Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  Michael gave him a strange look.

  “The investigation is on hold for now,” Cisco added quickly. “I intend to do whatever I can to help locate Sunnie’s friend before going on with anything else.”

  “We haven’t told Ben about his wife’s disappearance yet,” Michael told them. “We wanted to make sure…”

  At that moment Kody came through the kitchen door in a rage. “It was Skinwalkers, all right. The place is still vibrating like crazy.” He rounded on Cisco with his hands fisted. “You’re the bounty hunter we’ve heard about. Just what the hell is going on with you? First there’s Shorty Tom left mutilated in his own paddock. Now the Plant Tender gets taken right out of her own protected cabin. What kind of evil have you brought down on us?”

  Sunnie stepped between the two half brothers. She’d made the decision to let Cisco tell both Hunter and Kody about their relationship. It wasn’t any of her business. But she couldn’t let anyone accuse Cisco unjustly.

  “None of that was his doing,” she blasted at Kody. “He’s not a Skinwalker and you know it. This cabin is protected, and he couldn’t even take a step inside the door if he was one of the evil ones.”

  Kody didn’t back down. “If they didn’t murder her on the spot, they must want something,” he muttered to Cisco over Sunnie’s head. “I’m guessing you know what that is, stranger.”

  Cisco put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her to one side. “That’s jumping to some pretty big conclusions, even for a fed.” He stood within an arm’s length of his own half brother and looked about ready to take a swing.

  Sunnie was gearing up to jump in between them again when Michael’s phone rang.

  He answered and then the expression on his face froze in a sober mask. Answering the caller in Navajo, he said a few words Sunnie couldn’t make out and then handed the phone over to Kody.

  Michael turned to them. “Dr. Ben has just been contacted by the Skinwalkers.”

  “Contacted? How?”

  “I don’t have all the details, but we now know why they wanted Tory—to trade her life for my knowledge.”

  Sunnie felt herself go limp and reached out to grab Cisco’s steady arm. He stepped closer and put his arm around her waist.

  The move was not missed by Michael, but the Navajo professor said nothing about it. “I must go to my office at the college. A package will be delivered with copies of the ancient parchments the Brotherhood has been looking for—but that the Skinwalkers apparently found first.”

  Michael stopped, dragged in a breath. “If I can translate them within the next three days, we’ll get Tory back unharmed.”

  They all looked at each other. Sunnie finally asked the question.

  “And what if you can’t?”

  Chapter 12

  K ody Long hung up Michael’s phone and stepped to Sunnie’s side. “He will.” Kody’s eyes gentled and filled with compassion. “Michael can do anything. Have no fear.”

  Cisco had not expected such a soft look from the tough FBI agent. As Kody murmured more words of comfort, Cisco studied his half brother. The eye color was not the same as Hunter’s, and that meant it wasn’t the same as his own or their father’s, either. But if Cisco remembered right, the hair and skin coloring was a match to their father. It felt odd seeing such family resemblance in a man he’d never met before.

  Sunnie turned her head to address Michael. “Did I have something to do with this kidnapping? The Skinwalkers have been following us for a couple of days. Did I lead them here? Is it my fault the Skinwalkers took Tory?”

  Cisco tightened his grip around her waist and felt her straighten at his touch.

  Michael shook his head and held out his hand in a placating gesture. “It’s no one’s fault. They needed some advantage to make me do whatever they desire. None of us, least of all Tory, would’ve thought that stepping outside our protective circle for a few minutes in the daylight would lead to such a drastic result. I’m sure she’s done it many times before today and has always been safe.

  “And by the way,” Michael continued, “this isn’t the first occasion where they’ve kidnapped an innocent in order to force the Brotherhood to their will. We beat them the last two times and we’ll do it again for the Plant Tender.”

  Kody had taken Sunnie’s hand, but now he dropped it and stepped back. “We must go. Michael has much to do, and the rest of the Brotherhood will be busy working on our own ways to find out where they’ve taken Tory.”

