Chapter 2
Three days later, she was no closer to getting Fern to open up than she had been the first time they spoke.
It made sense to her. The other woman was dealing with a lot, her body, mind and spirit broken and trying to heal.
She also was afraid to go home. It seemed to Ava that the woman was in no hurry to leave the hospital.
Luckily Chay hadn’t stopped by with more questions. Maybe he was respecting her when she’d told him she’d let him know if she heard anything. That would be a nice change from his normal bulldozing.
She was off today, and Gracie had been fussy all day long. She’d called her mom, who had suggested she put the baby in her car seat and take her for a drive, which Ava had done. The baby fell asleep in the car, but when she got back home and carried her into the house, Gracie started crying again.
She’d paged Hannah, and the pediatrician had advised her to check Gracie’s temperature and asked her several questions to rule out infection or any other ailment. “Sorry, Ava, sounds like she’s just having a bad day,” Hannah said.
“Both of us are,” Ava said jokingly. “Well, I’ll just keep holding her. Hope that helps.”
Walking the baby around seemed to help a little bit. Her doorbell rang just as Gracie started to nod off, and Ava went to see who it was…hoping it was her mom. She could use someone else to hold the baby so she could go pee.
It wasn’t her mom but Chay Benally. Standing on her threshold, he put his hands up near his shoulders in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry to drop in on you, but I was hoping to follow up on our conversation from the other day.”
She glared at him. “I can’t even begin to think while she’s crying.”
“I’m sort of a baby whisperer,” Chay said. “If I get her to stop crying, can we talk?”
Ava doubted he’d be able to achieve that, but nodded and handed the baby to him as he stepped into her hallway. She closed the door behind him as he was talking to the baby in a soft tone.
“I have to run to the bathroom. Be right back. The living room is that way,” she said with a gesture.
After doing her business, she checked her hair, realizing she had a bit of spit-up on her shoulder and she looked as frazzled as she felt.
Taking an extra moment to braid her hair so that it fell over one shoulder, she splashed some water on her face and then took her shirt off, turning it inside out so the spit-up stain was hidden.
She looked…well, better was a relative term, but there it was.
Going back into the living room, she heard nothing but the ticking of her grandfather clock.
Her living room was decorated with overstuffed chairs and a long couch that her mom had helped her pick out when she’d moved in.
Chay sat in the large armchair nearest the fire.
Baby Gracie lay in his big arms sleeping.
That little traitor, Ava thought, but she smiled at Chay.
“Not sure how you managed that,” she half whispered in a very low tone.
“Told ya—baby whisperer. Where’s her bed?” he asked.
Ava led him down the hall to the room where the crib was set up. He placed her in it and then covered her with the Navajo blanket. His hands lingered on it for a moment.
The blanket looked so familiar. In the past, Diné woven blankets had been given to family and friends.
This one was old and well-used as if it had been a cherished possession passed along to this tiny baby.
The motifs and designs looked familiar; in fact he saw some that he knew his grandmother used especially the tiny moon on the edge of the blanket.
The moon was considered sacred and female for the Diné people. His grandmother and aunties all used it in their designs.
He turned and she followed him out of the room after she turned on the monitor.
“So I guess you owe me,” he said.
It wasn’t fair that he looked so good when he was so irritating. But he did. That thick black hair, eyebrows that framed his dark brown eyes with laugh lines and that mouth… Lord, she had a hard time not wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Which wasn’t appropriate at all.
“Yeah, I’m not going to back out of answering your questions. Want a coffee?”
“Yes, please,” he said.
She led him into her kitchen and gestured for him to take a seat at the table while she made a pot of coffee. There hadn’t been time today to do anything but take care of Gracie.
“Is Gracie part Navajo?” he asked.
“We’re not sure. I’m fostering her,” she added when he looked confused. “She was found at the fire station. They named her Gracie. Dr. Meadows is doing a DNA test. Do you think she might be?”
He shrugged as if he didn’t want to say more. “That blanket…looks familiar.”
“In what way?” Ava asked as she poured two cups of coffee. “Milk or sugar?”
“Neither,” he said.
She added both to hers before bringing both mugs to the table and sitting down across from Chay. He smelled good, too. Darn him.
