I held up my hand. “I don’t want to know.”

  “No, you don’t. What brings you into town?”

  “I was bored, and I barely saw you all weekend. What the hell did Steve want your help with?”

  She laughed. “He’s decided to paint the bedrooms and wanted me to look at color swatches.”

  “Doesn’t he have a girlfriend for that kind of thing now?”

  “Apparently she’s partially colorblind.”

  “Oh. Bummer. Why is he painting?”

  Meredith shrugged. “He got a wild hair? Who knows? I didn’t question him. How are Starr and Theresa’s dogs?”

  “Fine.” I told her about Matt’s visit. “I’m worried that Starr hasn’t woken up.”

  “Sounds like they don’t want her to yet.” Meredith looked pensive. “What an awful, awful thing.”

  “I saw Jesse yesterday.”

  She brightened. “Yeah, he told me that Ammo found the dead bad guy.”

  “So, it’s going well with you two?”

  “Uh-huh.” She gave me a sly smile. “And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.”

  “You know, you can have him stay over if you want. It’s okay with us.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see. It’s tricky because of his work schedule.”

  I heard the front door open. Del spoke to someone, and a vaguely familiar male voice answered. Meredith said, “How about that? Speak of the devil…”

  Jesse himself appeared in the doorway. “Hi, Jamie. I’m not interrupting, am I?”

  “Not at all.”

  Meredith asked, “I’m glad to see you, but what are you doing in town?”

  “Consulting with Brian Cochrane.”

  “In person?”

  Jesse checked the hallway, then closed the door and sat down. “We didn’t want any record of our conversation.”

  Meredith looked alarmed. I said, “Do tell.”

  “A body was found on the reservation early this morning, about eight miles from where we were yesterday. It’s possible that it was our second of the four bad guys.”

  Meredith asked, “Did he have an ID on him?”

  “Yes, but since we don’t know exactly who was in the truck that night, we have to check with the bar in Tularosa to see if he was one of the customers. We do know that he’s also from Corona, and he’s about the same age as the owner of the truck. Not a stretch to think that they’d be pals.”

  I asked, “How did he die?”

  “It looked like a mountain lion attack.”

  Meredith sucked in a breath. But I’d noted the words looked like. “Was it a mountain lion attack?”

  “Good question. There were three deep slash marks to the neck, and other punctures that could be bites, which is consistent with what a lion would do.”

  “But you have reason to doubt it.”

  “I think if the FBI investigates very thoroughly, they’ll find a couple of small inconsistencies.”

  I said, “I bet there are folks on the reservation who know how to fake a mountain lion attack.”

  “You’d win that bet.” Jesse sighed. “No one in the Mescalero Nation is happy to have those dudes roaming around our land. If someone saw an opportunity to rid the land of one of the bad guys, he might have taken it.”

  Meredith said, “Neither you nor Brian are going to say anything to the FBI, are you?”

  “No. If they ask, we won’t lie to them, of course. But we’re not going to suggest anything without a direct question.”

  I said, “I don’t know Agents Castro and Singleton super well, but I doubt they’re going to ask any questions that they don’t want answers to.”

  Jesse nodded. “That’s my impression as well. I hope we’re right.”

  I got home from Meredith’s office just as Pete was parking in our garage. I pulled in beside him, cut the engine and climbed out of the Jeep. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself. I thought you were staying home today.”

  “I got bored and went to visit Meredith. Jesse stopped by while I was there.”

  “Oh? Did he have news?”

  “Uh-huh.” I opened the back door of the CR-V to let Ammo out. “Tell you inside.”

  Once we were done supervising the doggie greetings and settled in the kitchen, I told Pete about the presumed mountain lion attack. “I think Jesse had the same reaction that I’m having.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Two down.”

  Pete frowned as he washed his lunch containers. “It’s always a fine line to walk for law enforcement in cases like this. On one hand, you want to catch the guys so the justice system can do its work on them. On the other hand, when something like this alleged mountain lion attack happens, you feel like that’s justice, too.”

  “Karma, at least. Do you think they’ll find another mountain lion victim?”

  “No. That would force the FBI to look more closely. This might have also been meant as a warning to the other two. Get off our land or something similar could happen to you.”

  “Hm. Makes sense.” I took a bunch of grapes from the fridge and popped one in my mouth. “I can’t believe they’re having so much trouble finding these guys.”

  “It’s a big reservation with lots of hiding places.”

  “I know. But shouldn’t their heat signatures show up on infrared?”

  “If they have the helicopters up. Maybe the funding isn’t there.”

  “No funding to catch two vicious killers? That’s hard to believe.”

  Pete shrugged. He put his containers in the dish drainer and sat at the table with me, stealing one of my grapes. “This is New Mexico. Stranger things have happened.”

  “I guess. Oh, Matt Summers stopped by this morning.” I told him what Matt had said.

  “Sure, we’ll take the dogs to LA if they want. Did he say anything else about Starr’s condition?”

  “No, just that it’s still dicey. Brain swelling… do people recover from that?”

  “They do. But remember the concussion you had?”

