Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  “Special Agent Benaly, I’d like you to meet Councilman Ayze of the Navajo Nation Tribal Council.” Chris seemed willing to ignore her appearance, saying nothing as he indicated the more well-dressed and older of the two men.

  Teal nodded and tried a weak smile. But since the gray-haired gentleman made no move to stand or shake her hand, she folded her arms across her waist and tried to fade into the carpet.

  The younger of the two men stood then and came over to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you, Agent Benaly. I’m Ernest Sam, acting director of the Navajo Department of Public Safety. I understand you have been briefed on the problems we’ve been having out in the Black Mesa mine area?”

  Slipping her hand free of his grip, she answered, “Yes, Director Sam, I have been. But at the moment I’m trying to make a connection between the murdered man we found in Many Caves Canyon and the troubles around the mine.”

  “The young man who died was my assistant,” Councilman Ayze cut in without really turning to look at her. “He was also the son of a favored cousin on my Water’s Edge Clan side. A good man. A good husband and father.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Teal turned to her boss for confirmation.

  “Eddie Cohoe was the man’s name,” Chris told her. “His wife identified his body late last night.”

  “The one who died had called the councilman on the day he disappeared,” Director Sam began soberly. “He was agitated, but said he couldn’t explain over the phone. Councilman Ayze cleared his schedule for the next morning to meet with him, but the assistant never showed.”

  Teal couldn’t help but notice that neither Navajo man seemed willing to say the name of the deceased. She’d been warned of that particular tradition by the ME yesterday. It made her wonder what other traditions she might not know that could get her into real trouble with these two important men.

  “Well,” she hesitated, unwilling to say the wrong thing. “Uh, thank you for…”

  Mercifully Chris interrupted her. “Cohoe was the first one to notice the troubling new conspiracy going on inside the ranks of the environmentalists around the Navajo mine area. He convinced the Tribal Council to ask for federal help, and he believed the seemingly unrelated accidents around the mines were really acts of terrorism made to look fairly benign. I understand he’d recently been trying to gather information on the eco-groups’ leaders.”

  “The one who died suggested that he be allowed to accompany the FBI’s new man on his investigations,” Director Sam told her. “He had made some inroads with the environmentalists and thought he could advise the FBI on the Navajo way.

  “When we originally asked the feds for help,” the director continued, “we’d wanted them to send someone who would be unfamiliar to the environmentalists. But we’d hoped the person would also be Dineh so the People would feel comfortable talking to him.”

  “I see.” Teal was becoming decidedly uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. Was she about to be replaced?

  “But no one is left who knows what my assistant’s research would show.” The councilman swung his gaze over her battered body and wrinkled clothes with a scowl.

  “I can get up to speed in a hurry,” Teal said in her own defense.

  Director Sam smiled at her. “We would like to continue with the original plan of having a traditionalist accompany the FBI, if at all possible. Luckily, a traditionalist has volunteered to be your teacher and to accompany you in your investigations in Dinetah. He—”

  “Who?” The idea didn’t sound good to her at all.

  “Apparently, the Navajo Nation has several, uh, sensitives among their number,” Chris said while trying to hide his spreading grin. “They have found a man who can read minds and who is willing to travel along and be your guide during your investigations.”

  Oh, hell. She tried to say something that wouldn’t be taken the wrong way, but choked. There was no way she would be willing to—

  “The young sensitive’s gifts will be able to make up for the one who died’s lost information,” Councilman Ayze said. “We are grateful that this busy man has the time available to help the Nation, though the Tribal Council has long been aware of his dedication to the People.”

  No frigging way. Uh-uh. “The man’s name wouldn’t by any chance be…”

  “Lucas Tso,” the director cut in with a grin. “He’s quite famous. You may have seen some of his art.”

  She opened her mouth, thought about it and pressed her lips together again.

