Thick Black Theory: A Symbiont Wars Book (Symbiont Wars Universe) Read online

  She glanced at the gun, a 10mm Glock. She put the safety on then checked the magazine and chamber before tucking it in her belt. She walked around the corpse. Dan’s boots were clean. She’d been hoping that a clue to where he’d been walking might be stuck in the treads, but the dry sand of the canyon floor had scoured off anything else if it had ever been there.

  Look for clues.

  The folding knife from his pocket went into hers without a glance; she knew it would be a good one and a crime to waste.

  The soft scuffling from the direction of the parking lot said Bernard was close behind her.

  “All clear,” she called and stood.

  Bernard stood up too, grunting from the strain of crouching, and waded through the low scrub to her. Daniels and Drew followed.

  “Just the one this time, then?” said Bernard. His voice was deadpan flat, but he winked, clearly playing it for the audience behind him.

  Kaitlin snorted. “Don’t go over there,” she said, nodding toward the mesquite scrub and rocks where Daniel had hidden. “I may have to backtrack to make sure I don’t lose the trail when I’m trying to find the girl. I’m going to follow the path they took that way first, but he might have swept it out too well for me to follow. If that happens, I’ll need to follow his back trail. The two may run together.”

  “How are we supposed to back you up?” Drew said.

  Kaitlin, carefully keeping her expression neutral, pointed to where Dan stretched out on the dirt. “It’s likely I won’t need backup since he isn’t a threat now, but you can wait here, and I’ll call if there’s a problem... or you’ll hear more shots. I have a notion where he went with her, but I can’t be sure.”

  Daniels cleared his throat. “Would you mind putting your shirt back on and answering a question first?”

  “As long as it doesn’t require a long answer,” Kaitlin said, bending to pick up her shirt and hat. “There is a scared, damaged little girl out there.”

  “We heard talking before the shots. How did this go down?” said Daniels, his voice neutral.

  Kaitlin sighed. Did he think she’d just shot him in cold blood?

  “Okay, the quick version.” She slid into her shirt and replaced her hat.

  Pointing to where she’d been when Dan had fired the first shot at her, she recounted the steps that led from then to him leaking blood and gray matter on the ground. When she finished, Daniels face didn’t move, but she still detected skepticism in his eyes.

  “So you dropped what you were holding and shot him while he had his gun out, still pointed in your direction, but the laser sight wasn’t on you? Did you consider it might have been obstructed below your field of view?”

  “It was a gamble, but the barrel moved to the side, and he seemed distracted.”

  “What made you think he was distracted?”

  “The same reason you asked me to put my shirt back on.”

  His face remained closed. “Can you show me how it happened?”

  This is getting old at lightspeed.

  Kaitlin took a controlled breath then pulled Promisekeeper from her holster and removed the bullets from the cylinder. As she walked to where she’d stood at the start, she holstered her weapon and removed her shirt and hat again.

  “Stand where he was and point your finger at my chest,” she snapped, keeping the shirt and hat draped in front of her holster. “When you take your finger out of line, I’m going to dry-fire while aimed at your chest and then your head. If you have a problem with that, you need to let me know now.”

  Daniels hesitated a moment. “Okay.”

  His finger moved, and the double click of Promisekeeper’s hammer strikes punctuated the quiet of the canyon an instant before her hat hit the ground.

  “That’s all the time I can give you for this, Daniels. You’re going to have to trust me at some point, or this team is going to keep on limping. Since you’re stuck with us anyway, you might want to expedite that.”

  Kaitlin picked up her clothes, reloaded Promisekeeper and slipped her back into the holster. Then, she walked to where the tracks of Dan’s size 10 Vibram soles waited for her.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Kaitlin worked her way through the scrub with care, stopping where Dan had paused to gather ripe fruit from a mid-sized Texas persimmon tree. His steps from here to where he’d ambushed her had seemed purposeful and cautious. He may have seen or heard her—or her backup team—descending the trail before moving to an ambush spot.

