After Midnight Read online

  “They never knew,” she assured him. “It was quick. At least be grateful for that small mercy, that they didn’t suffer.”

  “He was my son,” he choked. “And what was left of him…God! God, I can’t…think…can’t bear to think of it…!”

  She reached up and kissed his wet eyes, his face, gently comforting him while he relived the nightmare. Except that this time, he wasn’t alone. He didn’t have to face it by himself. His big arms pulled Nikki closer and for the first time in his life, he clung willingly to a woman for strength.

  Nikki felt the moment when he came out of it, when his own will began to reassert itself.

  His big hands contracted roughly on her shoulders. “I haven’t spoken of it to anyone. Not even to my friend Jake.”

  “It’s good to talk about the things that hurt most,” she said quietly.

  “So they say. So Chris says, constantly. She’s a psychologist, she psychoanalyzes me when we aren’t making love,” he said, angry at himself for pouring out his pain and angry at Nikki for being here, for listening. He felt her stiffen as he continued, “She’s very inventive in bed. She likes to get on top and…”

  She jerked back out of his arms, savaged by the deliberate revelations as he’d known she would be.

  “There’s no need for this,” she told him with cold pride. “I wanted to help, that’s all. I wasn’t asking for promises of forever or commitment.”

  He glared at her. “You wouldn’t get them. Once was enough.”

  “You won’t believe me, but I know exactly how that feels.”

  “Yes, I remember,” he said with a mocking laugh. “He couldn’t, could he?”

  Her face paled. She turned and got shakily back into bed, pulling the covers up.

  He hated himself for the look on her face. She’d been trying to help, but he couldn’t accept his own vulnerability. He’d always thought he was invincible until Nikki came along.

  “That was low,” he said heavily. “I’m sorry.”

  She lifted her eyes but didn’t say a word.

  He jammed his hands in his pockets. It disturbed him to see her in bed. “If you need anything, just sing out.”

  “I’m fine,” she replied with involuntary formality. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

  “Who else did you have?” he asked. He started out and then hesitated. “Where did you learn Morse?” he asked suddenly.

  “I had a friend with a ham radio.”

  He smiled. “You thought I’d know the code. Why?”

  “You’re a sailor.”

  Something changed slightly in his features. “Because I can drive a motorboat?” he asked.

  She realized suddenly what she’d given away. A yachtsman could be expected to know Morse Code. But would an ordinary boater know it? Perhaps. Probably. She had to bluff.

  “Well, you did, didn’t you?” she asked innocently. “I thought anybody who was around boats would have to know the code. I mean, what if you had a communications breakdown or something and a lot of static?”

  The suspicion slowly faded. “I guess so,” he said, and laughed dryly at his own sudden stupidity.

  He shook his head as he turned and left the room. Nikki stared at the closed door for a long time. He wasn’t the only one with unpleasant memories, and he’d brought some of her own back. She had to get well quickly and get out of here. Charleston seemed very far away, and there was Clayton to inform about her illness. She only hoped that he didn’t decide to telephone the beach house in her absence. Things could get very, very complicated if he did.

  Chapter Eight

  Cortez hated being stared at. In many big cities, he went unnoticed, but Charleston had a small town atmosphere and he looked alien with his dark bronze skin and long hair in its neat ponytail. Even the sunglasses he wore with his gray suit set him apart. The suit probably added to his uniqueness, he thought ruefully, he seemed to be the only person on the streets wearing one.

  All the same, he was on the track of some interesting news for Clayton Seymour. It seemed that Kane Lombard had gone missing for a few days, and at the same time his plant manager had been out sick. It was during both absences that Burke’s had been contracted to replace CWC. But the really damning thing was that Lombard had been contacted about the replacement. He’d given his approval, two of his employees had said so when they were questioned about it by Cortez, who had telephoned a state official to ask the questions.