  “Of course.” Four years ago, I’d gotten clocked in the head with a lug wrench and knocked out cold. I’d sustained a mild concussion, which had required several weeks to completely recover from.

  “Multiply that by forty or fifty times to figure what happened to Starr. It’s not like the heroes in books or movies. She’s not going to wake up and be ready to hop out of bed and live on her own again. She’s probably going to need months of rehab.”

  “I’d guess that’s only available in Albuquerque.”

  “Maybe Las Cruces too. But, if I was Starr’s family, I’d move her back to California for that. One of the best rehab centers in the country is right in Century City. A lot easier to access from Palmdale than anywhere in New Mexico.”

  A wave of despair crashed over me. “If she even lives.”

  Pete squeezed my hand. I gritted my teeth and pulled myself out of the dark hole I’d suddenly plunged into. “I found out what Steve wanted Meredith’s help with. He’s painting the interior of the house and wanted suggestions on picking colors.”

  “He’s painting? Why?”

  “Meredith didn’t ask.”

  “Huh.” Pete stole another grape. “He texted me around lunchtime. Wants to have us over for dinner tomorrow. He’s going to grill.”

  “In the middle of the week?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Painting the house? Grilling on a Tuesday night? What’s he up to?”

  Pete shook his head. “No idea. I guess we’ll find out.”

  Chapter 9

  Tuesday, March 21

  I spent Tuesday editing. Kristen Beach, my sister-in-law, was in the doctoral program for library science at UCLA and wanted my input on a paper she was writing. Liz Nguyen, my best friend at UCLA when I worked in the library there, was writing a paper for publication and had asked me to attack it with red ink. My brother Kevin, married to Kristen, was working on a master’s degree in criminal justice at UC-Irvine and had an assignment due that he wanted me to proofread before he submitted it.

  By the time Pete and Ammo got home at 5:15, I’d completed the work and sent the edited papers back to their authors. He found me in our shared office, where Bosco and Barney were snoozing under my desk. They scrambled to their feet to greet Ammo. Pete kissed me hello and dropped into his desk chair wearily. I asked, “Tough day?”

  He made a “kinda” face. “Nothing critical. There’s just so much anxiety in the student population right now.”

  “Can’t say I blame ‘em.”

  “No. But it’s repetitive for me, you know? Teaching the same techniques over and over, asking the same questions, getting nearly identical answers…”

  I said, “You’d rather be back in the classroom.” Pete had been full-time faculty at Santa Monica College until he quit in protest after a promotion scandal. Since then, he’d been teaching online as an adjunct for various schools, mostly Arizona State University and SMC. He was still teaching one class for SMC but had given up Arizona State and the others.

  “Yeah, I would. This job has clarified my vocational goals. I’m a teacher first and a counselor second.”

  “You could probably get an adjunct job at the college.”

  He shook his head. “Not here. I can’t teach the same students I’m counseling.”

  “Ah. True.”

  “Well. Something will work out. Did you get everyone’s papers back to them?”

  “Yup.”

  “Is the salad ready?”

  “Yup.” At lunch, I’d made a green salad—using Pete’s lettuce before it bolted—to take to Steve’s for dinner.

  “Awesome. Let’s go.”

  Steve lived closer to downtown Alamogordo, about a mile north of our house. We parked in the driveway and went around the house to the backyard, where Steve was brushing the grill with oil. He looked up at us with a sideways smile. “Hi, guys. You can stick the salad in the fridge. I cleared off a shelf.”

  I carried the bowl through the sliding glass door into the kitchen. A large zip top bag holding three steaks in marinade was resting on the shelf under the salad. I went back outside and said, “We’re having steak? You must have taken out a second mortgage.”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t up to his usual standard. “Well, this is a special occasion. I should have told you to bring the steaks out.”

  “I’ll get them.”

  When I returned with the steaks, Pete was standing off from Steve a bit, his arms crossed. Steve asked, “What?”

  “Exactly. What special occasion?”

  Steve lifted each steak from the bag and laid it carefully on the hot grill, where the sizzling scent immediately made my stomach start to growl. He turned to the side, where he could still watch the grill but also see us. “Well. I got headhunted for a job, and they made me an offer this morning.”

  Pete said, “You’re shitting me.”

  Steve gave him an exasperated look. “What, like I can’t be headhunted?”

  “Not what I meant. You’re leaving the Air Force?” Steve was a civilian employee of the US Air Force, stationed at Holloman Air Force Base. He was an aerospace engineer with a specialty in plasma physics who did research into rocket propellants. Most of what he did was classified.

  He said, “I haven’t accepted the job yet.”

  “But you’re going to.”

  “They are gonna pay me a fuckton of money. And the benefits are better.”

  I asked, “Who are they?”

  “SpaceX.”

  Pete’s jaw dropped. I said, “Holy shit. They headhunted you?”

  “Yeah. I have a LinkedIn profile, right? I guess they were searching for someone with my specifications. I’ve had three Zoom interviews over the past week. This morning, they offered me the job.”

  “Where is the job?”

  Steve hesitated for a microsecond. “Hawthorne.”

