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“He can see us,” whispered Officer Redhorse, more to himself, she thought, than her.
“Not unless he has night-vision goggles,” she said, not whispering. He’d have to be some kind of jackrabbit to hear her from clear across the road. But she could hear him, thanks to the setup from the tech guys.
His gaze flicked away to a teen who was straddling an expensive new mountain bicycle that was, of course, black. On the boy’s head sat a yellow ball cap, sideways, bill flat. He wore a new oversized black satin sports jacket. Beth made him for about thirteen because of his size. The gang colors were yellow and black, and Beth knew that recruitment started early. Ty went over to him.
“Who’s that?” she asked Jake.
“Randy Tasa. Lives up in Koun’nde. He’s in the ninth grade.”
“Long bike ride.”
“His sister, Jewell, is probably inside. She’s Faras’s girl.”
Faras Pike was the current head of the Wolf Posse and one of the targets of her investigation.
Beth lifted the cone so she could hear them.
“Whatcha doing out here so late, Randy?” Ty asked. His voice was deeper than his brother’s and held a dangerous edge.
“Deliveries.”
Deliveries, my ass, thought Beth. The boy was selling weed to the customers. He was too young to get anything but a slap on the wrist, making him the perfect pusher for the gang.
“Let me see,” ordered Ty.
The boy obediently reached into his coat and showed Ty the freezer bag filled with what Beth believed to be smaller baggies of weed.
“You make any money?” asked Ty.
“Some.”
“Give it to me.”
Was he actually shaking down a child?
“I’m supposed to give it to Chino.”
“Did I ask you what you were supposed to do?”
The boy held out an envelope. Ty snatched it from him, took the weed and then took his cap. “This bag is light, Randy.”
“No. I swear.”
“Light,” he repeated. “I’m telling Faras that you’re a thief.”
“No.” Randy was crying now. “He’ll kill me.”
“He doesn’t kill children. Run home, Randy, and don’t come back or I’ll put a cap in your ass.”
Randy wiped his nose and Ty took one menacing step toward the boy, grabbing the handlebars of the new bike. “I said run.”
The boy sprang from the seat and ran as fast as his sticklike legs would carry him. He was too young to be hanging around a bar. But not too young to have his services bought for a ball cap and a new bike. Ty might have done the boy a favor.
Beth pushed aside that thought.
Jake shifted in his seat. Yeah, she’d be uncomfortable, too, if this gem of humanity was her big brother. Luckily, she had no siblings and was free as a bird. She could pack everything she needed in the saddlebags of her bike and head to LA, DC or NY. But first she had to make a big case. Would her mother even notice she was gone?
Ty let the bike fall and headed for the door of the bar, carrying the weed in his leather bomber jacket, which was black, of course. Jake insisted that his brother operated on the fringes of the gang. Jake said that Ty’s responsibility was only to keep the gang’s cars running. All evidence pointed to the contrary.
He had enough weed on him right now for her to get a conviction, but since he was on the rez, arresting him would just get her in hot water with Lieutenant Luke Forrest, who headed this operation. She reported to him, for now. So she watched Ty walk away and ignored the bad taste in her mouth. If she got a break, she’d catch Ty Redhorse with something far more serious than a bag of weed. She didn’t expect to get that lucky. Most of her luck came from hard work and taking the occasional risk.
She reached for the door release.
“Wait,” she ordered Redhorse. “Don’t leave unless you see me leave with your brother. Then follow us.”
Beth had dressed in clothing that showed she was a woman but also concealed her high-performance liquid chromatography, abbreviated as HPLC and commonly known as pepper spray, her service weapon and handcuffs. On her right hand she wore a series of carefully selected rings designed to inflict maximum damage and lacerate skin should she have to throw a punch.
What she intended was to charm and pick up Ty Redhorse in front of all his buddies on his home turf. Tomorrow, well after all the customers in this watering hole had assumed that he’d made a successful score, Beth would let him know who and what she actually was. She suspected that Ty did not want Faras Pike, the leader of the posse, to know what he had done to help his older brother, Kee, and that he was on less than stable ground with the gang. A little more shaking might just get him on their side.
Risk and reward, she thought, and slid from the truck and onto the packed dirt parking area.