  “Actually, I understand the special agent has already met the sensitive,” Councilman Ayze said through his own wry grin. “Lucas Tso is one of my wife’s nephews. He tells me that he was with this woman lawman in Many Caves Canyon when she discovered the body.”

  Trapped. That damned Lucas had worked some kind of magic on all of these men and she would be the one to end up paying for it.

  Her eyes glazed over and she barely heard the rest of the conversation, but within a few minutes, she had been ordered to work with and listen to the one guy she had hoped she wouldn’t run into again for a good long while.

  Finally dismissed, Teal managed to make a quiet exit from her boss’s office. Shaking her head as she came through the door, she tried to get a handle on what had just happened to her. She swiped a palm across her sweaty brow and looked over to the first assistant’s desk she could see, hoping to find one of her favorite secretaries whose shoulder she could cry on.

  But there instead, leaning his butt against the edge of the desk and watching her closely, was the man of the hour. He sure looked cool and composed, too. Which made her sweat more than ever.

  His chambray shirtsleeves were rolled up, exposing powerful forearms crossed over his wide chest. Barely able to stand seeing the appreciative expression in his eyes as he watched her, she quickly took in the rest of his appearance instead. Soft but expensive jeans encased his thighs. But maybe that wasn’t where she should be looking, either. Her eyes moved hurriedly down his legs to feet that were also crossed casually at the ankles, mimicking his arms. And those feet were encased in well-worn but clean working boots, making him look even more masculine and sexy.

  Head to toe, the irritating man looked good enough to eat.

  “Lucas Tso, what the hell have you done?”

  “Me? I have no clue what you mean, Special Agent.”

  Teal stormed over and punched his shoulder. “You hypnotized Councilman Ayze and convinced him to insist I needed you to be my guide. Didn’t you?”

  He tried to stem the grin that threatened. She wouldn’t like it if she thought he was laughing at her. And he wasn’t laughing at her at all.

  His whole body was smiling at the way her eyes sparked with anger and at how the energy was fairly snapping around her. She looked sexy, despite her crumpled and bruised appearance, and the sight of her made him weak in the knees.

  “Not at all,” he managed to say calmly. “I have no idea how to hypnotize a person. That’s not an art I’ve mastered. What’s more, the councilman himself was the one who suggested I’d be the right person for the job.”

  Lucas watched her clamp her teeth together.

  Growling under her breath, she spun around and stomped toward the front lobby.

  Starting out after her, Lucas followed her through the narrow aisles. But within a few seconds he spotted her limping, favoring the knee he knew she’d injured in her fall. A knife of sympathy twisted in his gut.

  He waited until she stepped out into the privacy and sunshine of the parking lot before he caught up to her. “Hold on a second, Bright Eyes.”

  She turned away from him. “Go away.”

  Forced to take her arm in order to keep her still, he tried to be as gentle as possible. “Teal, wait. Your boss gave you a direct order to work with me. Don’t let your emotions ruin your career.”

  As she rounded on him, he saw the pain etched on her face. He dropped his hand and moved closer.

  “The aching is bad, isn�
��t it?” he asked in a whisper.

  Taking a deep breath, she straightened her spine. “That’s none of your business.”

  He picked up both of her hands and turned them over to check out the backsides. “The cut on your face is better, and the nicks on your hands are almost healed. It was my salve which performed that magic. Do you remember when I told you I also have another kind of medicine that will take away some of your aches—like the one in your knee?”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded.

  “I don’t have it with me today. But if you’ll accompany me to my grandmother’s hogan, she makes those kinds of medicine and she’ll be able to help you.”

  Teal scowled, but Lucas could tell she was in enough pain to be ready to try almost anything. “We have to work and travel together from now on anyway. Why not start trusting me today?”

  “It’s my day off.” The way she said the words let him know this would be her last minor objection.

  In the Navajo Way, he waited, saying nothing.

  “Is it very far?” she asked quietly.

