Starlight Dunes

by Vickie McKeehan

  From above, Brent watched her go off into some kind of trance. He didn’t think it was from focus on her work or due to solid concentration. But then her head had popped up and she had been back to herself. It had lasted no longer than forty-five seconds or so.

  As she stood up, she said, “Okay, people, we take soil samples around the frame. Then we back off until I can get the rep out here.” When she glanced up though, Brent was staring down at her.

  “Are you sure what you’ve found are human?” Brent wanted to know. “It could be nothing more than a few animal bones.”

  “I’m one-hundred percent certain. If you’ll come down here a minute, I’ll show you the outline of a jawbone sticking out of the mud. And with it, you can see the teeth are almost worn down to the gum line. Considering this often happened in tribes by a very early age, I’d say this is probably a male no older than twenty-five.”

  “Since you’re the expert, I’ll have to take your word for it. As of this morning I’ve been given rep status by the man himself and the tribal council.”

  “Really? Okay. Then we’ll need your expertise and approval before we begin the process to disinter.”

  Brent nodded. “The tribe will no doubt want a ceremony before that happens. So you should probably expose as much as you can of the area around the bones to determine exactly what you’ve got. If there are more remains, the tribe will perform only one ritual even though it will likely shut you down for more than a day, maybe two. One ritual, one shutdown.”

  River nodded. “Good thinking. My crew and I gladly accept those terms. It will probably take us another four days, maybe longer, to excavate completely around this particular skeleton and at the depth it’s embedded.”

  “In the meantime, I’ll get on the horn and let them know what you found. You should know though, there are a lot of people who won’t be happy about this.”

  “I know. It won’t be the first time we’ve encountered resistance.”

  Just as Brent expected, by two that afternoon word had spread around town. A crowd gathered along the pier and boardwalk to talk about what the find meant for the town. That included a few members of the tribal community who grumbled and protested, waving their signs in the air. They made it known they preferred their ancestors be left in the ground where they belonged, undisturbed. Then there was the curious along with those trying to figure out how to make a buck in the process.

  Either way, Brent had been directed to hire a few local men to keep the onlookers at bay.

  Knowing employment was hard to come by in the area, he’d hired Harold Boedecker and Zach Dennison as the security detail for guard duty. The three of them would split time at the site in shifts. At fifty-two, Harold was the oldest. That’s why Brent assigned him daylight hours and the easiest shift. Since Zach was the youngest at twenty-six, he drew graveyard. That left Brent’s shift sandwiched in between both of them from afternoon to midnight.

  Brent wasn’t happy about it. But how else did he plan to pass the time stuck on county disability? He supposed that just because he still hobbled wherever he went didn’t mean he couldn’t sit on his ass for eight hours and keep sightseers away from the cliffs.

  From sheriff to second-shift rent-a-cop was a helluva demotion though.

  The forced leave of absence hurt his pride. That’s why he intended to do what he could to get his job back. And another reason he continued to put in all the time required at his PT with the goal of eventually leaving it behind him entirely.

  Hopefully he’d be able to zigzag mentally past the shrink by giving clever answers to a bunch of silly questions. Ultimately though, even he had to admit, the decision to give him his job back was entirely out of his hands.

  There were days he was tempted to give in and hang up his badge himself. But then his stubbornness would kick in and he’d find some reason to keep fighting.

  As he stood in his kitchen admiring the patch of purple cornflower Hayden had planted the previous spring, his mind wandered to his growing attraction to River.

  Since that first day, there was something about her eyes that drew him in. He couldn’t help but wonder if his father hadn’t arrived that morning what might have happened between them. If River had stuck around, he was certain they’d have ended up between the sheets. He liked considering that possibility.

  Even now, thinking about that sleepy-eyed, mussed-up look he’d seen, made him want to get her naked—the sooner, the better.

