Fatal Intent (Desert Heat Book 3)

by Jeffries, Jamie

  Nothing he’d said so far had any impact on her stubborn insistence on continuing the blog, and now it was becoming more and more political. He needed to talk to her about journalistic neutrality. This post, like a few others in recent months, was a passionate denunciation of how local Native tribes had been treated in the past.

  It was true there’d been injustice. His own tribe had seen much of it, and there were repercussions even now. But to the best of his knowledge, the Pima were doing pretty well now. They’d had some of their water rights restored, they had a lucrative casino that drew cash from outside the rez, and they were pretty urbanized, compared to his people.

  What worried him the most, though, was the presence in Casa Grande of an organization of white supremacists, the Patriots. They’d been quiet recently, especially since the wall had been built on the Mexico-Arizona border, but they had a violent history. Dylan didn’t know whether Alex knew of it, but she needed to. If they got wind of the blog, and that the author was actually living in Casa Grande, there could be more trouble.

  He looked at the picture of Alex on the site header and cursed. Casa Grande was a small town. Anyone could recognize her in a public place and put it together. She needed to get the picture down, at least, if she was going to write these inciting posts.

  Just as he was about to pick up the phone to call her, it rang in his hand. Alex calling.

  Talk about timing!

  “Hey, baby, I was just about to call you.”

  “Hi, yourself. Hey, what did you think of my post?” She sounded just like Davi when he brought home a paper with a good mark. She was seeking approval, and he was about to hurt her, but he couldn’t help it.

  “How did you know I read it?” He was a coward, he admitted it. Dylan loved her bright and hopeful voice, and he didn’t want to hear it turn dull and unhappy.

  “Ve haf our vays,” she said, vamping with a German accent. Sounded like some ancient actress, whose name he couldn’t remember. Marlene something?

  “No, really. I just got through reading it. How’d you know?”

  “Easy. I have a program that records visits to the blog. I’ve figured out your IP address.”

  He shook his head again, though she couldn’t see him. When had she gotten so computer savvy? He wasn’t sure what an IP address was, but if she could figure out it was him, that made it imperative she stop this, and now.

  “Baby,” he started, feeling his way carefully into what he knew could become a fight if he wasn’t careful. “I think it was kind of dangerous. I mean, I understand how you feel. I do, too. But there’s something you need to know.”

  “Dylan, I swear, if you don’t quit raining on my parade… ”

  “No, baby, listen. These guys, they’re right there in Casa Grande. The Patriots. You recognize the name? Do you know who and what they are?” He was beating a dead horse if she knew, but he had to try. These guys were dangerous. Deadly even. They’d killed in the past. Their former leader was doing life without parole in prison for murder.

  “Yes, I know who they are. I do read what I enter in my database of unidentified remains, Dylan. They’re suspects in the murders of several of my unknown deceased. What about them?”

  As he’d feared, her voice was now cold. Worse, he could picture the stubborn lift of her chin. Alex wasn’t going to back down, and it scared the shit out of him.

  “I told you. They’re headquartered right there in Casa Grande. If they think you’re becoming too much of a nuisance, or gaining too much credibility and support, they’re capable of anything. I think you at least need to take your picture off the blog, Alex. Please. I can’t be there to protect you… ”

  She cut him off mid-rant. “I never expected you to be here to protect me, Dylan. Don’t be ridiculous. They’re not going to come after me because of what I say, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I’m not so sure of that. At least, I don’t know. Get some pepper spray and maybe self-defense lessons. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you.” Dylan covered his eyes with his hand and dropped his head. She was going to blow this off—he could feel it.

  “Don’t worry so much. I’ll be fine. So, besides that, what did you think?” She was back to happy and excited.

  He’d done all he could, but he had a terrible feeling about it. With as much enthusiasm as he could muster, he said, “It was good, babe. It’s always good.”

  She asked about the boys. There was nothing noteworthy to report. She asked when he was coming next, and he told her he had a thing he needed to do with Ange’s boyfriend. Maybe the following weekend.

