Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  “She’s not exactly undercover,” he amended. “Only supposed to nose around to see what one Navajo can find out.”

  Lucas nodded again. He knew all about the problems the Navajo nation had been having with the coal mines that supplied the Mohave Generating Plant. He himself was ambivalent about letting a white man’s coal company rip Dineh treasure right out of the earth, destroying precious groundwater in the process.

  He admitted the coal mines had brought jobs that were desperately needed. But at what price?

  “But Teal doesn’t know…” Lucas hesitated, not sure what he could say about the sincere and intense young woman agent. “Well, she doesn’t know a lot about Dinetah, and doesn’t have a good grasp of the language. How is she supposed to find out anything?”

  “That sort of fact doesn’t usually hold much sway in Washington. They think because she looks like a redskin…and she was born on the rez—send her.”

  “Hmm. She could get herself in a world of trouble wandering around out here alone.”

  Kody nodded sadly. “Yeah, but…”

  Suddenly, Lucas’s senses picked up. Teal was already in trouble. He jumped, turning to head in her direction—as a light came rushing toward them out of the dark.

  “Omigosh,” she said, out of breath, when she appeared behind the flashlight beam. “You’ve got to come.”

  “What’s up?” Kody asked warily, as he stood.

  “It’s…it’s…” She put her hands on her knees and gulped for breath.

  Lucas fully expected to hear that something evil had attacked her. Or at least that she’d seen a strange wild animal or bird that had scared her again. He prepared himself to begin chanting the sacred words that could ward off a Skinwalker attack.

  “In that truck,” she finally blurted out.

  Kody took her by the shoulders. “What is it? What did you see?”

  “A guy’s dead in there.” Now that Lucas could study her, she seemed more enthusiastic than frightened.

  “Really,” she gasped. “I checked. He’s definitely dead.”

  3

  C ould this night possibly get any worse? From the very moment she’d fallen on the shale path, everything had gone downhill.

  Pun deliberately intended, Teal chided herself. What a doofus she’d been. First she had to be rescued from a potentially fatal fall. Then she’d found the dead body—and immediately begun acting like the rookie she was. Ah, hell.

  It wasn’t like she had never seen a corpse before. She had. A couple of times. But the shock of it had reminded her too much of a similar trauma from a long time ago. One she was constantly trying to keep out of her conscious mind.

  Good thing Kody had made finding a body sound like an ordinary occurrence. His professional demeanor had quieted her anxiety in a hurry.

  “How do you know the guy’s dead and not sleeping one off?” Kody asked as he and Lucas accompanied her back through the brush and sand to the old panel truck.

  She had to find at least a piece of dignity in this whole fiasco. “There’s no smell of alcohol and he’s not breathing. I checked his carotid artery for a pulse.” She shrugged like a pro who thought this wasn’t anything unusual. “Nothing there.”

  Not much to say to redeem herself from the near misstep. Except…she’d had the presence of mind to actually put on latex gloves before she’d opened the driver’s-side door. That should count for something.

  “Any signs of violence?” Lucas asked from directly behind her.

  The darned man was dogging her steps like he needed to remain within saving distance. As if, at any moment she would make some stupid move and need his help again. What on earth was she going to do about him?

  They arrived in the circle of lights beside the truck. “No,” she answered, as she slowed her steps. “And since you’re not a real officer of the law, you’d better stay back. Don’t touch anything. Please.”

  Lucas grunted but stopped where he was. After flipping him a rolled-eyed look, she caught an expression in his eyes that stopped her, too. It appeared that, at least to him, she was the most competent FBI agent who had ever lived. The respectful gaze, full of admiration, threw her off balance yet again.

  She didn’t often see that kind of look in the expressions of the males around her. But when she spotted it on Lucas’s face, her heart recognized the sentiment—and appreciated it maybe more than was totally proper.

