CHAPTER THREE
The first thing Ben Tsosie became aware of was the pain.
It started at the base of his skull, a throbbing ache that pulsed in time with his heartbeat, and radiated outward until his entire head felt like a bruise.
He tried to lift his hand to touch the source of the pain and discovered that he couldn't move his arms. Something was holding them behind his back.
Rope, from the rough texture against his wrists. Tight enough to bite into his skin every time he shifted.
He kept his eyes closed and his breathing steady, an old trick from his training days. When you wake up in an unfamiliar situation, gather information before revealing that you're conscious. Listen. Smell. Feel. Build a picture of your environment before your captors know you're aware.
The air smelled like dust and motor oil and something else—old wood, maybe, or rusted metal.
The surface beneath him was hard and cold, concrete or packed earth.
He could hear the faint hum of electricity somewhere nearby, and beyond that, voices.
Two men, maybe three, speaking in low tones that he couldn't quite make out.
Ben let himself remember. He'd been at the fence line, the boundary of Devco's property, looking for a way in that wouldn't trigger the obvious security measures.
He'd found a gap, a section where the chain-link had been damaged and hastily repaired.
He'd slipped through, moved carefully across the darkened landscape, and then—
Nothing. A blow from behind, probably.
He'd been made. That was the only explanation. They'd been watching, ready for him to try something like that.
And now he was paying for it.
The voices grew louder, closer. Ben kept his breathing slow and even, resisting the urge to tense up as footsteps approached.
"Still out." A man's voice, flat and uninterested. "Hit him pretty hard. Probably got a concussion at the very least."
"He's breathing fine. He'll wake up when he wakes up." A second voice, this one carrying a hint of authority. "Just make sure he's secure. Last thing we need is a cop on the loose."
"What are we supposed to do with him? We can't just keep him here forever."
"We keep him until we know what he knows. Then we decide."
The footsteps retreated. A door opened and closed somewhere to Ben's left, and the voices faded to a murmur.
Ben opened his eyes.
He was in a small room—no, not a room. A trailer, from the look of it.
Construction type, the kind you'd find at a work site, with metal walls and a low ceiling and windows that had been covered with what looked like black plastic sheeting.
A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling, revealing a space that contained nothing but the chair and the concrete floor beneath him.
His hands were bound behind his back, his ankles tied to each other but not to anything else. He tested the ropes carefully, feeling for any give. There was a little—not much, but enough that patient work might accomplish something.
Time passed. Ben had no way to measure it without a watch or a window, but he estimated hours based on the cramping in his shoulders and the growing urgency of his thirst. No one came to check on him.
No one brought water or food. He was being left alone to contemplate his situation, a classic interrogation technique designed to soften resistance before the questions began.
He used the time to work at his restraints.
Small movements, nothing that would be visible to a casual observer.
Twisting his wrists, testing the knots, looking for weakness.
The rope was good quality, tied by someone who had known what they were doing, but Ben had grown up around ranchers and rodeo riders.
He'd learned to tie knots before he learned to read.
And more importantly, he'd learned to untie them.
Before he could make much progress, however, the door opened.
Ben went still, letting his head droop as if he were still unconscious or simply too exhausted to react.
Through half-closed eyes, he watched two men enter the trailer.
Both wore civilian clothes: jeans, work boots, button-down shirts that strained across muscular shoulders.
They had the look of men who did physical labor for a living, or who wanted to give that impression.
One of them crouched in front of Ben and slapped him hard across the face.
"Wake up. Time to talk."
Ben let his head rock with the blow, then slowly raised it as if fighting through a fog. "Where... where am I?"
"Doesn't matter where you are. What matters is what you were doing on private property."
"I got lost," he said, letting his voice slur. "Following up on an old case. Got turned around in the dark."
The man hit him again, harder this time. Ben tasted blood.
"Don't play stupid. You cut through the fence. You were looking for something." The man leaned closer, his breath hot against Ben's face. "What was it?"
