was only a kitten.
Lisa had tossed her backpack by the door and now called a greeting to her pet as she entered the eat-in kitchen and switched on the light. Cookie was usually there to greet them, meowing loudly for dinner. Morgan kicked off her shoes, retrieved Lisa’s empty lunch bag from her backpack and carried both pack and bag into the kitchen. Lisa had already dropped the sack of groceries on the dinette before making her way down the hall that led to their three small bedrooms on her hunt for the gray cat with the startlingly green eyes.
Morgan frowned at the first prickling of unease. She hoped Cookie was all right because a vet visit was not in the budget.
“Cookie! Coook-key!”
Lisa sang the name and then made a familiar sound proven to lure the cat. The only noise Cookie responded to with greater frequency was that of the electric can opener.
“Mom!”
The alarm in Lisa’s voice brought Morgan around. She glanced down the hall where Lisa stood motionless with her hands lifted slightly from her sides as she stared into her grandfather’s room.
“Lisa? What’s wrong?” Morgan was already moving and had cleared half the distance separating them as she prayed that nothing had happened to Cookie. Then she saw it. Her father was in Phoenix awaiting trial. No one should be in his room. But his overturned dresser now blocked the door.
A small gray cat could not do that.
“Lisa, honey,” she whispered as the dread flooded over her suddenly clammy skin. “Come here to me right now.”
“But what happened to...” Lisa took one step forward and threw her hand over her mouth. Then she turned and ran.
Morgan did not ask what she had seen. She asked nothing as she grabbed her daughter’s wrist and ran for the closest door on bare feet. She heard the footsteps pounding down the hall and pushed Lisa ahead.
“Hurry!”
They cleared the hall and Lisa nearly reached the kitchen door when someone grabbed Morgan by her hair and tugged so hard she saw stars.
Lisa turned back. “Mom!”
A low male voice growled in Morgan’s ear. “Where’s the money?”
“Run!” she shouted to Lisa.
But her daughter hesitated.
“Get help,” she said.
That sent her daughter off. Lisa rounded the table as the kitchen door flew open. Another man stood on the back step. Lisa screamed as the man lifted her off the ground, spun her in a circle and set her behind him on the back step.
“Run,” ordered Morgan. The last thing she saw was her daughter’s wide dark eyes before her captor tugged her backward into the hall.
“Where is it?” he asked, punctuating his question with a little shake.
Morgan grabbed hold of his wrists and twisted to face her attacker. Then she punched him in the bicep as she’d been taught by her dad. The man released her. Morgan staggered back, right into the second man.
The next instant she was behind him as he continued toward her attacker.
She saw the wide shoulders and clenched fists. Short black hair, a dark hoodie and long legs clad in new blue jeans. The man beyond him was now on his feet.
There was nothing said between them but she could tell by the way that the second man stalked the first that these two were not comrades.
“Listen, buddy,” said her attacker, holding his hands up.
He didn’t get a chance to finish. Morgan winced at the cracking sound of a fist striking the man’s face. Blood sprayed on the white paint and the school photos tacked up in the hall. Morgan balled a fist before her mouth to stifle a scream. From outside Lisa shouted her mother’s name.
Her rescuer thumped her captor’s head on the hall runner as Morgan turned and fled.
* * *
RAY THOUGHT HE should have dropped the guy when he stopped fighting but gave him just one more shot for making him blow his cover. He’d been happy watching Morgan and Lisa from a distance. Experience had told him that things looked better that way. Now they’d seen him and he’d have to come up with something.
Damn.
He released the limp intruder and noticed that the housebreaker was bleeding all over himself but more important he was bleeding on Morgan’s hall runner. Ray knew women despised mud or blood on carpets.
Once on his feet, Ray gave the guy a poke with his boot and the guy’s head lolled. He retrieved the man’s wallet and drew out his license.
“Andrew Peck.” Ray glanced from the image of the smiling well-dressed man to the bloody, slack-faced Anglo with the rapidly swelling nose.
“You live in Darabee. Right up the road,” Ray said.
A little searching of the billfold yielded several business cards. Mr. Peck was a manager at the Darabee Community Savings. Home invasion seemed a strange thing for a bank manager to be doing. He clearly was not very good at B and E or at personal defense. Ray kept the business card and tossed the wallet back on Mr. Peck’s rising and falling chest where it bounced to the ground at his side.
Ray made a call to Kenshaw Little Falcon, reporting in. Little Falcon was his shaman, his spiritual leader, the head of their medicine society and the man who had hand selected the warrior sect called Tribal Thunder. Ray was proud to be among the newest members of the elite group of two dozen Tonto Apache men all selected from within the larger medicine society known as the Turquoise Guardians. Tribal Thunder recruits came from the men who completed the rigorous warrior training required to be considered a candidate. The newest inductees also included his friends Dylan Tehauno and Jack and Carter Bear Den. Like him, all three men were former US Marines but only he had a criminal record and a stunning proclivity for screw-ups.
His shaman told him to contact Jack Bear Den, who was also a member of Tribal Thunder and, conveniently, a detective with the tribal police here on Turquoise Canyon Reservation.
Their tribe of Tonto Apache was small, only 950 members but large enough for a casino and a manmade recreational lake, thanks to the Skeleton Cliff Damn. Their tribal police force totaled seven, including their dispatcher.
When he finished with Jack, he moved to the open back door to call to Morgan and Lisa. They didn’t reply. The night was closing in but he could see that Morgan had them both locked in her car. Pitiful place to hide as he could break the glass with any number of rocks lying nearby, but at least he’d found them. She’d obviously left her keys inside the house.
He shouted to her that the police were coming and to stay put. Then he went to check out the damage the guy had done inside. He stepped over Mr. Peck to find a huge mess in the bedroom that had recently been occupied by Morgan’s father. The mattress lay askew, bedding stripped, dresser drawers all emptied out.
Ray looked back at the intruder. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
A glance in Lisa’s
