Death and Desire (11 page)

T
race's strong arm encircled my waist. I rested my head on his shoulder as we walked up to the front door, his fingertips playing softly across my ribs. The night was beautiful, with the moist earthy smell of a newly turned garden. I jittered with excitement about having Trace as the man I was dating, not as a helpful cop, in my home.

“Come back into the kitchen with me while I make some coffee.”

He followed me. “What kind of pie did you buy?”

I smiled. About food, specifically sugared food, all men were five years old. “Chocolate cream, of course.” Where was Mac? He loved belly rubs from Trace. “Mac? Here boy!” I left the slider in the dog door open so Mac could go out on the deck. When it was warm enough, he liked to sleep with the wind ruffling his fur.

I opened the back door. “Mac?” He lay in a heap on the deck. “Trace!” I screamed. “Help me!” I ran to him and struggled to pick him up but staggered under his weight.

Trace rushed to Mac and turned his head toward the light. White foam covered his muzzle, and his breathing was shallow and slow. “He's been poisoned,” Trace snapped.

“No,” I sobbed.

Trace scooped up Mac. “Open the back of my truck.”

Eerie laughter echoed through the woods, but I dismissed it as I rushed to the truck and jerked open the back door. Trace gently laid him on the backseat.

“There's an after-hours vet clinic on Sixth,” I said, running to the cab.

He jumped in the driver's seat and gunned the big engine, headed out of the cul-de-sac, and floored it. Mac's paws rhythmically batted the front seat. I turned to see him seizing, his big tongue bloodied between his teeth. He lost control and wet himself.

Trace braked hard in the lot of the vet clinic. I jumped out of his truck before he got the key out of the ignition, ran into the clinic, and slapped my hand down on the countertop. “Help me! Mac's dying.” The vet hurried out of the back of the clinic to the counter.

Trace shouldered through the front door, carrying Mac. “Where do you want him?” he asked the vet.

“First exam room. Up on the table.” The vet pointed down the short hallway to the first open door.

Trace placed Mac on the exam table. He leaned over and said, “You're going to be all right, boy.” I knew he said it more for me than Mac who appeared to be unconscious.

The vet leaned over Mac and smelled his breath. Just as he straightened, Mac vomited. The vet sniffed the warm vomit. He ran from the room and returned with a glass vial. He filled a syringe and plunged it into Mac's butt. “From the smell, he was poisoned by zinc phosphide.”

“Is he going to live?” I asked.

“We'll know in about fifteen minutes.” He stroked Mac's back. “You keep varmint poison at the house?” he quizzed me.

“No.” Bitter, angry bile rose up in my throat. Trace put his arms around me.

Mac's breathing became deeper and steady. “He's better, isn't he?” I buried my face in the ruff of his neck.

The vet put his stethoscope on Mac's chest and listened. He pulled the scope from his ears. “His heart is strong and his lungs are clear. You got him here in time. If you'd been slower, he would have died. Zinc phosphide causes total organ failure.”

“Armadillo poison isn't hard to come by,” Trace said.

“Armadillos? What?” I was confused.

“Lots of people use it in their yards to kill armadillos. They'll tear a yard to pieces. Mac must have gotten a big dose. He's what—over one hundred pounds?” Trace asked.

“About that.” I shivered. “He would have died if we'd walked in that garden any longer.”

“We could have run into the guy who poisoned him if we hadn't walked in the garden,” Trace said grimly.

I held Mac's big head in my arms. He opened one eye and tried to lick my hand, but his tongue wouldn't cooperate. “Good boy, good boy.” He sighed and fell asleep.

“He'll need to stay here tonight for observation. I'll be here all evening,” the vet assured me.

I was reluctant to leave Mac, but there was nothing more I could do.

 

I held it together until I got home and saw Mac's water bowl half-empty. I dumped it and refilled the water as though he would run in from the deck to greet me. “Did you hear the laughter?”

“Hear what?”

“Someone was laughing in the woods when we were loading Mac.”