  Kody remained still for a moment, standing as he was and gazing down at Sunnie, until he finally said, “You two should stay here in the Plant Tender’s cabin for a few nights. If the Skinwalkers are still looking for one of you, they won’t be expecting you in her cabin. Not since the kidnapping. It’ll be the last place they look.

  “Tory would want it that way,” Kody added. “Use her SUV as you planned. I’ll bet the keys are on her desk or on the kitchen counter.”

  Sunnie shook her head but never uttered a sound.

  “Do this, little cousin,” Michael insisted gently. “Stay safe so I can be free to concentrate on the translations.”

  Sunnie lifted her chin. “You won’t actually give the Skinwalkers the secret to everlasting life, will you?”

  Michael’s lips turned up in a soft, sad smile. “I must believe there’ll be another way in the end. Nonetheless, I’ll still make the translations. It may be our only leverage for getting Tory back.”

  The Brotherhood men left, satisfied Sunnie would be safe enough inside the cabin. Cisco tried to tell himself it was for the best that he hadn’t said anything to Kody about their combined heritage. Now was not a good time to bring up sensitive and potentially volatile subjects that probably had nothing to do with Skinwalkers.

  At that thought, though, Cisco stopped himself. Why had the Skinwalkers been so interested in him? Was it just because he’d been asking odd questions? That didn’t sit right. What was it about an old murder that had captured the Skinwalkers’ attention?

  Without more digging into the Skinwalkers, the whole investigation would end here. Cisco had never been a quitter. But he was not able to protect Sunnie and still concentrate on his father’s murderer. He would just have to let the problem gel in his mind for a while.

  “But I don’t need protecting, Bounty Hunter.” Sunnie was so furious she was shimmering with rage. “You know I can take care of myself. I can’t just hang out and do nothing to help Tory.

  “Are you coming back to the scene of the kidnapping with me now or not?” Sunnie twisted her arm free of Cisco’s grip and headed for the kitchen door.

  She wasn’t positive he would follow. But she hoped he would. In the hour since the Brotherhood had left the cabin she’d drunk enough coffee to float a ship and had listened to Cisco talk about finding deadbeat felons until she was numb. It was time for her to move.

  He reached her before she could set foot out the door. “Slow down. I thought you wanted to help find your friend. Let’s not jump off the cliff in a suicide pact.” Spinning her around to face him, he loomed over her. “As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember you agreeing to do what I say…to follow my lead.”

  “That was before—” Sunnie couldn’t bring herself to say it: before they knew Tory had been taken. The idea of her friend being held by those rat bastards for even a few seconds was almost more than Sunnie could bear.

  Rallying in the face of Cisco’s stern look, she pressed her point. “And you promised you’d find her if I stayed strong.” She shoved her elbow into his chest and followed up with a light punch to the gut. “That strong enough for you?”

  Cisco huffed out a breath but only narrowed his eyes.

  “Terrific,” she said, then rolled her own eyes. “Stay here if you want. But I’m going back into the woods to see if Kody missed anything. He was so furious and afraid for Tory that I don’t think he gave the scene enough study.”

  “He’s a fed, míja. They’re trained to look for clues. What kin
d of training have you had?”

  “Training in control,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “I’ve taught myself to stalk prey through deserts and over rocks, finding signs that most investigators would overlook. I’ve sat for twelve hours at a time without moving so much as an eyelash, waiting. Waiting for the one right shot that never came. My training in self-discipline is as good as, if not better than, the FBI’s best crime-scene class.”

  Cisco folded his arms and shook his head. “Oh, yeah, your patience must be legendary. We’ve been here alone in the cabin since the Brotherhood left for—what?—a whole hour? And you can’t even manage to sit still for that long.”

  “I’m going.” Screw him. If he wanted to cower here in the kitchen, let him. “I’d hoped you would be my backup and cover me. But since you don’t want to go back out there, how about letting me take the .38?”

  He opened his mouth and snarled as if he would say something she didn’t want to hear. But then he snapped his lips closed again and drew the gun from his waistband.

  “Fine,” he growled, low and furious. “We’ll go together. But we’re going to take it slow. Stay close.”

