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“You are gifted.” Emmett’s voice floated between them, almost a whisper.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry.” He held up his hands. “But everyone knows the powers of clairvoyance travel through the women in our particular Southern Ute tribe. Auntie Mary is gifted and her sister Fanny, your grandmother, had the gift, and your mother, Ronnie.”
“A lot of good it did my mother.” Once Dana’s worthless stepfather had found out about Mom’s sensitivity, he had exploited it, forcing her to work during the summer months selling cheap jewelry, telling fortunes and casting spells of love and protection when Mom couldn’t even find those for herself.
Dana ran her hands across her face as if clearing cobwebs. “Besides, I’m only half Ute, so the gift obviously skipped me. See you at the meeting, Emmett.”
As Dana swept past him, Emmett muttered behind her, “Or you choose not to embrace it.”
Dana stalked to her rental car, hands fisted. Her second day back on the reservation and already her past was crowding in on her.
“Dana.”
She glanced up as Rafe waved and strode toward her, his boots crunching the gravel beneath his feet. Her past was crowding in, all right, from all directions.
“Can I pick you up for the meeting tonight? I haven’t seen your aunt Mary in a while. You are staying with her, aren’t you?”
She clicked her remote and settled her back against the car. “I don’t need a ride. This is a murder investigation, not the high school prom.”
“I know. You dumped me before the prom.”
“You remember that?” Big mistake . She did not want to traipse down memory lane with Rafe. That path would surely lead to one nine-year old, brown-eyed secret named Kelsey.
Hooking his thumb in his belt loop, he grinned. “Like it was yesterday. You were the only girl who ever shot me down.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I remember succumbing to the famous McClintock charm pretty quickly.”
“Yeah, you had your way with me and then shot me down.”
Dana almost doubled over from the sharp pain that stabbed her gut. If they didn’t catch this killer fast, allowing her to escape Silverhill and the reservation, she’d fall under this man’s spell again. And once he found out she’d kept Kelsey from him all these years, he’d shoot her down.
“Let’s not go there.” She made a cross with her fingers, holding it up between them. “We have a killer to catch.”
“I don’t have a problem mixing business with pleasure.”
Dana’s gaze tripped over Rafe’s sensuous mouth and got hooked on his deep blue eyes. “I’ll bet you don’t.”
But if Rafe ever discovered they had a daughter together, there’d be nothing pleasurable about his response.
Nothing pleasurable at all.
D ANA DROPPED into the overstuffed, floral chair and stretched out her legs, resting her feet on top of the high heels she’d kicked off before washing the dinner dishes.
Auntie Mary plucked the reading glasses from her nose and folded her hands over the book in her lap. “You could’ve left those for me. I didn’t invite you to stay here to do my chores.”
Dana wiggled her toes. “I know that, but you do have an ulterior motive.”
“I don’t need an ulterior motive to invite my niece, who’s working in the area anyway, to stay with me.” Auntie Mary widened her eyes in mock indignation.
“Rosemary chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh string beans from your garden and homemade apple pie to finish me off. You went to a lot of trouble, but it’s not going to work.”
“Is Holly Thompson another victim of this serial killer?”
“We think so, but I can’t discuss the case with you.”
“Interesting that the killer keeps dumping bodies of young Ute women at construction sites. Maybe he’s trying to make a point.” She shrugged and ran a gnarled hand through her cropped, gray hair. “The old ways are changing too fast, and all this money pouring in from the oil down south only hastens the demise of our culture. Dances, songs and worship have been replaced by reality TV and Xboxes.”
“Unemployment and poverty have been replaced by jobs and a good standard of living.”
“Do you have to throw out the baby with the bathwater?” Auntie Mary cupped her hands in a scooping motion.
“Nobody’s trying to do that. I see that Ben Whitecotton is completing the project of a Southern Ute cultural center.”
Auntie Mary leveled a finger at her, and Dana could almost feel a shaft of heat scorching her from across the room. “You approve of all the changes.”
“I’m proud of my Southern Ute heritage.” Dana crossed her arms, bunching her fists. “I just don’t believe in all the mumbo jumbo stuff.”