“No, I didn't.” He stood in the doorway, leaning his smooth muscled forearms on the frame. Trace held his arms open and I flew into them, sobbing.

“Shhh.” He caressed my hair and murmured, “Shush, shush. He's going to be all right.”

“Mac,” I mumbled into his shirtfront.

He tilted his head down and said softly in my ear. “Mac'll be home tomorrow.” His warm breath sent a shiver down my back.

“Someone was laughing and he's a dog. He never did anything to anyone,” I wailed.

He held me, rocking me gently until the worst of my sobs subsided. He disengaged himself. “I'm going to have a look outside.” He walked a grid across the deck and yard and stopped near where Mac had lain on the deck. I walked out as he stooped down and picked something up.

“What is it? What did you find?”

He opened his big hand. A suede leather pouch on a torn rawhide string dangled from his fingers.

“Where was it?”

“There.” He pointed. “At the base of that table.”

“What is it? Open it!”

“It's a medicine pouch.” He pulled the leather strings and dumped the contents out in his hand.

“There's that same powder.” I pointed to the silver-gray dust in his hand.

“It's bone powder. And this is a human tooth.” He rolled a bead out of the dust and held it between his fingers. “See this?”

“Yes, what is it for?”

“To curse with the evil eye.” He held up the black bead with the tiny white spot facing me.

“Is it a witch's pouch?”

“Yeah.” He flung the pouch over the fence into the woods and dusted off his hands. Trace reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled out a small brown suede bag. He opened it and sprinkled yellow dust on the deck where he had picked up the witch's medicine pouch. He spoke softly in Navajo, finishing with, “Amen.”

“What are you doing?”

“My prayers and the pollen will protect us from his curse.”

I closed and locked the deck door behind us. “I don't understand what's going on here. All the supernatural stuff happening around me. Does it have to do with my reporting on looting and pot hunting? Or is someone trying to scare me away from the mining story?”

“Could be any or all of those things. Evil's motivations are rooted in earthly happenings.”

“Oh God, an intelligent, plotting, evil force.” I sank onto a barstool.

“Why couldn't evil be intelligent?” Trace pushed gently. “Evil is the manifestation of the opposite of good, and we have no trouble believing good is intelligent and purposeful. We
worship
good's purpose.”

I wearily rubbed my hand across my face. I was worried about my dog and damn tired of coyotes and witches. I stood up straight and threw back my shoulders. “My dad always said, ‘feelings follow behavior. ' So I'm going to make coffee and cut the pie and maybe I'll feel more normal.” I measured the coffee and poured the water into the pot. While it brewed, I plated up the pie.

He sat at the counter, watching me. “I like pie and coffee as much as the next guy. But we gotta talk about what's going on here.” He began ticking them off, holding up a finger for each. “Your house was broken into, someone left a tarantula charm, and now Mac's been poisoned.”

Not to mention the shapeshifters,
I mentally added pouring two cups of coffee.

“I'm waiting, Taylor. Talk to me.”

I slid him a piece of pie.

“You know all I know except Niyol snail-mailed me some Dinetah financial documents his nephew passed to him. His nephew's Gage Notah, an accountant for Dinetah.”

“That's all?”

“Everything I know is out there except Gage's financial docs. Nothing about them was on Niyol's hard drive.”

“Where are they?”

“Safe. Locked in my desk at the station.”

“You talked to Gage yet?”

“He's avoiding me. I keep leaving messages.” I paced the small kitchen.

He pushed his empty pie dish away, got up, and brought the coffee carafe to the table. He motioned to me with the pot. When I held out my cup, he filled mine and topped his. “Someone else knows about the docs Niyol mailed you. He and Gage aren't corporate spies. He was a dozer driver, and Gage is a numbers guy.” Both his big hands wrapped around the mug. “Whoever it is—they're not going to let this go.”