  “Fine.” Sunnie let go of the breath she’d been holding as she stormed out the door ahead of him and quickly moved into the woods.

  Cisco tried to keep his temper in check. Coming out here to the scene of the kidnapping would let Sunnie get rid of some of her excess energy. He could think of better ways of doing that, of course. But then, he’d promised himself not to resort to easy ways of distracting her.

  Unless she suggested them first. He’d wanted her to think of the same distractions as had been deviling him ever since they’d been alone again. His body was certainly up for a good tussle—and all the erotic physical things that would inevitably come after that with the two of them.

  “What are you doing?” he called out as she stalked away from the Plant Tender’s herb garden. “Stay where I can see you.”

  She turned. “I know Kody figures the Skinwalkers used their superhuman powers to fly Tory out of the woods. But that would mean carrying her. She’s not fat or anything, but she’s no lightweight, either. I think I’ve spotted extra-large paw prints leading away from the scene. Come see what you think.”

  “Tracking prints is not exactly my strong suit, you know. Now if this were a series of hidden bank accounts, I’d be your man.”

  She tsked and then darted behind a tree where he couldn’t see her. Damn woman would be the death of him yet. No doubt literally his absolute living end.

  He exhaled and went after her. But he hadn’t gone two steps when something on the ground caught his eye. Off to the side of the trail Sunnie had been following was a patch of melting snow. Though the sun was high in the sky, this patch had so far been protected by the huge ponderosa pines towering above it. Right in the middle of the white ice crystals he spotted the tip of something blue peeking out from underneath. Dark blue. Not a color normally found in snow or the dirt below it.

  Nudging the off-color object with his toe, Cisco expected to find a scarf or some other piece of clothing that the Plant Tender had been wearing when she’d been snatched. He was right in the middle of arguing with himself about mentioning such a find to Sunnie at all when a small blue notebook appeared at the tip of his boot.

  Cisco bent to pick it up, then straightened and called out, “Hey, Miss Patience and Self-Control, come back here a second. I’ve found something.”

  While he flipped through the pages of the notebook, the sound of Sunnie’s footsteps through the dense brush soothed his nerves. Within a few minutes she was close enough that he could hear her breathing hard.

  “What is it?” she asked, out of breath, as she sidled up beside him and tried to see what he held in his hands.

  “It’s a notebook. But the entries are in code.”

  “Is that what all those squiggles are? Some sort of code?”

  “Yeah. I’ve studied tons of encryption methods in order to chase money around the world, finding recalcitrant felons and their hordes of cash. I’ve also written my own code a time or two.”

  Sunnie continued to stare at the book as though she expected to see the answer to where her friend had been taken written at the top of each page.

  “Navajos are famous for our code-talkers,” she murmured almost to herself. “They saved many U.S. forces during World War II. But that code was done in the spoken word. The Dine haven’t had a written language for very long.”

  “Do you think this might belong to the Plant Tender, then?” Cisco asked. “Something she kept in order to help her identify plants and their locations?”

  She looked more carefully at the strange shapes and designs. “No way. Besides being the Plant Tender, Tory’s also a medical doctor. There’s no chance she would make tiny, tidy marks like those. When we worked together, her handwriting was easy to decipher. But at the same time, it was typically sloppy.”

  “You’re sure, then? This book could not belong to Tory.”

  Sunnie shook her head and looked up at him. “Should we call the Brotherhood and tell them we found this?”

  “What would they do with it?”

  “You’re right,” she agreed without even hearing his argument. “Michael is a trained symbologist. He could break the code. But we know he’s busy translating parchments for the Skinwalkers. You are probably better at doing something like this than any of the other Brotherhood members.”

  “Then—what?” Cisco asked rhetorically. “We keep it for at least tonight and I give it a shot? It’s possible that, given enough time, I’ll be able to decipher at least a few pages.”

  Sunnie shrugged an acknowledgment that keeping it was probably the only course to take.