“You have the sacred gift.” Auntie Mary dropped her arm and closed her eyes. “And you choose to dismiss it.”
“What about my mother?” Dana jumped from the chair and took a turn around the small room. “She did worse than dismiss it. She tarnished it, used it for monetary gain.”
“That was her husband’s idea.”
At the mention of her stepfather, Dana ground her teeth. She’d detested her stepfather, Lenny Driscoll, ever since she was five years old when he oozed his way into her mother’s life. “If I never see Lenny again, it will be too soon for me.”
Auntie Mary gripped the cane resting against the arm of her chair and pushed to her feet. “I may as well tell you since you’ll be here for a while. Lenny’s been hanging around the reservation.”
Dana choked, her throat suddenly dry and constricted. “Lenny’s here? What does he want? No, don’t answer that. He wants a piece of the oil proceeds.”
“That about sums it up.”
“Mom died before the oil was discovered. Even if she hadn’t, I don’t think Lenny is entitled to any of the profit. He doesn’t have one drop of Southern Ute blood.”
Except on his hands .
“He’s working all the angles.” Auntie Mary glanced at the old-fashioned clock on the kitchen wall. “Isn’t it time for your meeting with Rafe McClintock? You didn’t mention you’d seen him this morning.”
Dana jerked her head up and met her aunt’s steady gaze from luminous dark eyes. Auntie Mary always could read her mind, and Dana didn’t believe it had anything to do with that gift thing.
She pulled the keys out of her purse and swung them around her index finger. “Yeah, I saw him. You didn’t tell me he was Sheriff McClintock of Silverhill.”
“When are you going to tell him about Kelsey?”
“Who said I was?”
“He deserves to know, Dana. He’s a good man.”
“He didn’t come after me.” Dana clutched her purse to her chest with clammy hands. She’d already come to the same conclusion as Auntie Mary, but the thought of telling Rafe about his nine-year-old daughter scared the hell out of her. Rafe hated secrets and lies.
“He was a boy and starting college himself.” She tapped her cane on the floor. “Besides you hurt him deeply. His mother abandoned him and his two brothers when she left Ralph McClintock. When you took off without a backward glance or explanation, he must’ve felt that abandonment all over again.”
Tilting her head back, Dana laughed. “Please. As I recall, he recovered pretty quickly with Melanie. Or was it Belinda or Shari? He could have his pick, and I’m sure Pam approved of those girls.”
“Don’t let his stepmother scare you off this time. You’ve turned out nothing like your mother. To draw comparisons between the two of you is ridiculous.”
Dana crossed the room and planted a kiss on her aunt’s weathered cheek. “Let me worry about Rafe. Thanks for dinner. I’ll probably be home late. Don’t wait up.”
Auntie Mary straightened her spine and narrowed her eyes. “Be careful out there. There’s a killer on the loose, and you’re in danger.”
A chill rippled along Dana’s flesh and she gripped her purse tighter. Unlike Dana, Auntie Mary did use her gift and she was right more often than Dana cared to admit. Pure coincidence.
“There’s always an element of danger when you’re investigating a series of murders. It comes with the job.”
Shaking her head, Auntie Mary collapsed in her chair. “But this is different, isn’t it? This killer is targeting young Native American women…and you’re half Ute.”
“Don’t worry.” Hitching her purse over her shoulder, Dana waved. “See you later.”
Dana locked the dead bolt behind her. As she approached her car, a low growl rumbled from the underbrush at the edge of the driveway. She spun around, gripping her car keys in one clenched fist. Squinting into the darkness, her gaze tumbled across bushes and scrub, the glow from the lamppost touching their leaves with a blurry light. Auntie Mary’s house sat on the edge of the reservation and blackness smothered the rest of the landscape where ominous shapes hunched and waited.
Would wild animals from the mountains venture this close to a populous area? Her gaze swept from side to side, taking in the unrelenting wilderness hugging the clearing of reservation homes. The reservation didn’t exactly occupy the hub of civilization.
She grasped the door handle of her rental car and tugged. A louder, more menacing growl sent a river of chills up her spine as she yanked open the car door. Her keys slid from her clammy hand, and she swore as she crouched to retrieve them.