  From here, the tracks disappeared onto water-smoothed rock. This might be where her job became tedious, circling looking for departures from the solid stone. She sighed then paused to listen. From not far off, came a fricative, rubbing sound. In the canyon, it was hard to locate source, but she followed where it seemed to be coming from.

  After about twenty more meters, the sound came more clearly. It was a familiar, childhood sound drifting above the silences—pencils and crayons scrubbing pigment onto paper. A sound from when a real daddy took care of her and Mommy while they took care of him. But, that was before the bad sickness took him away and Mommy was afraid all the time.

  But, this crayon was frenetic instead of careful; not one that spoke of peaceful kitchen tables and cookies with milk.

  As she’d hoped, it came from the sheltering overhang ahead. Kaitlin passed over the smooth rock and drifted up the steps leading to the entryway.

  Fate Bell Shelter was the logical place to wait out the blistering heat; it had been used that way for thousands of years. It was possible the windmill still pumped water into the storage tank at the park above, but even if not, there were pools and trickles in the canyon to boil for drinking. Kaitlin didn’t think Daniel had been here long though. It was hard country when there was no one else around to exploit.

  As the chamber beneath the overhang came into view, Kaitlin ignored the ancient pictograms she’d seen before and focused on the small figure sitting cross-legged on the metal-tread walkway, blonde head bent over papers filled with dark figures and red flames.

  Unless the girl was deaf, it wasn’t likely that she hadn’t heard Kaitlin’s approach—more likely just refusing to acknowledge it.

  She thinks I’m him.

  “Hello, child,” Kaitlin said, using the same tone of voice she used in her inner-child meditations.

  The blonde head snapped up revealing china-blue eyes and a rosy, heart-shaped mouth. “Run,” she whispered—the words as frantic as the scratching of the crayon had been a moment before. “He’ll come back and catch you too.”

  She’s afraid for me?

  Water sprung to Kaitlin’s eyes before she could clamp down on her reaction. She ignored the liquid. The desert air would suck it away before it betrayed her. “You mean the man with hair the unmellow-yellow color of sand, Timberwolf-gray eyes and last seen wearing a midnight-blue baseball hat?” she said, digging into her memory for Crayola colors. “He’s gone, and he won’t be coming back.”

  Doubt crept into the girl’s face. The expression was an improvement over the horror. At least it meant she was considering the possibility.

  “I’m Sheriff Kaitlin. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  “Marian,” she whispered, almost too soft to hear.

  “Mary Anne?” Kaitlin said, lowering herself into a full butt-cheeks-on-heels squat to bring her face down to the girl’s level.

  “No, Marian, like Maid Marian in Robin Hood.”

  “Nice name, Marian.” Kaitlin smiled, but not too big. “Now, I’m not like the sheriff in Robin Hood.” Kaitlin unpinned her star from her shirt and held it out to Marian. “Can you read that?”

  Hesitantly, the girl took the star. “Wet Gulch Terr... Territory. Sheriff Kaitlin.” She ran her fingers over the star. “Pretty,” she whispered.

  “That’s right. I came here from Wet Gulch. Do you know what sheriffs are supposed to do, Marian?”

  Marian nodded. “Fight crime.”

  “That’s right. And I followed that
man here because of his crimes. I shot him because he shot at me and resisted arrest, and he died. Did he hurt you or people you know?”

  The nod from the blonde head seemed to shake loose a tear. A drop at first, then growing from a silent trickle to a silent stream.

  Kaitlin shifted to her knees and held out her hands, hoping Marian could find her way to accepting the offer.

  When Marian dove into her arms, the only reason Kaitlin didn’t fall was because she had reached out so far.

  Chapter 31 — If you needed me

  If I needed you, would you come to me?

  Would you come to me for to ease my pain?

  If you needed me, I would come to you.

  I would swim the seas for to ease your pain.

  Well the night’s forlorn and, the morning’s born

  Oh, the morning’s born with the lights of love.

  And you’ll miss sunrise if you close your eyes,

  And that would break my heart in two.

