Despite the intense sorrow that lay over her like a heavy weight, his logic got through to her. The smoke burned her lungs and her eyes as she led the way with the extinguisher. The door to the bedroom was now on fire, and flames were attacking the door frame and licking at the kitchen ceiling. Soon the whole adjoining wall would go up. The heat was stifling, and the smoke so thick it was like walking through a dimension of Hell. If they’d waited any longer, their way out might have been blocked.
They rushed past the red-hot, burning door, got the unconscious man outside and laid him beneath one of the pines. As Dana looked back, she saw smoke billowing from every window now. Suddenly there was a blast of hot air, and the remaining windows exploded in flames.
Dana took a step forward toward the cabin, searching desperately for a way back in, but Ranger grabbed her, pulled her against him, and held on to her tightly.
“We can’t do anything more now. It’s time to concentrate on life, not death,” he whispered, his voice as compelling as it was gentle.
Almost numb with sorrow, she didn’t fight him. Dana buried her head against his strong shoulder, taking the comfort he offered. So much violence and death. Nothing made sense to her anymore…except one thing. Dana remembered her promise to Hastiin Sani. It was the only thing she could do for him now, and no matter what it took, she’d keep her word.
The safe haven she found in Ranger’s arms tempted her to rely on him, and that’s when she stepped away. It was her own strength she’d need to depend on now.
Ranger moved to where the unconscious man lay and, after searching his pockets, extracted the man’s wallet.
Dana, standing behind him, saw that the driver’s license listed the kidnapper as Xander Glint. “He’s got our friend’s cell phone in his shirt pocket,” she said, spotting it.
“I’m going to leave it where it is in case someone besides this man handled it. The police might be able to lift some prints later.”
For a second she wondered if there’d be any phone numbers saved in it that Hastiin Sani wouldn’t want anyone to see. But her friend had been too smart for an oversight like that. The only numbers there would be those of friends and neighbors, and maybe a few of the medicine man’s patients.
The shrill pitch of the sirens grew louder with every passing second. “They’ll be here shortly,” Dana said.
“Did the medicine man say anything to you that might explain the kidnapping?”
She said nothing for a moment, wondering exactly how to answer him. Ranger had an eye for details and everything about him said he was a man on a mission. But Hastiin Sani’s last words has been Trust no one, and she intended on honoring his final wishes.
“Like what?” she asked at long last, unable to think of anything better than answering his question with a question.
“You tell me.”
She struggled not to flinch under that gaze. Measuring her words carefully, she finally answered. “He was drugged and beaten up. I got the impression that they wanted to get some information from him. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Can you remember anything about the men who kidnapped you? Did you hear them say anything that might help us?” Ranger pressured.
Suspicions clouded her mind. She didn’t know much about Ranger, but she did know that someone had set up and betrayed Hastiin Sani. To think that the kidnappers had coincidentally shown up at the right place and the right time, complete with dart guns and knockout drugs, was stretching it. This had been no ordinary kidnapping.
She held back answering. Until she was one hundred percent certain which side he was on, it would be safer not to trust him even with what little she could share.
A police car arrived just a few vehicle lengths ahead of an old fire truck, followed by another police car and an EMT unit. The fire crew went to work right away and a tall, powerfully built Navajo police officer wearing the department’s tan uniform came toward them. Ranger nodded, and the officer nodded back. The two appeared to know each other.
While the EMTs worked on the injured man, Ranger gave the officer a quick rundown of what had happened since he’d arrived.
The officer nodded when Ranger finished. “I’ll need your weapons,” he said, pointing to Ranger’s rifle and the pistol still in Dana’s hand.
They turned them over to him without question, Dana glad to be rid of the gun.
The officer’s gaze shifted to the burning cabin, which had collapsed upon itself and was completely enveloped in flames. “Whatever was in that cabin is long gone. But maybe we’ll find a few leads outside.” He gestured to the two officers who were circling the burning structure and searching the ground. “It’ll take quite a while to process this scene.”
The officer looked Dana up and down. “Are you injured, ma’am?”
Dana looked at her torn, bloody clothes, then shook her head. “The blood isn’t mine,” she managed weakly.
“Your wrists are all scraped up,” he said, pointing. “I’ll have the EMTs check you over in a moment. Just don’t let them near your fingernails. The crime team will want to take scrapings. In the meantime, why don’t you two go over and stand by my unit until I can interview you officially? This area is now part of the crime scene.”
RANGER AND DANA stood beside the white tribal police SUV, watching the activity. Other officers had now arrived on the scene, and the firemen were hosing down the blackened ruins of the cabin. Two bodies-what was left of them-had been taken by the coroner’s people a half hour ago. He was glad he hadn’t been asked to help with that. Crime-scene teams and the medical people on the rez used two sets of latex gloves. No one wanted to risk contamination by the chindi.
As they watched the police teams work, Ranger gave Dana a long, furtive glance. He had a strong feeling she knew a lot more than she was telling him. He knew she didn’t trust him. Of course he didn’t much trust her, either. Something about her was…well, wrong. He’d understood her grief and shock. But then she’d done an abrupt turnaround, quickly becoming composed and, along with that, distant and uncommunicative. People had different ways of handling grief, and he thought he’d seen them all. But he couldn’t quite get a handle on Dana Seles.
Dana was stunning-even in her conservative schoolteacher slacks and blouse-with curves that could tempt any man with a pulse. She had beautiful copper-colored hair that brushed her shoulders. Her eyes were light brown and soft, doe-like. Yet when he’d pressed her for information, they’d turned as cold as ice.
The fact that Hastiin Sani was dead and they’d barely laid a hand on her raised even more questions in his mind. Why had they bothered to bring her along, unless she’d set up Hastiin Sani, then been double-crossed?
Then he remembered how badly the medicine man had been beaten, and what she’d said about him being forced to give up information. Maybe the woman had been brought along as leverage. Hastiin Sani would have been almost impossible to break-that is, unless they threatened to torture or violate the woman.
He watched her writing in a little notebook. She’d been doing that off and on for the past twenty minutes. The medics had wanted to bandage her wrists, but she’d settled for a clear salve instead after they’d cleaned them up.
“What’s that you’re writing?”
“My perceptions about what happened. Not facts…just feelings. Intuitions. Like that,” she said, then looked back down and continued writing.
Her handwriting was meticulously neat, as he’d expect from a teacher, but unbelievably small. He couldn’t make heads or tails out of it even though he was now sitting beside her on the ground. At long last she stopped, then gazed back at the cabin.