Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [31]
Her big concern these days was DNA. She had gathered some individual hair from Erik’s hairbrush and one or two curly reddish stray pubic hairs from his bed. She left those in strategic spots where an alert medical examiner ought to be able to find them. What she didn’t want to do was leave any evidence of her own presence behind.
Erik LaGrange had committed the unpardonable. He had left Gayle rather than the other way around. Gayle was no longer furious with him over it. That had passed away from her sometime overnight, leaving her determined to extract the highest possible price. For her purposes, it was just as well this was happening in Arizona. Arizona was, after all, one of the few states where the death penalty remained in full operation. It was a place where death sentences were not only given but where they were also carried out, something that suited Gayle Stryker just fine, thank you very much. The death penalty was exactly what she had in mind for Erik LaGrange.
Brandon Walker woke up later than he had intended—well past nine. He dressed, poured a cup of coffee, and then went out on the patio, where he found Diana hard at work on her laptop. He tried tossing the ball for Damsel. Panting, she ignored the ball and stayed in the shade.
“What’s up with Damsel?” Brandon asked. “Is she sick?”
Diana laughed. “She’s spent the whole morning chasing butterflies and jets.”
It was one of the dog’s most endearing peculiarities. For some reason, from the time she had come into their lives, the dog had focused her attention on the shadows planes and butterflies left on the ground rather than on the moving objects themselves. Chasing shadows was a game she played by herself, often to the point of exhaustion.
“Dummy,” Brandon told the dog, giving the winded animal a loving pat on the head in passing. “When are you ever going to wise up?” He sat down next to Diana. “I’m going out to the reservation today,” he said to her. “To see Fat Crack. Want to come along?”
“I wish I could, but I’d better not,” Diana said. “My deadline’s actively ticking at this point.” She paused. “Lani’s worried about him. When you get back home, give her a call and let her know how he’s doing.”
“It won’t be good news,” Brandon said, sipping his coffee.
“You know that, and I know that,” Diana returned. “Deep down, Lani probably knows it, too. She understands how serious this is even more than the rest of us. Her biggest worry is that Fat Crack won’t last long enough for her to get home. She wants to be here for him.”
“Just like he was for her,” Brandon returned.
That fateful day on Ioligam was still seared in Brandon Walker’s memory. By the time he had arrived, Mitch Johnson, Lani’s kidnapper, was already dead. Lani had killed him. Brandon had hurried there expecting to retrieve his daughter and take her home. Fat Crack had blocked his way.
“Where is she?” Brandon demanded of his longtime friend. “Is she all right? Why isn’t she here?”
“Because she killed a man,” Gabe Ortiz returned quietly. “She has to stay by herself. She has to fast and eat no salted food and pray for sixteen days.”
“Sixteen days!” Brandon exclaimed. “Out here by herself? Are you nuts? What the hell are you thinking?”
“It’s what Lani’s thinking,” Gabe replied, “and that’s what counts. It’s what she wants to do. It’s what she has to do.”
Brandon had always known Lani was different, from the moment she had walked into his life as a toddler and wrapped her tiny fingers around his heart. It had hurt him when others called his baby Kuadagi Ke’e Al—the Ant-Bit Child, but that was the reason Lani was Brandon’s in the first place. According to Rita Antone, Lani’s blood relatives had refused to take her in because they were scared of her. They were convinced that because she had been singled out by I’itoi, she was a danger to her family members.