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The figure tilted its head, watching him.It didn’t say a word.

Finally, panic overtook Mark.He turned to run, but his boot caught on a rock, sending him sprawling.His palms slapped against the sandstone, skin tearing on the rough surface.The metallic scent of his own blood mingled with the desert dust as he attempted to scramble to his feet.

Too late.The figure moved with terrible speed, closing the distance between them in only a few heartbeats.

“Please,” Mark gasped as he turned on his back and gazed up at the shadowy figure.“I’ll leave now.I’ll never come back.”

The figure leaned closer, and although Mark could make out no discernible features in the shadows where its face must be, he sensed ancient malice emanating from it like heat from sunbaked stone.It spoke again, the words seeming to vibrate through Mark’s bones rather than reach his ears.

And then it attacked.

CHAPTER ONE

The dead always left something behind.

Detective Kari Blackhorse understood this truth better than most.Sometimes it was evidence—blood spatter, DNA, the mathematical poetry of a crime scene.Sometimes it was less tangible—grief that hung in the air like the desert heat, questions that circled like ravens.

Her mother had left both.

Kari’s running shoes crunched against the hard-packed earth as the first hint of dawn painted the eastern sky.She’d been up since 4:30, unable to sleep once the coyotes began their morning chorus.After three weeks back on the reservation, her body was readjusting to the rhythms of the desert, even if her mind still raced with city urgency.

The temperature had already climbed to 82 degrees, and it wasn’t yet 6 AM.July in northern Arizona showed no mercy.Sweat trickled down her spine, soaking the back of her tank top as she maintained a steady pace across the open landscape.To her right, the distant mesas stood dark against the lightening sky, unmoved by human concerns.

Kari slowed as she approached the marker—a simple wooden stake with faded yellow police tape still clinging to it.Nothing distinguished this patch of desert from any other.No bloodstains marked the sand, no evidence remained to suggest that Anna Chee had drawn her last breath here just over four weeks ago.

She stopped, breathing hard, hands on her knees.Every morning since her return, she’d run to this spot, searching for… what?A clue the tribal police had missed?A spiritual revelation?Some days, she wasn’t sure herself.

“Your mother didn’t die here.”

The voice nearly made Kari jump out of her skin.She spun around, hand instinctively reaching for a sidearm that wasn’t there.

Her grandmother stood ten yards away, motionless as the surrounding boulders, her silver hair pulled back in a traditional bun, her lined face impassive in the growing light.She wore a long calico skirt and a faded blue blouse, looking for all the world like she’d been standing there for hours.

“Shimásání,” Kari said, her heart rate slowly returning to normal.“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

Ruth Chee made a small sound that might have been amusement.“I wasn’t sneaking.You weren’t listening.”

“Trouble sleeping?”Kari asked.

Ruth fixed her with a pointed stare.“I may be on the cusp of eighty, but that does not mean I need you to look after me like some helpless old woman.”Her tone softened.“You came back for answers, not to be my caretaker.Remember that.”

Kari, who had, to some extent, come back to be her grandmother’s caretaker, realized now that she’d been foolish to think her grandmother would ever accept being looked after.The old woman was as perceptive as she was independent.

Kari raised her hands in self-defense.“Whatever you say.”

Ruth grunted, then grew serious as she turned her attention to the wooden stake.“This is where they found her.Not where she died.”

Kari straightened, wiping sweat from her forehead.“The medical examiner said—”

“Dr.Williams said what makes sense to his science.”Ruth moved closer, her steps surprisingly light for a woman of seventy-eight.“Your mother went somewhere else first.Somewhere important.”

“And you know this how?”Kari tried to keep the skepticism from her voice, but old habits die hard.

Ruth’s dark eyes fixed on Kari as if she were a child again, caught in a lie.“The same way I knew you were coming home before you called.The same way I know you don’t believe your mother’s death was natural, no matter what that paper from the tribal police says.”

Kari looked away first.“Exposure doesn’t make sense.Mom knew this land better than anyone.”

“Better than me?”Ruth raised an eyebrow.

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