  “About an hour’s drive. I thought I’d follow you home so you can leave your car and come with me. It’s kind of tricky finding the place. I know the shortcuts and my SUV is four-wheel drive.”

  She stood tentatively and with her shoulders hunched against the pain. It was all he could do not to sweep her up and cart her off for help. The look of anguish in her eyes was killing him.

  “Please, partner,” he pleaded. “Let me do this for you. We can talk about the case on the way, if you like.”

  The mention of work seemed to break her icy indecision.

  “Fine,” she said with something that looked like relief in her eyes. “But I’m bringing my weapon along, too. Just in case.”

  Knowing he needed to break the tension, Lucas tried a little humor. “Why, Special Agent love, you can’t mean you think you might need to use it on moi?” Bowing with a flourish of his hand, he watched her expression relax.

  He gently took her elbow and began guiding her toward her standard-issue sedan. “Don’t I recall you saying just yesterday that you owed me big-time? I haven’t yet made up my mind what you can do to pay me back, but I don’t think shooting me or my grandmother will be high on the list.”

  “Oh…I…I…” She blinked and looked embarrassed.

  “I’m teasing you, Bright Eyes. Relax. If you feel better wearing your gun, by all means bring it along.”

  Guns were not the weapon of choice for Skinwalkers—or for the Brotherhood. But if they ran into any

  5

  “Y ou have a pet fish?” Lucas turned the key in his transmission and pulled out onto the major highway in front of Teal’s mobile home.

  For the last fifteen minutes he’d been waiting in her living room for Teal to change into more comfortable jeans and a sweatshirt. After changing, Teal had grabbed her notebook, cell phone and Glock, then locked everything before letting him help ease her into the passenger seat of his extratall SUV. Funny that her body aches were so much worse than yesterday.

  “Not just any fish,” she answered after finding a comfortable spot. “A Japanese fighting fish. His name is Hiro.”

  “Do you own any other pets?”

  She tried to shake her head, but felt a grinding ache down her neck. Checking out Lucas’s profile, she realized he was gazing through the windshield and wouldn’t have seen her movement in any case.

  “No,” she mumbled. “Just Hiro. Do you own any pets?”

  “Traditional Navajos don’t own domesticated animals. If we have them in our homes, it’s usually because they chose us.”

  “Okey-dokie, then,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “But that’s no answer. Do you have a pet?”

  “There is a cat who lives with me. A bilagaana cat named Yas—Snow. But…”

  “A what-kind-of cat?” she interrupted him to ask.

  “A white man’s cat. An Anglo cat.”

  “A white man’s cat? As opposed to a Navajo cat? What’s the difference, and how did you get an Anglo cat?”

  Lucas didn’t answer right away and she glanced over to check on him again. He was busy guiding the SUV off the main highway and onto a long, straight two-lane road. His jaw was tight, and she tried not to watch as the muscles in his powerful arms rolled and bunched while he turned the wheel.

  Whew, baby. Squirming in her seat, Teal decided to concentrate her attention out the window. Their SUV was now heading directly down the long, narrow road toward the closest mountain range.

  On the map back in the glove box of her car, she vaguely remembered these mountains were marked as the Chuska Range. Today they were shrouded in a hazy purple overcast, and looked like ghost peaks.

  Huh? What a whimsical thing for her to think. She was much more a reality kind of girl. Must be the pains. They needed to hurry up and get to his grandmother’s house.

  “Snow was my ex-wife’s cat,” he finally said. “She acquired him during her last year at UCLA. I think it was her roommate who’d been giving out the kittens. Anyway, my ex-wife couldn’t resist the tiny ball of black fur.

  “When she left me and went back to L.A. to live, the cat stayed. By that time, Snow was notably resistible.”

  “So, because he was born off the reservation, that makes him an Anglo cat?”

