Fatal Intent (Desert Heat Book 3) Read online

  “Ready for a run out to the Springs?” Rick asked. Dylan nodded. That was a crazy drive, but the destination, Quitobaquito Springs in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, was a bit of heaven in the midst of what could often be hell. It was an oasis in a desert as deadly as any on the planet if you weren’t prepared for it. The run would take the rest of the workday.

  Dylan sent Alex a text when he arrived home that afternoon. They were on for Saturday. He went to pick up the boys at their after-school care program and then got dinner started while they did their homework. He didn’t remember having homework in the first grade, but Davi seemed to have plenty to keep him busy. While it was relatively quiet, he went to the mailbox and returned with a handful of mail. As he stood at the kitchen trash receptacle, he sorted. Junk, junk, junk, something from Medicaid. Maybe he’d finally get a chance to settle his mom’s bills. He sat down with the letter and opened it, not without some misgivings.

  He’d learned in November of the previous year that his mother was an illegal alien, having been born on the Mexican side of the border on the Tohono O’odham reservation. It explained why the pharmacy kept refusing her Medicaid card for her medications, but he wasn’t certain what would happen with her medical bills. If he had to pay them, it would bankrupt him. Nevertheless, as an upstanding citizen and government employee, he couldn’t let it go unreported. He’d made a call and received a bunch of unintelligible gibberish in the mail a week later, which he turned over to Rick Englebright to straighten out.

  As he opened the envelope, he wondered whether he should have Rick here to interpret the government-speak for him. He could barely get through the nonsense his own agency spewed. The letter read, “Dear Mr. Chaves, We are in receipt of your report that your mother, Maria Chaves, has been using a fraudulent Social Security number to obtain medical care. This is a very serious matter, and we will investigate immediately. In the meanwhile, please use your influence to discourage her from further use of the card. We will be in touch when our investigation is complete.”

  That was the government for you, he reflected. A day late and a dollar short. Well, his mom wouldn’t be using the card any further. He tossed the letter with the rest of the junk. Rick had assured him that he had a strong defense if anything blew back on him because of his mom’s illegal status. He had a birth certificate that made him a US citizen, and Wanda Lopez could vouch for the fact he’d known nothing of her fraud before November, when he’d reported it.

  There was very little likelihood he would be responsible for paying the state back. However, there was an equally low chance that he’d be reimbursed for the money he’d shelled out for medications after the pharmacy stopped taking the card. It was water under the bridge. He made enough to support himself and the boys, and even Alex if she ever consented to be his wife. They wouldn’t be rich, but they’d get by.

  Thinking of Alex made him remember to check for a return text. He opened his phone to find a happy face in response to his message. The boys were going to love going to the zoo with her.

  FOUR

  A few days after the award ceremony, Alex hugged and kissed Juan and Davi goodbye and then lingered in Dylan’s arms for a longer farewell late on Wednesday afternoon. She hadn’t wasted any time in posting her request for a shared apartment or house, furnished, for the rest of April and May, with a possible extension over the summer.

  By June, she hoped to know whether the scholarship for Arizona State had come through for the fall semester, and if so she’d return home for the summer and finally give herself a break from classes. She was in luck. She’d snagged a room in a shared three-bedroom house, with shared kitchen privileges.

  With both her dad and Dylan looking like they’d lost their best friends, she waved goodbye and drove her over-burdened Sentra, full of clothes, books, her desktop, and a few other necessities, away from her dad’s house. She refused to think about Dylan’s arms not being around her at least two or three times a week, or the stricken face of little Davi when he asked if she would ever come back. All she could do was show him. For that matter, all she could do was show Dylan that her feelings for him were deep and wouldn’t be affected by the distance between them. She shook her head as she remembered last night’s conversation.

  “Promise me you won’t fall for some college jock,” he’d said, only half-joking.

  “And what if I do?” she’d teased. His devastated look made her relent and kiss him until he was happy again. “You’re the only one for me, Dylan,” she’d said. He hadn’t said any more, only kissed her more and more passionately until they’d risked a quick trip to his bedroom.

  They didn’t usually do that, fearful the boys would hear them and either misinterpret or carry tales to school, from whence they’d end up in the town grapevine. Neither of them had any delusions that their romance was unknown in town, but that didn’t mean people needed to know every time they… ‘got intimate’, her brain supplied. Alone in her car, she blushed.

  She was being honest with Dylan, though. She had no plans to become overly friendly with another guy, even though she did want to make friends. Instead, she was hoping to uncover something interesting enough to write for another entry into the NSPA contest or others. Winning journalistic awards was a heady experience she’d like to repeat, and would look good on a future resume.

  She would still be responsible for writing stories for her dad’s newspaper, as well as taking on a more active role in the student newspaper on campus. There wouldn’t be time for much fooling around, and she’d save what there was for Dylan’s visits.

  She had left Dodge about an hour early, hoping to get to her new house and unload some of the stuff in her car before having to go to class. When she pulled up in front of it, one of her housemates was there to greet her.

  “Alex, welcome!” Lisa beamed and Alex liked her immediately. She hadn’t met Lisa before, though she knew the other girl, Natalie, slightly. She smiled back.

