson’s brother came for him. Name’s Eli and he’s a police officer in Darabee.”