  “River’s a looker all right. No doubt about that,” Scott said from the other side of the counter.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you? Just because you’re a ghost doesn’t mean you have the right to intrude on people’s thoughts. Every time you do that you’re like a voyeur.”

  “That’s a little over the top, don’t you think?”

  “Over the top? I was thinking about…”

  “River,” Scott finished, grinning and wiggling his eyebrows up and down. “Got it. In the way that brings a smile to a man’s face. You don’t know it but if you’d look in the mirror right now, you’re almost glowing.”

  “Glowing? Now who’s over the top? I have to help her find her son. I placed a call to Ortega. He has yet to call me back.”

  A smile crossed Scott’s face. “I was hoping you’d say that. It’s a start anyway.”

  “Is that what this was all about? You could’ve just asked. I’m a cop.”

  “Part of it. Not all of it. Don’t rely on anything Ortega tells you though. River and the boy need you to do your own investigation.”

  Brent’s heart sank. “All this time and Ortega’s been stonewalling her? Why?” But even as he got the words out, realization dawned. “The family’s paying him off?”

  “They are. Just as River digs to excavate bones, you may have to dig several layers down to uncover answers.”

  “Count on it.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Saturday nights were meant for unwinding. For the second time that week, River and her crew found themselves rubbing elbows with the locals inside McCready’s.

  With two visits under her belt, River had already discovered the ins and outs of the dive. Rain or shine, Flynn McCready manned the bar seven days a week from the opening salvo at four in the afternoon until closing time at one a.m.

  Regulars knew that two days a year McCready’s closed for a solid twenty-four— Christmas and Easter Sunday. Customers expected to find bowls sitting out on the old mahogany bar brimming to the top with traditional pretzels or peanuts in the shell.

  Waitresses Noreen Halpin and Bree Dennison split time working the sparse nine-hundred- square-foot seating area. In addition to that, they covered the area where the two pool tables stood. Even though the bar didn’t serve actual meals, both women saw to it their customers got good service. Noreen and Bree stayed busy taking orders for simple appetizers like chips and salsa, nachos drenched in cheese and jalapenos—or for the truly adventurous—mini pizzas fresh out of the microwave in the back room that passed for a kitchen.

  River scanned the standing-room-only crowd. She watched as Walker and Sandra went another round with a young married couple, Paul and Abby Bonner, in a game of darts while Julian and Laura rocked together on the smidgen of a dance floor.

  Once Ricky Oden, the founder and lead singer of Blue Skies, had taken the stage, River had never seen a place come alive so fast. The man’s silky, smooth voice had the throng on its feet swaying and stomping with Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms.

  Watching the couples on the dance floor, River thought of Brent Cody. It was hard not to. Since falling asleep on his sofa, when she wasn’t bugging the private detective, she’d done nothing but think of the guy for the past two days. She knew right at that moment where he was—guarding her dig site.

  On a chilly fall night like tonight, she should probably take him something hot to drink. After all it was nearing the witching hour. With any luck, he might want company this time of night. That warm thought was interrupt
ed by her brusque intern.

  “The consecration ceremony isn’t until Monday,” Walker complained. “We’re stymied until then. I don’t like it when we’re in a holding pattern.”

  “No one cares what you like, Walker,” River returned. “Be grateful we’re at a standstill and not butting our heads up against the tribal elders.”

  “River’s right,” Julian agreed a little winded from the jump and jive on the dance floor. “No big discovery like this goes down without getting the blessing of the shaman when we hit human remains—whatever tribe it is, whatever continent we’re on—that’s fairly routine, Walker. Better get used to it.”

  “Lucky for us the tribal rep suggested we uncover as much as we could, otherwise we might not have found the other set of remains this morning. That’s the silver lining,” River noted.

  “Hey, with most of the two skeletons revealed it would be surprising if we don’t find more,” Laura indicated. Like any good excavator her voice held a certain amount of hope that other bones buried for centuries at that spot could be unearthed.

