The kitchen was immediately behind the bar. There was a large oven in the center, two stoves on either side, two large refrigerators, a freezer and two workstations. All were clean and shining, waiting for the next day’s business.
She left the kitchen and returned to the bar area. As she did, she heard someone fitting a key into the lock on the outer door.
The housekeeping staff was here.
She turned and raced up the stairs, slipping into her room just as the outer door opened.
She leaned against her own door, breathing hard.
Then she heard another door closing somewhere down the hallway.
Whose?
She couldn’t tell. She went back to bed, hoping for a few more hours of sleep.
Sage did not come again that night. Jane closed her eyes and wondered what lay beneath the trapdoor in the dressing room. Tomorrow, she would tell Sloan what had happened. They would get Henri’s permission to see what was beneath the floor.
It took a while for her to sleep, but at last she did.
She woke a few hours later and saw that it was 8:00 a.m. It wasn’t as though she was on a schedule; she now had a car. She could drive herself down to the station. She supposed, with a sense of wry humor, that she didn’t want to look like a slacker. She wanted Sheriff Sloan Trent’s respect. And she wanted him to like her. She liked him. She more than liked him. She felt a sweet rush of fever when she was near him, the urge to reach over and stroke his hair, run her fingers down his cheek, explore the movement of his muscles....
It had been years since she’d felt so attracted to a man. And now was not the time to feel this way. She loved her work. And she was here for just a short while....
Crazy. This was crazy. Even time itself seemed crazy. Maybe that was it; she’d barely arrived and so much had already happened. Not only that, so much had happened between the two of them....
She walked into the bathroom to start off with a shower. She stepped in, turning the water up to a nice hot level. She leaned against the tile, looking down—and stared incredulously.
Something red was mingling with the water and going down the drain.
Blood.
And it was coming from her feet.
*
Sloan rode Roo out to the replica Apache village along the trail.
Crime-scene tape still roped off the tepee where Jay Berman had been found. Sloan sank down and inspected the site; the crime-scene unit had been thorough. They were good at what they did, Sloan knew, so he didn’t know what he could find. There certainly weren’t going to be any useful prints, so he was really hoping, more than anything else, that he might figure out where Berman had been before his murder.
He rose, thinking about their present location and what was nearby. He wasn’t even sure how the victim—and his killer—had gotten out here.
They’d probably ridden. He made a mental note to ask about Ray Berman’s clothing, although the report would contain any of the information they needed on trace evidence. But if they had ridden here, had they come together?
Why come here at all?
There was nothing at the Apache village that could relate to the past; it had been created as an educational site. Yes, it had been created by Apaches, but that was only a few years ago. Before that, it had been a patch of sand with a few rocks and scrub and cacti.
He walked out of the tepee. Someone had dug up a body from the past—and murdered Berman. Why? Why leave the old body to be seen and Berman back in the tepee? To torment the police? Or someone else?
He stood outside looking around. Then he mounted Roo and rode around the village, studying his surroundings.
Not far back on the trail was the sealed entrance to an old silver mine. No one even knew where the one vein of gold had been found, and the silver had long ago run out.
Berman’s killing, the nature of it, was something you might expect in a big city, where mob, drug and gang violence existed.
He’d been from the city. One of the biggest cities in the world.
Sloan rode back to the sealed entrance to the silver mine. Dismounting, he moved to the entrance. Years ago, to prevent the unwary from going inside to explore and dying in a cave-in, the entrance had been dynamited shut.
Walking over, he inspected it. At first, all the rocks in front seemed to be as solidly in place as ever. He continued to poke at them and test them.
At the far right of the rock pile, he found a loose boulder. He shifted it—and it rolled free.
He stared into the darkness, wondering if the rock had just worked its way loose with time or if someone had been using the cavern for illicit purposes.
But what?
Silver and gold were part of the past. Lily survived on tourism now. Ranches dotted the area, but everyone needed the tourists.
As he stood there, his phone rang. It was Jane.
He felt a rush of heat as he heard her voice.
“Hey, Sheriff, you coming into the office anytime soon?”
“Yeah, I’m coming in. I asked Betty to let you know I’d be late.”
“You’re out at the crime scene?”
“Yes.”
“Anything?”
“Not directly.” He hesitated. “Why?”