Lizzie’s photo and description had gone out on the extended Amber Alert Gage had issued that morning. Prior to that, however, there’d been absolutely no evidence that the child might have been taken. Now every policeman in a four-state area was on the lookout. So were caring members of the public.

  But nothing yet.

  Guy pulled over to the side of the street, needing to gather himself before seeing Valerie or her sister. Life had hardened him in a lot of ways, but he wasn’t hardened to the plight of any child.

  This case had pierced his heart.

  Chapter Seven

  Chet Chamberlain had moved into a small house in a subdivision nearer to the hospital. The subdivision, so unlike much of the rest of Conard City, had been built because of the GI Bill after the Second World War. The houses were aging and basically graceless, but most had been maintained well enough over the years.

  They were also small houses. Conard City didn’t boast a huge number of large ones, although during boom days the wealthier citizens had constructed mansions along Front Street and nearby. Or at least mansions compared to everything else around here, Chet thought.

  Not that he truly cared. The small place he lived in now was big enough for him. Two bedrooms, one of them an office for him, a basic kitchen and living area. It was enough room, and a place where he didn’t spend much time.

  It also didn’t hold memories and dreams, unlike the big house he had deeded over to May. That place had once been full of dreams that he and May had shared. Now it held only pain for him. He wondered if May felt the same pain but doubted it. She’d been the one who had demanded a divorce.

  The situation with Lizzie was eating him alive. The house he hunkered down in no longer felt like a hidey-hole. When he walked in there now, he could only hear Lizzie’s laugh, hear the sound of her running feet. He kept turning, expecting to see her. He wondered if May felt the same way in that big house, or if the sea of agony had swamped her.

  It hadn’t quite swamped him yet, but he was holding it at bay by diving into his work. He couldn’t think of one damn useful thing to do about his daughter, and he couldn’t offer comfort to May. There was no comfort to be offered, not when the whole thing was tearing him to pieces, too—not when she’d thrown him out. He wondered briefly if she knew he felt the same fear and worry she did, then cast the stupid question aside. Of course she did.

  He’d been cut off and with the severing of that tie he was left alone in a situation that made him want to rend the very heavens. Why would May even think about what he was feeling?

  He had just come back from the hospital and poured himself a finger of whiskey, shutting his ears to the sounds of Lizzie, already imprinted on this place from her too-short visits. He couldn’t bear to think of where she might be now, how she was.

  It was almost a relief when Valerie knocked on his door and told him she needed to talk with him. He let her in, asking immediately if there was any news. Hope’s tendrils tightened around his heart along with the agony that wouldn’t quit.

  Val shook her head. “I’m sorry, not a word. But I need to talk with you, Chet. If you can stand it.”

  Chet waved her to a chair but remained standing himself, glass in hand. “Want a drink?”

  Val shook her head. “This wouldn’t be a good time.”

  “No, it’s not,” he agreed, looking at the whiskey. “But it’s all I have right now.” Unable to hold still, he paced the small living room with its sofa, recliner and TV. “You’ve come to play detective, I suppose.”

  He heard her sigh and finally looked at her. Really looked at her. “What did I say?”

  She gave him a small shake of her head. “Detective isn’t something I play at.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Val, you know I didn’t mean it that way. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Only the same thing that’s wrong for all of us right now.”

  He saw her eyes redden and realized Lizzie’s disappearance was hurting her almost as much as it was hurting May and himself. A new ache slipped through him as he wondered why he hadn’t considered Val’s feelings in all of this. Maybe because she always seemed so self-possessed? So confident? Or maybe he wasn’t as empathetic as he believed?

  “I’m sorry,” he said after another swig of his whiskey. “I’m a mess. I’d claw something to death if I could. Scream. Chew nails. Shoot myself.”

  That got her full attention. “Shoot yourself? Why?”

  “Because this has to be my fault somehow! Ask May, everything’s my fault!” His voice had risen and he fought to force himself back into the zone where he could treat patients who were in the worst of crises. Patients who needed him to remain calm no matter what. It wasn’t easy in this situation. Not that it ever was, but Lizzie being gone? That was whole orders of magnitude worse than anything he’d ever faced.

  “You think May’s blaming you?” She tilted her head, then rose and headed for the small table where the liquor bottle sat along with a few highball glasses. “She’s not blaming you,” she told him as she poured a small amount of whiskey for herself.

  “If she isn’t, she will eventually,” he answered, bitterness replacing everything else inside him. “God, it got to the point where I couldn’t do a damn thing right. May turned into someone I could hardly recognize. But I’d have waited it out, Val. She would have gotten past it all. Despite what she might say, I wasn’t the one who changed.”

  Holding her glass, Val perched on the edge of the recliner. “I heard May’s side of the divorce, but what about yours?”

  He glared at her and drained his glass. “Are you blaming me for this?”

  “I’m not blaming anyone,” she said gently. “I just want to understand.”

  “Understand what? I already told you. May changed.”

  “Okay. How did you feel when she told you she didn’t want you dropping in to see Lizzie?”

