Dance of the Bones

“What about Henry Rojas?”


“He’s dead, too. Ava shot Henry and then loaded you in the trunk of your car. We’re pretty sure she was leaving you there to die of an overdose while she drove off into the sunset. The FBI was going after a warrant to track your phone. They probably would have found you before you corked off, but your dad figured out a way to locate you sooner than that—-soon enough that Ava didn’t have a chance to sneak out of Dodge.”

“What’s going to happen to Ava?”

“She’s in jail on suspicion of five counts of homicide and three counts of attempted homicide, to say nothing of several counts of conspiracy and smuggling. The only case where we know for sure she pulled the trigger is Henry’s, but since the others died in the course of the commission of a felony, she’s just as responsible as the shooter.”

“Did you say five?” Lani asked.

Dan ticked them off on his fingers. “Max, Carlos, Paul, a state prison employee named Jason Swanson, and Henry. The attempteds are you, Gabe, and Tim. She’s also a person of interest in two cold cases—-the murder of a guy named Amos Warren back in the seventies and a guy named Kenneth Myers who was murdered in the Seattle area in the early eighties. John Lassiter went to prison for Amos Warren’s murder. He was attacked in prison at the same time Max José was, only Lassiter didn’t die. The detectives are working on the theory that Ava was most likely involved in that hit as well.”

“Can I keep the pot?” Micah asked, abruptly changing the subject.

Lani thought about that for a moment. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Let me keep it for right now, okay?”

“Okay,” Micah said. “But why’s there an owl and a turtle on it?”

“Have I ever told you the story of Little White Feather?”

Micah frowned and shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“I think the woman who made that pot knew about that story—-about how Turtle and Owl helped a girl named Shining Falls. When I get home, maybe I can tell it to you.”

“Can’t you come home now?”

“I need to talk to my doctor and ask him.”

“But you are a doctor. Can’t you just tell him?”

Lani laughed and kissed the top of his head. “When you’re the patient, it doesn’t quite work that way.”

AS FAR AS DIANA LADD and Brandon Walker were concerned, the Tucson Festival of Books took a big hit on Sunday. After their Saturday from hell, Diana was an understandable no--show at her Sunday panels and signings. And if anyone wondered why, all they had to do was take a look at the front page of the Arizona Daily Sun.

Besides, putting on a smiling face with her husband would have been a challenge, since Diana was barely speaking to the man. Yes, she was overjoyed that Brandon and Dan had found Lani and engineered her rescue, but she was not pleased that they had put themselves in danger. The only member of the team who wasn’t in the doghouse happened to be the dog. Bozo’s timely heroics left him entirely free of blame.

Amanda Wasser called Brandon late in the afternoon. “My father is out of the ICU,” she said. “His condition has been upgraded from guarded to serious.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“His first words were ‘You look just like your mother.’ But that’s not why I called. I just got off the phone with Mr. Glassman. Ava Richland confessed.”

Brandon was astonished. “She did what?”

“The prosecutor agreed to take the death penalty off the table if she confessed to everything, and she did—-to Henry Rojas’s death, of course, but also to the murder of Amos Warren. She killed him so she could lay hands on his stuff, and she murdered Kenneth Mangum/Myers because he was trying to blackmail her. And then there’s the case of Clarence Hanover . . .”