  Since she still had the gloves on, it was decided that she be the one to open the door wider so that they could more closely inspect the body. Kody seemed to be letting her take the lead in this investigation.

  As another Special Agent who’d been in the field much longer, he was beginning to earn her respect and grateful admiration. And as for his cousin…Well, she still wasn’t sure about the cousin.

  The body was slumped over the steering wheel. It was hard to tell the dead man’s age from this angle. About the only thing that could easily be seen was a wide back, clothed in a beige windbreaker. On closer inspection, though, he had on jeans, work boots and no hat. His hair appeared to be dark brown with no visible gray, but that wasn’t always a good indicator of age.

  “Strange,” Kody said from over her shoulder. “Looks like he stopped here to rest and simply died. Let’s take a few preliminary forensics photos before going any further. Okay, Special Agent?” He pulled a camera from his pack and snapped a couple of shots.

  “Right,” she said briskly. “Thanks. There sure don’t seem to be any signs of violence. No blood. No damage to the windshield or vehicle. No obvious wounds. Maybe he had a heart attack.”

  “Perhaps a closer look, Special Agent?”

  The words had come from Lucas and sent another chill down the back of her neck. Both she and Kody turned at the sound of his voice. Lucas’s facial expression was grim. His whole body was tensed.

  “What are you saying?”

  “You are only seeing one view of this man’s story. I had a dream of such a thing and believe there is more here to understand.”

  The FBI had full authority to investigate all unnatural deaths on federal reservations. If this was murder, it would be in Teal’s jurisdiction.

  She shrugged at Lucas’s cryptic words and turned back to the man’s body. She checked the jacket pockets, looking for ID, but came up empty. Then she took hold of the body by the shoulders and laid the man faceup across the front seat, with boots sticking out the door.

  Sure enough, there it was. A small-caliber bullet hole—right smack in the middle of the guy’s forehead.

  “I’d say that looks plenty violent,” Kody mumbled.

  “Yeah,” she reluctantly agreed. “I guess this is an official crime scene.” Teal looked over her shoulder at Lucas and frowned. “Now I suppose I understand.”

  The first thing flashing in her mind was how Lucas Tso had known the way the man died. With the very few things she knew about him, though, she felt instinctively positive that Lucas could not be the one who shot this guy. No way.

  But then, how had he known? Had he witnessed something before he saved her life that he wasn’t telling? She was definitely not ready to concede Kody’s statement that Lucas was some kind of psychic or fortune-teller. That idea was too crazy to contemplate.

  “I’ve got crime scene tape in my pickup,” Kody told her. “I’ll go get it. I can call this in for you, too. If you want.”

  Nodding again, Teal wondered why Kody seemed so anxious to get away from her. The whole tense scene here at the truck was needlessly putting her nerves on edge.

  She knew they were safe. Obviously, the murderer was long gone. In fact…

  “Tell the office dispatcher that the dead man was killed somewhere else and the body was placed here,” she called after Kody. “There’s not enough blood around or in the truck for this to be the murder scene. He was shot, and probably cleaned up, then driven here for us to find. I’ll want a forensic tech for both fingerprints and footprints, and I need a complete rundown on where
this truck has been lately.”

  Kody nodded sharply and moved out of the light, heading back toward his pickup.

  “Huh. He’s sure acting odd all of a sudden,” she mumbled to herself.

  “Not really,” Lucas said quietly from beside her. “Kody is acting perfectly normal for a Navajo.”

  “Do you mean he’s upset that I’m taking the lead on this investigation? Is it because I’m a woman?”

  “You don’t know much about your own people, do you?”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  “Your heritage will be important to you while you’re on the reservation. Sometimes the difference between life and death. You need a few lessons. Shall I give you this one?”

  She didn’t want to be rude to him, but this was a murder investigation, and not the time for lessons. “Can I continue to check the body over while you talk?”

  Turning her back with the hope that Lucas would keep quiet, she began patting down the body. She checked the man’s pockets again and looked to see if anything might be hidden under the clothes.