  If you needed me, I would come to you.

  I would swim the sea for to ease your pain.

  Baby’s with me now, since I showed her how

  to lay her little hand in mine.

  Who would ill agree she’s a sight to see

  a treasure for the poor to find?

  If you needed me, I would come to you.

  I would swim the sea for to ease your pain.

  At last, Marian’s breathing slowed to gentle snores as Kaitlin sang, once again, the Townes Van Zandt song her own father had sung to her every night for the first eight years of her life.

  Kaitlin’s arm prickled with pins and needles where it pillowed Marian’s head, but she only flexed the muscles gently to restore circulation rather than risk waking the child.

  The majesty of the desert sky wheeled above their bed on top of the SUV. Kaitlin had suggested they watch the stars from the roof instead of sleeping inside when she’d seen the panic in Marian’s eyes at the door to the van.

  When they’d left the Fate Bell Shelter, Kaitlin had asked Marian to identify the body of the man who’d taken her. Marian had agreed without hesitation though her grip on Kaitlin’s hand became a little white around the knuckles.

  Kaitlin was sure the smaller trauma of seeing the body would help Marian get the feeling of closure needed for the healing of the larger one.

  Daniels had objected, but backed off when Kaitlin ordered him to stop ‘interfering with a criminal investigation’. Later, she’d had to step in front of him with a warning glare so Marian could kick the body as much as she wanted to... which had been quite a lot.

  The dead don’t feel pain, but the living do.

  When Drew suggested they bury it, Kaitlin had pointed out the vultures already circling overhead. “When in the desert, you follow the law of the desert. The body belongs to them, now,” she said. “Burying it will only contaminate the river. Just drag the body above the high water mark. Now that farms have stopped pumping for irrigation in the north, the water’s coming back up. Besides, Marian and I might want to watch the birds come and go while we sit on the bench by the sculpture.”

  Daniels had turned and walked away with a disgusted expression at that point, but Bernard had squeezed Kaitlin’s shoulder and followed him with a determined expression on his face. Kaitlin had left it to Bernard’s capable managerial style. She was beyond tired of Daniels assuming he knew the best way to handle things he knew nothing about.

  When Marian was done, Kaitlin had held her hand again as they hiked back up the trail. Marian’s fingers were more relaxed by then, though she stayed close to Kaitlin’s side and avoided standing near Drew at all times.

  On the way up the trail, she’d told Kaitlin how Dan had convinced the driver of her stranded summer camp bus to let him take a load of kids back to town, along with a chaperone, supposedly to reunite them with their parents. Dan had taken the group down the road for a bit before using a gun to force everyone but Marian out.

  That had been the start of her nightmare.

  Kaitlin could understand her reluctance to sleep—a time when all of that horror could return in dreams—especially when trapped inside a similar vehicle.

  Kaitlin sighed; Dan had moved in with her mother when Kaitlin was ten. The time she’d spent under the same roof with him had been a nightmare for her too. Dan had never managed to get her in a situation where he could actually rape her, but it hadn’t been for lack of trying. If it hadn’t been for the years of Krav Maga classes her dad had taken her to, that story might have had a different ending... one more like Marian’s.

  Dan had been more wary of touching Kaitlin after she’d almost broken his finger, but he’d kept working on getting inside her head. It was the way he’d twisted her mother around that had finally caused Kaitlin to walk out. It had taken her two years to realize she couldn’t rescue her mother.

  For Kaitlin, the dreams when her mother stood by, doing nothing, were the worst.

  The sky to the east lightened as the moon began to cross the threshold of the horizon. Kaitlin checked her watch; it was after eleven now, but she was still too wound up to sleep. All that had happened today had stirred up feelings she’d pushed down for years. She wondered if what Dan had said about her mother leaving him had been true. She hoped so, for her mother’s sake.

  Kaitlin had fought the bitterness of what had seemed her mother’s betrayal at the time. Her growing understanding of the nature of fear had shown her that her mother was more a victim than a betrayer, but the feelings had persisted even after she’d worked it through in her head.