“Help me get my sled down,” she said.
Jake lowered the back gate and set the metal ramp. Because of the intentionally disabled starter motor, Beth needed to bump-start her motorcycle. She released the straps holding her bike and mounted the seat, then rolled it down the ramp in second, using the incline to get it going fast enough to allow the engine to engage.
She roared across the street, anticipating Ty’s face tomorrow morning at eight, when he saw her walk into the interrogation room. Between now and then, she intended to find out everything she could about the second-oldest Redhorse brother.
Chapter Three
Ty walked into the roadhouse and glanced about. The mix of the usual patrons filled the stools surrounding the rectangular bar, which had seating all the way around except for the hinged portion that allowed the help in and out.
Beyond the center altar to drinking was the stage, which rose a good sixteen inches above the floor level but was dark because the musical entertainment didn’t begin until nine. By then most of these men—working men—would be home with their families. They just needed a short transition between one and the other.
There were exceptions—men who were not drinking after work because they were still on the job. The first, Quinton Ford, sat on a bar stool. Quinton was lanky with close-cropped black hair and a hawkish face that bore acne scars on his gaunt cheeks. One hand rested in his open jacket as he used the half-lowered zipper like a sling. Ty knew his hand was on the grip of a pistol. Quinton faced the door with the other hand on his untouched beer. His eyes met Ty’s, and Ty nodded to Faras Pike’s man. Quinton raised his chin in acknowledgment and then his gaze flicked back to the door.
Ty was no threat to Faras Pike.
There were tables to the left and everyone knew the ones under the wall of highway signs, stolen from all over the state, were reserved for Wolf Posse members. There at his usual spot was Faras Pike, the leader of the tribe’s gang. Perched on his knee was his current favorite, Jewell Tasa.
Jewell wore a glittery sequined gold crop top that featured an unobstructed view of her midriff, which was tight and toned. Jewell’s skinny jeans and biker boots made her a shimmering billboard of gang colors. Her makeup was thick, ringing her eyes like a raccoon, and her long black hair had been bleached blond at the tips.
Faras spotted Ty before Jewell did, and lifted her from his lap. Then he gave her rump an affectionate pat to send her off to the group of women at the nearby table. She spotted Ty and sauntered past him, hips swaying as if advertising what he could not have.
The unattached women at the table gave Ty encouraging smiles. He was not interested in more entanglements with the gang, no matter how tight they wore their clothing. So he turned his attention to Faras.
The head of the Wolf Posse was small with a face that had been handsome once, but the smoking, drinking and responsibilities of his position weighed heavily on that face and Faras now looked like a man nearing forty, instead of twenty-eight. His hair was drawn back in a single braid and he wore a hoodie, jeans, cowboy boots that were all black and several thick gold chains around his neck. His take on the black-and-gold color scheme. His ears were pierced and he wore diamond studs in each that Ty very much feared were real.
Seated between him and the bar was his second man, Chino Aria, his newest favored muscle. Chino could handle most situations if he didn’t have to think or make any decision on his feet. Chino’s appeal came from his size and bulk. The tattoos on his neck and bald head helped discourage trouble.
Ty cut a direct path for the two men.
“S’up, bro?” said Faras as he came to a stop before the circular booth and table.
“That little shit, Randy Tasa, is stealing your stash, is what’s up,” said Ty. He slid into the vinyl seat beside Faras. Chasing off Randy was a risk, because his big sister, Jewell, was already in the Wolf Posse and becoming Faras’s favorite.
Chino looked none too happy at Ty’s appearance, judging from the way his mouth tugged down on his broad jowly face.
“Randy Tasa? He don’t work for me.” Faras snapped his fingers before Chino’s face, redirecting his stare from Ty to Faras. “Chino, we recruit Tasa?”
“Yeah,” said Chino.
“When were you going to mention it?”
“First night, boss. Wanted to see how he worked out.”
Ty scowled. You didn’t earn a bike like that in one night. Chino was lying and Ty wondered why. It occurred to him that Randy would make a very good spy, keeping an eye on his big sister’s business. But that was the sort of thing he’d expect Faras to pull. Perhaps he’d underestimated Chino?
