Free Dance of the Bones by J. A. Jance Page A

more than anything, she wished she had kept the baby after all.
    The other thing about Bernadette Benson that had surprised John Lassiter was that, although she had let their child go, she had continued to love him no matter what. For years she had faithfully driven back and forth between Tucson and Florence once a week to spend a few short minutes talking to him through a plexiglass barrier. Bernadette’s visits had ceased abruptly in 1983 when she had been fatally injured in a late-­afternoon one-­car rollover on her way back home from the prison.
    John’s mind had drifted away. When he came back to the present, Aubrey Bayless was still talking.
    â€œAnd she be the one who been talking to them JFA folks about getting your ass sprung out of here. You should be givin’ her a chance to at least know you, man. Seems like you owe her that much.”
    John Lassiter had no idea how Amanda had reinserted herself into his life. He had refused to meet with her mostly because he was too ashamed to do so. He didn’t want to have to sit there, as a convicted killer, and look her in the eye. And he had no idea how or why she had managed to persuade the ­people from Justice for All to go to bat for him, but her efforts on his behalf hadn’t and wouldn’t make him change his mind about seeing her.
    The old Big Bad John would have jumped all over Aubrey and told him to give it a rest and mind his own damned business, but this John Lassiter was painfully aware of how much he depended on the kindness of this good-­hearted old man.
    â€œI’m not making any promises,” John said as Aubrey backed out of the cell and slammed the barred door shut behind him. “I’ll think about it.”

 
    CHAPTER 5
    YOUNG GIRL RAN BACK TO the village as fast as she could, but she was too late. Before she could sound an alarm, the Apaches were already there. The men who had been out working in the fields hurried to do battle while the women and children ran to hide.
    You must know, nawoj, my friend, that Ioligam, I ’ itoi ’ s sacred mountain, is full of caves. Because I ’ itoi lives in these caves, the Desert ­People usually stay away from them. The caves are Elder Brother ’ s quiet place, and the ­People do not want to bother him. But when there is danger, that is where they go.
    That day, as the Ohb descended on Rattlesnake Skull village, that ’ s where the women and children ran to hide —­ in one of the caves —­ and the cave they chose was the one where Young Man had been staying. When they found him there, knowing he was Ohb, they attacked him with clubs and beat him very badly even though Young Girl told them she loved him and begged them to leave him alone.
    The ­people of Rattlesnake Skull village were very angry when the Apaches stole all their food. And when the ­people learned that Young Man, an Ohb, had been living in one of I ’ itoi ’ s sacred caves and that Young Girl had been feeding him, they held a council to decide what they should do.
    BY THE TIME LANI, LEO, and Gabe set out walking, the sun had long since sunk past Ioligam’s summit, and that part of the mountain was already shrouded in shadow. Within a few steps, the white buildings atop the mountain that comprised Kitt Peak National Observatory disappeared from view.
    As Lani had warned, it was a steep climb. They might have been covered with sweat from exertion, but a chill wind blowing out of the east dried the moisture on their perspiring bodies as soon as it formed.
    Even though it had been years since she’d come this way, Lani could have led the way with her eyes closed. She walked past the path she knew would lead to the tiny entrance they had used to enter the cavern on that day so many years ago. She had awakened from a drugged stupor to find herself Mitch Johnson’s prisoner. She had traveled to the mountain with him and Quentin Walker, a man whom