  When they’d exhausted all the current events and spent a few minutes talking about wishing they were together, Alex said she had to go. Dylan couldn’t resist telling her, one more time, to be very careful with her blog. One last ‘I love you’, and she was gone.

  A few minutes later, Ange and her boyfriend, Bill Hicks, arrived. Ange was going to stay and watch the boys while Dylan and Bill took a ride over to the cop shop and consulted with Kevin Thurston. Thurston, Bill’s immediate supervisor and lead deputy of the local branch of the Sheriff’s department, had changed his attitude about Dylan after their last run-in. Now, Thurston was interested in knowing what he knew about Los Diablos. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much, but maybe now Thurston was on it, they’d learn more.

  Bill left his car with Ange in case of emergency, and rode with Dylan in his Silverado to the cop shop. Thurston was already there. After handshakes all around, they got down to business.

  “Dylan, I’ve got to say, I haven’t seen anything illegal going on since you pointed them out last November. Far as I can tell, they hole up in that bar most of the time. Even when they go out riding in a bunch, they stay on the right side of the law. Can’t even catch ‘em driving drunk.”

  Before his two missteps with Dylan, when he refused to pay attention and even suspected Dylan of wrongdoing, that sentence would have come out heavy on the sarcasm. Tonight it was just frustration. Thurston seemed as uneasy as Dylan that a motorcycle club with ties, at least in name, to an outlaw gang from California had taken up residence in their little town.

  “You ever see them bunched up around a tractor-trailer rig on their bikes? Or an SUV even?” Dylan suspected Los Diablos of a cartel connection, but in the six months or so they’d been watching, neither he nor Thurston’s department had been able to spot it. Only the memory of a Latino man with a heavy accent talking to a member of the MC at Jen Mackey’s bar the previous July kept Dylan convinced there was a connection. The others were losing faith.

  “Not that we’ve seen. It would be a little obvious if we tailed them every time they rode out of the parking lot,” Thurston answered. Dylan looked at Bill for some support, but found none.

  “When you have tailed them, do they ride north or south?” There were only two ways out of town on paved roads—North on highway 85, toward Phoenix, or southeast, which soon curved back slightly southwest through Organ Pipe National Monument to the border. Of course, from US 85, one could turn off on highway 86 east toward Tucson from south of town, or on highway 8 north of town, leading to Casa Grande to the east or Yuma to the west. Towns and roads were few and far between out here.

  “South, mostly. Sometimes they run to Sells, on the reservation, or Gila Bend. They don’t usually go far.”

  “It’s a decoy,” Dylan said. “Got to be. What’s in Dodge for them, anyway? And how do they support themselves? Do any of those guys work?”

  “Don’t know. We don’t have the resources to tail every one of them, Dylan. And they’d spot that, too.” Thurston was still being civil, but Dylan could sense he was tired of the conversation.

  “What if we tailed a couple at a time? I could help, on my off time.” Dylan didn’t have much hope of getting away with that one, but he was going crazy trying to figure out what these guys were doing in Dodge.

  “Not without authorization, Dylan. I can’t have a civilian getting mixed up in this, especi
ally if it turns dangerous.”

  That was what he’d suspected. He had an idea. “What if you deputized me? You know I’m qualified for law enforcement, Thurston. It’s not like I’m really a civilian.”

  “Look, the best I can do is ask my superiors. I know you’re qualified, you’re right. Do me a favor, though, and don’t go doing anything I’m going to have to arrest you for, before I have a chance to square it with the department. Okay?”