Chino laid his beefy fists on the table, challenging Ty with his stare. Ty set the bag of weed on the padded bench between him and Faras.
“Yo, don’t bring that in here,” said Faras, sliding away.
“He was smoking the product instead of making sales. You get him that bike?”
Faras lifted a brow at Chino, who nodded. Faras glared. He knew how to recruit kids into the gang. Up until this minute, Ty thought the decision of when and who was recruited had rested solely with Faras. From the way he was glaring at Chino, perhaps Faras did as well.
“You picked it?” asked Faras.
Chino nodded.
Ty broke in. “Well, he tried to sell it to me for fifty bucks.”
“That little puke,” said Chino, coming awake. Unfortunately, he forgot he was sitting in a booth and so, when he stood, the bench did not move back and he collided with the table, sending their beer bottles sloshing to their sides.
Faras swore.
“Sorry, boss.”
Chino used his sleeve to prevent the river of beer from reaching Faras’s lap.
Ty tossed Randy’s cap onto the puddle of beer. “I took his bike. It’s out front.”
Faras sighed and lifted a finger to Sancho, the head barkeeper, who was always very attentive to Faras, met his gaze and pointed to the spilled beer. One of the bartenders was out from behind the hinged counter and mopping up before Chino had even sat his big fat butt back down.
“I’ll need to find a replacement,” said Faras. “Deliveries, you know.”
Ty knew there was no stopping that. But Randy had a future. He was a runner. A good one. If he was smart and lucky, he might just run out of Turquoise Canyon and make a life that did not involve allegiances to the posse. One little minnow, escaping the net. Ty felt a longing for a freedom from such allegiances, or at least to become something other than the family poster boy for wasted potential. He wasn’t the only one who thought so.
Kee had been asked to join the Turquoise Guardians right out of med school, as if it was a foregone conclusion. Gaining admission to the tribe’s medicine society was a coup that Ty coveted. But to be asked to join Tribal Thunder, the warrior sect of that medicine society, well, that was an honor above all others. Last month, they’d asked Jake to join.
“Chino, get rid of this and get me another beer,” said Faras.
His man grabbed the baggie Faras pushed at him under the table, tucked it into his jacket and slid out of the booth. Then he hurried to the bar.
Faras waited until Chino and the bartender both retreated.
“You can’t keep doing this,” said Faras.
Ty said nothing.
“It costs me money and time.”
Ty met his gaze and read the warning there. Things were serious now. With the pressure of the Russians and the tribal police bringing in the FBI, Faras was in a difficult spot. He could not afford to bring his suppliers less, to even let one little fish swim out of the net.
“That’s the last one. You feel me?” said Faras.
Ty nodded.
“And where you been? I’ve been trying to reach you since Tuesday. You don’t answer your phone or return my calls.”
Ty told himself not to move his healing shoulder. Not to give away that he’d been injured, running for his life in the woods, trying to reach the reservation and home before the Feds caught him and locked him up beside his dad. Because if Faras knew, he’d also know that Ty followed his brother to the holding house that was stop one in the surrogate operation.
“I had a delivery in Phoenix. That ’78 Nova. Matte-black.”
“Phoenix and back takes six hours.”
Ty met his gaze without shifting in his seat or offering further explanation.
Faras dragged his hand down his braid, tugged and then tossed it over his shoulder. “Listen, you asked me for a favor. You asked me to lie to my suppliers about a certain baby girl dying. I did that.”
“And you already called that favor. Sent me on a pickup. I drove Kacey Doka at your request and I delivered her, didn’t I?”
“And both those guys are dead.”
“How you figure that’s my fault?”
“It’s your brother’s fault. Colt killed them.”
“He’s not a dog on a leash. He loves Kacey.”
“Love? Don’t make me laugh. How did Colt know where to find those Russian dudes?”
“Dunno. Followed me?”
“You better hope that’s how it went. If you tipped him...” Faras sat back in the booth and looked at the ceiling. Then dragged in a long breath and exhaled.
Ty read the signs. Now he was already in the danger zone. He regretted chasing off Randy. The timing had been bad.
Faras met his gaze across the table, his eyes flat and cold. “You still owe me for the baby. I’m calling it in. Moving you to transport.”
