minutes after Tabitha’s call, he was in the cockpit. He fastened his seat belt, depressed the starter, checked the fuel-pressure gauge, opened the throttle and pointed the nose toward the southeast. If he’d been following roads, the drive to Half-Moon Cave near the Little Big Horn River would have taken nearly an hour. Swooping through the sky cut his arrival time to approximately twenty minutes. Top speed was necessary. From what Tabitha had told him, Misty might be giving birth at any moment.
He hadn’t been pleased when his baby sister turned up pregnant. Misty was fourteen years younger than he was, not much more than a child herself. Aiden still had a hard time thinking of her as a mother, but the idea of having a nephew had grown on him.
As his mom constantly pointed out, it was time for a new generation in the Gabriel family. Mom would have preferred a marriage before the baby, but she’d take what she could get, especially since it didn’t look like Aiden would be heading toward the altar any time soon. His long-distance relationship had fizzled last month when they’d argued about where to spend Christmas. Aiden had point-blank refused to make the trip to Los Angeles to hang tinsel on palm trees, and his lady had no interest in coming to the ranch. The breakup had been inevitable. They’d grown apart.
Using his headset, he put through a call to Tabitha’s cell phone. When she answered, he clarified his directions. “I think I’m getting close. I’m following the course of the river.”
“We’re on the east side. Near a dried-up creek. Please hurry, Aiden.”
He heard the note of urgency in her voice. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“Misty is fine.” She paused. “There’s been a shooting.”
“Are you safe?”
“I think the shooter took off, but I can’t be sure.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said. “Tell me when you hear me getting close.”
“I think we’re okay,” she said. “We took cover by the river.”
He leaned forward as though his will could force the chopper to fly faster. The landscape below was a rugged sea of dry field grass and clumps of sage brush. “Did you see the gunman?”
“I can barely hear you, Aiden.”
“Stay on the line.” Like a 911 operator, he needed to maintain contact so he’d be aware of the situation. “What can you tell me?”
“Not much. Misty will have to do the explaining.”
A shooter had come after his sister? His grip tensed on the cyclic stick as he swerved to the left. He never expected anything like this, never thought violence would reach out and touch his family. “Was anyone shot?”
“Yes,” she said tersely. “It’s not Misty or her boyfriend. Somebody else.”
“Is he seriously wounded?”
“I really can’t hear you,” Tabitha said.
“Don’t hang up. Keep the line open.”
He should have expected something like this. Law enforcement had become a serious problem in the area, especially on the Crow reservation. Tribal lands spread across nearly two and a half million acres with only a handful of officers and a couple of agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to keep order. And the situation in Henley wasn’t much better. Budget cuts had sliced the police and sheriff’s department to the bare bone.
At the meeting in Crow Agency, the tribal police told them to be on the lookout for two girls from Henley who were last seen on the rez before they went missing. Nobody mentioned the possibility of a serial killer, but the threat was implied. Both of the missing girls were blondes like Misty.
“Aiden, I can hear your chopper.”
On the opposite side of the river, he saw the sandstone cliffs and rock formations. “I’m near Half-Moon Cave.”
“Do you see us? Do you see the Jeep?”
He spotted Clinton’s open-top vehicle stuck in the creek bed. Beside it was a black horse. Relief flooded through him when he saw Misty in her bright pink jacket step out from the cover of the trees and wave with both arms. She was safe. For now.
Chapter Two
Aiden stood over the body of a man who wasn’t much older than his sister. The fresh blood on his shirt made a vivid splash of crimson against the dry prairie grass in the clearing. The wind sighed through the bare branches of trees, and the rushing of the river played a quiet dirge. The family and friends of this young man would mourn his passing. Out of respect for them and for the victim, Aiden spread a tarp from the helicopter over the body.
He stood and took a step back.
His sister had a talent for getting into trouble, but this went beyond her usual. When he turned, he saw Misty was standing by the Jeep with her boyfriend. This time, she’d gotten herself involved in a murder. There would be consequences.
Before landing, he’d done an aerial sweep of the area and had seen nothing that appeared threatening. In the afternoon sunlight, his vision extended for miles in every direction. He hadn’t spotted the shooter fleeing or hiding among the rocks and brush. There were no signs of a getaway vehicle, which didn’t surprise Aiden. Almost an hour had passed since the first phone call from Tabitha; that was plenty of time for a shooter to put distance between himself and the scene of the crime.
If there was a shooter …
As he moved to the edge of the clearing, Tabitha joined him. “I’m glad you covered him,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if that would disturb evidence.”
“We aren’t exactly dealing with a crack team of CSI investigators.” He’d done enough work with local law enforcement to know the drill. “The police will be more concerned with obvious stuff. That’s Misty’s rifle on the ground. Do you know how it got here?”
“You need to ask her.”
“There’s a smear of blood on the stock.”
“When I arrived,” Tabitha said, “Misty was kneeling beside the body. I think she was trying to help. She had blood on her hands.”
“Do you think she did it?” He asked the question of the sky and the hills and the river. “Do you think she killed that young man?”
“I don’t know.”
Though he wasn’t sure what he’d do, Aiden had to know the truth. “Misty isn’t a murderer.”
“No, she’s not.”
For the first time since he’d landed, he looked directly at Tabitha. Her blue-eyed gaze was disconcerting, partly because the color was unexpected and partly because she was a lot prettier than he remembered with high cheekbones and a strong, stubborn chin. Her long black braid glistened in the fading sunlight. Though he should have been focused on his sister and the murdered man, this beautiful woman distracted him. His fingers itched to unfasten her braid and caress her silky hair.
“There is