"I told you. I was working on an old case. Missing person, fifteen years cold. The trail led out that direction."
"Evan Naalnish." The second man spoke for the first time.
He was leaning against the trailer wall, arms crossed, watching the exchange with an expression of mild interest. "The geology student.
Yeah, we know about that. Funny thing is, that case is closed.
The FBI said so. So why is a tribal cop still poking around? "
"His family deserves answers."
"His family got answers. He fell in a cave, hit his head, died. Tragic accident. Case closed." The man pushed off the wall and approached. "But you don't believe that, do you?"
Ben said nothing.
The man smiled without warmth. "Here's the thing, Detective.
We need to know exactly what you saw out there, what you found.
Who you told." He glanced at his partner.
"We can do this the easy way, where you just tell us and we figure out how to handle the situation.
Or we can do it the hard way, where my friend here asks you repeatedly until you decide cooperation is the better option.
Your choice. But time isn't your friend here. "
Ben met his eyes. "I didn't see anything. I was on the property for maybe ten minutes before someone knocked me out. I didn't find anything, I didn't photograph anything, I didn't have time to do anything except walk around in the dark."
The first blow caught him in the ribs. The second in the stomach. Ben doubled over as much as his restraints allowed, gasping for breath.
"Try again," the calm man said.
"I'm telling you the truth."
More blows. Ben lost count after a while, focusing instead on protecting his head and his core, on riding out the pain without letting it break him.
This wasn't his first interrogation—he'd been through resistance training at the academy, had learned how to compartmentalize pain, how to retreat into a mental space where the body's suffering became abstract and manageable.
Eventually, they stopped. Ben hung in his restraints, breathing hard, his body a symphony of aches. The calm man studied him with something that might have been respect.
"Tough guy. I can see why you made detective." He pulled a phone from his pocket, checked the screen. "We'll give you some time to think about your situation. Maybe your memory will improve."
They left. The door closed. Ben was alone again.
He waited until he was certain they weren't coming back, then resumed his work on the ropes. His wrists were slick with blood now, the skin rubbed raw by hours of careful movement, but the knots were definitely looser. Another day, maybe less, and he might be able to slip free.
If they gave him another day.
He thought about Kari, about the investigation they'd been building together, about her mother's research and the pattern of deaths that stretched back decades.
If he disappeared for good, she'd keep digging.
He knew her well enough to be certain of that.
Kari Blackhorse didn't know how to quit, didn't know how to accept official explanations when her gut told her they were lies.
It was one of the things he admired most about her.
And one of the things that scared him most right now.
Because if they were willing to kill him to protect their secrets, they would have no issue killing her, too.
* * *
The interrogations continued. Different questions, different approaches, but always the same core demand: What did you see?
What do you know? Who have you told? Ben stuck to his story—I got lost, found nothing, told no one—and absorbed the punishment that came with each repetition.
His body became a map of bruises, his wrists a bloody mess of torn skin and loosening rope.
Then something changed.
The two men left, called away by a phone conversation that Ben only caught fragments of. Something about a search warrant. Something about moving locations.
They were getting nervous. Outside pressure was building, and they hadn't gotten what they wanted from their prisoner.
"We can't keep him forever," one said to the other, no doubt unaware how far his voice carried. "He's a cop—people are looking for him. We need to make a decision."
"The decision isn't ours to make. We hold him until we get orders."
"And if the orders are to dump him in the desert? You really want his blood on your hands?"
"We signed up for this, remember? In for a penny, in for a pound."
That was when Ben knew he had to move. Another day, maybe another few hours, and the order might come. He'd be taken out into the wilderness, shot in the back of the head, left for the coyotes and the vultures. Another disappearance that no one would ever explain.
Had these two men killed Evan Naalnish? What about the other names on Anna Chee's list, all the people who'd died for getting too close to whatever secrets this land hid?
The door opened.