CHAPTER ONE
The chain-link fence was new. Eight feet tall, topped with razor wire, stretching in both directions until it disappeared into the scrubland.
Signs hung every fifty yards: PRIVATE PROPERTY.
NO TRESPASSING. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
Kari Blackhorse stood on the wrong side of that fence, watching strangers dig up bones that should have been hers to find.
Beside her, Ben Tsosie shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his jaw tight with frustration.
They'd been standing here for almost two hours, watching FBI technicians in white coveralls move methodically across the desert floor.
The May sun beat down on them without mercy, the temperature already pushing ninety despite being barely past noon.
Beneath her uniform shirt, sweat trickled down Kari's spine, but she refused to seek shade.
If she couldn't participate in this investigation, she could at least bear witness to it.
"This is wrong," Ben said, not for the first time. "We should be out there with them."
"I know."
"That boy was Navajo. His family is Navajo. This should be our case."
"I know, Ben."
"Instead we're stuck out here like a couple of tourists while the Feds trample all over everything."
Kari didn't respond. There was nothing to say that they hadn't already said a dozen times.
The land where Evan Naalnish's remains had been found was no longer tribal territory.
It had been sold to Devco Holdings fifteen years ago, three weeks after Evan disappeared.
Which meant federal jurisdiction applied, which meant the FBI had taken over, which meant Kari and Ben were reduced to observer-status in an investigation they'd started.
The investigation Ben had started, technically.
He was the one who'd found the body, who'd cut through this very fence in the middle of the night to search land that didn't belong to the tribe anymore.
He'd done it alone, without telling anyone, knowing full well he could face charges for trespassing on private property.
When Kari had asked him why he'd taken such a risk, his answer had been simple: "Because your mother believed something happened to that boy. And I believed her."
Her mother. Anna Chee. Dead now for nearly seventeen months, her body found in a remote canyon on a February morning, the official cause listed as exposure and disorientation.
A tragic accident, according to the medical examiner.
A beloved researcher who wandered too far from her vehicle and succumbed to the elements.
Kari had never believed it. Not from the moment she'd received the call, not through the funeral and the mourning, and the slow, painful process of going through her mother's belongings.
Anna Chee had spent her entire life on this land.
She knew every canyon, every wash, every landmark within a hundred miles.
The idea that she'd simply gotten lost and died of exposure was absurd.
But what Kari believed and what she could prove were two different things. For months, she'd searched for answers, following threads that led nowhere, chasing shadows that dissolved in the light until she'd discovered what her mother had really been doing in the weeks before her death.
Anna hadn't just been a researcher. She'd been something of a self-made detective, too, and she'd found a pattern: seventeen deaths over five decades, all across tribal lands in Arizona and New Mexico.
All ruled accidents or natural causes. All involving people who had discovered something, or were about to expose something, that powerful interests wanted kept secret.
Indigenous people killed to protect corporate profits, their deaths disguised, dismissed, and forgotten.
Evan Naalnish had been one of those seventeen cases.
A young man of twenty-four, an amateur geologist who loved exploring caves and rock formations, who'd disappeared during a solo hike fifteen years ago.
His truck had been found at a trailhead with his wallet and phone inside.
Search parties combed the area for weeks without finding a trace of him.
And then, three weeks after he vanished, a company no one had ever heard of paid 3.
2 million dollars for the land where he'd last been seen.
Four times the market value, for what appeared to be worthless desert scrubland.
Anna had believed Evan discovered something on that land. Something valuable enough to kill for, and valuable enough to pay millions to cover up.
Now Ben had found his body, hidden in a ravine beneath a cave system that Evan had apparently been exploring when he died. And the crushed skull told a story that no amount of corporate money could erase.
Evan Naalnish hadn't died in an accident. He'd been murdered.
Kari watched as one of the FBI technicians photographed something on the ground, the camera flash pale and ineffective against the blazing sun.
She thought about her mother spending her final weeks poring over case files, connecting dots that no one else had seen, building a theory that people were being killed to protect secrets.
She thought about Anna driving out to some remote location to meet with someone, and never coming home.
If Evan Naalnish had been murdered, how many of the other sixteen deaths in Anna's files were murders too? And had Anna herself become the eighteenth victim?
"They're not going to find anything we didn't already know," Ben said. "Skull fracture, blunt force trauma, obvious homicide. What more do they need?"
"Evidence that holds up in court. Chain of custody. Proper documentation." Kari kept her voice carefully neutral. "All the things we compromised when you went over that fence without authorization."
Ben's jaw tightened further. "I did what needed to be done."
"I'm not criticizing you. I'm explaining why they won't let us anywhere near the scene." She turned to look at him directly. "You're lucky they're not pressing charges. Captain Yazzie had to call in every favor he had to make that happen."