“I delivered Kacey. That covers it.”
“Not hardly. Two more of Vitoli’s guys were killed in Antelope Lake.”
“Too bad.” Ty tried and failed to look sorry. The bastards had nearly killed Kee.
“And you were there.”
“No.”
“Says you.”
Faras didn’t know. He was fishing, putting together the pieces.
“No way,” said Ty.
“Just making a three-day delivery of a Chevy Nova. Yeah, I heard. You want that baby to stay dead?”
Ty felt trapped. His entire life he’d been trapped. By his father, by the Marine Corps, by the gang. All he wanted in this shitty world was to have the chance, like Kee and Jake and Colt, to make something of himself. But he’d made his bed at eighteen. He didn’t regret what he had done. But he never anticipated that by accepting Faras’s help back then he would be tied to the man forever and painted with the same broad brush.
He wanted out. But if he left, just got on his bike and rode, who would protect his family from these predators that lived inside their rez like a nest of vipers?
The police couldn’t do it, because they had laws to follow and they were outmatched in numbers and finances. The Feds couldn’t do it. They didn’t operate here unless invited and they flitted in and out like migrating birds while he wallowed down here in the mud.
“You hear me, Ty?” said Faras.
Ty nodded.
Faras leaned in. “I got a new operation. We’re cookin’ now. Ice.”
Ty frowned, hating crystal meth and hating even more that the posse would be in production on his rez. “That so?”
“Yeah. First lab is in production up on Deer Kill Meadow Road. Old hay barn up there.”
“Won’t someone see the smoke?”
“Nights only. You gonna start transport next week.”
The hell he was. “Sure.”
Chino returned with the beer. Ty left his on the table, went to the bar and sat beside Quinton. Ty was sitting facing the taps when Quinton’s foot dropped heavily off the bar stool as he sat forward. He did not reach for his gun, but his eyes widened and he looked as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water in his face.
Ty spun on the swivel stool toward the door. A woman paused on the Budweiser floor runner and glanced about. Ty thought her attention paused on him, but that might have been wishful thinking.
“Damn,” said Quinton. “Why I have to be working when something like that shows up?”
Ty thought it was a someone, not a something. But he agreed with Quinton that the woman was spectacular. She was tall with a confident stride and an economy of movement that spoke of power. Ty waited a beat for her partner to arrive and then it settled over him that this woman had come by herself to an unfamiliar watering hole, one with at least eight Harleys parked out front, and she had walked in with a self-assurance that showed either foolishness or strength.
Strength, he decided. That to him was more appealing than beauty because it took grit to survive up here. Both fortitude and compromise.
The tilt of her head and the way she scanned her surroundings gave her the air of a woman who knew what she was doing. There was no hesitation or wariness as she took in her surroundings. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she owned the place.
The conversation lulled as one after another of both the single and married men considered their chances. Several of the men turned back to their beers, taking themselves out of the race by fidelity to their mates, or just by judging themselves to be farm-league players in a major league game.
Ty leaned forward and drank her in like water. High brown suede boots, with silver studs around each ankle, hugged her well-defined calves. Her jeans were dark, new-looking and tight, showing legs that went on and on. The cropped leather jacket seemed to have lived a long, interesting life as a favorite garment, and Ty resented the way it hugged her upper body and breasts. Below the bottom of the jacket was a wide silver rodeo buckle, the kind that was won, not purchased. From here, it looked like the lady was a world-class barrel racer. Oh, how he would love to see her ride.
Her fawn-brown skin held the luster of gold undertones, catching the light on her high cheekbones. She seemed multiracial. He thought he recognized the Native American lineage in her distinctive facial structure. Her pale eyes hinted at European roots, and she had full lips, light brown skin and a curl of her brown shoulder-length hair. A natural beauty.
Women, sitting beside their men, placed proprietary hands on their companions, claiming them as she again swept the room with a slow scan. Her gaze fell on him. Her mouth quirked and he saw trouble coming his way, again. Only this time he felt like walking out to meet it.
She raised her voice to be heard above the jukebox as she kept her eyes fixed on his. “I’m looking for Ty Redhorse.”
