“Really? What kind of trouble?”
“This is just between us, but they found Bull Ryan in his office. Dead.”
She gasped and placed a hand over the middle of her chest. “Heart attack?” she guessed, knowing Bull had watched his blood pressure.
“I haven’t seen him yet, and with the way the feds run things I doubt if I will, but I heard he was… scalped.”
“Scalped?” she repeated, shocked. “By what?”
“A person with a sharp knife, I imagine. And his scalp was lacerated, not cut completely off, but it looks bad, according to your sheriff.”
“Oh, Mike,” she breathed, saddened for him, and for everyone in the community. “I’m so sorry. Who would do such a thing?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sounding more forlorn than she’d ever heard him.
Her mind reeled, not with possibilities, but with repercussions. Tenaja Falls would be up in arms over this. Yesenia Montes’s accidental death had caused a stir, but Bull Ryan was a respected businessman. To find him scalped? The whole thing was bizarre.
Jesse would be devastated. And Dylan had just started his new job yesterday.
Shay felt a twinge of nerves. Her brother couldn’t have been on the construction site during the time of the attack. Could he?
“Be careful out there,” Mike warned. “The lion attack, the fire, and now this… it just doesn’t add up.”
“Of course,” she murmured.
“We’ve been working on tracking some untagged lions in the area,” he continued. “There aren’t a lot of big males within range, as far as we know, so we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed.” He paused, collecting his thoughts. “How are you feeling?”
She supposed he meant her knee. “I’m fine.” The swelling was gone and the bruises were fading fast. “Ready to hike, climb, track, whatever.”
“Take it easy for a few days,” he advised gruffly.
It was nice to have someone fuss over her every once in a while. “Did you leave a box here?” she asked, wondering if it was a gift.
“Huh?”
“I found a small package out front. Is it yours?”
“No,” he replied. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“Hmm,” she said, eyeing the mysterious object.
Mike cleared his throat. “Listen, we had Hamlet cremated, and I thought you might like to do something with the remains. I mean, they’re yours, if you want them.”
Shay was touched by the gesture. “Yes,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Thank you. Really. It’s nice of you to offer.”
Mike mumbled that she was welcome and said a quick good-bye, as uncomfortable with sentimental interactions as she was.
She hung up the phone and ran her hand over the surface of the cardboard box, sniffling back a few tears. Maybe someone had dropped off a late birthday present. Maybe a secret admirer-Luke, her foolish heart ventured- had brought her a romantic gift.
As she started opening the top, a faint noise sent her tumbling back in time. It sounded like the rain stick her mama had given her when she was a little girl. She hadn’t thought of it in years. The arm-length section of bamboo had been hand-painted and filled with stones. It made a rattling noise, like rain hitting an aluminum rooftop, when it was turned upside down.
Shay saw her mother’s face in her mind, the way she’d looked before she got sick. She had been so vibrant, so joyous, so full of love and life and light.
After Dylan was born, her light dimmed. As a child, Shay didn’t know about postpartum depression or any of the other maladies her mother suffered from, but she’d learned quite a bit about how to take care of a baby.
How many nights had she fed Dylan, and bathed him, and rocked him to sleep? She couldn’t remember. He’d liked the rain stick, too. Sometimes she turned it up and down, over and over, its soothing sound calming him when nothing else would.
So lost in the memory, she didn’t see the snake in the box until it bit her.
21
Luke met Clay at the tribal police station a few minutes after he contacted Garrett.
Apparently, Dylan Phillips hadn’t shown up to his first class this morning. Not an uncommon occurrence, according to Principal Fischer, especially for a kid with Dylan’s track record, but Luke was worried. He tried to reach Shay at home and at Dark Canyon. She must have been between the two places, because he couldn’t get ahold of her at either.
Garrett promised he’d find Dylan, and Luke was almost afraid he’d be successful. Luke would go after the boy himself, but he had another dead body to worry about, and a whole mess of suspicious circumstances.
Not that the case was his to solve.
He was out of his jurisdiction, out of his element, and way out of his comfort zone. Small town politics and race relations were complex issues on their own. A suspicious death with bizarre cultural implications, on top of a mountain lion attack, would put Tenaja Falls on the national map and generate the kind of media circus Luke didn’t want to deal with.
Being new in town and new on the job left him at a distinct disadvantage. He felt like the stranger on the reservation again, the kid who got hard looks and took hard hits, the one who kept his mouth shut because he didn’t know what to say, the one who’d learned that acting aloof was an excellent defense mechanism.
Something about Tenaja Falls stripped away those artifices, like the desert wind laying a man down to his bare bones. Vegas was a place of flattery and falsehoods. Here, everyone seemed like a straight shooter, but Luke still had to watch his back.
His last conversation with Shay had also left him feeling uneasy. He knew he’d mishandled almost every interaction between them so far, from his casual dismissal of her on the sun-warmed rock that first afternoon to his mangled apology attempt in the fertility cave after a round of bone-melting sex.
He’d gotten off on the wrong foot with her from day one, and he could only hope she’d give him a chance to make it up to her.
Trying to roll the tension out of his shoulders, he followed Clay down the hall to the drunk tank, thinking he was lucky that their earlier confrontation hadn’t come to blows. The younger man was lanky but strong, quick of mind and light on his feet. Unlike Jesse Ryan, Luke figured Clay wouldn’t go down on the first hit.
Instead of throwing punches, Clay led him back to the holding tank. The cell was large enough to accommodate a half-dozen detainees, but Jesse Ryan was the only soul inside. With its concrete benches, aluminum toilet, and stainless steel sink, it was a dreary, uncomfortable-looking space.
Jesse didn’t appear bothered by the lack of ambience. He was flat on his back, snoring.
Clay was understandably upset, but he didn’t need to be told not to mention Bull Ryan’s death. He and Luke exchanged a weighted glance, by tacit agreement promising not to give away any information.
“Rise and shine, bro,” Clay said.
Jesse lifted his head, opened one eye, and groaned.
He shoved a lined paper cup through the bars. “I brought you some coffee.”
Luke didn’t think it was a good idea to give a disgruntled detainee a cup of hot liquid, but that was Clay’s business. He hoped Jesse wouldn’t throw it in his half-brother’s face.
Jesse stood, rubbing a hand over his shadowed jaw. “Which one of y’all hit me?”
Clay hooked his thumb in Luke’s direction.
“Remind me not to mess with you again,” Jesse said amiably, staggering forward and taking the coffee from Clay’s hand.