  Dylan had to admit this new Kevin Thurston was a lot easier to work with than he used to be. There’d been a time Thurston would have thrown him in jail on a trumped up charge to keep him out of the way. In fact, he’d done exactly that before.

  ~~~

  Alex was intrigued by the knowledge that the Patriots, who she’d heard of only because of the group being listed as suspects in a number of her unidentified ruins cases, were headquartered right here in Casa Grande. She understood the hostility of the upstanding citizens of Arizona toward drug runners. Most of them didn’t resort to murder.

  She even understood the hostility toward poor illegals who just wanted work. After all, it was work that US citizens needed, too, and people who hired illegals drove wages down for citizens as well, making it all but impossible for someone to make a living in some jobs anymore. Landscaping and construction came to mind. While she could understand the Patriots’ frustration, she couldn’t grasp their mindset that it was okay, even patriotic to gun people down for crossing the border illegally. She’d never understand that.

  If the group was headquartered right here, would it be possible to interview some of the leaders? That would be a story worth pursuing, not to mention something she could really get her teeth into for her blog. Instead of taking Dylan’s warning to be careful around them to heart, Alex began brainstorming how she might get close enough to the group to get some insight.

  Meanwhile, her new activist friends planned their next peaceful protest for Saturday, and they’d recruited Alex to document it with photos and a write-up for the school newspaper. She met with them on Wednesday to get the particulars.

  “We have a permit for a march,” Dawn said to start the meeting. “We’ll gather here at the Student Union building. Everyone be sure not to block the entrances. Who’s bringing signs?”

  Alex listened and took notes as Dawn expertly organized the group. It sounded as if there would be many more to march on the day of the parade. Each person here was responsible to bring a squad of up to twenty more people, and some had several other organizers under them, each with their own squads. By her estimation, it could be over two hundred people.

  The majority of the marchers seemed to be Pima and the Maricopa who shared their reservation. They planned to march from the campus down East 6th Street to a nearby park, where there would be speeches. With music and a barbecue following the speeches, it seemed more like a big party than a demonstration. Alex didn’t quite see the point, but it did sound like fun.

  She was glad to be part of it. This was the very type of thing she’d been missing as a commuter. Between the driving itself and her duties at the paper in Dodge, she’d never been able to participate in these gatherings. As much as she took seriously the plight of her new friends’ people, she was still a young woman who enjoyed a bit of fun, and there wasn’t nearly enough of this kind of fun in Dodge. Maybe she would even be able to tempt her housemates to join her. She’d envisioned doing things with them, but their interests were so diverse it hadn’t happened yet. They’d met Dylan, of course, and it was cool they didn’t care when he spent the night. Still, that didn’t really count as doing stuff with them.

  On Saturday, Alex braided her long hair into twin pigtails and slipped on a cool sundress with a short skirt and wide straps. She slathered her fair skin with half a bottle of sunscreen and finished the look with low-heeled sandals and a floppy hat to keep the sun off her face. It was cooler than usual this time of year, but that wasn’t saying much. With the sun beating down on her from mid-morning until the rally broke up, seventy-six degrees would feel more like ninety, especially on the seven-block walk to the park, on hot city streets. Her housemates had just laughed when she invited them.

  “Pool,” said Lisa. Natalie just grinned without bothering to answer. They’d invited her to go to Rocky Point with them for shrimp some time, and she’d probably go, as long as it wasn’t on a weekend that Dylan could visit. Hell of a long drive just for shrimp, though. She’d also need to get a passport first. Rocky Point was on the shores of the Gulf of Baja California, in Mexico. She’d never been, even though the locals in Dodge considered it their personal seafood market.

  Alex joined the march, which, with curiosity-seekers and others like her who truly cared about the Native Americans, swelled to over three hundred people. She started out in the front of the pack, with Dawn and the other organizers, but slipped behind as she paused to take photos of the crowd and get signed permissions from some people whose faces would be prominent in the photos. She was soon trailing at the rear of the pack and regretting her choice of footwear.