  He’d followed up that visit with one to Burke’s, posing as a small businessman who might need to hire Burke. In the process he got an earful about Burke’s latest deal with Lombard.

  “Cherokee, aren’t you?” his informant had asked. “I been up to Cherokee myself. Pretty impressive, seeing them chiefs stand out there in them pretty warbonnets. Must have had to kill a lot of eagles to get all them eagle feathers.”

  Cortez had almost bitten through his tongue while he tried to smile nonchalantly. He wanted to tell the man that Eastern Cherokees never wore warbonnets except for the tourists, that warbonnets were limited to the Plains Indians. He wanted to add that the Cherokees had been a very civilized people who had their own newspaper in their own language in the 1820s and that their capital of New Echota was in no way dissimilar to a white town of the same period. He could also have told the man that killing eagles was an offense for which a man could go to prison these days.

  But he didn’t. Over the years he’d learned that whites grouped Indians under one heading and stereotyped them, and that those old attitudes were as constant as the summer sun. It took more time than he was willing to spend to start spouting facts at a man who was already looking him over for a hidden tomahawk. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to cope with the situation.

  Laden with information that he could use, he was having a quick sandwich and coffee in a small café, and getting a frank appraisal from a pair of pale blue eyes. He turned his head and stared back. Usually that was intimidation enough to stop a curious person. It didn’t stop this one. Her head tilted a little and the light caught her platinum-blond hair, making lights in it that held his attention. She couldn’t be much more than a teen, he thought. She was slight and not especially pretty except for that hair. She was wrapped up in a huge denim jacket, odd because it was a hot day. Dirt stained it in random smudges. He frowned slightly. She looked like the fastidious sort. His eyes dropped. She was wearing Western boots, but not pretty city ones. Those were hard-used boots, with caked mud and scratches. She gained points.

  His black eyes lifted back to hers. She smiled almost apologetically, as if she realized that he didn’t want her attention, and went back to sipping her coffee.

  His eyebrow jerked. She’d seen enough, had she? He laughed silently and finished his small meal, leaving a tip for the waitress before he went to the counter to pay his check. He had to find a local marsh. Burke’s idiot employee had let something slip that he shouldn’t have, and Cortez was going to take a quick look around the area. He’d have to buy a map and find out where to go.

  He started to leave the café. On impulse, he walked to the young blond girl’s table and stood next to her, his sunglasses dangling from one lean, dark hand.

  She looked up and grinned. “I know. I was staring. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

  Both eyebrows lifted. That was forthright enough. “Why were you staring?” he asked bluntly.

  “You’re a Native American, aren’t you?” she asked, tilting her head a little more. He didn’t reply. “There’s something I’ve been dying to ask you, but I thought I’d already irritated you enough.”

  “What?” he asked curtly.

  She hesitated. “Do you have shovel-shaped incisors?”

  He let out a loud breath and one corner of his thin mouth drew up. Now it made sense. The mud-caked boots, the dirt-stained clothing. She’d been on a dig. “Good God, an archaeology student,” he muttered.

  “An anthropology major, doing my minor in archaeology,” she
corrected, and laughed. “How did you know?”

  “You look as if you’ve been digging.”

  “Indeed we have,” she said enthusiastically. “We found part of a Woodland period pot with charred acorns in it. My professor says that it’s over two thousand years old.”

  “Along a river bottom, no doubt?”

  She grinned. “Why, yes!”

  “Find anything else?”

  “No. It wasn’t a burial site, thank God,” she said heavily. “I wouldn’t like to dig up somebody’s great-grandfather. I think you get haunted for things like that.”

  He smiled approvingly and checked his watch. He was running out of time. “To answer your original question, yes, like all Native Americans and Asians and other members of the Mongoloid classification, my incisors are shovel-shaped,” he said, surprising her. “Now,” he added, leaning down menacingly, “are you going to ask how many scalps I carry on my war lance?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, that would be much too personal a question.” she said with mock somberness.

