Pulling the Trigger Read online

  “No one’s going to think any less of you if you go back to your room and rest.”

  “I will.”

  “Joanna—”

  “You can’t get rid of me, Ethan. Stop trying.”

  That she might be covering up or denying those fears and vulnerabilities worried Ethan. He’d seen the strongest of men—one of his best friends from his ranger unit—crash and burn mentally and emotionally on the battlefield after a particularly grueling mission. After that last hellish rescue in Afghanistan, he hadn’t been far behind. He’d needed the open space and the quiet of the Four Corners area to find his inner peace again. What did Joanna have that gave her peace? This skinny slip of a woman with the barbed tongue and cool demeanor was priming herself for an emotional meltdown.

  “I never once wanted to get rid of you, Nüa-rü.” The Ute nickname for the wind, which had become an endearment between them fifteen years ago, slipped out. The word felt right.

  But a shiver rippled across Joanna’s shoulders before she set them firmly into place. Clearly, it didn’t feel right to her. “I imagine Elmer Watts has retired as the reservation sheriff by now. If he’s in a nursing home, he can’t hurt me anymore. I’m not afraid of him.”

  “I don’t imagine you’d admit to being afraid of anything. But he can hurt you.” Ethan breathed in the moist air and let it cool his frustration. “Elmer has Alzheimer’s. His wife had him committed to the home as his behavior became increasingly erratic and violent, and her health declined. He can be mean.”

  That tiny frown reappeared between the beads of rain dotting her forehead. “I suppose the staff could tell you if Sherman visited today—or if they saw his truck. I wonder what kind of information we can get from a man with Alzheimer’s.”

  “Are you listening to me? You don’t want to see him.”

  “Sherman Watts is my man. I’m going.”

  “I’m just trying to look out for you.” Ethan reached out to brush away the strand of hair that stuck to her damp cheek, but she blocked his wrist and stopped him before he could touch her face.

  What happened next convinced him that this tough-talking ice-princess facade didn’t go beyond skin deep. As she pushed his hand down, she altered her grip. She wound her fingers around his thumb and squeezed.

  It was the subtlest of gestures. But it was a connection. A plea.

  “I don’t need looking after, Ethan. I need justice.”

  Chapter Four

  “Now, if you was seventeen, girl, I might be able to look at pressing statutory rape charges. But you’re eighteen. Legal age.” The salty grit of used-up tears rubbed Joanna’s eyes like sandpaper as she blinked the wiry, gray-haired man into focus. Sheriff Elmer Watts rested his hip on the corner of his desk and shifted his chaw of tobacco from one pocket of his cheek to the other. “I know you’ve been through a lot this week, losing your mother and daddy both. It’s normal to turn to a man—an older man, especially—for comfort at a time like this.”

  “Comfort?” Joanna bolted out of her chair. “He raped me!”

  “So it got a little rough. Doesn’t mean you didn’t want it. Some women like it that way.”

  How could any woman…? Gut-deep emotions swirled inside her skull, making her feel light-headed. The stitched-up cut on her left breast, the bruises where she’d been violated, throbbed in protest. The sickening feeling that, no matter how many showers she took, she’d never feel clean again turned in her stomach. How could any woman possibly want any of that?

  “You son of a bitch.” Joanna slurred her words around the swelling of her split bottom lip.

  The sheriff stood, one hand on his gun, the other holding up a reprimanding finger. “Don’t you go cussing me, girl.”

  She ignored both warnings and advanced to look him straight in the eye. “I went to the hospital. They took a rape kit. Do you have any idea how degrading it feels to be touched and probed after…?” She swallowed the whimper of shame that caught in her throat. No. She would see this through. “You can’t ignore that kind of evidence.”

  “I won’t hear anything on that for weeks. Alleged crimes here on the rez aren’t a priority for the state lab—”

  “Alleged?”

  “And we don’t have the means to process any evidence here. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”

  The instant his fingers closed around her shoulders, Joanna yelped and jumped back beyond his reach. “Don’t touch me!”

  The good ol’ boy friendliness of his tone vanished. “You need to get it together, girl, if you want me to take your accusations seriously.”