  Lucas chuckled low in his throat and threw her a smile. “That’s part of it. But more so because my ex-wife pampered him and refused to let him go outside to hunt or do his business. She’s the one who made him more Anglo than Navajo. I think the cat would’ve fit in nicely if she’d only given him a chance.”

  Teal got the picture. Lucas thought a Navajo cat should be an outdoors cat. Hunting and fishing and foraging for his own food. But their discussion had made her curious about a few more things.

  “Was your ex-wife an Anglo woman?”

  That got another chuckle out of Lucas. “Full-blooded Navajo by birth. Anglo by design. After she came home from college, she couldn’t wait for the time when she would be able to leave Dinetah again.”

  Uncomfortable with the subject of wanting to get away from the reservation, Teal nevertheless decided to push him for more details. She and Lucas were never going to be lovers, let alone get married. It didn’t matter that she and his ex-wife shared the same dislike of Navajoland, even if being like her had been slightly shocking at first.

  But he’d been the one who’d wanted them to be friends. So he could damn well suck it up and answer all of Teal’s personal questions. Asking embarrassing things was part of her job. He’d forced his way into her investigation, and he would have to learn to take whatever came with it.

  “Is that why the two of you divorced? She wanted to live in a big city off the reservation and you didn’t?”

  Never taking his eyes off the road ahead, Lucas pursed his lips for a second before he answered. “Things are seldom that simple between two people, Bright Eyes. I know you prefer your answers to be in black and white, but human relationships usually fall more into shades of gray.”

  What kind of half-assed answer was that? “Did she love you?”

  The minute that question was out of her mouth, Teal knew she’d stepped over some invisible boundary. And what’s more, it had been a stupid question and not even in good interrogator’s style. Her trainer in interrogations class back at Quantico would probably be cringing right now.

  “Yes, I think she did.” Lucas answered the totally rude question without hesitation. He didn’t seem to mind that such a question was far too personal to be asked of near strangers like the two of them.

  “Or, at least, she did at first,” he hedged.

  Okay, now a zillion thoughts were bouncing around in her head. Did his wife stop loving him when she discovered he was a “sensitive” weirdo? Or had she married a famous artist, hoping for the money and prestige, only to get a man who could read her thoughts and was considered strange by his own family and friends?

  But Teal had made up h
er mind to stop asking about things when she might not want the answers. She turned her head to stare out the window at the interesting scenery and kept her mouth shut. It was all she could do to keep the pain at bay this morning, let alone sort through crazy thoughts that had less to do with her assignment and more to do with a sexy sensitive who owned a black cat named Snow.

  Their SUV was passing through an immense flat and dry land, and the scenery was not terribly compelling, with its murky colors of dove-gray and pale tan. She’d seen a few sheep, though there had been no fences. And every once in a while, a driveway seemed to pop up out of nowhere.

  Eventually, she became interested in the way almost every driveway entry seemed to be marked by old tires on wooden posts. “What are the tires for?”

  “It’s one way of finding the right driveway, even in the snow. Navajo traditionalists don’t believe in using proper names. So you generally won’t see names painted on mailboxes or those cute ranch names on signposts like Texas ranchers sometimes use.”

  “I thought…” She hesitated, then decided to ask him anyway. That’s what he’d volunteered for, right? “Someone told me not using names is the tradition when it comes to talking about dead people. You mean Navajos can’t use anyone’s name ever?”

  Lucas threw her a quick smile. “You have to remember when you’re out talking to the People in Dinetah that there are at least three distinct divisions among them these days. There are the traditionalists…”

  “Like you?”

  “There are a growing number of young people who have chosen to follow the Way, yes. And there’s a big push to teach the language and the traditions to the children. But most of the true traditionalists are elderly now.

  “Then there are the Dineh who were converted to Christianity by missionaries years ago,” he continued. “And finally, there are many Navajo who refer to themselves as modern. I’m not exactly sure they have any philosophy that is truly their own. So, in other words, some Navajos have no problem with using proper names and others do.”