  He couldn’t contain a chuckle. He turned and walked out of the café, shaking his head. If she’d been a little older, who knew what might have developed. As it was, he was a man on holiday doing a friend a favor. He had no time for cute college girls.

  Armed with names and backgrounds, when he reached his hotel room he removed his laptop computer from its padded briefcase, hooked it into the modem, and plugged it in. He accessed the mainframe in Washington, D.C., at FBI headquarters with his password and called up the information he needed.

  The unit was attached to a small printer. He printed out hard copy of the data and disengaged the modem. How interesting, he thought. Burke had a record. Not only had he violated EPD regulations, he’d actually been charged twice already. The witnesses had never shown up to testify and he’d gotten off. But this time, Burke and his brother-in-law had left a trail. Who better to follow it than me, Cortez reasoned dryly.

  He changed into jeans and boots and a blue checked shirt and let his hair down. He was going tracking. If people wanted to stare, let them.

  The rental car he was driving was nice without being flashy. He enjoyed driving. Back at his home he had a banged-up pickup with a straight shift. He thought of it longingly.

  As he started out of the city, he deliberately drove back by the café where he’d had lunch. He hated himself for the weakness of this impulse. Sure enough, it had paid off.

  There was the young blonde, standing beside a muddied old Bronco. Her face was red and her hair was askew. She was kicking the flat rear tire repeatedly while asking God to do some pretty strange things to her vehicle.

  Cortez pulled in behind her and cut off the engine. She hadn’t even slowed down when he reached her.

  “Flat tire, huh?” he asked, nodding. “I saw one of those once.”

  She pushed back her tangled, windblown hair and looked up at him in disbelief. He looked so different with his hair down and wearing jeans that she didn’t even recognize him at first.

  He took off his sunglasses. “You busy?” he asked.

  She was catching her breath from the exertion. “Why? Are you going to offer to kick it—” she indicated the flat tire “—while I rest?”

  “No. I thought you might come with me and help me track a truck.”

  He caught her by the hand. Nice, he thought as he led her toward his car. She had good hands, strong and soft all at once. He opened the passenger door, but she hesitated.

  With exaggerated patience, he pulled out his wallet and flipped it open, holding it under her eyes. He watched her expression change. That was another familiar sight. His credentials seemed to intimidate most people, who blurted out terrible secrets like unpaid parking tickets and promised immediate restitution.

  “FBI,” she stammered. Her face paled. “You can’t be serious. You’re going to arrest me for assaulting a Bronco?”

  “Unprovoked assault on a horse,” he agreed.

  Her lower jaw fell.

  He pursed his lips. “Okay. I’m deputizing you to assist me in an investigation. Better?”

  “Me?”

  “You.”

  She shrugged. “All right, but I’m not shooting anybody.”

  “Deal.” He put up his wallet and inserted her into the passenger seat. Minutes later, they were on the way out of town.

  “I have to find a place called Pirate’s Marsh. Do you know it?”

  As he’d guessed, she did. “Why, yes, it’s just a few miles down the road. Turn right at the next intersection.”

  He grinned, glad that he’d followed his intuition. An archaeology student would know all the isolated spots. Or, most of them.

  He followed her directions easily to a large area near the sea with huge live oaks dripping moss dotted around the shore. Two or three were uprooted.

  “That’s from Hurricane Hugo,” she told him when they got out of the car and he stared at the felled giants. “Amazing how powerful wind can be.”

  “Wind, rain, all of nature,” he murmured.

  He started walking, his eyes on the ground. His little sojourn at Burke’s had given him a good look at the sort of tires the man used on his dilapidated vehicles. They had an odd tread that he’d memorized. Plaster casts would be better, but he could do that later. He had some plaster in the car, and a jug of water. All he had to do now was find something in this bog and a tire track that he could link to Burke.