  “Get it together? You aren’t going to do anything? Aren’t you even going to write any of this down?”

  “You’re right.” He walked around her to open his office door. “Elizabeth? Will you take this girl’s statement?”

  Elizabeth Reddawn stood right outside, no doubt already responding to Joanna’s startled cry. The older woman wrapped her arm around Joanna’s waist and gently turned her toward the doorway. “You come on into my office and sit with me, honey.”

  The reality of her situation finally registered. Whatever hopefulness had been left inside her after the attack shriveled and died. Joanna paused at the doorway and glanced over her shoulder at the uniformed man. “What about Sherman Watts?”

  “I’ll look into it. I’ll talk to my nephew, I promise.”

  Elmer Watts wasn’t talking now.

  Not about anything useful, at any rate.

  “When’s my wife coming?” Elmer grumbled. “The party starts at seven. She’s always running late.”

  Joanna shifted back and forth behind the wall of men and residential staff in the cramped room. Though she suspected that the width of Ethan’s shoulders blocking her view of the retired, white-haired sheriff was no accident, she’d already gotten a glimpse of Elmer Watts. He was a frail, miserable shadow of the man who’d put family before justice fifteen years ago, and had allowed her rapist to escape any kind of prosecution. It was hard not to feel some measure of pity for his infirmities and the blankness behind his sunken eyes. It was harder still not to resent that he could spark any emotion beyond the anger and resentment she’d carried for so many years.

  She’d like to blame her edgy mood on her frustration with Elmer’s inability to stay focused on Patrick Martinez’s questions. She could feel Sherman Watts slipping further and further from their grasp. But she was afraid that the knot in her stomach was due to the fact that, like Elmer, her memories kept slipping back to the past.

  “You aren’t going to do anything?”

  He hadn’t given her the answers she needed to hear back then, either.

  “Joanie?” Elmer called out. “You’d better get a move on it, woman, or I’ll go to the party without you.”

  The beefy orderly who’d helped Elmer out of bed knelt down beside the septuagenarian’s chair. “These men are looking for Sherman, not your wife. She’s gone, Elmer. She passed away last year.”

  “Sherman’s gone, too,” he insisted. “Ungrateful boy. Where’s my wife?”

  Patrick pulled his hat up in front of his face and whispered to Ethan, “How the hell is anything that comes out of his mouth going to be reliable?”

  “We know that Sherman stopped by before lunch,” Ethan reminded him. The orderly who was assisting them had seen Watts’s black pickup earlier in the day. He had no idea what Sherman and his uncle had talked about, but a search of Elmer’s things showed that his wallet was now missing. Ethan encouraged Patrick to keep asking questions. “Try talking to him sheriff to sheriff.”

  With a weary sigh that lifted his shoulders, Patrick turned his attention back to Elmer’s gaunt features. “I need your help, Sheriff Watts. We’re looking for a suspect.”

  “Put it out on the wire,” Elmer answered. “I’ve only got two cars to patrol this whole reservation. Can’t keep up with my own trouble. You’ll have to ask the county cops to help.”

  “I am a county cop. We’re looking f
or your nephew, Sherman.”

  Elmer glanced from man to man to man in the room without answering. He angled his head to peer between Ethan and Patrick. “Who’s there? Sneakin’ in behind you.”

  Now he could think and act like a cop?

  “He was here earlier.” Patrick ignored the old man’s alarm at spotting Joanna and pulled a mug shot photo from his jacket pocket. “Do you remember talking to this man?”

  Elmer took hold of the photo. “My wife is coming to the party.” He looked over at the orderly and frowned. “Why isn’t Joanie here? You need to unlock the doors and let her in.”

  It was the orderly’s turn to shrug as he pushed to his feet and apologized to Patrick. “I’m sorry, sir. He doesn’t have a lot of good days anymore. Beyond seeing Sherm’s truck leave about noon, I don’t know that there’s much anyone here can tell you.”

  Patrick plunked his hat back on his head. “We tried.”

  Joanna wasn’t giving up so easily. She nudged her way between the two men. “Excuse me, Mr.…Laughing Horse?” She paused to read the orderly’s name tag. “Does Mr. Watts remember incidents and people from his past?”