  “Thanks! I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to unload some of this crap before class.” Alex disappeared from the waist up for a moment, reaching into the back seat, and came out with an armload of hanging clothes, complete with hangers. Lisa led the way to her room and sat on the bed while Alex hung up the clothes.

  “I hope you like it here,” Lisa offered. “We’ve had a heck of a time keeping roommates.”

  Surprised, Alex turned with a question on her lips. Lisa laughed at the expression on her face and said, “It’s not really that bad. The girl we had at the beginning of the year got pregnant and went home to have the baby. Then we had one who disappeared almost immediately. Didn’t even stay for the whole month.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where’d she go?” Alex asked. Just being polite—she had no real interest in the missing girl.

  “That’s the funny thing. We don’t know. She was here one day and then Nat and I went to Rocky Point for the weekend. When we got back, her stuff was gone and we never saw her again. She didn’t even leave a note.”

  Alex was intrigued. “Did you report her missing?”

  “No, she obviously left because she wanted to, so we didn’t see any point.” Lisa laughed. “Promise if you decide you hate us, you’ll at least leave a note.”

  Alex laughed, too. “You got it,” she said.

  Life on campus was certainly different from what she was used to. Alex soaked it up. Because she’d stacked all her on-campus classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays to accommodate her distance from school before she moved here, she had plenty of time to engage in extracurricular activities as well as to handle her work duties for the paper at home and for the student newspaper.

  The weather was warm enough again for outdoor dances and other activities she’d missed out on before, so she hardly missed being home. Even missing Dylan didn’t turn out to be a problem, as he found a way to visit her, without the boys in tow, on the second weekend after she moved.

  Alex’s eyes danced as she introduced her handsome boyfriend to her new ho
usemates. At least she didn’t have to worry about them trying to steal him, since they had eyes only for each other. So showing him off was fun. He took her out to dinner on Friday night, having driven over as soon as he delivered the boys to Wanda for the weekend.

  “How long can you stay?” Alex asked.

  “Wanda said to stay as long as I wanted. She’ll take them home on Sunday night and get them in bed if I’m not home. But I’d feel better if I got there before she had to do that. Say, mid-afternoon on Sunday.” Dylan pulled her closed to him for a kiss. “Unless you want to elope. Then I’ll call work and we’ll take a week’s honeymoon.”

  She laughed. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “Never,” he said.

  That night, he proved it. Waking up with him in what was, for now, her own bed the next morning was a treat they’d never had. In Dodge, they had stolen moments only, and now that the boys were with him, the trips to Tucson they’d taken to visit them had ceased. They took full advantage of the luxury of waking up together, rising for breakfast only after making love again.

  I could get used to this.

