The Stronghold. Lisa Carter

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      Alex’s eyes strayed to Pilar, the most perplexing, confounding woman he’d ever known. Her eyes, the blackest he’d ever seen, searched the terrain. For what he didn’t know. Looking everywhere, anywhere but at him.

      He couldn’t keep his gaze off her, however. With a strange mixture of joy and pain, he beheld Pilar once more, the flowing black hair bound in a tight bun per police regulations.

      But instead of the vivacity he remembered, this Pilar wore a brooding expression. Something—grief, bitterness, rage—had worn grooves around her mouth. Put there by someone. His stomach clenched. Someone like him.

      Underneath the bulk of her patrol jacket, she was as fit as ever. Slim and petite in stature. He’d towered over her then and now.

      But from the set of her jaw, probably as tough as ever. The toughest girl in school. Who ran, played, fought as hard as any boy—himself included.

      And because he couldn’t help himself, Alex gradually drifted closer to the tent until he found himself next to Pilar. She bristled at his proximity but kept her eyes trained on the desert horizon.

      “Pilar . . . I need to talk to you later . . .” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I want to apologize for what happened . . . to explain . . . to—”

      “No apology’s going to change what happened, Torres. What’s done is done. You and I got nothing to say to each other.”

      Guilt surged anew. No surprise she hated him. He hated himself for what had happened.

      “We’ve got nothing to talk about except the case. Let’s try to do our jobs and keep this professional.” She cleared her throat. “How long has the victim been dead? Any ID on the body?”

      The contralto huskiness of her voice did funny things to his nerve endings.

      His heart hammered. He wasn’t sure he could be this close to her and live with that. He’d hoped maybe—

      Alex swallowed. He was a fool. “Em—”

      Pilar shot him a look out of the corner of her eye.

      “Dr. Waters says at least a year.” Alex strove to match her detachment. “No ID. We’ll need to look through the tribe’s Missing Person register. But you were right. The vic is female.”

      “Apache?”

      He shrugged. “The teeth indicate Indian. Apache, Navajo. Puebloan, or Tohono O’odham. This is, after all, Arizona. Prelim will require DNA confirmation.”

      “But she was found on San Carlos land.”

      “The probability is strong she’s Apache,” he conceded. “And a teenager. You got any missing San Carlos girls?”

      Pilar stiffened. “Too many, Torres.” The radio on her shoulder crackled. She stepped away to answer the call.

      She moved toward her parked cruiser. “Gotta go.”

      “Wait.”

      He caught her arm and she reared.

      Stupid.

      He withdrew his hand. He knew better. Pilar of all people didn’t like to be touched, especially after . . . “Where’re you going? My team may have questions.”

      She squared her shoulders. “Much as I enjoy watching you and your Anglo women do hard labor, there’s a domestic dispute in Bylas. I’m closest.”

      He grimaced. “I’m not Anglo.”

      “No, you just act like one.”

      He ignored the jibe. “Domestic dispute? Those can be dangerous.”

      She gave him a look that could’ve singed the wings off a butterfly. “No duh, Torres.”

      But at her caustic tone, he relaxed. This Pilar he knew. The give-as-good-as-she-got Pilar.

      “Need backup? Cause I can spare—”

      “Don’t need federal help, much less yours, with a rez issue. You grew up here. You know the drill. Not enough manpower for the vastness of the territory. We make do.” Her lips flattened. “Like always.”

      She’d been gone only a few minutes when Charles shouted and waved him over.

      Alex came at a run.

      Charles paused in his radar sweeping and pointed to a narrow depression in the sand. “I think we’ve found another one.”

      Chapter 3

      3

      Before

      Abuela’s grandson was the handsomest boy—Anglo, Latino, or Apache—twelve-year-old Pilar To-Clanny had ever met.

      Okay—she’d actually not met him. Yet.

      She peered between the blinds in the darkened interior of the ranch foreman’s house she called home. She watched her brother put Abuela’s grandson through his paces. Never one to trust much, Byron wouldn’t be satisfied until he determined what this skinny kid with the too-new boots from L.A. was made of.

      A cowboy wannabe. Byron hated wannabes. He’d soon show the big-city Latino teenager how things were done in Indian country. Show him how Apaches did things.

      Her fifteen-year-old brother demonstrated once more how to lasso a fence post. This Alex Torres person made a joke about fence-post bovine. Pilar’s stocky brother stared at the taller, also fifteen-year-old, boy. Letting the rope fall into the red dust of the Arizona ranchland, Byron’s brow wrinkled.

      “Bovine,” she whispered into the windowpane. “A cow, Byron. He’s talking about cows.” She clutched the library book to her chest.

      School wasn’t Byron’s strong suit. Helping out the real cowboys on Abuela’s off-rez ranch was—roping steers, riding the range, fixing wire-strung fences. Byron, unlike this big-mouth grandson, was the real deal. That and he was training for a spot on the high school football team come August.

      Abuela—as she’d encouraged Pilar and Byron to call her—was this big-mouthed kid’s grandmother. Big Mouth had gotten into trouble with the law in California. So his parents shipped him to Abuela’s ranch for safekeeping and straightening out.

      The aristocratic old woman with her iron silver hair made everything work out and everyone—including Pilar and Byron—feel safe. Her goal to learn a new vocabulary word each day, Pilar mouthed imperious. Imperiousness was Abuela’s superpower. Pilar and Byron had spent the spring between chores watching Marvel comic movies.

      “Bovine?” Perhaps fearing his intelligence was being mocked, Byron clenched his hands into fists on his hips. “What did you call me?”

      The Torres boy’s eyebrows rose. “Bovine. You know, cows. I was making a joke about cows, man, not you.”

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