A sob welled up in her chest. Ruthlessly, she suppressed it. It would do her little good. She walked back to her car, unclipped her duty belt, and laid it on the passenger seat. Her shirt was still damp from the rain, so she stripped it and her vest off, leaving on only her long-sleeved black Under Armour and sports bra.
Inside the truck, she rolled the windows down. There was a door holster for her Glock. She secured it, set the alarm on her phone for one A.M., and leaned the seat back. It would be two in the morning before she got home, but there was no work to get up for the next day. The piñon-and-sage-tinged breeze wrapped like a blanket around her.
Exhausted, she closed her eyes and slept.
* * *
A scrabbling sound prickled the hair on her neck.
She stood in a narrow cylinder of light, darkness all around her, the patch of gritty dirt under her feet swept clean. Head tipped back, Nicky searched the heavens for stars, but there was only black. She stretched out a hand to touch the darkness, and her arm disappeared into the murk as if she’d pushed it through a curtain.
On her left, the shuffling slid closer. Head cocked, she strained to see. Slowly, she slipped her hand out of the darkness to retrieve her weapon, but when it reappeared, glimmering crimson covered her arm to the elbow. She drew it completely into the circle of light, lost focus on the noise inching toward her, and sucked in a breath. Palm and fingers lifted in front of her, Nicky rotated her hand back and forth in the bright, penetrating beam.
Her skin was completely coated in blood.
From beside her in the darkness, a whisper of breath touched her ear.
Nicky jackknifed up, gun in hand, its muzzle a scant inch from the painted man’s forehead. He squeaked.
“Back away. Now!” she said. Her heartbeat drummed in her breast. “I want to see your hands.” She opened the door of her unit and the interior light flooded the surrounding area. The man shuffled backward, but he clutched something against his chest. A helmet.
No. A round mask. With antlers. The hair on her arms tingled. “Drop it. Hands in the air.”
He squeaked again and clamped the mask closer to his chest, cradling it tightly. “I … I can’t. They wouldn’t like it to be dropped in the dirt.”
“Who?” Body tense, blood pumping through her, muzzle trained on his heart. Her back to the truck, Nicky glanced around quickly, looking for others. “Who wouldn’t like it? Where are they?” It was still dark, but she could see the stars and the moon.
A dream. It had been a dream.
“My ancestors. They live here.” He jerked the mask. “They are with me now for protection. I can smell them inside.”
Nicky’s brows lowered. She stared hard at the skinny man before her. His face and neck were painted white and he’d daubed a sloppy black bar across his wide, blinking eyes. Short dark hair stuck up untidily from his head. He was dressed in traditional Fire-Sky garments, down to dark moccasins. Black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.
“Howard?”
He nodded and gave her a smile. “Hey.”
* * *
Howard shifted on his feet, flinched. “They are here,” he told the lady cop. “We must hurry.”
“Stop squirming, Howard. I have to search you for weapons.” She slid and pressed her hands over his body, down and up his legs. He widened his eyes and clenched his butt cheeks as she checked his crotch. Already she’d taken his knife. He fretted about that because he needed it for protection against the evil war chiefs.
His mask balanced on the hood of the cop’s truck, the black eye holes staring at him as he stood splayed for Sergeant Matthews.
“I followed them up here but my car gave out down there.” Howard’s face heated under the paint and his voice rose high at the end. His ancestors were seeing this lady cop feel him up.
She finished and reached for the mask.
“Dza! Nah!” He snatched it into his arms and held it like a baby.
“I need to check it, Howard. Make sure it’s safe. Can you hold it so I can see inside?” Her voice had gentled.
He pursed his lips. “Well … okay. But don’t touch! These are my ancestors. They don’t like to be touched by an outsider. Especially their junk,” he grumbled as he tipped the opening toward her.
With the beam of her light, she lit up the empty interior. Then she retrieved his knife and weighed it in her hand.
“This is some weapon, Howard. Its tip is broken off and it’s dull as wood.” She shook her head. “What were you gonna do with it?”
