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Fast.

Rachel’s breath burned in her lungs as she scrambled up the rocky slope, leveraging her knowledge of desert terrain.She risked a glance back and immediately wished she hadn’t.The figure was gaining on her swiftly.

Near the outcropping’s crest, Rachel’s boot slipped on loose shale.She stumbled, feeling the sting as her palms scraped against rough stone.Her camera, jostled from its strap, tumbled down the slope behind her with an expensive-sounding crack.

No time to retrieve it.The evidence would have to wait.

Rachel crested the rocks and spotted salvation—a narrow crevice in the stone face ahead, barely wide enough for a human but offering the first real protection she’d seen.She forced her body to surge forward despite burning muscles and the copper taste of fear in her mouth.

The crevice was closer, ten feet, five feet—

Something caught her pack from behind with such force that Rachel was yanked backward, nearly off her feet.She slipped her arms from the straps in one practiced motion, sacrificing her equipment and samples without hesitation.Freed from the weight, she threw herself toward the narrow opening in the rock.

The sound that followed her into the darkness held no recognizable human emotion—only a primal frustration and rage that echoed off the stone walls as Rachel pressed deeper into the earth’s protection, praying the passage didn’t narrow to a dead end before she found another way out.

Behind her, something scraped against stone, testing the crevice’s width.Rachel pushed onward into the darkness, one thought pulsing with each frantic heartbeat.

Not human.Not human.Not human.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dawn arrived with reluctance, the morning sun struggling against a thin layer of clouds that turned the eastern sky a muted orange-gray.Kari had woken before her alarm—the remnants of her dream still clinging to her consciousness like spiderwebs.Her mother’s face, the words she couldn’t quite hear, the stone fingers of Monster’s Hand reaching toward a star-filled sky.

After a quick shower and stronger-than-usual coffee, she’d headed to the station earlier than necessary.The quiet drive had given her time to mentally prepare for her meeting with her father—a reunion she both needed professionally and dreaded personally.

That preparation evaporated the moment she walked through the station doors.

“Well, look who’s all grown up and carrying a badge.”

The familiar voice stopped Kari in her tracks.Paul Daniels leaned against the reception desk, a paper cup of coffee in one hand, looking for all the world like he owned the place.At fifty-six, he was leaner than she remembered, his once-black hair now salt-and-pepper, but the confident stance and penetrating gaze remained unchanged.

“Agent Daniels,” she said, her tone carefully neutral.“You’re here early.”

“When a professor gets murdered on reservation land, schedules have a way of accelerating.”He smiled warmly, though there was something calculating in his gaze.“It’s good to see you, Kari.Jim always said you’d make detective.”

The mention of her father made Kari uneasy.Once, Paul Daniels had been Uncle Paul, her father’s partner and friend, the man who’d brought her FBI sweatshirts and taught her to fire her first gun.He’d been her inspiration during those teenage years when she’d dreamed of following her father into the Bureau.

But she’d never worked with him professionally, not to mention from across the aisle.In theory, Navajo Police and federal agents ought to work together to advance justice.In reality, though, it often became a tug-of-war, each side trying to wrest control of the case from the other.

How would “Uncle Paul” handle things?

“Captain Yazzie in his office?”she asked, sidestepping the personal connection.

“Just finished briefing him.”Daniels sipped his coffee.“We’ll need to talk after you get settled.The Bureau has an interest in this one.”

“I’m sure it does,” Kari said, smiling thinly.“Excuse me.”

She moved past him, feeling his eyes follow her down the hall.The sensation was familiar—Daniels had always had an evaluative gaze, assessing everything and everyone.As a child, she’d found it fascinating.

Now, it made her uneasy.She felt vulnerable toward him in a way she didn’t like—vulnerable because she had once looked up to him like an uncle.She just hoped he would be able to treat her like an equal, not a child.

Rather than going directly to the captain, Kari decided to stop by Tsosie’s office first.She found him at his desk, two takeout coffee cups in front of him.He pushed one toward her as she approached.

“Figured you could use this after your grandmother’s tea last night,” he said.

The gesture caught her off guard.“How did you know I visited my grandmother?”

“Small reservation,” Tsosie said with a shrug.“My cousin’s wife’s brother lives down the road from Ruth.Said he saw your Jeep parked there late.”

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