Free Before Sunrise by Diana Palmer Page B

hand absently smoothed the sleeping child’s back. He stared ahead of him without seeing anything. “She lives in a dangerous place, so far out of town.”
    â€œI’ve got the guys doing extra patrols,” Drake said. “She knows how to shoot. I think if her life depended on it, she would use it to protect herself.”
    â€œShe’d shoot to wound an attacker and she’d be dead in seconds,” he said flatly.
    â€œYou’re full of cheer,” Drake said with faint sarcasm.
    Those coal-black eyes pierced his face. “Why did he call her?” he asked abruptly. “Why not go to the state authorities or local law enforcement…why Phoebe?”
    Drake frowned. “Well…I don’t know.”
    Cortez lifted the sheet of paper again and studied it. His eyes narrowed. “He mentioned a daughter.”
    â€œThat’s about as much as we know about this John Doe,” Drake said grimly. “His fingerprints aren’t on file in any database. That’s the first thing we checked..”
    â€œI know. Our investigator ran them last night,” Cortez told him. “We drew a blank as well, and I won’t tell you how our criminalist convinced the lab to leapfrog over other pending cases to do ours.”
    â€œThe anthropologist was of Cherokee descent,” Drake reminded him. “That means he might have relatives on the Rez…”
    â€œThat’s an assumption. The larger part of your nation is in Oklahoma,” Cortez interrupted.
    Drake stopped speaking with his mouth still open. “That’s right!”
    â€œI live in Oklahoma,” Cortez murmured absently. “So we’re left with two questions. What the hell was he doing here, and where did he come from? Maybe he has a car, but in another state.”
    â€œThat’s a lead I’ll check out as soon as I get back towork. I’ll go see the tribal council, too,” Drake told him. “Maybe he’s got relatives in one of our clans. If so, the same clan in Oklahoma would know him, if he’s from there.”
    â€œGood thinking. One other thing we dug out,” Cortez added. “Someone staying at the motel saw a dark SUV parked outside the night of the murder. It hasn’t been seen since. You might have your colleagues keep an eye out…why are you laughing?”
    â€œI guess you haven’t noticed that every other vehicle in this county is an SUV,” Drake murmured. “They’re perfect for mountain driving, with four-wheel drive.”
    â€œDamn.” His broad chest rose and fell with a frustrated deep breath. The child made a murmur at the movement and then shifted his little body and went back to sleep. “There’s another possibility,” Cortez said after a minute, his heavy brows drawn together in thought. “We were told that a lot of Cherokee people work in construction around here. What if our visiting anthropologist was related to one of them?”
    Drake pursed his lips. “That’s possible. If I can track down his clan, I may be able to dig up a few relations here. I’ll get Marie to help. She is a bit of a talker, but she’s very smart, too. She and I together have more cousins on the Rez than our tribal council—and that’s saying something.”
    â€œMarie?”
    â€œMy cousin. She works for Miss Keller at the museum.”
    Cortez averted his eyes. “I remember her. She spoke Cherokee to me. I was…abrupt with her.”
    â€œSo I heard.”
    Cortez glanced toward the other man, who was smiling amusedly. “I hadn’t seen Phoebe in three years,” he said. “It was a difficult day.”
    Drake hesitated. “I don’t know you. Probably I’m going to tick you off for even asking. But Miss Keller is a unique woman…”
    Cortez turned his head and looked at the younger man.
    Drake held up a hand. The expression was like a loaded