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She stopped the limo. The driver got out. The back window buzzed down and this time Max Conroy spoke for himself. He wanted to go with them; he was worried about his wife.

“Why were you pounding on the window?”

Inside the limo, he shrugged those ripped shoulders of his. “Saw someone I knew.”

The other guy, small, stocky, a Special Forces type, sat very close to Conroy. It was a big space, the back of the limo, plenty of places to sit and stretch out, but these two were joined at the hip.

She also thought there was a bruise on Conroy’s face. Maybe it was just grime, but Tess thought it was a bruise.

She unsnapped the strap to her holster and kept her right hand near her weapon.

“Out of the car. Now.”

They complied. Conroy and the guy with him still joined at the hip. Guy’s hand on his arm.

“License and registration?” The driver handed it to her. His name was Hogart, and the limo belonged to a leasing company in Phoenix.

“Have we broken any laws?” Hogart asked, after she came back from her cruiser, having run the plate.

“No, sir.”

“Good. Then we’ll be leaving.”

Tess looked at the guy. Max Conroy, the movie star.

Whatever else this was, it was a lie. There was no Sally “uh, Dorman,” she of the fictional baby and the fictional hospital.

Tess moved fast, pulling Max around and walking him to the back fender and shoving him down against it. Secured him with cuffs. “Anything in your pockets?” she demanded.

He shook his head. She patted him down, careful with the pockets, worried about needles. Movie stars had been known to shoot up.

“Hey, what is this?” yelled Hogart.

Tess ignored him and said to her prisoner, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”

“Look, this is a misunderstanding,” Hogart said, coming close to invading her space.

She drew her weapon and held it by her side. “Back up. Place your hands on your head.”

He complied. Quickly, automatically.

“On your knees.”

He sank to his knees immediately. Either he had really good knees, or he was used to taking the position.

“This man is under arrest. You are free to go.”

“What’s he charged with?”

“Are you interfering with the lawful duties of a duly sworn sheriff’s deputy?” she said.

He backed off, as she knew he would. The two men got back into the limo and drove away. By then, Tess had her prisoner in the backseat of her cruiser.

And she didn’t know what to do with him.

“So you put him in jail,” Pat said.

“Safest place I could think of.”

“That place has more holes than the Alamo.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think those guys were gonna come storming in.”

“You know they’ll be back.”

“Not much I can do about it. At least I bought him some time.”

“You have any idea what they wanted?”

“Nope.”

“And Hogart?”

“No wants or warrants. Same with the other guy.”

“License number?”

Here we go again , Tess thought. He never tired of the game. She reeled the plate number off.

“What did Hogart’s license say?”

She rattled off the info on his driver’s license: five foot nine, one sixty, brown and brown, restricted to corrective lenses, his domicile in Flagstaff. She gave him the address.

“Wish I could get you on Jeopardy! We could split the winnings. You run Hogart?”

She nodded. “Works for the Desert Oasis Healing Center in Sedona.”

“ Healing center? One of those fancy-dancy places where celebrities go for the cure?”

“Maybe Max didn’t want to be there anymore.”

“You think they’d try to make him stay?”

“I have no idea.”

Chapter Six

The Desert Oasis Healing Center

GORDON WHITE EAGLE didn’t spook easily. He was a master at assessing people—that was his stock in trade. But this one, the twelve-year-old kid…

Scared him.

Maybe it was the eyes. They were predator’s eyes, which didn’t surprise Gordon at all, because the boy’s mother was more wolf than human. Two nights ago, he’d dreamed about her, that he was trapped in a deep fissure in the earth, his body impossibly broken, and she was staring down at him behind dark glasses, her face impassive.

Gordon White Eagle paid attention to dreams.

Funny, but he couldn’t remember, during his interactions with Shaun over the last three years, if she’d ever mentioned a kid. He’d always assumed she was childless.

He shrugged. She lived in LA, and had done only a few jobs for him. She kept her private life private. Maternity aside, she was here now. And he needed her.

First thing, he gave them the tour. Gordon took every opportunity to show the place off to his visitors, even though Shaun had been there many times. But the boy, Jimmy, barely looked up from fiddling with his phone.

“Can’t he stop texting for one minute?”

“He’s not bothering anybody.”

“He’s bothering me . I don’t want him texting his friends. This is a private conversation.”

“He won’t.” She looked at Jimmy. “You won’t text your friends about where we are or what we’re doing. Do you get that?”

He nodded dismissively, still thumbing the phone like a virtuoso.

Gordon didn’t trust him. He bent down from his six-foot-four height and put his hands on his knees. “How’d you like to go for a swim, young man? Danny here can fix you up.” He nodded to their attendant, a burnished Adonis in white linen drawstring pants and huaraches.

Danny, an actor studying his lines for the part of an Australian cow farmer at the Clarkdale Dinner Theatre, was still in character. He said, “Off we go, moyte ,” and steered Jimmy toward the cabanas.

The kid taken care of, Gordon led the way to a table shielded from the sun by a royal palm. “As I told you, things have changed.”

Shaun said nothing, just stared at the vista. And why not? It was a beautiful vista. Most of the Desert Oasis was tucked away along a stream, but there was one place—it took some walking to get to—that yielded a limited view of the Verde Valley. An infinity pool, like a plane of dark glass, mirrored the massive mountains above and delineated the sheer drop-off to the valley below.

Gordon said, “Our erstwhile friend has flown the coop. Taken a powder. Made tracks, so to speak.”

Shaun stared impassively at him from behind her Dolce & Gabbana aviators. Gordon shivered despite the heat. She always made him nervous. “Apparently, he bribed one of the laundry crew to drive him out in his truck.”

Shaun said nothing. There was no curiosity at all. He realized for the hundredth time that she was a beautiful woman but she left him cold.

She had perfect features. A model’s cheekbones and a model’s posture. But Gordon, who was naturally attracted to pretty much every woman on earth, no matter how dumpy or plain, shuddered at the thought of fucking this one.

It wasn’t that she came off a bit mannish. It wasn’t even that god-awful haircut, a man’s haircut, what you’d call a “fade,” clipped close to her skull.

No. Sex, no matter if it was with one of the maids from housekeeping or an alcoholic socialite or the hottest movie star in LA, was special to him. Performance art in the sweetest possible way. But he knew, with this woman, it would just be…mating.

Shaun finally spoke. “What did Max see?”

Gordon didn’t know for sure if Max Conroy saw anything . And frankly, it was a side issue. The fact that he saw anything at all was only relevant to the fact that it might have spurred him to leave.