I nodded miserably. “No argument from me, but I don't know what I have until Gage talks to me.” I shifted off the stool and stood in front of him. “I'm afraid. Not of a real human who feels threatened by my story, but the other creepy things around me. They're scaring the living hell out of me.”

“Do you want me to stay? In the spare bedroom?” he hastily added.

“Yes.”

“You're sure?”

“Completely.”

I
tossed and turned, not restless from fear of a break-in, but consumed with desire, yearning for Trace's touch, and worrying what he would think if I joined him. How would he react? I would have gone anywhere for a story, but traipsing down the hall to Trace intimated me.

I couldn't bear it any longer. I wanted him. I threw the covers off, swished some mouthwash, spit in the sink, and took a hairbrush to my wild mane.

I padded down the moonlit hall and eased open his door.
Creak
. I balked, standing motionless in the weak moonlight, staring at Trace. He was lying naked on his back. He pulled back the covers on the other side of the bed and patted the mattress. “Took you long enough to get here.”

Relief washed through me. He'd given me all the signals, but you never knew how you would be accepted until the moment you acted. I pulled my sleep shirt over my head, tossed it to the floor, and slid into his bed.

Trace's warm scent of shampoo and man wafted over me. He ran one muscled leg up and down mine. “Good idea you had.”

He folded his leg over me, tucking me close to his hip, fisting my hair, and gently nudged my mouth open with his tongue. Claiming my mouth, cupping my breasts, he became an insistent lover. Desire surged through me when he took my nipple in his mouth, pulling and licking.

“I love the taste of you, and I want all of you.” His gaze beseeched me.

My lingering confusion crumbled under the weight of my need and his desire. I arched my hips accepting him. He plunged into me, his weight and heat held me fast to him as he quickened his rhythm, driving me to my sweet release and following with his.

He rolled to his side, pulling me close. “You are a beautiful woman,” he said huskily.

“Lucky for me you think so.” I snuggled closer.

“You going back down the hall now?” he whispered.

“Yeah.” I threw back the covers. “Guess I will.”

His arm snaked out and caught my waist. “Maybe you should stay a while. I don't think we've finished.”

Our lovemaking was slower and sweeter the second time. We delighted in exploring each other's bodies. When he teased me to the precipice of desire, I came, bucking against him, listening to him cry out my name as he spilled into me.

I slept deeply, not waking until sunlight streamed through the windows. Trace cracked one eye. “Morning sunshine,” he said in a gravelly morning baritone. He stuffed his pillow behind his head. I laid my head on his bare chest, enjoying being held after a night of lovemaking.

“I can cook a mean breakfast, you know,” Trace offered.

“You could, but I don't have groceries. I can pour Cheerios in a bowl, or we could finish the pie.”

“Nope, we need a good breakfast.” He kissed me. “Up and at 'em. I'm buying you breakfast.”

 

Not many people were in the Koffe Kup this early. My stomach rumbled from the smells of bacon and greasy hash browns. We sipped our coffee, staring into each other's eyes like two teenagers. Trace broke the spell. “Come for dinner at my place tonight. I'll put some steaks on the grill and we'll chill out with some wine and a fire in the fireplace. You can bring Mac.”

I smiled over my cup. “I would love to.”

“Excellent. I can pick you up if you like around six.”

“Mac and I will bring a pie to your place. Pie leads to other things.”

“I don't need a pie for that,” he bantered. He took my hand. “The Enemy Way for Ben Kedah is this weekend. The sing lasts three days, but I can't be gone that long. We could go Saturday morning for the final ceremony, if that works for you.”

“Sounds good.” I twined my fingers between his long fingers. “Tell me what an Enemy Way is so I know what to expect.”

“It's sung for Navajo soldiers who have come home from war. Ben's ceremony will slay the ghosts of the dead and restore his harmony.”

“Did you have an Enemy Way when you came home?”

“Yes.” But he wasn't forthcoming about its effect.

I took the check from the waitress when she interrupted us. Trace cocked his head. I didn't want to offend Trace, but I had always been this way. “This morning it's mine.”