“Your head physician sounds like a wonderful man.” Her smile felt tight and unnatural. Kee didn’t seem to notice.
“He used to operate out of a room at tribal headquarters when I was a kid. Gave me all my shots there. But you should see the facility now. We have an urgent care center, triage, three exam rooms, reception, radiology and a woman’s health center with three birthing rooms, plus additional ob-gyn exam rooms.”
“That’s impressive. Paid through gaming?” she asked. It wasn’t, she knew, because she’d seen their budget, via her sister’s login on the tribe’s website. Some areas of the tribe’s website were public while others were password-protected to ensure only tribal members could access them. The page holding the minutes from tribal government meetings was one of these pages.
Kee shrugged. “Our administrator handles all that.”
Betty Mills, Ava knew. Recently divorced. Mother of three grown boys and driving an Audi leased by the clinic.
Woody tore the bottle in two and Ava threw the ball so she could retrieve the jagged pieces.
“I better check on my sister and the girls.” Sara was probably still in bed and likely hungover. The girls were being raised by a game console, as far as Ava could tell. She could at least get them all out of bed and feed them a healthy breakfast.
Anything to keep them all afloat until Louisa and the other missing children could be found.
“Oh,” he looked disappointed. “Of course. Umm, Ava? Will you be here a few days?”
“I plan to be. Yes.”
“Would you like to have a drink sometime this week?” His face was red when he finished, which she was chagrined to find she found absolutely adorable. Her heart was not behaving, hammered as if this was something other than a stakeout. Her department had another word for it...entrapment.
She didn’t care. All rules were off when you messed with hers.
So, here it was, the opportunity she had been hoping for. But that was before she realized she would be attracted to the good doctor. She hesitated, biting her bottom lip as she tapped the two sides of the ruined plastic bottle together before her in a nervous tattoo.
Dating Kee would give her access to him, to Hauser and to the clinic and she needed to know what was going on in there.
“Ava?” His dark brow lifted. “Are you seeing someone?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. Not currently.” It was unfortunate that not one of the men in her past made her silly heart pitter-patter like this one, here. “I just need to work around the kids’ schedules and my sister. And I don’t really drink.”
Because it meant a possible loss of control and Ava did not go there.
“Oh. Coincidence,” he said. “Neither do I. And I understand about your family. You’re here for them. Family first, my dad always said.”
How reassuring. An adage from a con.
As far as she could tell Kee and Jake were the only ones that visited dear old dad and not often. But at least they had a dad.
“My sister gets home from work at five fifteen. I’ve been getting the kids dinner and I’m free after that.”
“Oh, great.”
“When?” she asked.
“How about Tuesday? Dinner at the casino?”
Ava was known here as Sara’s sister and a member of the Saguaro Flats tribe. But like many detectives, she kept her profession secret mainly so as not to make people uncomfortable but also to allow her to more easily do her job. Anyone who would have asked was told that she worked in her tribe’s adult education program, her usual cover.
“That sounds fun.” Ava held her smile.
“I’ll pick you up around six?”
“Seven.”
“Sure,” Kee agreed.
She drew a pen from her back pocket. “Give me your hand.”
He did. His palm slid across hers, warm and dry. The tingle of awareness began at her fingers and rippled up her arm. Whatever attraction was between them was as strong as it was unwanted. She stared up at him, meeting his welcoming brown eyes. Then she used her teeth to remove the cap to the pen and she wrote her cell phone number on the back of his hand. Her task done, she was both anxious and reluctant to let him go. She did and stepped back, sitting on the step of her sister’s trailer.
“Now, don’t scrub up before you copy that,” she teased lightly.
He studied the back of his hand and grinned. “I won’t.”
His smile made her insides tumble as if she were spinning. She had no trouble returning his grin and that worried her.
“See you Tuesday, Dr. Redhorse.”
“Kee, please.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
Ava smiled against the chill that swept through her. If he was behind this, she’d see he never got within sight of another girl for as long as he lived.
Monday afternoon the tribe’s urgent care center had gone from crazy to ridiculous. Since the dam collapse in September there was no more normal. Kee had hoped that with the arrival of FEMA things would get better. But the EMTs had just brought him another patient. He knew this one. Not unusual on such a small reservation. But this one was the son of his high school friend Robert Corrales.
Robert had the boy when they were in tenth grade and Robbie Junior was now twelve years old. But he wouldn’t make thirteen if Kee didn’t stop the bleeding.
Lori Mott assisted and he was happy for the extra hands. Redhorse, his mind corrected. She was no longer a Mott, since she had married his younger brother Jake, less than a month ago. Kee kept forgetting to call her Lori Redhorse. His brother had married the nurse so fast, he still hadn’t gotten accustomed to the change.
Kee assessed the damage. The EMTs had done a fair job stopping the bleeding on his arm. But his head wound wasn’t the same story. The plate-glass window had opened a gash on Robbie’s forehead that was giving Kee trouble. Lori kept pressure on that wound, allowing him the time he needed to clamp the artery Robbie had sliced open in his right forearm. Either one was hemorrhaging fast enough to kill him. The boy was pale from shock and blood loss, his lips had gone blue and his skin had taken on the ghastly pallor of a corpse.
“Got it,” he said. “I’ll finish that after I stitch his head.”
“The EMT said he didn’t think he could make it to Darabee,” said Lori.
“He was right.” Kee quickly stitched the gash that ran in a jagged line from