  “Okay. I guess that’s what we’ll do.” Cisco looked around the area, trying to decide which step to take next. Copper-colored streaks lined with gold and rose spilled across the sky above them. Almost dusk in these hills, it would soon be too dark to see. Time to head back inside.

  And go to work.

  A few minutes later Cisco was in the Plant Tender’s office, hunched over Tory’s computer. Sunnie was rummaging around in the kitchen’s shelves, looking for something to eat. She hadn’t been hungry for weeks. Now all of a sudden, when there was no food around, she was starved.

  She’d barely gotten a chance to warm up after being outside and to decide what kind of canned food to open when a sound came from out front. A traditional Navajo had apparently arrived and awaited permission to visit.

  Sunnie walked to the front window and carefully peeked out the side of the curtains. She recognized the truck but could scarcely believe her eyes.

  Audrey Long—Kody and Hunter Long’s mother, now remarried and called Mrs. James—sat in the passenger seat, watching the door for a signal. Why would she come here? Sunnie knew she lived close by. But had anyone told her the Plant Tender had been kidnapped?

  Sunnie opened the front door and waved the older woman inside. This situation felt so strange. The woman who had been married to Cisco’s father was coming for a visit. Sunnie almost turned to call out to Cisco but changed her mind and decided to wait until she knew more.

  “Ya’at’eeh,” Mrs. James said as she came close. Her arms were loaded with plastic containers and tinfoil-covered plates. “My son tells me you and the outsider will be staying here for a few days. I worried that the Plant Tender’s kitchen would not have been supplied in anticipation of guests.”

  “You brought food? Wow.” Sunnie took over some of Mrs. James’s burden and led the way to the kitchen. “Who drove you over?” Sunnie asked. “Would whoever it is like to come in?”

  “My new husband was kind enough to drive this old woman. He prefers to wait. I’ve told him I will not stay too long.”

  Cisco appeared at the kitchen doorway. “Hi,” he said in acknowledgment of Mrs. James’s presence, then turned to Sunnie. “I thought I heard voices. What’s going on?”

  Sunnie took a deep
breath. “Cisco, I’d like for you to meet Kody and Hunter Long’s mother, Audrey James. Mrs. James, this is a new friend, Cisco Santiago. He’s agreed to keep me company while we wait for the Brotherhood to find Tory.”

  Mrs. James turned to Cisco and smiled. “My eldest son said little about you, Mr. Santiago. I believe he has mixed feelings where you are concerned.”

  Just wait until Kody finds out the truth, Sunnie mused. Both he and Hunter would have a lot to come to grips with. Just as Cisco was doing right now.

  Sunnie sensed his distress and knew he was uncomfortable. “Let me help you put the food away, Mrs. James. I don’t want to keep Mr. James waiting out in the truck too long.”

  She went to work stuffing containers and covered plates in the refrigerator. Meanwhile, Cisco and Mrs. James stood in wary silence and studied each other. Sunnie couldn’t stuff the food away fast enough.

  Finally she was done and turned to take Mrs. James’s hand. “I can’t thank you enough. You were so kind to think of us.” Sunnie was trying to steer the older woman toward the door.

  Mrs. James slowed and turned to face Cisco eye to eye in a distinctly non-Navajo move. “Thank you for taking care of our little cousin. Sunnie means a great deal to us. We would be unhappy to learn anything bad had happened to her.”

  Sunnie was surprised to hear Mrs. James say such things. She hadn’t thought any of her distant clansmen thought much about her welfare at all. Anxious to send Mrs. James out the door for Cisco’s sake, she didn’t let herself dwell on the older woman’s words.

  Cisco nodded to Mrs. James, but he seemed unable to speak.

  “You have familiar eyes, Mr. Santiago,” the older woman said all of sudden. “Do you know my younger son, Hunter? Your eyes and his are very much alike.”

  Cisco’s demeanor changed in an instant. Sunnie felt him tense and saw that he was trying hard to school his expression.

  “Nice to meet you,” he told Mrs. James abruptly. “I have work to do.” With that, he spun and disappeared back down the hall toward Tory’s office.