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“No handcuffs,” Kari said in a voice meant to carry to the officers behind them.“Mr.Begay is cooperating fully.”

As they walked slowly back toward the perimeter, Daniels moved forward with another agent, clearly intending to take custody.Kari positioned herself between them and Thomas.

“Captain Yazzie specified that we would bring Mr.Begay in for questioning,” she said.“Tribal police custody.”

Daniels’s expression flickered with barely controlled anger.“This is a federal investigation—”

“On tribal land,” Yazzie interrupted, appearing beside them.“Mr.Begay will be questioned at our facility, with federal observers present if you wish.But he remains in our custody unless and until formal charges are filed.”

The jurisdictional standoff lasted only seconds, though it felt longer.Finally, Daniels stepped back with a tight nod.

“Agent Keller will accompany you,” he said, gesturing to the female agent who had assisted with his presentation.“I expect full access to the interview and all findings.”

“Of course,” Yazzie agreed with professional courtesy.

As Thomas was escorted to a tribal police vehicle—without handcuffs but with officers at his elbows—Kari noted his physical capability.He moved with the balanced strength of someone who worked with his hands, who knew the land intimately.He certainly possessed the strength to have killed Mark Harrington in the manner described by the medical examiner.

But capability wasn’t the same as culpability.And everything Kari had learned from Dr.Redford pointed away from someone with Thomas’s background and knowledge, regardless of how neatly he fit Daniels’s profile on paper.

“Good work,” Tsosie said quietly as they watched Thomas being placed in the back of a tribal police SUV.“Could have gone much worse.”

“It’s not over,” Kari replied, feeling Daniels’s gaze boring into her back.“This just moves the confrontation to the interview room.”

“At least there won’t be news helicopters and rifles pointed at a tribal member’s home,” Tsosie said.“That’s a victory, however small.”

Kari wasn’t so sure.As she looked at Thomas’s impassive face through the vehicle window, she saw a man who understood exactly what was happening—a man being fitted into a narrative created by outsiders who saw him as a convenient solution to their problem.

The same narrative she and Dr.Redford had recognized as deliberately fabricated by the actual killer.

“I want to interview him,” she told Tsosie as they walked back to their vehicles.“Before Daniels gets his psychological profile hooks into him.”

Tsosie nodded.“Yazzie will make sure of it.But Kari…” He paused, his expression troubled.“If Thomas isn’t our killer, we’re back at the beginning while the real murderer is still out there.And now they know we’re looking in the wrong direction.”

The helicopter made another pass overhead, capturing footage of the tribal police vehicles departing with their suspect.Whatever happened next would play out under the harsh spotlight of media attention, with a community already on edge watching every move.

Kari felt the weight of competing responsibilities pressing down on her—to truth, to justice, to her community, to the victims.Somewhere in the tangled web of cultural misunderstanding and deliberate misdirection lay the path to the actual killer.

She just hoped she could find it before anyone else died for crossing boundaries they didn’t even know existed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kari paused outside the interrogation room, taking a moment to collect her thoughts.Behind the door sat a man whose life had been upended by circumstantial evidence and cultural assumptions.She balanced two water bottles in one hand, case folder in the other, and reminded herself that whatever Daniels might believe, her job was to find the truth, not convenient suspects.

She entered to find Thomas Begay sitting with remarkable composure for someone who’d had rifles pointed at his home hours earlier.The austere room—beige walls, harsh fluorescent lighting, metal table bolted to the floor—seemed designed to break down resistance through sheer bleakness.But Thomas’s large hands rested calmly on the table, his breathing steady, his posture perfect.Only his eyes revealed anything—a natural wariness that deepened when he saw her.

“Mr.Begay, I’m Detective Kari Blackhorse,” she said, placing one water bottle in front of him before taking the seat across the table.She deliberately left the case folder closed.“Thank you for your cooperation earlier.”

Thomas acknowledged her with a slight nod but said nothing.

“Are you comfortable?”Kari asked.“Do you need anything before we begin?”

“I need to know why federal agents came to my home with guns,” Thomas replied, his deep voice controlled despite the circumstances.“I need to know why helicopters circled my house like I am a dangerous criminal.”

Kari met his gaze directly.“You’re being questioned in connection with two homicides—Dr.Mark Harrington and Rachel Delgado.The FBI is involved because the murders occurred on or near federal land.”

“And they decided I am guilty because I am Navajo and once stood up to a white man.”The statement contained no question, just resigned understanding.

“No one has decided anything,” Kari said, though they both knew this wasn’t entirely true.“I’m here to ask questions and listen to your answers.”

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