CHAPTER TWO
The darkness swallowed Kari's headlights as she pushed her Jeep faster than was safe on roads she could barely see.
Gas station. Old payphone. That was all Ben had given her before the line went dead. In the vast emptiness of northern Arizona, that description could fit a dozen places—most of them abandoned, their phone lines long since disconnected.
Kari's mind raced through possibilities as the miles disappeared beneath her wheels. Ben had sounded weak, disoriented—the voice of a man running on empty, using his last reserves to make a call he wasn't sure would connect. Three days of… what? Torture? Food and water deprivation?
She had already concluded that he must have been captured—Ben was far too competent to simply get lost in the wilderness.
So had he escaped? It seemed the most likely scenario.
If they'd released him willingly, he would have called from his own phone.
He would have gone to the station or to a hospital.
Instead, he'd found a payphone—ancient technology, almost extinct. They weren't untraceable, but that could take hours. And by the sound of it, Ben might not have that kind of time.
The highway stretched empty ahead of her, a ribbon of asphalt cutting through land that had looked the same for thousands of years.
Kari had driven these roads her entire life, had learned their rhythms and their secrets the way other children learned the streets of their neighborhoods.
She knew where the washes flooded during monsoon season, where the elk crossed at dawn, where the old trading posts still clung to existence despite decades of declining traffic.
And she knew the gas stations. The real ones, with their fluorescent lights and corporate logos, and the other ones—the remnants of an earlier era, when Route 66 had been the main artery of American travel and every small town had sprouted businesses to serve the endless stream of cars heading west.
Most of those places were gone now, abandoned when the interstate bypassed them, their buildings crumbling slowly back into the desert. But a few still operated, stubbornly refusing to die, serving the handful of locals who preferred the old roads to the new ones.
One of those places was thirty miles ahead.
A combination gas station and convenience store that had been old when Kari was a child, run by an elderly Navajo man who kept a payphone outside because he didn't trust cell towers.
She and Ben had stopped there once, months ago, during a long drive back from a case in Flagstaff.
Ben had been charmed by the place, by its defiant persistence, by the old man's stories about the travelers who used to pass through.
If you ever need to disappear, Ben had joked, this is where to do it. Middle of nowhere, no cameras, and a phone that doesn't keep records.
Kari pressed the accelerator harder.
She reached the gas station in twenty-two minutes, a drive that should have taken thirty.
The place looked exactly as she remembered: a low building with peeling paint, two ancient pumps, and a flickering sign that read "GAS" in letters that had once been red.
The payphone hung on the exterior wall near the entrance, its metal cord glinting in the weak light from inside the store.
No other vehicles in the lot. No sign of Ben.
Kari parked and approached the store, her hand resting on her weapon out of habit. Through the grimy window, she could see the clerk behind the counter—not the old man she remembered, but a younger woman, maybe thirty, reading a paperback novel in the harsh fluorescent light.
The bell above the door jingled as Kari entered. The clerk looked up, her expression shifting from bored to wary as she took in Kari's badge.
"Help you?"
"I'm looking for a man who might have used your payphone recently. Navajo, early forties, probably looked like he'd been through hell. Would have been within the last hour or two."
The clerk frowned at her, making no effort to hide her curiosity. "What's this about?"
"Just answer the question," Kari snapped. Then she took a breath and calmed herself. "Please."
The clerk shook her head slowly. "I haven't seen anyone like that. Haven't seen anyone at all tonight, actually. It's been dead."
Kari flinched at the word. "You've been here all evening, then?"
"Since six. Took over from my uncle." The clerk set down her book. "Is this guy in trouble? Should I be worried?"
"He's a police officer. He's been missing for three days." Kari pulled out her phone, showed the clerk a photo of Ben from a department barbecue last summer, even though the clerk had already made it clear she hadn't seen anyone. "You're certain you haven't seen him?"
The clerk studied the photo, then shook her head again. "Sorry. I'd remember. We don't get many customers after dark."
Kari thanked her and walked back outside, fighting down a rising tide of panic. She'd been so certain this was the place. The phone call had come from somewhere—Ben had managed to reach a payphone, had managed to say her name, had managed to give her the barest hint of where to find him.