  He felt his mouth twist. The detective was here, and her kid gloves would come off if necessary. “It made me feel godawful. She was the one who argued I shouldn’t get joint custody because of my irregular hours. So what am I supposed to do? Stick to a weekend here and there when I might have to run out to work? Leave Lizzie with a babysitter? The babysitter she didn’t want me to get?”

  Val nodded slowly. “I see your point.”

  “At least you do,” he said bitterly. He turned away to look out his front window at the deepening night. Lizzie was out there somewhere. Terror gripped him.

  “Tell me, if you can, who might have a grudge against you? Anything that springs to mind.”

  He continued to stare at the window, and now ice filled him. “A lot of people,” he said eventually, his mind springing them up like weeds in a badly kept lawn.

  He heard Val move behind him. “Who?” she asked.

  “Dozens of people. Maybe more.” Now he turned to face her, the ice in his veins hardening. “Do you have any idea why obstetricians and gynecologists carry the most expensive malpractice insurance in the medical field? It’s so bad a lot of medical school graduates look for any other area of practice.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because,” he answered harshly, “we get blamed for everything that goes wrong. We get blamed for stillbirths, genetic defects. Mother Nature doesn’t get the blame even though we don’t cause the problem. No, we get sued. How the hell am I to blame for Down syndrome or cystic fibrosis? Or any of a million things that can go wrong with a fetus? How can we be blamed if a mother doesn’t take her prenatal vitamins and has a child with spina bifida? You want the whole list?”

  “That’s not necessary,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry, Chet. It shouldn’t be that way.”

  “No, it shouldn’t, but insurance companies find it cheaper to settle a lawsuit than to fight it. So there you have it.”

  He poured himself another whiskey.

  Valerie spoke again. “Think about it, Chet. Please. Anyone you can think of who might want to hurt you through Lizzie. We need all the help we can get, okay?”

  “I’ll try. As if I can focus on anything except Lizzie.”

  “Can you go through your records and see if anyone stands out? That might be a real help in this search.”

  “Okay.” He gritted his teeth. “Okay. I’ll look. I’ll get some medical people to help looking at the files to speed it up.” His face sagged. “It won’t help.”

  Now her voice developed an edge. “Why not?”

  The detective was here, he reminded himself. Not the Val he knew as a fun sister-in-law.

  “HIPAA,” he finally answered savagely. “Patients have a right to privacy under federal law. I can’t tell you anything!”

  He stared down at the glass in his hand, then hurled it across the room at the wall, where it shattered into pieces, just like his heart.

  “She’s my baby,” he said as the tsunami washed over him again. “She’s my baby.”

  * * *

  GUY REDWING WAITED outside in his official Suburban. Valerie felt almost weak as she walked toward his car, her legs shaking as if they could no longer support her. He climbed out and met her halfway.

  “Valerie?” he asked.

  “It’s not him,” she said brokenly, then did something she hadn’t done in her entire career. She collapsed against him, tears pouring out of her, grateful when his strong arms wrapped around her and held her close. She needed him desperately.

  * * *

  GUY HELPED HER into his vehicle, then drove away from Chet’s place, not sure what to do. The strong woman in the passenger seat was breaking down, understandably, but the situation was awkward beyond belief. She might well hate him for seeing her weakness. He’d already figured out that she was a woman who hated to show weakness. Powerful. Strong. Capable. That’s the image she projected and most likely the person she was.

  Until this. He shook his head a little as he drove aimlessly. This would kill just about anyone, he thought. Not only worrying about her niece and her sister but needing to be a detective through it all. He couldn’t imagine.

  But he didn’t need to imagine it. It was happening in the seat right beside him. When the storm passed, she was probably going to hate him for seeing her like this. Hate herself.

  So what now? How could he shelter her without making her feel worse? Damned if he had any idea.

  “Want to go back to May’s?” he asked when she seemed calmer.

  Her voice was thick. “No! Not yet. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless in my life, Guy. I’m not ready to prop up my sister, not yet.”

  He thought of Chet Chamberlain. “Maybe someone else should do a little of the propping. Like Chet.”

  “He seems to be convinced she doesn’t want him around. That she’s going to start blaming him for whatever has happened to Lizzie.”

  His interest perked but he let it slide for now. He didn’t think pushing her was going to be any help to her just then. Let it rest until she was ready to talk about it.

  “How about I pick up something at Maude’s? Then we can go to my place for a bit. Just to give you a break.”

  “I shouldn’t need a break. I’m just doing my damn job.”

  “Right,” he said sarcastically. “Under any other circumstances, I’d probably agree with you.”

  He didn’t wait for her to come up with any more objections. He drove to Maude’s, grabbed some steak sandwiches and salad, and returned to his vehicle with a couple of bags. Valerie sat quietly, staring out the passenger window. He doubted she was seeing anything that wasn’t inside her.

  Chapter Eight

  Over all these years in Conard County, Guy had rented an apartment in the complex that had been built so long ago by a short-lived semiconductor plant, but was now used primarily for student housing. He’d done little to improve it, just a recliner and a second-hand dinette set. A single wall-hanging of a rug his mother had woven. A bed, of course.