"I know." Some of the tension went out of Ben's shoulders. "I know. I just... I couldn't wait anymore. Every day that went by was another day Evan's family didn't have answers. Another day the people who killed him got to walk around free."
Kari understood. She'd felt the same urgency herself, the same desperate need to do something. Sometimes it landed you in hot water, sometimes it led to breakthroughs.
Sometimes both.
They'd been partners for almost two years now, ever since Kari had returned to the reservation after years with the Phoenix Police Department.
She'd left the city for complicated reasons.
Her mother's death was part of it, the need to be closer to family and homeland during a time of grief.
But there was more to it than that. Phoenix had started to feel like someone else's life, someone else's city.
The reservation, for all its challenges and limitations, was home in a way Phoenix had never been.
At thirty-four, Kari had finally stopped running from that truth.
A black SUV pulled up behind them, kicking up dust that drifted across the road in the light breeze.
Kari turned to see a man in a dark suit emerge from the driver's side, his FBI credentials already in hand.
He was young, probably early thirties, with the kind of clean-cut look that screamed federal academy graduate.
"Detectives Blackhorse and Tsosie?" He didn't wait for confirmation. "Special Agent Rivera. I'm the field liaison for this investigation."
"We've been waiting for someone to brief us," Kari said. "It's been three days since the investigation started and no one's told us anything."
Rivera's expression remained blank. "The Bureau appreciates your department's cooperation in this matter. As you know, the location of the remains falls outside tribal jurisdiction, which limits your official involvement."
"The victim was Navajo," Ben said. "His family lives on the reservation. They have a right to know what's happening."
"And they will be informed through appropriate channels, at the appropriate time.
" Rivera's tone suggested the conversation was already over.
"In the meantime, I've been asked to remind you that any interference with the federal investigation could result in serious consequences.
The agreement that kept you, Detective Tsosie, from facing trespassing charges was contingent on full cooperation from your department. "
Kari felt her temper flare but kept it in check. "We're not interfering. We're standing on a public road, watching from a distance. That's not a crime, last time I checked."
"No, it's not." Rivera almost smiled. "But it's also not particularly productive. My suggestion would be to return to your regular duties and let us handle this. When we have information to share, we'll share it."
He walked past them toward the gate in the fence, where a uniformed security guard checked his credentials before letting him through. Kari watched him go, frustration burning in her chest like acid.
"I wish Daniels was here," she said quietly.
Ben glanced at her. "Your father's old partner?"
"He's not warm and fuzzy, but at least he respects what we do.
He wouldn't freeze us out like this." Kari had known Paul Daniels her whole life.
He'd been Uncle Paul when she was young, the FBI agent who brought her sweatshirts and taught her to shoot her first gun.
Their relationship had grown more complicated over the years, especially when they'd worked cases together and found themselves on opposite sides of jurisdictional disputes.
But underneath all the professional tension, there was still respect. Still history.
"You could call him," Ben suggested. "See if he can find out what's really going on."
"I've thought about it. But going around the assigned agents could make things worse. If they find out we're working back channels, they might use it as an excuse to shut us out completely."
Ben kicked at a rock on the roadside, sending it skittering into the brush. "So we just wait? Do nothing while they decide whether or not to actually investigate a fifteen-year-old murder?"
"We do our jobs. Handle our cases. Keep the peace.
" Kari turned away from the fence, away from the technicians and the SUVs and the land that should have been theirs to search.
"And we stay ready. Because sooner or later, they're going to need something from us.
When that happens, I want to be in a position to help. "
They walked back to their patrol vehicle in silence, the sun hammering down on their shoulders.
Kari slid into the driver's seat and started the engine, letting the air conditioning wash over her face.
Through the windshield, she could see the fence stretching away into the distance, a barrier between her and the answers she desperately needed.
Her mother had died believing that people were being murdered to protect corporate secrets.
Now there was proof that at least one of her cases was exactly what she'd suspected.
Evan Naalnish had been killed, his body hidden, his disappearance written off as just another tragic accident in the unforgiving desert.
Sixteen other cases remained in Anna's files. Sixteen other deaths that might not be what they seemed. And somewhere in those files, Kari believed, was the answer to her mother's death as well.
She put the vehicle in gear and pulled away from the fence, leaving the FBI to their work. For now, there was nothing more she could do here. But that didn't mean there was nothing more she could do.
As she pulled back onto the road and headed toward Window Rock, she couldn't shake the feeling that her mother's investigation had just become a lot more complicated. And possibly a lot more dangerous.
Anna Chee had spent her final weeks pulling on threads that powerful people wanted left alone. Now Kari was pulling on those same threads.
She just hoped she'd live long enough to see where they led.