Elle James - Thunder Horse Heritage

Tuck ducked beneath the tape and flashed his credentials to get past the battery of Sioux County deputies and Standing Rock tribal policemen.

Once inside the perimeter, Josh hurried forward to the crime-scene technicians and exchanged a few words.

Tuck hung back, his gaze panning the area, his investigative eye noting everything that could be considered evidence. There wasn’t much to go on. Based on the lack of blood spatter, the agent and the woman had been murdered elsewhere and their bodies dumped here, probably by boat. The sheriff’s deputies would be checking for anyone who might have seen a boat pull close to shore. But as dark as it was, if the boat didn’t have a light, no one would have seen a thing.

When Behling stepped back, Tuck caught his first glimpse of the dead woman.

Tuck’s breath caught in his throat and his heart jammed in his chest so hard it hurt, a foggy haze settling around the edges of his vision.

Pushing back pain, Tuck sucked in a deep breath, his feet carrying him forward as if he was walking through quicksand. He had to be seeing things that weren’t there. It couldn’t be her. “Do you have a positive ID on the woman?” he asked, his voice echoing in his head.

The medical examiner looked up at Tuck, his brows raised questioningly. “You have a need to know?”

“It’s okay,” Behling said. “He’s another special agent.”

Tuck moved closer, his gaze fixed on the body. “Jesus.” He closed his eyes, pressure squeezing his chest tight. “I know her.” He opened his eyes and stared down at the lifeless remains of the woman he’d met a little more than a year ago here at Fort Yates.

Behling’s head jerked in his direction, his brow furrowing. “You know her?”

Tuck nodded. “That’s Julia Anderson. She was my wife.”

Chapter Two

An hour later, Tuck sat on the side of the bed in his hotel room at the casino, staring at his hands. What the hell had just happened? He was on his way home for a week off—he’d never planned to spend his vacation finding out who had murdered a woman he’d been married to for a grand total of forty-eight hours.

Behling left him at his door, claiming he had a mound of paperwork and calls to make and that he’d check in with Tuck the next morning when Rick would take them back to Bismarck.

Relieved to have a chance for some time to himself, Tuck had assured Behling he would be fine and needed the rest and an opportunity to think…alone.

Except for the blood staining her chest, Julia looked the same as the last time he’d seen her on their wedding night—what he could remember of it. Long blond hair and pale blue eyes, a slender build, rounded, firm breasts. She’d been a beauty then and was just as beautiful in death. Had they met any other way…had they tried to make their farce of a marriage stick…this scenario might have had a completely different ending.

Over a year had passed since their last correspondence—the annulment papers delivered by courier to his apartment door on his day off.

His head dropped into his open palms, the terrible nature of Julia’s death weighing him down. Who had killed her?

The cell phone lying on the bed beside him buzzed. He checked the caller ID—Dante. He didn’t bother answering the call. What could Tuck say to his brother? Hi, I’m in Fort Yates and just got through viewing my ex-wife’s remains.

His brothers didn’t even know he’d married. He’d been too embarrassed to tell anyone. He’d been to a bachelor party for a friend and had been so sauced when he’d met Julia, he hadn’t been thinking clearly. After dancing with her for two hours straight, they’d ended up in his hotel room, making love until early into the next day. Still high on alcohol and sex, they’d run out to the justice of the peace, obtained a wedding license and tied the knot at the quaint little wedding chapel in Fort Yates. As the alcohol wore off and exhaustion set in, they returned to his hotel room, where they collapsed and slept through the rest of the day and night.

When Tuck had woken the next morning, Julia had been gone, leaving a note with an apology and no forwarding address. She’d filed for an annulment immediately, and their union had been dissolved. Just like that.

When his cell phone quit ringing, Tuck glanced at it, remembering the “911” text message from earlier that day before…well, before everything. Behling’s call, the quick trip to Fort Yates and the murders had made him forget to follow through, but now the contents of the message came back to him in a rush.

Could the message have been from Julia? His heart skipped several beats as he dialed the number in the message. Could it have been the last text message Julia had sent before she’d been brutally murdered? He opened the text screen and a phone number flashed up at him. With a sense of dread, he pressed the number, engaging the dialing capability.

After several rings, someone answered. Or at least Tuck thought someone clicked the talk button. The ringing had stopped, but no one spoke.

“Hello?” Tuck waited in case the connection was bad. Reception in the far reaches of North Dakota was scarce if not nonexistent. “Hello?”

“Tuck? Tuck Thunder Horse?” a feminine voice asked in a whisper.

A hint of recognition tugged at Tuck’s consciousness and his heart rate kicked up a notch. “Speaking.”

“It’s J-Julia.”

All the air left Tuck’s lungs as if someone had sucker punched him. “Julia?” How could it be Julia? She was dead, her body taken to the Fort Yates morgue. He’d identified the body himself. His stomach gurgled and twisted.

“I need to see you,” the woman said.

Tuck ran a hand through his hair. Who the hell was this? Why was she impersonating a dead woman? His grip tightened on the phone as anger forged through him. He tamped it down and feigned ignorance of what he’d witnessed earlier. “When? Where?” His voice was gruffer than he’d intended, a lump knotting in his throat.

“Are you in North Dakota?” she asked.

His lips thinned. “As a matter of fact, I am. Just flew into Bismarck a couple hours ago and made a quick run south to Fort Yates.”

She made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “Oh, thank God.”

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“No. No, nothing is all right.”

Tuck couldn’t agree with her more. Anyone with the gall to pass herself off as a dead woman wasn’t firing on all cylinders. “Tell me where you are.”

“In Fort Yates.” Her words were spoken carefully, as if she was afraid to give away too much.

“Where in Fort Yates? I’ll see what I can do to get there.”

“I can’t tell you. Tell me where you are and I’ll meet you.”

“I’m at the casino.”

After a long pause, she whispered, “Meet me in fifteen minutes at the marina below the casino. Come alone.”

Alone. Tuck’s sense of self-preservation tensed. She could be setting him up. But for what? Hell, at this point did it matter? He wanted to know her game. “It’s dark. How will I find you?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find you.”

Before he could question her further, the line clicked in his ear.

His emotions still raw from seeing the woman he’d married on a whim lying dead on the shore of Lake Oahe, Tuck’s blood ran cold then hot, blazing through his veins like fast-flowing molten lava. How dared she? How dared this stranger call claiming to be Julia, when Julia lay dead?

He checked his watch and headed out the door. The walk to the marina from the hotel wouldn’t take long, five minutes max. That would give him ten minutes to watch for her to arrive if she wasn’t already there.

His stride ate the distance. Part of him wanted to notify Josh of the phone call, but something in the