He scratched his neck but the white paint got stuck under his fingernails. He picked at it. “Maybe it’s for symbolic protection.” Howard sniffed. He didn’t really need it because he had his ancestors backing him up. Maybe.
Suddenly he remembered his purpose again.
“The war chiefs. They are on Scalding Peak, doing the ritual tonight. Three of them.” He notched his chin at the dark mountain. “They have their sacrifice. I saw it. Wrapped up in a white cloth. They put it in the truck of that rich guy from the casino.”
“Peter Santibanez?” Her tone was harsh.
Howard sagged. Finally, the cop listened to him. “Haa’a. Yeah. He was a war chief last year. He knows the rituals. He knows how to cut out the hearts and scatter our enemies. He’s their leader, you know?” Actually, Howard wasn’t sure about that, but it made the cop move.
She clipped on her belt, all business now. No more crotch-grabbing.
“I’ll need my knife?” he said.
“No. Where on the mountain are they?”
Howard hunched in disappointment, but she was a warrior now. Between the cop and his ancestors, power would soon fill him. He didn’t need his knife. He’d expose the war chiefs’ evil and win. Maybe.
Tipping up his chin, he peered into the darkness. A light flickered weakly above them, partially shielded by the trees and rocks. Abruptly, the low thumping of drums resonated in the atmosphere.
“They are in the First Sacred Caves. They have started.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Nicky dialed Franco’s number. He picked up immediately.
“Nicky.”
Her lips pinched in anger at the sound of his voice. She wasn’t sure if it was because of him, the whole situation, or both. “I need you and your team up on Scalding Peak now. I’m at the Kuwami K’uuti lookout with Howard Kie. He’s been tracking the war chiefs and Peter Santibanez. They’re the killers, Franco. They’re performing a ritual tonight. They may have a victim. I’m going up now.”
“Dammit, Nicky, no! You wait for us.”
“I can’t. It might be too late. Howard says they’re at the First Sacred Caves.”
“Keep the line open, then.”
“Sorry, Franco, no service.” She hung up. “Get in the truck, Howard.” The phone rang again. She switched the sound off.
The engine started with a growl. She punched the accelerator and pulled out of the lookout and onto the blacktop, tires squealing, and headed up the peak. The darkness of the forested slopes enveloped the vehicle, headlamps barely penetrating into the thick brush.
“You gonna call the Fire-Sky cops?” Howard asked, his helmet-mask in his lap. He’d calmed considerably from the jittery mess he’d been at the lookout.
“Nope.”
“The war chiefs. From up there they’ll see your headlights.”
“Then I need you to hold the flashlight out the window.” She tugged it from her belt and handed it to him. “You’re my partner tonight.”
He puffed up, a goofy grin on his face, and nodded.
She stopped her unit and switched the lights off and shadows invaded the interior of her truck. Howard pointed the flashlight out the window and Nicky directed him to find the edge of the road. They crawled along the blacktop but within a few hundred yards hit gravel.
“Where have you been, Howard? Where are you staying?” Nicky asked. Might as well get a little interrogation done while he was cooperating.
&n
bsp; “After you found me at the adobe house, I stayed with Walker from the mini-mart.”
The faux-hawk guy with the sleepy eyes.
“You gave me Flamin’ Hot Fritos,” he said. “That was a good deed. But the others who came to find me were bad.”
“What others?”
“In the black truck and in the Conservation vehicle.”
Franco and his partner.
“So you weren’t mad at me?” she asked. “Did you follow me at the blessing on Tuesday?”
The road switched back.
Howard grinned, his painted face eerie in the low light. “You didn’t see me. I touched your jacket.” He lifted the hand holding the mask to show her his palm and the mask rolled forward. He lunged to grab it and dropped the flashlight. Everything in front of the truck went black. She stopped the vehicle with a jerk.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” he said in a singsong voice. He hopped out, carefully placed the mask on the seat, and disappeared under her unit. After he brushed himself off and climbed back inside, he pointed the light forward and they continued upward. The faint sound of drums pulsed through the trees, muffled behind a bend in the road.