  Time froze for a moment, the air crystallized, the environment silent. Hawthorne, California, was in the South Bay area of Los Angeles.

  We’d chosen Alamogordo for our second home mostly because Steve was here.

  And now he was leaving?

  Pete said slowly, “You’re moving back to LA.”

  “I have a call scheduled with them tomorrow morning to accept or turn down the job.” Steve shrugged, sheepish. “I’m not going to turn it down.”

  Steve, like Pete, had mostly grown up in Barstow, way out in the desert in San Bernardino County, but he’d gotten his bachelor’s and PhD at Caltech. LA had changed some since the nineties, though. I asked, “Are they gonna pay you enough to live at the beach?”

  He snorted. “Not at the beach, no. Maybe not far. I’ll probably buy a condo, but I’ll have to use the proceeds of this place as a down payment.”

  Pete asked, “When would you start?”

  “June first.”

  I said, “You can stay at our place while you’re temporarily homeless.”

  “I might have to take you up on that.”

  Pete nodded slowly. “Yeah. It makes sense.”

  Steve seemed relieved. He flipped the steaks. “I’m excited about it.”

  I asked, “What about Gina?”

  Gina Bates, Steve’s girlfriend, was a tenured professor of biochemistry at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Steve had been introduced to her by his and Pete’s niece, Stephanie, who was working on a doctoral degree in nursing. Gina had taught a couple of Stephanie’s classes, and they’d become friendly enough that Stephanie had decided to fix up the two lonely hearts.

  Steve said, “If Gina and I decide on something more permanent, which is not at all a sure thing, it’ll be a lot easier for her to find a job in LA than here.”

  “True.”

  Pete looked at me. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

  The primary thread that was still holding us here had just been cut.

  We talked through dinner about Steve’s new job, about where he might live, about the potential for him to reconnect with friends at Caltech. I pulled up a couple of real estate sites on my phone and we looked at what was available condo-wise in the area surrounding Hawthorne. Steve kept laughing, almost giddily, like he couldn’t believe his luck.

  We helped him clean up after dinner then made the short drive home in silence. I could practically smell Pete thinking. I, on the other hand, was experiencing the first positive emotions I’d felt since Starr and Theresa were attacked. Relief and joy were washing over me like waves in the Pacific surf.

  We had very little holding us here. Maybe we were finally going home.

  At the house, Pete pulled into the garage, cut the engine, and lowered the door. I took off my seat belt and reached for the door handle then realized he wasn’t moving. I gave him a quizzical look.

  He said, “Give me twenty-four hours.”

  One of the primary ways that Pete and I differed was in our decision-making processes. I tended to go with my gut. Pete needed to let information turn over in his head for a while before he knew what he wanted to do.

  He knew how I felt about going home. I knew he was reluctant to leave Steve.

  Except that now, Steve was leaving us.

  I said, “You got it.”

  Chapter 10

  Wednesday, March 22

  The next morning, I texted Brian.

  Any news?

  Mescalero have been clearing areas of the reservation. Should have them isolated to northwest corner soon. Then we’ll send out more search teams. SAR will probably be involved so get ready.

  Cool. On it.

  Maybe I would get a chance to be a part of the chase.

  But they were unarmed. There wouldn’t be any shooting.

  I’d clean the gun, just in case.

  Pete’s work schedule on Wednesday was from ten to three. He spent the two hours after breakfast on his computer in the office. I wasn’t sure what he was doing.

  I was on my laptop, too. If we did go back to LA, I’d need something to do. Might as well start thinking about that now.

  I could certainly continue with Search and Rescue. Except… The SAR teams in Los Angeles County all seemed to be affiliated with the Sheriff’s Department. I’d have to become a reserve deputy, which meant going through a law enforcement academy of some sort. I didn’t particularly want to do that.

  The LA Sheriff’s Department was riddled with problems. I had no desire to spend my weekends hanging out with any of them.

  And, on the website for the Malibu SAR team, they’d misspelled reconnaissance. Sloppy.

  So much for that idea.

  Pete closed his laptop, kissed me goodbye, and left for work with Ammo. Bosco and Barney resumed their positions under the desk, wrapped around my feet. I turned my efforts to searching for open positions at university libraries in LA.

  There wasn’t much available that was attractive to me or that wouldn’t require a long commute. I looked at positions for adjunct history instructors; there were plenty.

  Then I thought, No.

  I didn’t need the money. Thanks to a $38 million inheritance from the father of the man who’d killed my mom in a drunk driving accident, I was independently wealthy. To coin a phrase.

  Given the state of higher education these days, I should absolutely not take a librarian or adjunct job away from someone who needed it.

  But I was not at all suited—physically, mentally, emotionally—to live the life of the idle rich.

  Well. Something would present itself when the time was right.

  I sighed, closed my laptop, and called the basset hounds to go outside.

  Pete was home by 3:45. I was in the kitchen, back on my laptop, browsing opportunities for volunteer work in Santa Monica. Ammo bounced in and greeted Bosco and Barney like they hadn’t seen each other for weeks. Pete said, “He’s gonna miss them when they leave.”

 

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