  “Sometimes. It’s pretty typical in Alzheimer’s patients for more distant memories to stay with them longer than recent ones.”

  “Good.”

  “Joanna—”

  She ignored Ethan’s warning. “He doesn’t have to tell us about today. He can help us if he tells us something about the past.” She pulled up a stool and sat in front of Elmer’s chair. “Do you know who I am?”

  Thanks either to Elmer’s incompetence or something more purposeful, the chain of evidence on her rape kit had been “compromised.” The lack of admissible circumstantial evidence, combined with his recommendation that she was too distraught to make a reliable witness, had convinced the district attorney that there was no point in going forward with charges against Elmer’s nephew.

  Would he remember how his actions had changed her life? Would he remember the man he’d helped to escape justice once before?

  For a moment, his dark eyes narrowed beneath bushy white brows. Then his wizened face creased into a smile that revealed yellowed teeth. Even without the dribble of tobacco juice staining his lips, it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “You’re the girl who was supposed to marry my nephew. Wound up with that no-good Ralph Kuchu, instead.” He sat back in his chair, sneering. “Why are you pestering me, girl?”

  Not the way she’d intended this to go. Bile burned at the back of her throat, but she could still make this work. “That was Naomi, my mother. I’m Joanna.”

  “I can see why you turned Sherman’s head.” The correction didn’t register in his addled mind. His low opinion of her mother, however, was crystal clear. “So when are you and Ralph gonna pay back the money you owe my nephew, you lyin’ tramp?”

  “Ma’am,” the orderly urged. “He can get pretty bitter.”

  Martinez politely tried to stop her. “Agent Rhodes—”

  “Let her work.” Ethan’s deep voice quieted the room and washed over her misfiring nerves like a soothing hand.

  Her nostrils flaring with a steadying breath, Joanna nodded, slipping into the character Elmer Watts could communicate with. “That’s right. I’m Naomi. I’m looking for Sherman so I can pay back that money. Have you seen him?”

  “You swindled my boy. Promised him things you never delivered. Did you blow it all at the casino? He loves you, you know.”

  Sherman Watts’s idea of love for her mother had cost Joanna dearly. Far more than the missing two grand that had brought him to her trailer after the funeral that afternoon. Joanna squeezed her hands into fists and continued. “I expect Sherman’s pretty mad at me. Do you know where he might have gone? Where he’d go to get away when he’s angry or worried?”

  “You can leave the money with me.”

  “No, thanks.” Joanna swallowed hard. “I’d like to pay him back personally. Apologize.”

  “He’d like that.” Elmer nodded and shook his head in the same motion. Was his mind wandering away already? “Can’t keep that boy at home. If you want to find him, try the Ute Mountains. That boy loves to go fishing.”

  Mountains. Pretty vague. Pretty vast. About sixty square miles of not enough information. “The Utes are a big place. Anywhere in particular he likes to go?” Joanna asked.

  “Rising Sun Creek is his favorite spot.”

  Ethan whispered behind her, “That’s up on Sleeping Ute Mountain.” The mountain cluster’s highest peak. “Even a fit climber couldn’t get that far in five hours.”

  Joanna absorbed the information without taking her gaze from Elmer. “Where else does he like to fish?”

  “McElmo Creek. Across from the bluffs along the Silverton River. It’ll be flooded this time of year with the spring runoff pouring into it. He might find a spot on the bluff side, though. Fishing won’t be too good with the current that strong, but—” the old man leaned forward, crooking a gnarled finger to invite her to come closer “—I expect fishing isn’t what you have in mind.” He pulled back, chuckling. “To hear Sherm tell it, the two of you never made it out of the tent the first time he took you up there.”

  His laughter grated against her ears and clawed its way through her self-defenses. Her mother had spent time with Sherman on the mountain? Willingly? Or had he forced Naomi the same way he’d forced her daughter? Was that why she’d suddenly dropped one man and turned to a big, lazy lug like Ralph Kuchu? Was that why Naomi had turned to alcohol? Why there’d always been such animosity between their families?