  When Brian had encouraged her to try inner-child meditation, she’d laughed at first. She hadn’t even turned fifteen yet. How was she supposed to re-parent her inner child? But, when she realized it was fear that was pushing her away from it, she’d started immediately. The feelings the exercises had stirred up were much like what she felt now.

  She looked at Marian’s soft face and the way her lips pouted as she breathed, stirring the hair that had wandered onto her cheek.

  Kaitlin sucked in a quick breath. It was hard not to feel this whole day had been planned. Kaitlin was the only person in the world who could possibly have recognized Marian’s danger and been able to do something about it. She’d been pondering Brian’s notions of God working in the world—that sometimes God sent people to help those who needed it.

  Like the way Brian helped me.

  She’d been wondering whether God—if God existed—had sent her to Marian. But was it all one-sided? Right now, it seemed as though Marian was a gift to her, and her own half-buried feelings of helplessness and rage were softening and sloughing away as she picked up the commitment of walking with this child out of the darkness.

  Kaitlin took a deep breath and let it out, feeling a weight leave her chest.

  The desert filled with light, a sliver at a time, as the moon rose—not yet full, but waxing.

  Chapter 32 — Warrior poses

  When the sun sent its first light across the desert, Kaitlin answered with a deep lunge, arching her back and neck as she relished the sense of balance and power in her body before rising again to Warrior II. The warrior sequences spoke deeply to her—as though her body affirmed her resolution to be ready for adversity. After holding for seven cycles of breath, she swept back into Retreating Warrior, poised to advance again at the proper time.

  The air was dry and cool, but the asphalt parking lot—where she’d swept a clear spot with room for two—still held the heat of yesterday’s sun.

  Marian tried to copy Kaitlin’s stances, but her gym classes in yoga hadn’t taken her that far. Kaitlin broke off her own routine to guide her through the balance and positioning of the moves with a light touch at her waist.

  “You’re doing well.”

  “One step at a time.”

  “Feel your center as you stop and as you change.”

  Kaitlin took her through the sequence twice then went back to her own spot. She switched to sim
pler poses Marian could manage.

  The sun was almost a handspan above the horizon when Kaitlin began talking Marian through the relaxing sequence while she completed her own hand-stand balance positions before joining her new pupil in the meditation. It wouldn’t hurt to let Marian have as much peace and mental quiet as she could get.

  When Kaitlin finished, she found Marian had fallen asleep in the shavasana pose. Kaitlin watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest for several minutes.

  The body knows what the soul needs.

  Marian was a beautiful child. Her golden hair was rumpled and sticking out this morning; she had refused Kaitlin’s offer of a comb this morning, and Kaitlin—suspecting she knew why—had not pushed.

  Beauty in a child made them a target for predators.

  Kaitlin let her own breathing fall into a quiet four-sided rhythm and stilled her mind while the desert sounds drifted over her. When she heard the distant sound of a vehicle approaching, she spoke in a low voice close to Marian’s ear to finish the guided meditation. “Feeling refreshed, you rise to meet a day of freedom and new experiences.”

  Marian’s eyes opened and locked on to Kaitlin’s.

  “I think it’s time to go,” Kaitlin said. “Have you ever been in a canoe?”

  Marian sat up. “We did that at camp,” she said, blinking in the sunlight.

  “Well, I think I hear the truck coming with our canoes.”

  Marian looked around at the desert, and a flicker of a smile showed at the edge of her mouth.

  “Yeah, I know,” Kaitlin said, smiling. “Today we will learn the truth about the word, ‘portage’. What does it really mean, anyhow? But first, breakfast. What’s your pleasure: peanut butter with fig preserves or granola with a strawberry protein shake mix?”

  “Do you have crunchy peanut butter?”

  “Is there any other kind?” said Kaitlin, holding out her hand to help Marian to her feet. “Come on. Let’s roust those lazybones out of the chuck wagon and rustle up some grub.”