  Noticing River’s antsy demeanor though, Laura leaned in to River’s ear. “I bet if you asked Flynn nicely, he’d fix you a tall coffee to-go.”

  “What for? I drink coffee now it’ll keep me awake.”

  Laura tilted her head, met River’s eyes. “You know what for. Go take the hunky sheriff some wake-up juice. Or offer to tuck him in for the night.”

  River rolled her eyes. “I was just thinking the same thing. But really, I need to back off.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “Because I’m pretty sure since learning about Luke, the sheriff’s gone out of his way to avoid me.”

  “Hmm, he didn’t strike me as a jerk, but then you never know.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Leaping to his defense? An even better sign.”

  Disheartened but too stubborn to admit it to her friend, River tossed back, “Don’t be silly. I’m not in the market to take a bunch of BS from any man, not anymore.”

  By the time Brent got Zach to cover the last two hours of his shift with a promise that the younger man could come in two hours later on Monday—it was almost ten-thirty.

  It wasn’t too late to take River up on her invitation. After all this was his turf. Sort of. The ins and outs of McCready’s, especially on a Saturday night, were as familiar to him as if he’d gone back in time as a teenager. His grandmother’s house had been practically across the street, her gift shop farther down the block. Even then, McCready’s had held a certain amount of mystique to a male teen just coming into his own. He remembered it had been a loud place to blow off steam in a town where there were no other places like that to hang out. The fact that it was off-limits to him only made the pub more enticing. Back then, he couldn’t wait until he was old enough to go in, buy his first drink. He’d taken care of that before his first tour of duty in Iraq on a visit to Pelican Pointe to see his grandmother.

  Now, even with wall-to-wall people and in a dimly lit room, Brent had no trouble zeroing in on River. Her hair hung loose down to her waist. The white lacy-looking summer dress she wore brought out her cinnamon skin. The little violet flowers in the pattern showed she had a definite feminine flair. The thin purple sweater she had layered over it didn’t look like it would keep a flea warm. But the outfit was sexy as hell because it showed off her tall, lanky body.

  Something inside him moved. It made him want to scoop her up and whisk her out of the room to some dark place where he could nip and nibble. But since she was sitting with her friends, he doubted that would happen anytime soon. That’s why he was surprised when she glanced across the throng of people and locked eyes with him. Those chocolate orbs didn’t look away as he crossed to her.

  Damn it, River thought. He didn’t look like a jerk now. Dressed in a light-colored pair of jeans and a button-down white shirt, with his bronze skin, he looked too good to ignore.

  “I see you’re getting around a lot better,” River said, holding out her hand. “You up for that dance, Sheriff? If I promise to be gentle and keep you from falling down, will you dance with me?”

  About that time the music changed to Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain. Brent decided he could handle slow and soulful. He took her hand and led her to the paltry strip of dance floor. They bumped their way along into the crowd until his arms slid around her waist.

  She, in turn, laced her arms around his neck. They swayed to the beat with barely enough room to move. While Ricky worked his magic with the lyrics, they slinked together in harmony, body to body, heat to heat.

  When Ricky went into his rendition of Carolina in my Mind, his lilting voice kept them wrapped up. She felt his hands move over her back, her butt, and arched into him. She caught her own fingers raking through his hair.

  Caught up in each other, his mouth found hers. Fire met fire.

  An ache, a yearning she hadn’t known moved over her, into her, through her. She wanted to meld her body to his.

  Even though the song ended and Ricky started his version of the lively Lay Down Sally, Brent couldn’t, for some reason, let go. But when other bodies began grinding and bumping into theirs, they reluctantly moved off the dance floor and went back to the table.

  “Want a beer?” she asked.

  Their eyes remained on each other. “Not really. Want to get out of here?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  She followed Brent out the back door of McCready’s and onto the little stretch of beach near the dunes. River breathed in the cool fresh air as they walked along under a fat moon and a clear, starlit sky.

  “Have you heard from your private detective?”

