I gritted my teeth and watched as he attached the butterfly bandages.
“The FBI and the DEA were convinced that my partner was the one who gutted the confidential informant like a trout a day before the man was supposed to deliver key information on a major drug shipment.”
“What was your part in it?”
“Mine?” Shay’s eyebrows rose. “None. The night this DEA snitch was killed, my partner and I were at a strip club sixty miles from the scene of the crime.”
“Alibied?”
He dabbed at the pooled blood. “Ironclad. Corroborated by two men we’d gotten into an altercation with after the… female escorts they provided for us earlier that evening tried to double the agreed-upon price.”
Four solid witnesses to alibi Shay and his partner’s whereabouts. “And the feds?”
“No charges were filed on the criminal side, but my partner lost his job with the FBI for moral implications.”
“That’s fucking ironic.”
“Tell me about it. I agreed to an immediate transfer out of the Minneapolis office, where I was third in line for the top slot. My ADA saw to it I was listed as a training agent for ICSCU. They sent me here. And I’m unofficially the DEA’s bitch. No matter where I’m transferred. For as long as they deem it.”
So many things made sense now. Including how Shay knew so much about Saro’s organization. He’d been part of a task force keeping tabs on my friend Jason Hawley’s criminal activities. Yes, he answered to Shenker, but he acted with a different vibe, as compared to other agents in our office. I’d chalked up those attitudes to male pissing contests-the new guy coming in and taking over. But it was more complicated than that… and a pointed reminder of how much I hated politics, in the office and in the military.
“Do you regret that decision?”
“No. I don’t live my life as black and white as you seem to believe I do. I’m Rah-rah! Go FBI! and all that shit, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time.”
But there was that teeny percentage… that wasn’t completely above-board. Maybe we were more alike than I’d imagined. But I’d never seen those dark edges in him that existed in me.
“I know what you’re capable of, Mercy. I also know you don’t act unless you’ve been pushed into a corner.” He handed me two large bandages. “Keep this covered until it stops bleeding.”
“Aye, aye, Dr. Turnbull.”
“Don’t say that. It reminds me that my sister is the doctor in the family.”
Before I could ask for more information, he said, “Get some pants on. I’ll be in the kitchen waiting to hear about your night maneuvers, Sergeant Major,” and he left the bathroom.
Night maneuvers. I almost snorted. But it was a strangely apt description. I slipped on a baggy pair of jeans and returned to the kitchen.
Shay stared out the window. Without turning around, he said, “Where can we talk?”
We’d have privacy if we used the office, but I couldn’t tell him what I’d done in my dad’s space. Paranoid and stupid, but some ghosts are difficult to shake.
“Let’s go outside.” Jake had taken the dogs with him after he’d dropped Lex off early this morning, so we wouldn’t be hounded for attention. I shoved my phone in my back pocket and grabbed my coffee cup.
Another day of mild weather and no need to bundle up. But I shivered anyway as I curled my hands around my mug and stared straight ahead at the barn.
“Tell me all of it.”
Easier to confess what’d gone down without making eye contact, even when I’d mastered the art of looking a superior in the eye and lying my ass off.
No lies this time. I told Shay everything.
It wasn’t freeing. But it’d be hypocritical to expect absolution for guilt I didn’t feel.
And Shay didn’t offer it.
“You’re sure no one saw you?” he asked after a bit.
“Leaving the area?”
“That, and carrying a duffel bag of death across the reservation.”
I tossed my cold coffee over the porch railing. “I didn’t see a single person on my solitary eleven-mile run in the dark. Nor did any Samaritan on the rez offer assistance when I changed my freakin’ tire at midnight.”
“Was that intentional on your part? Making sure this altercation happened on tribal land so you wouldn’t have to deal with Dawson or his colleagues if you somehow got caught?”
“I didn’t choose the spot. He did.” The words And I won’t get caught went unsaid.
Another beat passed. “How do you think this will play out?”
“The tribal cops will find Naomi’s car first. I can hope, given what I’ve seen of their investigative techniques, that they’ll chalk it up to rez kids taking a joyride and abandoning the ride after crashing the car.”
“And Sheldon’s car?”
“The tribal cops’ll find that, too, I imagine, unless someone else finds it first, figures it’s an abandoned car, and decides the finders/keepers rule is in effect.” Which also happened frequently on the reservation.
“And if the tribal cops decide to look deeper?”
Deeper. I almost laughed. “Like bringing search-and-rescue dogs to the scene once they figure out Sheldon is missing? Well, if that happens, the dogs will find Sheldon’s body. Or what’s left of it. They’ll find him full of bullets. A common-enough caliber of bullets.”
“Will anyone report Sheldon missing?”
“Not until Monday or Tuesday when Sheldon doesn’t show up for work. Once that happens and the tribal cops get to his house? It’ll look like a break-in, and then they’ll find his mummified uncle. Then they’ll find Sheldon’s instruments of torture in the garage. Blood from the victims on that plastic curtain. Digitalis. From that point, it depends on whether they find his body. They might just assume Sheldon fled. But if the body is found, then the tribal PD will look at the victim’s family members as suspects. But Rollie is still in jail. John-John and Sophie were in Eagle Butte at a sweat ceremony.”
Shay’s gaze sharpened. “That leaves Latimer and Triscell Elk Thunder.”
“What we know of the tribal PD? They won’t seriously investigate the tribal president. They’ll buy his alibi. They’ll consider good riddance to Sheldon War Bonnet and act like the tribal police solved a case the FBI couldn’t.”
“You really did look at every conceivable angle.”
I shrugged. “I had nothin’ else to think about on my run. There’s nothing linking me to any of this. No proof.”
“No worries young Naomi will brag about her part?” he asked skeptically.
“She has limited information about what she believed was a government op. Plus, she mentioned a possible career in the military. I could provide her with a rec with the local recruiter, if she needs one. If she tattles, well, I’ll go out of my way to paint her a liar.”
“Jesus, Gunderson. I’m happy you’re on my side.”
I smiled. “Now that we’re all open books for each other and shit, spill about your military service, Turnbull.”
Shay gave me the slow, sexy grin that was inappropriate as hell and yet… somehow not. “I thought you would’ve guessed by now, Sergeant Major.”
Then it clicked. “Fuck me. You were a SEAL.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
My eyes narrowed. “That’s not all. You were a SEAL sniper.”
“Guilty. But I was out of the teams by the time Operation Iraqi Freedom started. Basically, I was an Indian kid from South Dakota looking to see the world, and I ended up in navy intelligence. After a couple of years of that, I opted to try out for the SEALS. I stayed in the teams for almost a decade. Didn’t reenlist after twelve years and immediately went to Quantico.”