But he wasn't here. Which meant either she'd guessed wrong, or—
Or he had been here, and for some reason the clerk hadn't seen him take the call. Then he'd moved, because staying in one place was dangerous. Because whoever had taken him might be looking for him, too.
Kari stood in the empty parking lot, forcing herself to think like Ben. He was injured, exhausted, probably dehydrated. He'd made it to a phone, made the call, but then he'd had to keep moving. He couldn't stay near the road, couldn't risk being spotted by whoever was hunting him.
So where would he go?
She turned in a slow circle, studying the landscape.
Desert stretched in every direction: scrub brush and rock formations and the dark shapes of distant mesas.
To the east, the land rose toward a ridge that she knew from childhood hikes.
To the west, it fell away toward a dry wash that ran for miles before emptying into the Little Colorado River.
Ben knew this land almost as well as she did.
He'd grown up on the reservation, had spent his youth exploring every canyon and mesa within a day's drive of his family's home.
If he needed to hide, he would choose somewhere defensible.
Somewhere with cover. Somewhere that a pursuer wouldn't think to look.
Somewhere that meant something to him.
The thought struck her with sudden clarity.
The ridge to the east—she and Ben had been there together the night after they'd found Evan Naalnish's remains.
They'd driven out separately, both needing space to process what they'd discovered, and had found each other at the overlook where the old fire road dead-ended.
They'd sat on the hood of Ben's truck for hours, not talking much, just watching the stars wheel overhead while they grappled with the weight of a fifteen-year-old murder and the conspiracy that had kept it hidden.
This is my thinking spot, Ben had told her. When things get too heavy, I come here. Something about the view puts everything in perspective.
Kari ran for her Jeep.
The fire road was rough, barely maintained, the kind of track that would destroy a sedan's suspension in minutes. Kari's Jeep handled it without complaint, climbing steadily toward the ridge while her headlights swept across rocks and brush and the occasional startled jackrabbit.
She found him at the overlook.
Ben was slumped against a boulder at the edge of the clearing, positioned where he could see anyone approaching from the road.
His clothes were torn and dirty, his face a mask of bruises and dried blood.
His wrists, visible where his sleeves had ridden up, showed raw red marks that could only have come from restraints.
But his eyes were open. And when Kari's headlights found him, he managed a weak smile.
"Took you long enough," he rasped.
Kari was out of the Jeep before it had fully stopped, crossing the distance between them in seconds. She dropped to her knees beside him, her hands hovering over his injuries, afraid to touch him and cause more pain.
"Ben. Shit, Ben." The words came out thick, choked with relief and fury. "What did they do to you?"
"Nothing original." His voice was a dry whisper. "Questions. Fists. More questions." He tried to shift position and winced. "I didn't tell them anything. They kept asking what I saw, what I knew. I told them I didn't see a damn thing."
"We need to get you to a hospital."
"No." His hand caught her wrist with surprising strength. "No hospitals. Not yet. They'll be watching. I don't know who we can trust."
Kari's jaw tightened. She wanted to argue, wanted to insist that his injuries needed attention. But she could see the fear beneath his exhaustion, the genuine terror of a man who had spent three days at the mercy of people who operated above the law.
"Okay," she said. "Okay, no hospital. But I'm calling Paul. He can help us figure out our next move."
Ben hesitated, then nodded. "Daniels. Yeah. He's... he's probably safe."
Kari pulled out her phone and dialed. Paul answered on the second ring, his voice alert despite the late hour.
"Kari? What's wrong?"
"I found Ben. He's alive, but he's hurt. Someone took him, Paul. Someone held him for three days and interrogated him about what he knew."
A long pause. When Paul spoke again, his voice was carefully controlled. "Where are you?"
"The ridge overlook, east of the old Yazzie trading post. Do you know it?"
"I can find it. I'm on my way." Another pause. "Kari. Don't move him any more than you have to. And don't call anyone else. Not dispatch, not the station, no one. You understand?"
"I understand."
She ended the call and turned back to Ben. He had closed his eyes, his breathing shallow but steady. She found a blanket in the back of her Jeep and draped it over him, then sat down beside him, her shoulder touching his, letting him know she was there.
"You're safe now," she said quietly. "I've got you."
Ben didn't open his eyes, but his hand found hers in the darkness and held on.