A rush of damp air surrounded her. Cold fingers gripped the back of her neck, pushing her to the ground, immobilizing her. She froze in place, her knees grinding into the rough gravel. Her jaw locked, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
A whisper as soft as the wind brushed her ear. “Go away. You might be next.”
Chapter Two
The hand grasping Dana’s neck melted away, and she hunched her shoulders against the cold vice that lingered even as her attacker relinquished his grip. The bushes rustled, and she rolled her head to the side, picking out two golden orbs glowing in the night as if suspended in the darkness.
Feral eyes.
As the eyes faded in the darkness, Dana seemed to recover from a trance. Her rigid muscles relaxed and she slumped forward, leaning her forehead against the car door.
A footstep crunched the gravel next to her and a scream ripped from her throat.
“Dana, what the hell happened? What are you doing on the ground?”
Blinking, Dana tried to focus her gaze on a pair of cowboy boots. Safety. Security. Rafe.
“S-someone attacked me.” She rubbed her eyes and grabbed the handle of the car door to struggle to her feet.
Rafe cursed and hooked his arms beneath hers, pulling her up and into his embrace. She sank against his broad chest, inhaling his clean, masculine scent, which seemed to revive her senses.
“Where’d he go?”
She raised her arm and with a shaky finger, pointed toward the underbrush. Rafe withdrew his weapon and gripped her shoulder. “You’re going back inside.”
“Dana? What’s going on?” An oblong of light appeared where Auntie Mary opened her front door.
“Go.” Rafe gave her a shove from behind and stalked toward the bushes.
“No!” Dana lunged toward him, grabbing his forearm. “Don’t go in there, Rafe.”
He cupped her face with one hand. “Don’t worry. Get inside the house.”
Dana stumbled toward Auntie Mary, who encircled her waist with one sinewy arm and drew her onto the porch. A beam of light from Rafe’s flashlight pierced the darkness as he crashed through the underbrush.
Dana held her breath, watching the foliage engulf him. Would Rafe’s gun be any match for what awaited him in the darkness?
Auntie Mary patted her arm. “He’s going to be fine. What happened?”
“A man attacked me from behind while I was getting into my car.”
Auntie Mary gasped and squeezed Dana’s hand. “He’s come after you sooner than I expected.”
“He didn’t come after me, at least not with murder on his mind. He whispered a warning. He may not even be the killer. Maybe it’s some sicko playing a joke. A serial murder investigation brings all the wackos out of the closet.”
With each sensible phrase she uttered, Dana gained a foothold back to reality.
“Did you get a look at him?”
“No. He came at me from behind, grabbed my neck.”
“You didn’t twist around to see him or go for your weapon?” Auntie Mary’s dark eyes seemed to bore into her very soul, and Dana turned away to stare at the bushes where Rafe disappeared.
She didn’t want to tell Auntie Mary about the growling or the yellow eyes or her trancelike state. She shook her head to dispel the images from her youth at Auntie Mary’s knee, listening to the tales of the Ute spirits who took the forms of animals—birds, rabbits, bears and the most powerful of all…the wolf. The hand that grabbed the back of her neck and the voice that uttered the warning belonged to a man…a dangerous one. She may have imagined the rest in her terror.
“My gun was in my purse. I figured if I went for it, he’d kill me.”
Rafe crashed back through the underbrush, saving her from another assault of Auntie Mary’s questions.
He holstered his weapon and brushed bits of leaves and twigs from his shirt. He walked to the porch and balanced one foot on the first step. “Nothing. What happened out here, Dana?”
She recounted her story about dropping her keys and being grabbed from behind, leaving out the wolf bits. She didn’t need Rafe questioning her sanity. “And then he warned me to go away, that I might be next.”
“It’s the killer.” He scooped her back into his arms, and it felt so right. But she was an FBI agent here to do a job, not a love-struck teenager.
“Maybe not.” She disentangled herself from his warmth, his protective embrace. “He might be some nut who knows I’m investigating the murders.”
“Either way, you need protection. Why didn’t you use your weapon?”
Dana didn’t want to tell Rafe about her trancelike feeling. “My gun’s in my purse. I didn’t want to risk going for it.”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “What are they teaching you out there at Langley?”