  It was a link that he needed for the chain of evidence. He wasn’t going to ignore blatant evidence of a federal infraction. It might not be his jurisdiction, but he knew a couple of the EPA boys. He’d had quite enough of white people polluting the earth with their industrial waste.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked. “Maybe I could help.”

  He glanced at her. “Tire tracks. Something nasty in the water.”

  “Okay.” She started walking alongside him.

  “Do you have a name?” he asked suddenly.

  She looked up. “Of course I do,” she said, and kept walking.

  His lips tugged up. “What is it?”

  “Phoebe.”

  He sighed audibly.

  “Well, it is,” she muttered, glaring at him. “What’s wrong with being called Phoebe?”

  “It’s unusual, that’s all.”

  “What are you called?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he challenged. He knelt and his eyes narrowed on a tire tread. Close, he thought, but not the right one. Not by a long shot.

  “What are you called?” she persisted.

  He got up, his eyes still on the ground. He pronounced a set of syllables with odd stops and a high tone. He glanced at her perplexed expression and smiled.

  “It doesn’t translate very well,” he told her. “My mother saw a red-tailed hawk the morning I was born. If you translate it, it means something like ‘He who came on the wings of the red-tailed hawk.”’”

  “That’s beautiful.”

  “Sure.” He knelt again to examine a print. This one was right on the money. “Bingo,” he murmured to himself. He got up, ignoring the girl, and followed the tracks. When he came to a boggy place, he stopped and his keen eyes swept the expanse until he found what he was looking for: just the rusty edge of a barrel.

  “Well, well,” he said to himself. “Some days it all comes together.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked, joining him.

  “Yes. Thanks for your help.”

  She grinned. “Do I get a badge now?”

  He laughed out loud. “No.”

  She sighed. “It was fun while it lasted.”

  He reached out and caught a strand of her hair, fingering it gently. “Is it naturally this colour?”

  “Yes. Both my parents are very dark. They say that I’m a throwback to a Norwegian ancestor.”

  He let the hair go reluctantly. It was very soft, and he looked at her for a long moment, aware of some regrets. “Ho
w old are you?” he asked.

  “Twenty-two. I was a late starter in college,” she confessed.

  “Not that late.” His dark eyes slid over her body in the concealing thick coat and he wished that he had time to get to know her properly. “I’m almost thirty-six,” he said. “The name I use with whites is Cortez.”

  She held out her hand. “It was nice to meet you.”

  “Same here. Thanks for the help.”

  Her fingers contracted briefly around his and he smiled down at her. “Two different worlds,” he remarked quietly. “And too much age difference, not to mention the kind of life I lead.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” she confessed shyly.

  His fingers gently caressed hers. “Where do you go to school?”

  “University of Tennessee at Knoxville,” she said. “But I’m off this summer, so I’ve been hanging around with some friends who study archaeology locally. I’m a senior at the university. I graduate next spring.”

  “Then maybe I’ll see you at graduation, college girl,” he said unexpectedly.

  Her expression was very still, and he dropped her hand.

  “I’d stand out too much, wouldn’t I?” he asked curtly, turning on his heel.

  “You bigot!” she exclaimed, picking up a small dead limb and heaving it at his back. “You take offense without any provocation whatsoever, you bristle before you even ask questions, you…you…!” She found another limb.

  He moved suddenly with the kind of speed that usually caught people off guard because his normal movements were so calculatedly slow. He gripped her wrist before she could throw the limb. “Not nice,” he chided. “Don’t throw things.”

  “It isn’t a thing, it’s a tree limb,” she pointed out, struggling against his strength. “Let go my wrist!”

  “Not on your life.” He took the limb away effortlessly, but he didn’t release her arm.

  She stared up into his eyes with resignation and faint excitement. He was very strong. “I would be honored if you came to my graduation, even if you came just as you are now,” she said curtly. “I have friends of all colors and cultures, and it doesn’t embarrass either me or my family to be seen with them!”