  On Sunday, she was sad to see him go, but they’d had a wonderful couple of days together with no distractions. It was just the two of them—no murders to solve, no little boys to worry about. A tiny twinge of regret pierced her happiness as she realized these times would be few. Because, no matter how she dreamed, two little boys depended on Dylan, even more than she did. And as a Park Service ranger on the dangerous Mexico/Arizona border, he was always on call for investigations when dead bodies showed up, as they did on a regular basis. For that matter, so was she, though their roles were very different and often at odds.

  ~~~

  It didn’t take long for Alex to become aware of and involved in the civic movements headquartered in Casa Grande. Midway between Tucson and Phoenix on US Highway 10, it was both a waypoint for illegal immigrants and a convenient shopping community for the small towns nearby, including Dodge.

  In recent years, it had also become home to residents of both Phoenix and Tucson wanting to escape the larger cities, representing a commute of about an hour in either direction. The nearby Gila River Indian Reservation boasted a casino, and the area was rife with National Parks, Monuments and other interesting destinations, so it was also a popular tourist destination for a relatively low-cost vacation.

  To Alex, it was a major metropolitan area, more than ten times the size of Dodge and with many more times the opportunities. In no more than three or four weeks, she’d found two organizations that interested her more than any other, because both of them had an indirect but major impact on her blog. Wanda recommended Alex look up the first group, an organization dear to Wanda’s heart and one in which she’d been active as a young woman. Alex called the contact number right after Spring break, in late April.

  “I’d like to speak to Dawn Redbird.”

  “Speaking,” said the soft voice on the other end of the line.

  “My name is Alex Ward. A friend of mine, Wanda Lopez, suggested I call you. If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a conversation in person,” Alex said. She was proud that her rehearsed line sounded professional. She was disarmed when the other voice warmed.

  “Oh, yes, Alex. Wanda speaks highly of you. Sure, let’s get together. How about a Coke at the student union?”

  “Perfect. What time and how will I know you?” Alex had never been in this position before, since she knew everyone in Dodge by sight, if not by name.

  “I’ll be there at four. Don’t worry, I’ll know you. I’m a fan of your blog.”

  That was a surprise. Alex knew she had a following, from the analytics on her host account. Somehow, she’d imagined they were from distant places. Although now that she thought of it, there was no reason to believe that. It gave her a queasy feeling that people may recognize her and she wouldn’t know.

  Maybe her dad, Lt. Wells and Rick Englebright had all been right when they cautioned her about putting her photo on the blog. At the time, she’d only been thinking it would be good when she eventually applied for investigative journalism jobs. She’d figured that putting her face out there and having her own following from her blog would be an advantage. Now, she wasn’t so sure it had been a good idea.

  She entered the student union cafeteria at four with her hobo bag slung over her shoulder, and looked around uncertainly. She didn’t have to wait long. A short Native girl, with beautiful eyes and long, glossy black hair approached her. “Hi, I’m Dawn. You’re Alex,” she stated, as if Alex didn’t know her own name. “Thanks for meeting me.”

  Alex was already off balance. She’d asked for the meeting, but the girl before her was taking the lead, and she didn’t know how to take it back. Truthfully, she didn’t even know what Wanda expected her to accomplish. With a feeling of inevitability, she let Dawn lead her to a secluded table in a corner, where several other students sat, all Native as far as Alex could tell.

  Alex knew more about the demographics of the southern Arizona Native tribes than most whites did. Especially the fact that the Tohono O’Odham, of whom both Dylan and Wanda were members, had seen their ancestral lands cut in half by the border with Mexico. Wanda and others had been waging a quiet war with the governments of both countries to allow passage of their people freely across tribal lands.

  Furthermore, she knew that these circumstances resulted in disgruntled young tribesmen who were easy prey for the drug cartels. The cartels recruited them with promises of wealth so they could care for their families, as well as immunity from the laws of both US and Mexico. It was taking a terrible toll on the tribe, and Wanda was part of a movement to resolve the issues.

  These people must be activists, too, though she thought they were probably Pima, from the Gila River reservation. The Pima, or Akimel O’odham, were related by ancestry to the Tohono O’odham. They were also related by language, although the dialect was different. For example, they pronounced ‘O’odham’ as ‘O’otham’. Alex wasn’t aware of their issues, though.

  After introductions all around, Dawn again took control of the meeting, for that’s what it seemed to be. Rather than a one-on-one interview, Alex found herself in the middle of a protest-planning meeting.

  “We know what we’re doing won’t have an impact for years, if ever,” Dawn explained to her. “But what is our alternative? For more than a century, our peoples, and I mean every tribe within the borders of the US, Canada and Mexico, have been promised things that never came to pass. We’ve been told our lands were ours, only to see them shrink when some business or wealthy rancher or miner needed them.

  “Our tribe nearly starved when white ranchers and farmers north of us cut off our water. We’ve been marginalized, even those of us, like the Navajo, who were smart enough to negotiate sovereignty. We’re desperately poor and our cultures are disappearing, even our languages.

  “So, we protest. We do it peacefully, not like in the old days, because Uncle Sam has clearly won. Thanks to free speech, we won’t be forgotten. We’ll go down fighting for our dignity.”

  When she thought of it in that way, Alex had to admire the philosophy, as well as Dawn’s eloquent explanation of it. As a pragmatist, she hated the waste of effort. “Why don’t you do something besides protest?” she said. “Isn’t there something that will actually make the government sit up and take notice?”

  “Sure,” said Dawn. “We could blow up something, but that would only land us in jail, and we can’t effectively communicate from there. We choose vocal but peaceful protest in the hope that people like you will call attention to it. Maybe someday, enough people will hear of the injustice we’ve been subjected to and things will change. Like they did for blacks.”

  Alex hadn’t been around during the sixties, when everything went down with Martin Luther King and all, but she did know there was very little chance of a revolution starting in tiny little Casa Grande and reaching the level of Martin Luther King’s dream. However, she woul
d do whatever she could to help, not only because they had right on their side, but for Dylan’s sake.

  After her meeting with the protest group, who refused to give a name by which to identify them, she wrote a blog post about how unfair conditions were for these people. She then tied it into her main theme, which was naming the nameless human remains found in the desert in Arizona. She believed many or most of them were illegal aliens, trying to cross for a better life. Now, thanks to Wanda, she knew some of them were only illegal because they’d crossed without passports, having no birth certificates to prove citizenship, and couldn’t get back home except illegally.

  Certainly it was a simplification. Hordes of people from further south were duped into crossing with bales of marijuana by cartels anxious to exploit their ignorance. Then you also had your professional smugglers, mules who traversed the O'odham lands with more dangerous drugs while authorities were busy chasing down the decoys.

  There were no easy answers, but there were interesting questions to explore. That’s all Alex needed for her blog. Interesting questions. The rest would sort itself out, and in the process, maybe some of the unidentified remains would be identified and her quest would be complete.

  Something drove her to do this, despite Dylan asking her to stop, despite her dad’s misgivings and those of Lt. Wells, the Sheriff’s department detective who had become a friend, and despite Rick Englebright’s disapproval. She couldn’t put it into words. She only knew she had to do it.

  FIVE

  Dylan read Alex’s latest blog post and shook his head. Her blog had started out as a way to help relatives of missing persons reach some closure, by publicizing cases of unidentified remains in the state records. He firmly believed it had already landed her in trouble. Last summer, they had discussed the blog within the hearing of the man who was later to attack her twice after she was rescued from her kidnapper, a corrupt sheriff’s deputy who was on a cartel payroll.