“You believe my father, then?” Amanda asked. “You believe he didn’t do it?”

Brandon nodded. “I do,” he said.

“So who’s the killer?” Amanda asked.

“You told me earlier that you thought Ava Martin needed looking into. When I asked John Lassiter straight out, ‘If you didn’t kill Amos, who did?’ that was his answer, too—­‘Ava Martin.’ ”

“I tried to get JFA to take a look at her,” Amanda said. “They were so focused on the prosecutorial misconduct issue that they saw no need to go any further.”

“We do,” Brandon told her. “In fact, we already are.”

“Good,” she said. “In the meantime, I need to pack up and get going.”

“Going where?”

“To Mesa, where else?” she said. “Since I’m the one who put my father in that hospital, I’m going to go there to see him whether he likes it or not.”

“You do know why John Lassiter refuses to see you, don’t you?” Brandon asked.

Amanda had turned her scooter and was on her way to the bedroom. She paused and turned back to Brandon. “Why?”

“Because he wants to clear his name first.”

Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t you understand? As far as I’m concerned, his name was cleared a long time ago.”

BRANDON WAS JUST LEAVING AMANDA Wasser’s driveway when J. P. Beaumont’s friend Todd called to give him Ava Richland’s address. It was somewhere in the far reaches of Tucson’s Ventana Canyon, and Brandon was making his way there when his phone rang again.

“Warden Huffman,” the caller said when Brandon answered. “This is not an official call, by the way, but I’m hoping you might be able to help us get ahead of this thing.”

“In what way?”

“I’m sitting here studying the surveillance tapes,” Huffman said. “Over the years I’ve been around plenty of prison riots. This one simply doesn’t add up. I can tell that the action in the center of the room was clearly designed to pull attention away from what was happening in the far corner, which turned out to be a well-­organized hit on two individuals.”

“John Lassiter and who else?”

“The other victim was a young guy from Sells, Max José. A priest showed up in the middle of all the mess, asking to see Max and saying that he had come, at Max’s mother’s request, to let him know that his two younger brothers had been murdered near Sells earlier today and that his youngest brother is missing.”

“Max is dead now, too?” Brandon demanded. “Are you kidding?”

“Unfortunately not, so here’s my question. Can you tell me if there’s any connection between the José family out in Sells and John Lassiter?”

“Not right off, Warden Huffman,” Brandon answered. “But if I come up with one, I’ll let you know.”

The GPS led Brandon to a house perched on the mountainside high above the rest of the city. The spectacular window-­lined structure seemed to wrap itself around the contours of the mountain. A wrought-­iron gate at the end of the driveway was open. He was about to turn in when an aid car, lights ablaze, came tearing down the drive. Brandon pulled aside to let it pass.

When he arrived at the front of the house, a fire truck was just departing. A woman in what appeared to be hospital scrubs stood on the front verandah, wringing her hands. Brandon got out of the Escalade and walked toward her. She turned on him. “Who are you?”

“My name is Brandon Walker,” he said. “I’m a friend of the family. I was hoping to speak to Mrs. Richland.”

“Mrs. Richland isn’t here. That was her husband in the ambulance. He had another stroke. They’re taking him to TMC. I’ve been trying to reach Mrs. Richland to let her know what’s going on, but she isn’t answering her phone. She’s probably out in the middle of the desert somewhere where there’s no signal.”

“Do you know where she was headed?”

“Their condo in San Carlos, down in Mexico,” the nurse answered. “I tried calling there, too. That was strange. When I spoke to the housekeeper, she had no idea Mrs. Richland was coming there today.”

“What kind of car does she drive?” Brandon asked.

“A black Mercedes S550.”

“Did you notify the authorities in Mexico and ask them to look for her?”

“Not yet. Do you think I should?”

“How bad off is her husband?”

The nurse bit her lip. “Pretty bad,” she answered.

“In that case,” Brandon said, “if I were you, I’d make that call.”

CHAPTER 24

NOW SHINING FALLS, WHO WAS neither all asleep nor all awake, lay in a place where the water was very deep. She was not able to move much, but she still held Little White Feather tightly in her hand.

Evil Giantess came to look for the girl, but Owl was free. His feet were no longer tangled in her hair. Owl spread his wings over the water and made it very dark so Evil Giantess could not see Shining Falls lying beneath it.

Finally Evil Giantess gave up and went away.

The next morning the White-­Winged Doves went to the village and called and called. At last Shining Falls’s mother heard them call and followed them to the big water hole, which is always full of water. It was daytime when they arrived, so Owl was asleep.

The mother of Shining Falls looked everywhere for her child but could not find her. She could not understand why the doves had brought her there.

HENRY ROJAS’S SHIFT THAT DAY was pure agony, primarily because he’d had so little sleep the night before. A ­couple of times during those endless hours, he had tucked himself into out-­of-­the-­way spots in hopes of grabbing a power nap, but sleep wouldn’t come. As soon as he tried closing his eyes, images of those two bullet-­ridden bodies danced in his head. The only thing that made them disappear was reopening his eyes.

Finally off work, Henry was tired to the bone, far too weary to drive straight into town. He thought about stopping by the garage to check on things but nixed that idea immediately. Instead, he went home to shower—­and to think. With Lucy over at the hospital working the night shift, he stood under the shower for a good long time.

He had connected with Jane Dobson years earlier through somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody else. He met with her periodically or stopped by the house to drop off goods and pick up cash. The woman lived in a nondescript house in a marginal neighborhood. Nevertheless, she seemed to have more money than God. She struck him as a sweet little old lady with silver hair who wore colorful dresses, got around with the aid of a walker, and depended on a portable oxygen tank. How was it possible for someone who looked so harmless to be so ruthless? Yes, the José brothers knew too much and they had to go, but still, the idea that Jane had ordered their deaths without so much as blinking an eye came as a shock.

Henry had always let Jane think she was the only game in town. That wasn’t entirely true. He had developed a second thriving side business specializing in smuggled prescription drugs. Occasionally, when the meds arrived in his hands before they could be passed along to the buyer, he kept them stored in a safe in his garage out at the airport, along with a growing stash of greenbacks and a number of weapons. He knew that if anyone ever took a close look at the guns, they would lead straight back to what the newspapers were always referring to as “Fast and Furious weapons.”

One of the benefits of being on the Border Patrol’s front lines, especially as a patrol supervisor, meant that Henry knew what was going on and could make the best of it. He was the one who posted patrol schedules, so it was easy for him to work around them. He also didn’t believe for a minute that he was the only member of the Border Patrol who earned way more money on the side than he did on the up and up.