“Almost anyone,” Kari amended with the hint of a smile.“And she wouldn’t have come out here without water, without telling someone.It doesn’t add up.”
Ruth nodded, satisfied.“Good.The FBI didn’t make you completely blind.”
“I wasn’t FBI, Shimásání.Dad was.”
“Same thing.”Ruth’s dismissive wave encompassed all of federal law enforcement.“You see with those eyes now.I’m just glad you still remember how to question.”
The sun breached the horizon, casting long shadows across the desert floor.In the new light, Kari noticed something clutched in her grandmother’s hand—a small leather pouch.
Ruth followed her gaze.“Protection,” she said simply, then looked pointedly at Kari’s neck, bare of the medicine bundle she’d once worn as a child.
“I’ve got my Glock for protection,” Kari said.“When I’m not out for a morning jog, that is.”As soon as she had spoken, she regretted the flippancy.
Ruth’s expression didn’t change, but something in her eyes dimmed.“Some things bullets can’t stop, Asdza´a´ K’os.”
The use of her Diné name—Cloud Woman—sent an unexpected shiver through Kari despite the heat.She hadn’t heard it spoken aloud in years.
“Why are you out here, Shimásání?It’s a long walk from the house.”
Ruth gestured vaguely to the east.“I got a ride with Leila Adakai.She delivers mail this way on Tuesdays.”
Kari glanced around, seeing no other vehicles.“She just left you here?”
“I told her to.”Ruth’s tone made it clear that was the end of that discussion.She looked up at the lightening sky.“I had a dream about your mother last night.”
Kari tensed.Her grandmother’s dreams were infamous in the family—too often accurate in ways that defied explanation.“What kind of dream?”
“She was looking for something in the old places.Something hidden.”Ruth’s weathered face revealed nothing of what she thought about this.“She couldn’t find it, but she said you would.”
“Did she say what ‘it’ was?”Kari tried to keep the skepticism from her voice.
Ruth shook her head.“Dreams don’t work like your police reports, Asdza´a´ K’os.”She gazed out across the desert.“I’ll need a ride back.You can drive me after your run.”
Kari sighed.Her grandmother had always been cryptic, but since Anna’s death, she’d become even more so—her speech full of riddles and old stories that Kari only half-remembered from her childhood weekends on the reservation.
“I was actually heading back,” Kari said.“I need to get ready for work.”
Ruth nodded, unsurprised, as if she’d calculated this timing perfectly.“Let’s go then.On the way, you can tell me about your new partner.He has troubled eyes.”
***
The house was exactly as her mother had left it—a modest one-story building of tan stucco with a metal roof that had seen better days.It sat alone at the end of a dirt road, with only scattered piñon pines for company.Not for the first time, Kari wondered why her mother had chosen such isolation after the divorce.
After dropping Ruth at her small house on the eastern edge of the reservation, Kari had driven home with her grandmother’s words echoing in her mind.Your mother wasn’t afraid of dying.She was afraid of what would die with her.
She unlocked the door and stepped into the relative coolness of the interior.The space was small but meticulously organized, every surface covered with books, papers, and the various artifacts of Anna’s academic work documenting Navajo traditions.
Kari moved slowly through the quiet rooms, stripping off her sweat-soaked running clothes and stepping into the shower.As the water washed away the desert dust, something else her grandmother had said came back to her:I’m just glad you still remember how to question.
Yes, but what was the question?What had Mom been doing out there?What had happened to her?As badly as Kari wanted to know, she’d been an investigator long enough to know that some trails went cold—permanently.
And people—even those as careful as her mother—sometimes made mistakes.Even the fatal kind.
After her shower, Kari dressed quickly in department-issue khakis and a light blue button-down shirt, her badge clipped to her belt alongside her holstered Glock 19.She braided her wet hair into a single plait down her back, a compromise between professional appearance and practicality in the desert heat.
In the kitchen, she gulped down a protein shake and absently leafed through a stack of her mother’s papers while she ate.Anna had been methodical in her research, documenting interviews with elders in precise handwriting, cross-referencing oral histories with archaeological findings.So many stories, so many connections—all of which seemed to have died with her.
Kari glanced at her watch.She still had forty minutes before she needed to leave for the station.On impulse, she went to the small bedroom that had served as her mother’s office.The door stuck as she pushed it open; she hadn’t ventured in here much since moving back.