  And on the one battered side table a photo of his immediate family. A reminder of those he loved, some who barely spoke to him since he’d put on a badge.

  He placed their boxed dinners on a rickety kitchen table, started some coffee, and pulled out a few chipped plates along with some scratched silverware.

  He saw his quarters with fresh eyes as he led Valerie inside. It wasn’t much.

  “I like the blanket,” she said. “Beautiful.”

  “My mother made it.”

  He felt her gaze on him as he set out the utensils and opened the box. “Grab a seat. The chair will hold you and the table won’t collapse.”

  She looked around the small kitchen, then sat. “You like it like this?”

  “It’s better than where I lived on the rez.”

  Her face changed infinitesimally as he put food on the plates, then poured two mugs of coffee. At least the cups weren’t chipped.

  She took a small bite of the sandwich. “These are still as good as they used to be.”

  “As reliable as Maude.”

  When she swallowed a second mouthful, she asked, “Was your childhood awful?”

  “No. The winters could be hard, though, when we couldn’t pay for enough heating oil. But by and large it was good. Plenty of loving family and friends.”

  She hesitated visibly. “I thought the government built houses on the reservation.”

  “If you can call boxes with poor insulation and dirt floors houses.”

  “God, Guy!”

  He finished his sandwich and started on the salad before he spoke again. “Try finding a job when you’re a redskin.”

  “But...” She bit her lip. “Isn’t that an awful word?”

  “Just the one I heard a thousand times. We all got labeled drunks and layabouts. Indigent instead of Indigenous. Especially hard for the women.”

  She pushed her salad around her plate. “How so?”

  “Have you ever heard of MMIW? Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women?”

  She pushed the salad aside and looked at him from a pale face. “Tell me.”

  He waved a hand. “When Indigenous women turn up missing or murdered, the cops barely investigate. For rapes it’s even worse.”

  She leaned back and drew a shaky breath. “I don’t have words. Is that why you became a cop?”

  “Yeah. That’s it. I swore I was going to change things in my small part of the world. Some of my friends and family don’t get it. They think I went over to the dark side.”

  “God! How do you stand it?”

  “Because I have to.”

  Telling her all this had only roiled up feelings he’d spent years burying. That clawing rage filled him once again. To distract himself from it, he went to get them more coffee.

  She looked at the mug. “I could do with a drink.”

  “Sorry, I don’t touch alcohol.”

  Her expression filled with sorrow. “Because of the labels?”

  “Because Indigenous people are genetically prone to alcohol addiction.”

  She drew a sharp breath. “But how...”

  He shook his head. “The Aztecs knew it. They had rules about it. Only small children and the elderly and sick could drink alcoholic beverages. The rest of the time it was off-limits. Anyway, I hear they found the genetic reason. I don’t know for sure. But I’ve seen enough of my people succumb. Never a drop for me.”

  He sat again. “You wouldn’t believe the number of liquor stores around the edges of a reservation. Even though it’s not allowed on the rez, plenty of people go off the rez to buy it. The Whites love it.”

  His hands clenched. “We try to protect ourselves and get sabotaged. The Navajo Nation is better about it. They’ll arrest anyone, Whites included, if they’re found with alcohol on the rez. Not everyone has a big enough police force to stop it. That costs money, which a lot of nations don’t have. What does it matter anyway if some of the cops are addicted, too? Why should they care? Anyway, it gives them a good excuse to crack down on drunken Indians.”

  “I never thought about it,” she admitted. “Never.”

  “Why would you? Easier to think of us as drunks.”

  She shook her head, falling silent. Then, “Is that why you wear your uniform instead of plainclothes?”

  “Believe it. Like I said, it greases the wheels. That uniform puts me in a special category. Folks might not like it when I’m the responding officer, but they don’t hassle me. Not often, anyway.”

  “I can’t imagine, Guy. I just can’t imagine.”

  “You don’t need to.” Shoving his anger back down into his box of private furies, he forced himself to relax. “I’m lucky I got the job here. To be here. Micah Parish paved the way a long time ago. Then there’s the vet. Mike Windwalker. A few little steps, among others, toward acceptance.”

  Once again she fell silent.

  Eventually he spoke. “I shouldn’t have dumped all that on you. You’ve got enough on your plate right now.”

  “I’m glad you told me. There’s so much I don’t understand. Now I’ll know to be on the lookout for this crap.”

  Nevertheless, he felt like a jerk for letting all of that ugliness out, and worse for speaking of it to Valerie. No way to make amends for it. He’d spewed it and now he had to live with it. The way he always lived with the consequences of his actions.

  But he moved away quickly from his own problems and back to hers. More important right now. “So you really think Chet couldn’t have had anything to do with this?”

  “Not directly.” Now she reached for her cooling coffee and downed half of it.

  “Need some water?” Guy asked. “You look thirsty.”

  “Please.”

  He went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle. “Mind drinking it like this or do you want a glass?”