being, saying anything to Brandon Walker was out, certainly until Alvin actually had a chance to compare those two distinctive prints. In the meantime, he took several more reasonably good prints off the desktop and drawer.
'Getting any good ones?' Brandon Walker asked, reappearing in the door to his study.
'Some,' Alvin Miller allowed, 'but my pager just went off.' That was an outright lie, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. 'I'll stop here for now. I'll come back tomorrow sometime. Just don't touch anything until I do. The stuff I've already picked up I'll work on in the lab.'
'Sure thing, Al,' Brandon Walker said. 'I appreciate it.'
Alvin Miller drove straight back to the department. There, after simply eyeballing the two dusted prints, he picked up the phone and dialed Dan Leggett's home phone number. 'Who's calling?' Leggett's wife asked in a tone that indicated she wasn't pleased with this work-related, late Saturday-evening phone call.
'It's Alvin Miller. Tell him I'm calling about the prints.'
'So there were some?' Leggett asked, coming on the phone. 'Did you get a hit?'
'Not yet. I haven't had a chance to run them yet, but there's a problem.'
'What kind of problem?' Dan Leggett asked.
'How well do you get along with Detective Myers?'
'He's a jerk, why?'
'Because I've got a match between one of your prints and prints on a case he's working. Actually, a case he hasn't quite gotten around to working on yet.'
'This is beginning to sound complicated.'
'It is. The matching print came from the top of the desk in Brandon Walker's study in his home office. Somebody broke into the place, smashed up some of his stuff, and stole a gun. But the real kicker is that Lani Walker, Sheriff Walker's sixteen-year-old daughter, is among the missing and has been since early this morning. Myers refused to take the MP report because of the twenty-four-hour wait. Claimed it was probably just kid bullshit. But with the matching print…'
'You think her disappearance may be linked to our assault case from this afternoon?'
'Don't you?' Alvin asked. 'It's sure as hell linked to your bones and wallet.'
Detective Leggett considered for a moment. 'So how did you get dragged into all this? Into the Walker thing, I mean?'
'Myers told Brandon Walker that the soonest anybody could come check for prints was Monday, and Walker called to see if I could do it any earlier. I couldn't very well turn the man down, now could I?'
'Ford Myers is going to be ripped when he finds out,' Leggett said. 'He'll be gunning for you.'
Alvin Miller laughed. 'That's nothing new. He already is.'
'So what are you going to do with the prints you have?'
'Get them ready, scan them into the computer, and run them.'
'Tonight? How long will it take you?'
'An hour or so to get them ready. After that, it's just a matter of waiting for the computer to do its thing. Do you want me to give you a call later on if I get a hit?'
'You'd better,' Dan Leggett said. 'But do me one favor.'
'What's that?'
'Don't tell Ford Myers until I give you the word.'
'Don't worry,' Alvin Miller said. 'Why should I? After all, he isn't expecting fingerprint results before Monday morning. Do you want me to call you there and let you know what I find?'
'Don't bother. I'm heading back out.'
'Where are you going?'
'Back over to the hospital to see if Brian Fellows has had a chance to talk to Mr. Chavez.'
A few yards beyond the turnoff to the Rattlesnake Skull charco, Mitch swung the wheel sharply to the right. Pulling over to the side, he stopped. 'Time to switch into four-wheel drive,' he said.
Quentin reached for the door handle. 'How'd you know this was it?' he asked.
'I can see your tracks heading off across the wash, dummy,' Mitch Johnson replied. 'And if I can see them, so can the rest of the world.'
Lani was dismayed to see that once on his feet, Quentin could barely stand upright. She stayed in the car while Quentin struggled with the hubs. Finally Mitch ordered Quentin back into the truck, the backseat this time.
'You come with me,' he said to Lani. Once she was on her feet, he handed her a branch he had broken off a nearby mesquite. 'I want you to follow behind the truck,' he said. 'Brush out the tire tracks, and yours, too. Do you understand?'
Lani nodded.
'And if you do anything off the wall, if you try to run, not only will I shoot your brother with his father's own gun, I'll come get you, too. Is that clear?'
'Yes.'
Lani watched Mitch climb back into the truck, knowing that he was wrong about that. Quentin Walker was Brandon Walker's son, her father's son, but as far as Lani was concerned, Davy Ladd was her only brother. Still, she couldn't stand the thought that some action of hers, even an action that might save her own life, could cost Quentin his. She didn't like him much and she owed him nothing. And had she turned and fled into the desert right then, she might very well have managed to hide well enough and long enough to get away.
But how would she feel when she heard the report of gunfire, a shot that would come from her father's own gun, one that would snuff out Quentin's life? It didn't matter if he was drugged or just drunk. Either way, he was almost as incapable of defending himself against Mitch as Lani had been earlier.
While Mitch backed up and turned the Bronco to head off across the wash, that was Lani's dilemma-to run and try to save herself or to stay and try to save Quentin's life as well as her own. There was a part of her that already knew Mitch's real intention was to kill them both. He had no reason not to.
The Bronco bounced across the wash and then paused on the far side. 'Come on,' Mitch yelled out the window. 'Hurry it up.'
The moment Lani Walker heard his voice, shouting at her over the idling rumble of the Bronco, she made up her mind. Brother or not, she would try to be Quentin's keeper. If they both lived, she might once again be able to tell her parents in person that she loved them. If not, if she and Quentin were both doomed and if seeing her parents again was impossible, then she was determined to leave some word for them, some farewell message. Slipping one hand into the pocket of her jeans, Lani pulled out her precious O'othham basket. Resisting the temptation to press its reassuring presence into her palm once more, she dropped it, allowing it to fall atop the small hump of rocky gravel that formed the shoulder of the road.
If someone happened to find the basket and was good enough to give it to Lani's parents, then perhaps Diana and Brandon Walker would understand that it was a last loving message sent from Lani to them. If not-even if the carefully woven hair charm came to no other end than to grace Wosho koson 's-Pack Rat's-burrow-Lani could be assured the sacred symbol of the Tohono O'othham, the maze, would not be defiled by Mitch's evil Ohb touch. He might manage to claim other trophies, including some ancient Indian pots, but Lani's basket would never be his.
Fighting back tears, Lani bent herself to her assigned task, wielding the makeshift broom. As she scraped the tire tracks out of the sand, Lani realized that with every stroke she was also erasing any hope that some rescuer might find them in time.
That meant she and Quentin would most likely die. If it came down to a fight between her and Mitch, there could be little doubt of the outcome. He would win. Lani and Quentin would die, but the terrible pain in her breast told her that in the hands of someone like Mitch Vega, there might be far worse things than death.
That awful knowledge came over Lani in a mind-clearing rush, calming her fears rather than adding to them. Perhaps she would not be able to save either Quentin's life or her own from this new evil Ohb, but by leaving the basket behind, she had at least saved that.
As long as those few strands of black and yellow hair stayed woven together, then some remnant of Lani's own life would remain as well, for she had woven her own spirit into that basket-her own spirit and Jessica's and Nana Dahd 's as well.
No matter what he did, Mitch would never be able to touch that.