  “No.”

  “You should know that I’ve contacted the FBI about Luke.”

  “Did they tell you to buzz off?”

  “Hardly. I hate to be the one to have to tell you this but Ortega’s been stonewalling you all this time. I suspect the Patton family’s been paying him off.”

  River stopped, her feet seemed stuck in cement. Some inner instinct had made her distrust Ortega from the start. But hearing it confirmed by someone else, another cop no less, didn’t keep the anger from boiling up and spilling out of her mouth. “That son of a bitch! How dare a detective do that to an innocent baby?”

  “How dare he do that to the mother of the innocent baby?”

  “My feelings exactly. Ortega had to know Wes’s history with women. How do you explain a cop taking up for a guy who took a fifteen-year-old to his bed? Does Ortega know we’re on to him?”

  “Ortega doesn’t have a clue. But the FBI was curious to know why he never called them in on the case in the first place.”

  Her jaw dropped open. “At all? What recourse do I have? You know, forget about Ortega for the moment. Does the FBI think they can find Luke?”

  “They notified every agency in an official capacity by sending Wes’s mug shot out internationally via fax. They also made up an age-progression photo of Luke.” He drew a piece of paper from his back pocket. “Thought you’d like to take a look at it.”

  River swallowed hard, her hands trembling a little as she took the paper to stare at the image. Luke’s face had gotten leaner, no longer baby fat rounding out his puffy little cheeks. It broke her heart.

  Brent watched at tears welled up in her eyes. Before she started crying, he added, “Using credit card and bank alerts, they’ll let me know if they get a hit on any accounts belonging to his parents. Any large amounts of money that go out will be a red flag.”

  River’s heart sank. “So it’s basically the status quo, the same old same old I’ve been hearing for years. Blah, blah, blah.”

  “You aren’t listening, River. After all this time, the FBI is ramping up their efforts by getting the word out using all the tools they have available to them. That wasn’t done before.”

  “You know, Brent, I was told at the time the police were doing everything they could to find Wes and Luke. Obvi
ously that was not the case.”

  “Ortega was holding back. Now I’m running a check on Gil Conroy to make sure he’s legit.”

  “If Gil’s being paid off, too, I’ve been screwed over by the system as well as everyone I reached out to in Santa Fe.”

  “Who recommended this private detective to you? I hope it wasn’t anyone connected to the university or the Patton family.”

  “It was actually Julian.”

  “Ah. Do you trust Julian?”

  “I do. These past few days, I thought you were avoiding me.”

  “Why would I do that? Avoiding a beautiful woman isn’t my style unless she’s a whack job or high maintenance. I do my best to steer clear of those.”

  “I bet. How do you know I don’t fit into either of those two categories?”

  His lips curved. He took her chin, tilted it up. “Just my gut feeling. Here’s what I know. You have a fiery temper when it’s something you feel passionate about, you’ve been unbelievably wronged by an ex. You won’t give up looking for your son, and you have the most incredible eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  “You like my eyes?”

  He grinned. “I love your eyes. Your smile isn’t bad either.” To prove it, his hand went to the back of her neck. He yanked her into him, angled his head and crushed his mouth to hers. His hands moved down to her ass and he lifted her up off the sand.

  Her cheeks went hot. She felt like a raging fever suddenly spiked. Her breath backed up in her lungs.

  But just as things were hitting a rhythm, the kiss ended and he set her feet back down on the ground. “I want you, River. Even though I know you aren’t nearly ready to take it to that level yet.”

  “Since we almost made out on the dance floor back there, I hope you know I’m not playing head games here.”

  “That’s what makes it so difficult. But I get it. And it’s probably a good idea for both of us.”

  Hearing that, she pulled him to her. Her hands circled the back of his neck. “And that, Mr. Cody, is what makes me want you even more. Seeing as how I caught a ride with Laura tonight, why don’t you take me back to the B & B before I jump you right here on the beach?”