  Lucas hesitated only a few seconds before beginning his lecture. “Well, first off, the Dineh are a traditionally matriarchal society,” he told her. “A Navajo would never begrudge a woman any position—especially not one of power. Kody wouldn’t mind it if you were even his supervisor. That isn’t how he was raised.”

  Mumbling as a response to Lucas’s words, Teal went right on giving the scene a good once-over. She checked in the glove box and under the front seat. Except for an AAA map and a flashlight, the box was empty. Under the front seat she found a mess. She wondered about what other kinds of things might be under there with the thrown-away soda cups and the remnants of half-eaten burgers and fries.

  A few minutes of fruitless searching later, and she’d found nothing potentially dangerous. And she hadn’t found identification to tell her who the dead man was, or even who the owner of the truck might be.

  And unfortunately, there were no small-caliber weapons hidden around the place, either.

  “Kody was not uncomfortable with you, but with the body,” Lucas continued. “The Dineh have a long tradition and particular views about death and burials. Corpses are not for viewing. They’re not even a subject for polite conversation.” He said the words while keeping his distance, but he never turned away.

  “Yes, I remember when my father died,” she interrupted, but immediately wished she’d kept her mouth shut. There didn’t seem to be any choice now but to explain. “When they recovered his body they buried him real quick. With very little ceremony.”

  “Recovered the body? How’d your father die?”

  “Drowned.” She’d said the word too bluntly and worried she should’ve seemed less intense. “I mean, he was a victim of a drowning accident. They had to send divers to look for his body.”

  Again there was a quiet moment when Lucas apparently took time to consider what had been said, and what he would say in response. But he surprised her with his next comment.

  “Do you have one of those tiny plastic bag things used for collecting samples with you?”

  “Huh? Why?” It was the first time in a while that she had turned her full attention to look at Lucas.

  He was standing where she’d last seen him. His body language said he was composed and interested. But he was studying her with an intensity that drove a spark up her spine.

  So tall. So fine-looking, with all that dark hair and those stunning cheekbones…

  But those weren’t exactly the thoughts that an FBI special agent should be having in the middle of her investigation. Teal surreptitiously pinched her own thigh. Hard enough to bring tears to her eyes and her thoughts back around to the job at hand.

  Lucas pointed to the man’s boots. “Unusual things should be double-checked.”

  She opened her mouth to utter one more “huh?” but stopped and swallowed it back. Instead, she bent to study the filthy walking boots that were sticking out the door.

  What was so unusual about a man wearing dirty boots? So the guy hadn’t wasted the energy to polish them. So what?

  It took a few minutes of staring at mud and stickers stuck to the edges of the man’s soles for her to finally notice what she’d actually been seeing. The thing Lucas had wanted her to notice.

  “The boots are muddy,” she declared. “Where do you suppose he found mud to step in? It hasn’t rained in weeks.” Turning to Lucas for confirmation, she said. “At least not that I know of. Isn’t that right?”

  “It’s been unusually dry for this time of year in Dinetah. And even if it had rained, the ground is so porous and rocky around here that the water drains off in a hurry.”

  Well, she guessed it was time for her to put aside her aches and pains—and her insecurities—and really get down to work. It looked like this investigation was going to put her training to the test.

  An hour later and two hundred miles north of Teal’s crime scene, the dangerous and evil man who was known as the Navajo Wolf greeted one of his newest lieutenants. The Wolf followed the new man into the study of his favorite mansion—the one that sat high on a bluff of the Colorado Plateau overlooking the San Juan River.

  It was all the Wolf could do to keep from grimacing at the sight of the new witch soldier who was currently wearing his Skinwalker persona. God, what a choice for the lieutenant to have made. A burrowing owl?

  Despite the rumors of witchcraft that had surrounded the owl for generations, the damn thing was too—ugh—cute. Except for those piercing yellow eyes. They couldn’t compare to the Navajo Wolf’s legendary yellow eyes, of course, but they were credible enough for a Skinwalker witch soldier.

