Lori Armstrong: Merciless

Guess he’d gotten quite an education for being such an expert .

Of course, I learned all this secondhand from Frances, the office manager, on my third day on the job at the FBI. She’d also shared the philosophy that when you work in Indian Country, all cases deal with crimes in Indian Country.

So far, I’d suffered with 95 percent office work, reading reports to familiarize myself with current events and cases. Nothing important had gone down since I’d punched the time clock as Special Agent Mercy Gunderson-not that I hoped for a horrific occurrence. But I hated sitting around talking about crap that’d never happen, wearing a gun I wasn’t allowed to shoot.

The stairwell door opened, and Turnbull popped his head in. “Briefing room.”

After a few moments I slipped into my chair, surrounded by a buzz of excitement. There was definitely something going on.

Director Shenker shuffled through a stack of papers as he entered the room. He glanced at the clock and stepped to the coffee center to fill his mug. “I’ve just been made aware of a situation on the Eagle River Reservation. The tribal police were brought in first, but given the sensitive nature, they’ve reached out to us for help.”

The latest departmental catchphrase touted the “new spirit of cooperation” on the Eagle River Reservation between the recently elected new tribal president, the newly promoted chief of the tribal police, and the “local” fresh Indian blood in the FBI-aka me.

“What’s the situation?” Agent Thomas asked. Technically, we weren’t assigned to specific reservations, but Agents Thomas and Burke worked the northwestern part of the state. Turnbull and I concentrated on the southwestern section, and Agents Mested and Flack dealt with the central section on the west side of the Missouri River. As the lone female agent in this office it was hard not to feel like I was just there to fill a quota.

Shenker pressed his thumb between his eyebrows. “Three days ago, seventeen-year-old Arlette Shooting Star disappeared. The tribal police instituted a search of the reservation and found nothing. The highway patrol joined in searching the surrounding area and found nothing, either.”

“No sign of her at all?”

“None. The last time her friends allegedly had contact with her was before lunch at the school on Friday. She did not report to her class after lunch. Her cell phone and her belongings were found in her locker.”

“Does she have a habit of disappearing?” Turnbull asked.

“No. She’s been living with her aunt and uncle on the Eagle River rez for the last year.”

“Where’d she live before that?” Mested asked.

Shenker flipped through the pages. “Standing Rock, in North Dakota. They’ve checked to see if she’s contacted anyone in that area, but no one is admitting they’ve seen or heard from her.”

“She has family on Standing Rock?”

“Shirttail relatives. She had to move to Eagle River after her mother died and her aunt was named her legal guardian.” Director Shenker put both hands on the conference table. “Here’s why it’s a sensitive situation. Arlette’s aunt is Triscell Elk Thunder, married to tribal president Latimer Elk Thunder.”

Silence. Then shifting in seats. No one spoke.

“And while the tribal president would like to avoid the appearance of impropriety, chances are, it’s inevitable.”

My thoughts rolled back to my nephew and how frantic I’d been after he’d been missing for only a few hours, not a few days. I’d tried to call out the cavalry, but no one had listened, so I understood Elk Thunder’s intention to do whatever it took to find her. Still, it bugged me. Three days is a long time in a missing persons case.

“What’s the plan?”

I glanced at Turnbull. The shrewd man defined rah-rah! FBI. The gleam in his eye indicated he was as antsy to get out of the office and into the field as I was.

“The plan is, you and Special Agent Gunderson will meet at the tribal police station at Eagle River first thing tomorrow morning. It’s too late to do anything today. I’ll pass along updates as needed. Any questions?”

“Will we be actively searching for the girl?” I felt Turnbull’s eyes on me. Due to a cosmic debt I owed to the universe for being brought back from the dead, I’d become a sort of divining rod for the newly dead. Since Turnbull had pointed out this phenomenon to me before we’d become coworkers, I needed to know what role I’d be playing in the investigation.

Again, Shenker shrugged. “I can’t honestly say what tack they’ll take. Make no mistake-you two will be there in a secondary, not primary, capacity.”

Agents Thomas and Burke stood, as did Agents Flack and Mested. At this point the case didn’t affect them.

But Shenker wasn’t finished. He gestured to the four men. “Not done with you guys. Turnbull and Gunderson, you’re free to go.”

Yippee.

Outside the conference room, Turnbull faced me. “You’ll be all right in the field tomorrow?”

“Yes. Will you?”

He frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

I flashed my teeth at him. “Because you’ve been benched babysitting me since I finished Quantico. Just want to make sure you remember field-duty protocol, since this is my virgin voyage.”

“Chances are high we’ll be sorting through paperwork, so don’t get excited you’ll actually get to pull your gun, Gunderson.”

“Dream crusher.”

Turnbull jammed his hands in his pockets as we waited for the elevator. “I don’t have to remind you not to talk about this case with Sheriff Dawson.”

Not a question. Dawson and I were living together. He and I shared the same trepidation about my going to work for the FBI. A lot of secrets, mistrust, and half-truths had existed between Dawson and me from our first meeting. Getting over that hurdle, learning to trust each other, learning to separate our jobs from who we were when the uniforms came off had been a big step in our personal life together. I hated having to withhold information from him, but the fact that he was forced to withhold information from me put us on the same level. Our jobs hadn’t created friction yet, but we were both aware it’d happen at some point.

“He’s bound to’ve heard about this missing girl,” Turnbull offered.

I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. He’s got today off.”

“So he’ll have supper waiting when you get home?”

I’d never get used to the rash of shit Turnbull gave me about Dawson, especially since when we’d first crossed paths, I’d denied anything was going on between the sheriff and me. “Why, Agent Turnbull. You sound… jealous.”

He snorted. “Of your hour-long drive to reach home? I’ll be fed, caught up on ESPN, and sweet-talking my most recent hookup into an encore before your truck turns up that bumpy goat path you call a driveway.”

“Enjoy your Hungry Man TV dinner.”

“I’m more of a Lean Cuisine guy.”

I shuddered. Prepackaged dinners reminded me I’d had enough MREs to last a lifetime.

“If you don’t hear from me, we’re on to meet at the tribal police station at oh eight hundred tomorrow,” he reminded me.

“Roger that.” We parted ways in the parking lot.

The drive from Rapid City to the Gunderson Ranch might seem like a dull trek to him, but I loved it. I needed time alone, which had become a rarity in my life, and the hour drive was enough to change a bad mood into one of anticipation.

Dawson and I had gotten into the habit of eating supper one night a week with my sister, Hope, Jake-the ranch foreman who’d officially become Hope’s husband four months ago-and their baby, Joy. My niece crawled as fast as a lightning bug and emitted babbling noises that sounded as if she was having a conversation with herself. I’d embraced being an aunt again, and I tried not to dwell on my morbid fears of how long it’d last this time.