LITMIR.BIZ

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as I was taking the luggage from the backseat. Jane wasn’t happy about having me disturb her evidence.”

      She was involved with Prince Stefan Lutece of Kyros. Ever since they hooked up, the formerly plain Jane had been beaming and dropping hints that she’d be leaving her job and moving to one of the COIN nations. Though he didn’t doubt Jane’s professionalism, she’d probably been in the arms of her prince when she got the call. Jake couldn’t keep Saida’s arrival a secret; he needed to inform the COIN royals as soon as possible. Sheik Efraim seemed to be closest to Saida and her brother.

      He sank into a chair beside the fireplace and checked the clock on the mantel. It was after eleven. This wouldn’t be a pleasant call. He and Efraim had argued before. They’d buried the hatchet, but not too deeply.

      Using his cell phone, he contacted the front desk at the resort and left a message for Efraim to call him. “Tell him it’s an emergency.”

      Disconnecting the call, he looked toward his deputy. “I’m putting you in charge of this investigation, Wheeler. Handpick the team you work with. We need to be careful about who we trust.”

      “Understood. We don’t want a repeat of what happened with Amos Andrews.”

      Andrews, a Dumont policeman, had played a part in the first wave of attacks and had threatened Jane Cameron’s life. In jail, he’d committed suicide under suspicious circumstances. Jake wondered if he’d been murdered to insure his silence—murdered by someone on the inside, another traitor.

      Though he’d been sheriff for nearly a year, Jake still felt the simmering resentment from those on his staff who were loyal to the former sheriff. Every day was a battle to earn their respect. Not only was he the new guy but he was Arapaho, and old prejudices sometimes flared back to life.

      Wheeler took a small spiral notebook from his shirt pocket. “Where should I start?”

      “We’re looking for a black or gray truck with damage on the passenger side. And a black, four-door sedan.” The car had whipped past his house so fast that Jake hadn’t recognized the make or model. “Tomorrow morning, you can check with the local car rental places for information on midsize sedans.”

      “Got it.” Wheeler scribbled in his notebook.

      “Somebody knew about the princess’s arrival, which means there’s a leak. You’ll need to talk to the reservations people at the resort.”

      “Again?”

      “You never know. They’re supposed to be discreet, but somebody might have gotten all excited and blabbed. I guess she’s some kind of celebrity. She dated a guy on the Lakers.”

      “The Lakers?” His eyes popped wide open. “Whoa.”

      Jake wondered if his own reaction had been that obvious. “You look like you might run home and tell your wife.”

      “No, sir, not my wife. Not unless I wanted to get whacked over the head with a frying pan. But I might be tempted to tell some of the guys.”

      That was probably how the information had gotten out, but they needed to make sure there wasn’t a more nefarious explanation. “I’ll talk to the FBI. They can use their fancy tracing equipment to see if the reservations computer at the resort was hacked.”

      From upstairs, he heard his sister giggle. At least somebody was having fun.

      Jake’s phone rang, and he answered. “Jake Wolf.”

      “This is Efraim Aziz. What is the big emergency?”

      “Princess Saida is in town. She’s at my house.”

      There was a moment of silence.

      Efraim said, “My advice to you, Sheriff, is to saddle up and ride as fast and as far as you can.”

       Chapter Four

      Sitting cross-legged on the double bed in the guest room, Saida was enjoying her conversation with Jake’s sister. Their topics ranged from fashion and shoes to cultural norms in Jamala and the rights of women. If this had been a purely social occasion, Saida might have relaxed, but she was edgy—distracted by what was going on downstairs. With the door to the bedroom open, she could hear the murmur of male voices as Jake conferred with his deputy.

      As usual, she was being excluded, and there seemed to be nothing she could do about it. Until Jake said it was safe, he wouldn’t allow her to leave the guest bedroom. He’d already shown himself to be capable of throwing her over his shoulder. What would come next? Tying her to a chair?

      She stretched out her legs. “I want your brother to invite me into his investigation, to work with him and find Amir. How should I approach him?”

      “With a baseball bat to knock some sense into his stubborn head. Forget about Jake. Tell me how you ended up in Beverly Hills.”

      “While I was in boarding school in Switzerland, I made friends with a girl from Los Angeles. Since I was already in love with American movies, California seemed like a natural destination for me. I begged until I was allowed to go to a private high school in Los Angeles.” She smiled at Maggie. “Now it’s your turn. You grew up on the reservation. What was it like?”

      “So boring. Actually, I’m kind of like you. By the time I was in high school, my older sister was working in Denver. That’s where I went to high school.”

      “In a way, we’re both expatriates.”

      “In a way.” Maggie nodded. “Why did you come to our house as soon as you got into town?”

      “I looked Jake up on the internet. He seemed like someone I could trust. When he was running for sheriff, there was an interesting endorsement from someone named Oscar.”

      “Poor little Oscar.”

      In his endorsement, he hadn’t sounded poor at all. The accompanying photograph was very Armani. “He’s an attorney in Cheyenne, right?”

      “When Jake met him, Oscar Pollack wasn’t what you’d call a success story. He was a skinny little runt, too nervous to take his eyes off his own toes. He and Jake were both in their first year of college at UDub and—”

      “Wait.” Saida held up her hand. “UDub?”

      “University of Wyoming in Laramie,” Maggie said. “That’s where I’m going, too. Anyway, Jake was on a basketball scholarship and joined the coolest frat on campus. After the first game of the season, everybody knew him. Jake Wolf—the Wolfman—was a star. Oscar was an insignificant speck.”

      The college hierarchy was much the same everywhere. Though Saida had never lived on the UCLA campus or bothered with sororities, she was one of the in-crowd. “What happened?”

      “One night, Jake went to a bar with his buddies, even though he doesn’t drink. Oscar was working there, bussing tables. He accidentally spilled beer on a big ape who took it personally. He and his pals followed Oscar after his shift was over. Oscar made it to his car, but that didn’t stop the apes. They kicked dents into the car doors and threw rocks. They busted the windshield.”

      Saida guessed what came next. “Jake stepped in.”

      “Oh, yeah. To hear Oscar tell the story, you’d think my brother was some kind of superhero, taking on three big guys at once. According to Jake, they were stumbling around and drunk—but not so smashed that they didn’t recognize the Wolfman. It turned out that one of the ape’s pals was in Jake’s frat.”

      Noble actions often came with a price. “Did they try to kick him out?”

      “Jake quit before they could ask him to leave, and he was glad to do it. He didn’t want to be part of a group that condoned bullies.” Maggie beamed a smile. She was proud of her big brother, deservedly so. “It all turned out for the best.”

      “How so?”

      “You can’t

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