  The Owl turned back into his humble and bumbling human form so he could talk to his boss. “Our operation is a success so far. It looks as though the FBI will be opening a full investigation at the coal mines now that a murder has been committed. And we’ve gotten lucky. At least two, and maybe more, of the Brotherhood appear to be interested in that murder, as well.”

  The Wolf tried to keep from barking his elation. “Excellent. We must have more diversions. That map, my map, disappeared somewhere along the river. Probably back in one of those caves. The Dog who thought he would steal it from me died before he could reveal his hiding place.

  “But I feel that we’re getting closer,” the Wolf added with a twitch of his lips. “I don’t want anyone interfering with our search. You keep circling the mine area. Continue looking out for the most damage and havoc you can cause.”

  “Yes, sir. But I’m having some trouble with the Bird People. No matter how unassuming I try to be in the air so I can hide, they always seem to know I’m not really one of them.”

  The Wolf gritted his teeth and stared down at his own hands. Cracked, raw and with the nails curling ever closer to real claws, his hands told the story he didn’t want to admit. Even to himself. He was losing control.

  It had gotten so bad lately that every time he changed over from his human form, he came back sicker and sicker. His skin was permanently pock-marked, his heart raced whenever he lay down. And his mind…

  Few memories remained. But memory was of no consequence. He growled, snapping his jaw with a sneer.

  The map. If he didn’t get his hands on the map, someone would pay. He knew the elusive map would ultimately lead him to the rest of the parchments. He was absolutely sure of it.

  And the sacred parchments held the final secrets that the Skinwalkers must have. The keys to unlocking the ancient chants and potions necessary for their eternal life. And those same parchments would cure them of the physical afflictions currently plaguing all the Skinwalkers whenever they changed form too often.

  He waved away the Owl’s nonsensical objections and nearly bit the bird’s head off. “Do whatever you have to. And keep using the more Anglo-styled weapons for your diversions. Like pistols and dynamite. The very things that will make the Brotherhood believe their trouble has nothing to do with us.

 
; “In fact,” he continued, grinding out his evil demands. “Infiltrate one of the environmental protest groups that are causing minor troubles around the mines. Those amateur ecoterrorists should be thrilled to have a real Navajo join their cause. Maybe we can use them to our advantage.”

  The Owl agreed and quickly left. No one wanted to be in the presence of the crazed Navajo Wolf for very long.

  Well, the Owl was an idiot. A necessary idiot for the time being, perhaps. But ultimately he was expendable. The entire army of Skinwalkers would be expendable. The Wolf didn’t need any of them and would gladly find a way to get rid of them all when the time came.

  All he needed…all he could concentrate on anymore…was locating that damned map.

  The ambulance carrying the body bag had long since gone, along with the agents, paramedics and technicians who’d been dragged out of their beds to come to the scene. Even Kody had finally headed home in the early hours of morning.

  Teal stayed behind, waiting for daylight and the clean-up forensics team to show up to finish gathering evidence and haul the truck away to their impound facility. When she had simply refused to leave, wanting to take no chance of letting anyone or anything destroy evidence at her crime scene, Lucas remained behind, too.

  “You didn’t have to stay with me,” she said irritably. Lucas was sitting next to her on the flat rock. “I am not your responsibility. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

  “Of course you are,” he said as amicably as possible.

  He didn’t want to argue with her. He wanted them to become friends. There was some predestined reason he’d been dreaming about her since the age of twelve, and he was determined to find out why before he let her out of his sight for very long.

  His gut told him he was meant to save her life, probably from a Skinwalker attack. That had to be the reason he’d dreamed of her for so many years.

  It was still the dark of night. The hours right before dawn were always the most dangerous for Skinwalker activity. He would never have allowed her to stay out here alone before daylight.