“You weren’t angry at me?” She thought about the snake with a shudder.
He was half out the window now, kind of like a puppy, and talking to the mask under his breath. “No. You gave me Hot Fritos.” He shook his head and huffed.
“You left me a gift at the blessing.”
“Sandra’s flash drive.” He nodded and made the mask nod, too. “No one else listened. Sandra was my friend. She listened.”
Nicky swallowed the knot in her throat. Tonight she would have her answers. “Listened about what?”
“The war chiefs. They are the only ones who could do it. They know the sacred rituals.”
“I don’t understand, Howard. Do what?”
“Sandra thought it was about money. But it’s about who belongs. The war chiefs are powerful. They choose who belongs to Fire-Sky.” He sighed heavily. “I want to belong. I want to be a war chief. They won’t let me because of the beer. And the ones they choose for their rituals are sick. Beer or drugs, other stuff. No good for the tribe alive or dead, so they make them lost.”
Cold sweat popped out on Nicky’s brow. She licked her lips. A purge. Peter Santibanez and the DNA database. It fit. They crawled up the road, rocks crunching and popping under the tires. In her head, loose threads swirled in a hundred directions.
“Howard? After Sandra died, we couldn’t find any information about the war chiefs, or the missing Fire-Sky tribal members, or any of her emails,” Nicky said.
“Because they swept everything clean so no one could find it.” He pressed his lips into a pooch and slanted her a glance, the whites of his eyes shining in the black painted stripe. “They control your phone, you know.”
“What?” Nicky hit the brakes. Howard jerked forward and the flashlight went flying.
“I’ll get it!” He hopped out of the truck again.
“What do you mean, they control my phone?”
He jumped back in and sniffed. “I have a filter on my phone. Your message on blessing night had the same evil spirit in it as Sandra’s phone and email.” Although what he said was crazy, he sounded competent and coherent.
“I have a virus on my phone?” Nicky’s mind raced. When and how had her phone been compromised?
“Uh-huh.” He trained the light to the edge of the road. The trees towered above them and the terrain was rockier. “I can sweep it clean for you, but only when it’s safe. After we stop these guys,” he said and gestured with his chin up the road. “I should have stopped them years ago, but I was weak.” He turned his head toward her and gulped. “It was the beer. I have decided to stop drinking. I can help better now.”
Something he said made her drag in a quick breath. The phone would have to wait till later.
“You said years ago. Do you mean Maryellen K’aishuni?”
The mask nodded at her.
Her hands constricted almost painfully on the steering wheel. “How is she related to all this, Howard?” she asked.
“She was nice, but she…” He straightened and said firmly, “Maryellen did not fit what they want. She was their first victim, you know? They killed her like they killed Sandra.”
Nicky’s jaw clenched so hard her teeth ground. She wanted to scream at him to explain.
“Howard, how did they kill Maryellen?” Her voice crawled out of her throat as slowly as the truck crawled up the road.
“They cut her heart out,” he said matter-of-factly. “She is lost. Stop!” He flashed the beam of light on a large extended-cab black truck tucked under some pines. Nicky recognized it. Peter Santibanez’s.
Howard clicked off the flashlight, handed it back to her, and climbed out.
“Wait!” Nicky heard the thinness of her voice. “How do you know that? About her heart?”
He stood by the door, the mask under his arm, shifting anxiously from one foot to the other. “I shouldn’t tell you. You are not Fire-Sky. It’s a sacred and secret ritual, only known to the war chiefs. I should have been a war chief.”
“Howard. Please.”
She didn’t think he was going to speak when he suddenly blurted, “It’s a sacrifice! If our enemy loses his heart, his organs, he is lost. He cannot harm the Fire-Sky People forever again because he wanders. The Enemy’s Heart Ceremony. Our ancestors did it to protect us. It’s a sacred act. But today, the war chiefs are using it against Fire-Sky People who don’t belong. They used Maryellen. Then I told Sandra and they killed her, too. I want to belong, yet they stalk me!” Howard hit his chest. “It’s my fault,” he sobbed.