Chapter Four
In Beth’s opinion, the photos of Ty Redhorse did not do him justice. They didn’t capture his roguish grin or his speculative stare. His mug shot, taken when he was just seventeen, showed a scared kid, and the one furnished by his brother pictured a man posing with his family as if he was uncomfortable in his own skin.
Maybe he was just uncomfortable with his family. Must be awkward at Sunday supper with his two remaining brothers. Comparisons were inevitable.
This man was broad-shouldered with a slim athletic frame. He also had the devil-may-care smile of a pirate. His forehead was broad and smooth, making him look more like twenty-one instead of twenty-eight. There was a slight, shallow cleft in his chin. One of his eyebrows lifted in conjecture. Dark eyes met hers and set off a flutter low and deep inside her.
She ignored the warning and continued on. Nerves, she told herself as she moved toward him. She might find Ty physically attractive, but he was just her admission ticket to the Wolf Posse, a means to an end. So it didn’t matter how appealing she found his face and body. Beth liked bad boys, just not this one.
Still, there was something about him that made her regret the missed opportunity he presented. In another time and place she might have acted on impulse. But not now with so much on the line.
Beth had met his brother, Jake Redhorse, a rookie tribal officer, and had none of this immediate attraction. His younger brother had a look that she would describe as brooding. From the family photo, she thought the oldest brother, Kee, radiated the stability of a professional man with none of the indescribable edge of danger she found tempting. Unlike his oldest brother, this Redhorse man had none of that serious, stable aura. She knew of his youngest brother, Colt, only via computer records. Colt shared some of the defiant disregard she read in Ty’s expression. But he also had PTSD and had given up speaking for months. That was way too much for her to ever want to take on. She met Ty’s inquisitive stare. Everything about Ty seemed to broadcast mischief and the invitation to forget the rules and play.
“I’m Ty,” he said.
All heads turned in his direction and then boomeranged back to her.
Beth had not anticipated the relaxed confidence of his physical self. He sat neither at attention nor slumped. Instead, he looked like he knew she was a problem heading toward him and he welcomed the diversion.
She used her thumb to adjust one of the rings on her right hand, breaking the steady stare. The man to his left was Quinton Ford, one of the Wolf Posse’s higher-ups. Ty sat right beside the gang’s right-hand man.
How cozy, she thought.
He rose to his feet in an easy glide, his movements as relaxed as his expression. But his eyes glittered a warning that belied the ready smile. “What can I do for you?”
“I’ve got bike trouble. The owner of the diner said you were the man to see and he told me that I would find you here.” She extended her hand. “I’m Beth.”
He looked at her hand as if inspecting it and then his gaze flicked to her left hand. Was he searching for a ring on that all-important finger? Or the indentation and lighter skin that showed there had been one there recently? She wasn’t sure, but there was a hesitation before his palm slid along hers in a sensual glide that made her skin pucker all over. His hand was clean, calloused. His nails showed the stain of stubborn motor oil. He gripped her hand and did not shake so much as stroke, his thumb caressing the sensitive skin on the back of her hand. Her heartbeat kicked up a notch and her lungs suddenly demanded more oxygen.
“Nice to meet you, Beth.”
She drew back her hand, but it continued to tingle as if she’d just touched an electrified livestock fence.
“If you need a bike fixed,” said Quinton Ford, interrupting, “you should ask Chino.” He thumbed at the mountainous man sitting with the leader of the Wolf Posse.
“That so?” said Beth. “Why’s that?”
“It’s his specialty. Ty’s is cars.”
“A motor is a motor,” said Beth. “And I don’t think that Nathan would steer me wrong. What do you say, Ty?”
His smile relayed anticipation and mischief. “Let’s have a look.”
The whole point of coming here was to have everyone on his home turf see her leave with Ty and make the obvious conclusions. Her story to her supervisor, Luke Forrest, about getting a read on Ty was nonsense. She didn’t need a read. All she ever wanted or needed to know about Ty Redhorse she’d found in his FBI file. What she desired was traction, an inescapable hook to get him on board, because he’d already turned down the Bureau’s offer presented by his tribe.
If tomorrow morning, he discovered that he’d been seen leaving the roadside bar with an FBI field agent? Well, that was the sort of thing he might be inclined to want to keep to himself.