LITMIR.BIZ

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      “You know Hunter’s taking me home,” she replied.

      “Yeah, I know, but you can’t shoot a guy for trying.”

      “Our Ellen can and would shoot you.” Hunter chuckled.

      “You guys hold it down,” Joe told them as he lifted the telephone receiver. “Yeah, Ornelas here.”

      “Matt, you can give up trying,” Ellen said, smiling. “I don’t date Dundee employees.”

      “So how come Hunter can escort you around and I can’t?” Matt leaned against the door.

      Joe covered the receiver with his hand, gave his companions a stern look and repeated, “Hold it down. I can’t hear what my sister’s saying.”

      “Because Hunter is a gentleman and you’re not,” Ellen said softly, then nodded and waved to Joe, letting him know that she’d heard him, understood and would be quiet now.

      Joe removed his hand from the mouthpiece. “Sorry about that, Kate, but I’ve got a few friends over tonight.”

      “You must come home, Joseph.” Kate’s voice held an edge of near hysteria and it wasn’t normal for his sweet, easygoing sister to be this upset.

      “What’s wrong?”

      “It’s Eddie. He’s in big trouble. We need you very badly.”

      “What kind of trouble is Eddie in?”

      “Trouble with the—” Kate’s voice broke “—the police.” She sighed. “He and Russ Lapahie are wanted for questioning in the murder of Bobby Yazzi, a man who is known for selling drugs to our children.”

      Joe’s heartbeat accelerated. Eddie was in trouble with the police? He couldn’t imagine anything so ridiculous. Not a good kid like his eldest nephew, who was a bright student, an obedient son and a hard worker, helping his father on the ranch since he’d been not much more than a toddler.

      “You said that Eddie is wanted by the police. Where is he now? Why hasn’t he turned himself in?”

      “We don’t know where he is. Eddie and Russ are both missing. They’ve run away—”

      Kate whimpered, and Joe knew she was struggling with her emotions, trying to not break down and cry.

      “Andi says that their running makes them look guilty,” Kate said.

      “Andi’s good at finding people guilty.” The mention of Andi’s name struck a disharmonious chord in Joe. He had spent five years trying to forget about the past, trying to put Andrea Stephens out of his mind.

      “No, you misunderstand,” Kate told him. “Andi doesn’t think the boys are guilty. She knows they aren’t capable of murder. She simply pointed out what is so obvious—that by running, Eddie and Russ have only made matters worse for themselves.”

      Ellen laid a hand on Joe’s shoulder and whispered, “Is there anything we can do?”

      “Hold on, Kate.” Joe turned to Ellen. “Yeah. I’m going to need some time off. I have to go home. My nephew’s in trouble.”

      “Take all the time you need,” Ellen said. “If I or the agency can help, all you have to do is call me.”

      “Thanks.”

      “We’ll let ourselves out.” Hunter escorted Ellen to the open door, and they and Matt waved good-night, then closed the door behind them.

      “I’ll take the first flight I can get. The Dundee jet isn’t available right now. I’ll call you back when I’ve made arrangements.”

      “Ed and I will meet your plane.”

      “Be brave.”

      “Yes, I am trying.”

      Joe replaced the receiver when the dial tone hummed in his ear. He and Kate had been as close as a brother and sister could be. He was the younger sibling, but only two years separated them in age. She had married Ed Whitehorn when she was twenty and had given birth to her first child at twenty-one. The entire family had adored Eddie, such a beautiful, clever child. Until Joe had resigned from the Navajo Tribal police force and left his home in New Mexico five years ago, he and his nephew had been the best of buddies. And even now, the two spoke often on the phone. He simply could not imagine how a good boy like Eddie could be involved in anyone’s murder, even as a witness. Unless he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But why would Eddie have been anywhere near a known drug dealer? And why had the boy run away?

      Russ Lapahie was the answer to all Joe’s questions. J.T. had told him that Russell’s son had been in and out of trouble ever since Russell’s death. Trouble at school, trouble at home and trouble with the law.

      “Doli can’t do anything with him,” J.T. had said. “And he won’t listen to Andi, either. They’re both ‘just women,’ as far as Russ is concerned.”

      Joe grunted. To think that he had been the one to advise Ed and Kate not to forbid Eddie to hang out with Russ. He had mistakenly hoped that his nephew would be a good influence on Andi’s brother. Now, it looked as if he’d been wrong. The opposite had happened.

      He couldn’t deny that his bad advice had been prompted partly out of guilt. After all, if Joe had looked the other way and kept his mouth shut five years ago, when he had discovered Russell Sr. was covering up his brother-in-law’s livestock smuggling ring, his former police captain would still be alive. And Russ and Andi would still have their father. The way Joe figured it, he not only had to go home to help Eddie, but to help Russell’s son, too.

      “I want those boys found!” The dark hand that slammed down on the desk bore several crisscrossed scars, reminders of a long-ago knife fight. A fight he had won. Three diamond rings sparkled on various fingers, each catching the light from the green-shaded lamp to his right.

      LeCroy Lanza glowered at his subordinates, both men killers by instinct and training. In his line of work, it didn’t pay to send out a boy to do a man’s job. He wanted Russ Lapahie and Eddie Whitehorn found and taken care of so that neither boy could identify him. He’d seen Russ’s face and had laughed silently at the boy’s wide-eyed shock after he’d witnessed the murder. He had seen the shadow of another person behind Russ, but LeCroy hadn’t been able to make out much. At the time, he’d thought the second kid was female. Apparently, it had been Eddie.

      In retrospect, he realized that he should have sent someone else to take care of Bobby Yazzi, the two-timing little son of a bitch. But LeCroy Lanza had a reputation to uphold. He was known for taking care of his problems personally. And Bobby had become a major problem. Who had he thought he was—lying and cheating, stealing from the man who’d set him up in business? Nobody cheated LeCroy Lanza and lived.

      “Charlie, you find out where those boys went. Hire some trackers, if necessary. I’ll call in a few favors and see if I can get any information that might help us.” LeCroy gripped Charlie Kirk’s shoulder. “I want those boys dead before they have a chance to talk to the police.”

      Chapter 2

      Joe hadn’t been home in five years, although his job as a Dundee agent had brought him out west a couple of times. When he’d left the reservation three weeks after Russell Lapahie’s suicide, he’d gone straight to Atlanta and had begun working for the Dundee agency. A couple of times his sister Kate and her family had come to Georgia to visit, and he kept in contact weekly by phone. And he and his cousin J. T. Blackwood e-mailed each other on a regular basis and spoke on the phone from time to time. Otherwise, he had cut himself off from his past, from his people and from his heritage.

      Did he ever miss his old life? Did a part of him still long to truly be one of the Dine? Yeah, sure, in those dark, lonely moments when he had allowed himself to remember, he’d longed to see the Dinehtah. The land of the Navajo. He had been born here in New Mexico, on the reservation, and had grown to manhood within the closely

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