He pulled off his glasses, jammed on his helmet, and marched toward the black truck. Nicky ran in front of him and pressed the flashlight against his chest.
“Howard, how do you know someone took Maryellen’s heart?”
The black holes of the mask swiveled. “The FBI told me.” His voice echoed hollowly. “After she died, they visited me and asked me about the rabbits. I emailed rabbits to Maryellen’s mom, for comfort, you know? Maryellen loved rabbits more than anything. When they told me, I knew it was the war chiefs because I trained to be a war chief and know some of the rituals. But they rejected me because they didn’t want me to know. I didn’t understand then, but now I do. They were the only ones who knew the ceremonies. I tried to tell the agents, but they wouldn’t believe me.”
“What?” His logic confused her. Since the war chiefs wouldn’t let Howard be a war chief, they must have cut out Maryellen’s heart? But his next statement exploded that thought.
“I told you because you saw a white rabbit. The white rabbit leads the lost souls.”
Mike Kapur, her cyber expert, said the FBI targeted Howard because of his weird emails with hearts and knives and rabbits, but they’d cleared him as a suspect. With Sandra’s death, Howard had sent her bizarre emails with hearts and knives and rabbits. Nicky pressed a hand against her brow. Was that the connection? Was that why the FBI were on the reservation? They’d linked Maryellen and Sandra’s murders because their hearts had been cut from them.
And thus, a murderer had graduated to a serial killer.
She pushed away a sudden uneasiness and focused on what she understood right now.
Peter Santibanez was using Fire-Sky Indians for some kind of sick, traditional protection ritual, to eliminate tribe members whose DNA and blood quantum he considered less pure. Wannabes Santibanez deemed enemies of the tribe because they drained the pueblo of resources.
And when Sandra Deering found out, he’d killed her to shut her up and had taken her heart, too. Sandra was lost. They all were lost. Almost everything fit. Almost.
The Spirit’s Heart pendant seemed to burn the skin of her chest. Nicky pulled her Glock, cold anger flowing through her.
“Stay by the truck,” she ordered Howard. “When the FBI get here, send them up. I’m ending this now.”
/> CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Nicky left Howard standing in the darkness and approached the black truck. She angled her flashlight inside the bed. A bloody canvas tarp rested in the back, along with sleeping bags and camping equipment. The windows were opened and the drumming blasted out of the stereo, throbbing so loud it seemed to penetrate her skin and beat in time with her heart. Underneath the thrum, a low humming song accompanied it, almost soothing. A cooler sat on the ground near the front tire. She lifted the lid. It was filled with ice, food, and drinks, enough for a couple of days. Some of the rituals lasted that long.
The sound of laughter and talking echoed off the rocky slopes. Howard said three men had driven up in the truck. She crept forward and searched for a safe way to approach and observe. A narrow path disappeared in the shrubs, fresh boot tracks in the dirt. The mountain towered above her, jagged lava rocks strewn in the foliage and trees. Light glowed around the thin branches and leaves that shivered in a warm breeze. The cave lay back there, one used for some of the Fire-Sky sacred ceremonies. As an outsider, she’d never been inside.
Howard Kie believed the war chiefs came to sacrifice a human. But everything seemed too casual, too relaxed.
Something was off.
The drumming song ended. The next song was … Adele? What the…? Nicky strode down the path. It ended in a small clearing near the arched entrance of the cave, which was lit brightly with Coleman lanterns. The cloying stink of blood and death hung in the air.
One of the men walked toward her, head turned away to throw a laughing remark to someone behind him. Nicky pulled her sidearm up, its muzzle pointed at the man’s chest. When he finally saw her, he froze, eyes wide and jaw slack.
In his right hand he gripped a large curved bowie knife. Spattered blood covered him from head to toe.
She recognized him as a village elder from Ruby Crest—Brian Serachin’e—a Methodist pastor and the father of four kids.
A lump formed in her stomach. Something was definitely wrong with this scene.
“Drop the knife,” she yelled. “Now! Lay down on the ground! Lay down! Legs spread, hands above your head!” He complied.
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