He was a good-looking man, which she was just now noticing. Maybe her gaze had been softened by his magic with Gracie. She’d really started to believe she had some natural mothering instinct, but Gracie was challenging that belief. It was a lot harder to mother a baby than Ava had realized.
“The blanket?” she asked.
“It just is similar to one that I had as a boy. I don’t know why that is. My grandmother and aunties all weave so maybe that’s why it seems that way. I noticed the motifs used are the ones my grandmother uses. I’ll have to ask her about it.”
“Does she sell them?” Ava knew authentic Navajo rugs were worth a lot of money and the weavers could name their own prices. They were generally sold at festivals around the state.
“Blankets aren’t sold. Rugs are and she does sell hers, but the blankets are just for family,” he said.
“Could she be yours?”
“Definitely not,” he said.
“Celibate?” she teased.
“Careful,” he retorted.
They both watched each other as they took a sip of their coffees. Both of them waiting for the other to make the first move. He had nerve. She liked it.
“So, about Fern Hensley.”
“What do you want to know? Most of what I have heard is from the sheriff’s report,” Ava warned him.
“Has she been able to describe either of the men who were holding her?” Chay asked.
“Not really. The descriptions are vague. Tall, dark hair, big… I mean, it would be half the men in Dark Canyon.”
“Or on the Navajo Nation,” he said.
Ava agreed.
“Did she go into more detail of what she remembered before the men stopped showing up?” Chay asked.
He had a notepad where he was taking notes.
The ballpoint pen looked small in his hand, and his handwriting was bold, with slashing strokes.
She watched him for a moment before realizing that she was.
“No. Just that they kept her drugged. She’d wake up and they’d give her food, make sure the heat was working, drug her again and leave. She woke up one day and they didn’t come back. She panicked and knocked over the heater trying to free herself and the fire started.”
He could tell Ava was upset for Fern. She kept turning the mug in her hands as she spoke. Not looking up at him. If he were one hundred percent honest, he’d have to admit he hadn’t just stopped by today to learn more about Fern. Something about Ava had stuck with him when he’d gone back home.
To prove to himself that he wasn’t at all into her, he’d stayed away. But today had been slow and he’d figured the drive to Dark Canyon would fill up a chunk of it. Seeing her and the baby she was fostering.
That blanket was right at the front of his mind.
His mom had dumped him on his paternal grandmother when he was six years old.
Sometimes he dreamed of that day. Saw himself from outside his body, holding his grandmother’s hand as his mom got in that junker of a Ford she used to drive and drove away with a plume of dirt spraying up from her tires as she did.
She’d never come back. She’d called twice and had sent a Christmas card one time.
She’d died when he was fifteen—they’d gotten a call from Atlanta.
His grandmother and he had driven out to see her buried.
It was cheaper than bringing her body back.
The blanket that Grandmother had made for his dad at birth had been gone, and he hadn’t thought about that blanket until he’d tucked little Gracie in.
“Thanks for sharing that. You’re right, it’s not news, but just hearing the details again gives me a chance to process it in a different way,” he said after a minute or so.
When he’d first joined the police department in Salt Lake, he’d been paired up with an older cop, Butch Lawrence.
He’d been injured recently and was on desk duty and light patrol work.
Butch had told him to check his prejudices at the door.
Wait until he got all the facts before making a decision.
It had served Chay well. There were many times when his first impression of a crime or crime scene was to attribute it to an addict…
and too many times that was the case, but there were always other options.
Butch was a bit different on the force because he saw each person for who they were first, not as a perp.
He figured if the men who’d held Fern were Navajo she would have mentioned it, but he wasn’t ruling it out until he had another suspect.
“You’re welcome. I think the cops want to question her again. She’s asked that either I or my brother are present.”
“Why your brother?”
“He’s the firefighter who found her,” Ava said. “He keeps checking on her.”
“You Coltons are caretakers?”
“Yeah, especially if someone seems to have no one,” she admitted.
“Like Gracie… Would you mind keeping me posted on her?” he asked, knowing it was time to finish his coffee and get back to his office.
“I don’t mind. Do you think she might be Navajo?”
“I do think there’s a chance—in fact if you want to run the sample through our reservation database, it might help find a match,” he said.