  The mood of the crowd was festive, which was a little surprising to Alex. She hadn’t considered a protest march as a festive occasion, but maybe it was actually just an excuse for a party. She’d have to talk with Dawn about it, rather than interviewing the participants. They didn’t seem to be taking it very seriously.

  SIX

  April had passed and May followed, as Alex grew more comfortable in the larger city and in her roles as student, stringer for the student newspaper and freelancer for her dad’s paper. He’d been willing to pay her as usual, but Alex knew she wouldn’t be earning it now that she wasn’t doing ad calls anymore. Besides, thanks to the scholarship money, she had plenty to live on for the couple of months she planned to be in Casa Grande.

  She hadn’t yet found the opportunity to get to the beach with her housemates, because Dylan was there almost every other weekend, and some of the weekends he didn’t travel to her, she went home to see her dad. The danger and intrigue she’d shared with Dylan last year seemed like distant memories except when she was in Dodge. It was another reason not to be there any more often than she had to be.

  She’d covered one more ‘protest march’, even though she was now convinced it was just an excuse to party, and she’d made no progress in infiltrating the Patriots. She didn’t even know how to start, and she didn’t know who to ask. Most everyone she knew would discourage her from doing it. Alex couldn’t let it go, though, especially after receiving hate mail on her blog—ugly comments about the rallies with Dawn’s activist group. Naturally, she moderated comments to the blog, so these never saw the light of day.

  On Memorial Day weekend, Alex went home for the three-day holiday, and went with Dylan and the boys to take flowers to their mother’s grave. Her dad had long since stopped visiting his own father’s grave, but she wandered over to place one rose on the headstone while Dylan told his brothers some yarn about when they were little and their mom wasn’t sick. She knew it to be a lie, because Maria had been an alcoholic even before Juan and Davi’s father had left the family. She remembered Dylan’s embarrassment over her when they were in high school.

  Alex understood he told the stories because he wanted the little boys to remember her fondly, but at those times, she usually left to avoid giving away his lies. It was her only way to support him, because she despised a lie more than almost anything. Still, she understood his reasons.

  Afterward, they went back to his house for a traditional holiday lunch, though it was too hot by far to picnic anywhere outdoors. She dropped back by her dad’s house to say goodbye before heading back to Casa Grande and tomorrow’s classes, an anticlimax to a long weekend. Inside, she rejoiced it was over while at the same time looking forward to next weekend, when she’d have Dylan all to herself. They were going to celebrate his birthday early, since it was on a Tuesday.

  She spent all week planning a special weekend for Dylan. Even though he was a park ranger a
nd it would hardly be new and exciting for him, she thought he’d enjoy a visit to the nearby Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, for which the city was named. Lisa and Natalie were going to Rocky Point overnight, so they’d have the house to themselves on Saturday. The other girls would be back with fresh shrimp for a celebration on Sunday. Alex was going to bake a cake. It promised to be a wonderful weekend, especially Saturday night.

  Saturday was perfect, if hot. Dylan arrived in a good mood at around ten in the morning, and she greeted him in the same mood.

  “What do you have planned?” he asked. He’d been asking all week, when they talked or by text, but she’d wanted to surprise him. When she answered, his only response was to laugh and tease her about taking a park ranger to a national park for a special outing.

  “Would you rather go to the casino?” she asked, teasing him back. He’d told her he didn’t really enjoy slot machines, and table games were too rich for his blood.

  “Nah, let’s go to the ruins,” he answered. “We’ll get all hot and dusty, and when we get home, we’ll need showers. But, we should save water and shower together.”

  He leered at her so comically that she broke out laughing. It actually sounded like a pretty good idea to her. As soon as she’d had that thought, she blushed, the curse of her redhead’s skin, and Dylan’s eyes turned from twinkling to smoldering in half a second.

  “Maybe we could actually just skip the ruins and go straight to the shower,” she murmured.

  “We should get sweaty first, so we won’t be wasting water,” he answered.

  Alex wasn’t sure whether he was serious. They’d never made love in the daytime, except for the times they’d woken together and done it in the early morning, before getting out of bed. It seemed wanton, wrong somehow, but at the same time exciting, to get in bed for sex in the middle of the day. Before she’d made up her mind whether he meant it, Dylan laughed, breaking the spell.