LITMIR.BIZ

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for the trampled evidence. She blew out a breath. As if anyone, much less the tribal archaeologist from the college, had expected to find a fresh corpse amid a nineteenth-century Apache campsite.

      The SUV braked and shuddered to a stop. She closed her eyes as the dust cloud billowed. Voices emerged from the vehicle. Male and female. Car doors banged shut.

      Out of habit, she kept her elbow against her ribcage. Her hand hovered within easy reach of her Glock. She coughed to clear her throat. She opened her eyes.

      And when the dust particles dissipated, he—not Edwards—stood not six feet away from her. Plus two blond women, one on each side.

      Pilar blinked to clear the grit from her eyes.

      It couldn’t be—her stomach muscles tightened. A mirage. The dust and sun playing tricks on her mind. Conjured by her subconscious, as happened so often in the years since she’d seen him.

      But then he tilted his head in that way of his.

      And her heart raced.

      His eyes lit as the air cleared between them.

      Alex was supposed to be on assignment out of the country. Not here. Not close enough to—She ground her teeth.

      Where was Edwards? Why was Alex here? How—?

      Her mouth tightened. Abuela.

      Abuela knew everything. And Pilar recognized an ambush when she saw one. She’d deal with Alex’s grandmother later.

      Pilar took a step back. “Still a blonde on each arm, eh, Alex?”

      The warmth in his eyes seeped away.

      Alex—Special Agent Alex Torres—lifted his chin a fraction. “Is that, too, a crime on the rez these days, Officer To-Clanny?”

      She met his glare with an unfriendly glower of her own. “If it isn’t, maybe it ought to be.”

      An uncomfortable silence ticked between the members of Alex’s team. Five, including Alex. The two blondes, an Asian man, and a real Indian—the ones Columbus had been looking for when he stumbled upon her people’s continent.

      “Where’s Edwards?” Pilar widened her stance. “Why are you here?”

      A muscle pulsed in Alex’s jaw. “We’re working a serial. The description your tribal archaeologist gave of the body matched another case we caught. So they sent me. Deal with it.”

      One of the blondes disengaged from the pack. “I’m Dr. Emily Waters, a forensic anthropologist.” She extended her hand to Pilar.

      “Don’t,” Alex barked. “She—they—Apaches don’t like to be touched.”

      Emily Waters stopped mid-stride and dropped her hand.

      The look Alex threw Pilar seared her flesh. “Isn’t that right, Officer To-Clanny?”

      She quivered as the memory dangled between them, taut as a bowstring. Across time and distance. The caress of his hand against her cheek as real as if yesterday.

      Emily Waters’s gaze ping-ponged between them. “I take it you two already know each other?”

      The connection between Pilar and Alex snapped.

      Adapt or die. Adapt or die.

      Folding his arms across his blazer, Alex leaned against the hood of the SUV.

      Pilar’s lips twisted. “You could say that.”

      She gave them a nice view of her back as she pivoted toward the trail where the corpse waited. “A lifetime ago, when we used to be married.”

      ***

      Alex jerked and straightened.

      His forensic specialist, Emily, threw him an uncertain glance.

      Alex fought to remind himself of his purpose here.

      Pilar nudged her chin toward the butte. “You’ll need to follow me in the rest of the way.” She gave him a look. “If you think you can keep up.”

      “I’ll keep up.” He broadened his shoulders. “I’m not as easy to get rid of as you think.”

      Uncertainty passed over her face before the aloof Pilar regained control. “You can try.”

      His hands gripping the steering wheel, he ate the dust of Pilar’s tribal car as they hurtled toward the crime scene. She veered off the main highway and onto a gravel road, which led nowhere as far as he could tell.

      Emily, a brown-eyed blonde, fanned her face. “This red dust.” She coughed. “It’s everywhere.”

      “Yeah.” He angled. “Welcome to Arizona.” His teeth rattled as they bounced over a cattle guard.

      Pilar swerved south onto what amounted to little more than a washed-out arroyo. The hard-packed trail jolted the occupants of the SUV. Emily grabbed hold of the dashboard to steady herself as the car lurched forward. The rest of his team—Charles Yao, Sidd Patel, and Darlene White—muttered imprecations in a varied mixture of their mother tongues—Mandarin, Hindi, and Texan.

      Typical Pilar. She never slackened her speed over the rough places, just charged ahead. Alex set his jaw and accelerated, determined not to allow her to lose him.

      He pulled in alongside Pilar’s vehicle behind a clump of junipers at the mouth of a box canyon. He and the team exited the SUV.

      Impassive and remote as the jagged mountains surrounding them, Pilar leaned against the clicking, cooling engine of the tribal car. She pursed and jutted her lips, Apache-style, toward the blue tarp-covered grave in the distance. “Have at it, Torres.”

      His jaw tightened. Time to assert his jurisdiction and exert control over this crime scene. Over Pilar? Fat chance of that.

      Since the day they met as children, to the best of his knowledge, no one had ever managed to rein in Pilar from doing exactly what Pilar wanted to do. Not her brother, Byron. Certainly not Alex.

      “I’m going to do an initial walk-through first.” He motioned toward the shade of a cottonwood. “Let’s establish a command post over there, Em.”

      He felt rather than saw Pilar stiffen. In for a peso, might as well go in for a pound as Abuela would say. “Walk with me, To-Clanny.”

      Pilar clenched and unclenched her hand.

      She wanted to smack him. Even after all these years, he could still feel the sting of her hand across his cheek. Best to keep things professional.

      For now.

      She stalked alongside him, struggling to match his long strides.

      He assessed the canyon surrounding the crude grave. Desolate. Forsaken.

      Alex repressed a shudder. Squatting, he peered beneath the tarp someone had rigged to keep out the elements until his team arrived on site.

      “You’ll find out who did this to her?”

      He rested his hands on his thighs. “How do you know the vic is female?”

      “It’s usually a her, isn’t it?”

      He lowered his eyes to the grave. “How long since the body was unearthed?”

      At his deliberate tone, she uncoiled a notch. “Late afternoon yesterday. Dr. Chestuan didn’t realize the remains were fresh”—she searched for a more palatable word—“from a more recent homicide until he uncovered a cell phone tossed in the grave underneath the shoveled dirt.”

      Her mouth twisted. “Thrown in and thrown away like somebody’s old garbage.”

      “Where’s the cell now?”

      “He and I left everything we found as is for your agents to bag and tag. But it’d been crushed. A job for the geek squad to decipher.” She brushed her

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