  The familiar nightmare tried to sneak its way into her brain, but Joanna slammed the door on the painful memories. “So where will I find him this time of year, Elmer? Rising Sun Creek or the Silverton?”

  But the conduit of lucid communication was already closing. “Sherm grew up on those mountains. Knows them better than his own room at home.”

  “You’re sure he’d go up Sleeping Ute Mountain?” She could confirm that much, at least.

  “Sometimes he’ll disappear for days on end, and come back with more fish than his aunt can cook in a week. Then the rivers dry up to a trickle and he turns to hunting rabbit or deer.”

  Joanna reached out, needing a definitive answer. “Elmer—”

  He slapped her hand. “When are you gonna pay what you owe, you whore? You ruined him, I tell ya. Ruined him. Get out of my house, you no-good Kuchu!”

  If someone called her name, she didn’t hear it. If she let professional protocol slide when she kicked over the stool and shoved her way past Patrick Martinez, she didn’t care.

  Joanna dashed out the door, hurried down the hallway and shoved open the front door. She didn’t stop when the rain splashed in her face. She didn’t stop when the cool air hit her lungs. She didn’t stop when a bolt of lightning pierced the night and sent a wave of goose bumps pricking over her skin.

  The answering thunder drummed along her pulse and kept her moving until the past finally overtook her.

  “You owe me, Naomi.” Sherman Watts’s words slurred together as he backed Joanna against the counter in the kitchen. “I’m never gonna get the money Ralph owes me now. But we can work out some other kind of payment.”

  “I’m not my mother,” Joanna pleaded, turning her face from his sour breath and desperately searching the small trailer for a way she could escape him. “I know I look like her, but I’m Joanna. Naomi’s dead. You were at her funeral this afternoon. You’ve had too much to drink and you’re not thinking straight. You’re making a mistake.”

  “My only mistake was letting you get away from me in the first place. I miss you, baby.”

  And then his grubby fingers touched her hair.

  Joanna groaned with the effort it took to block the rest of the memory before it played itself out. At some point she’d stopped running and was clutching a two-fisted grip around a wall of black steel—the tailgate of a black pickup truck in the parking lot. She blinked the rain from her eyes and
stared hard at the red imprint of Elmer’s hand on her skin.

  “Get over it,” she coached herself, squeezing her roiling emotions out through her fingertips into the unbending steel. “Do your job. Just do your job.”

  But the red mark stung. The rain trickled along her scalp, cooling her skin to match the chill within. Naomi Kuchu hadn’t been a great mother, but Elmer Watts had no right to call her names. No right to strike—

  “You okay?”

  Joanna jumped at the deep voice behind her. Ethan.

  She jerked her head in a nod as he moved in beside her.

  “The death grip on my truck makes me think…” His big hand covered both of hers, short-circuiting the chaos inside her. “Damn. You’re ice-cold, Nüa-rü.”

  “Don’t call me that.” She pulled her hands from beneath his, swiped the rain from her eyes and retreated from the broad chest and moving arms and concern. “I’m fine.”

  “I’ve known you to be headstrong and independent. But you never were a liar.”

  “I’m not…” His dark brown jacket swirled around her shoulders, interrupting her protest. She immediately tried to shrug it off, but Ethan pulled the collar together at her neck. She shoved at the placket. “Please. I don’t need—”

  “Stop. Just stop.” His knuckles brushed the underside of her chin as his grip on the jacket easily outmuscled hers. As soft as the caress of his voice, the action stilled her.

  Joanna tilted her chin and looked up into his eyes. The pools of midnight-brown said he knew where Elmer’s words had taken her. The weight of secrets heaved inside her chest and eased out on a long sigh.

  She was soaked to the skin, but she was warm.

  She was blind with pain and anger and fear, but she could see a light of hope, a shelter to move toward, inside those irises of pure dark brown. “Ethan, I shouldn’t—”

  “Shh.” He stroked his fingers lightly beneath her chin again. Nerve endings awakened, remembered, beneath the comforting touch.

  A woman could lose herself in the depth of those eyes. When she was eighteen years old, she’d found understanding there. Caring. A faith in her that she’d longed for, but in the end, couldn’t believe.