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Twenty feet. Ten. Close enough now to see it was definitely artificial—branches woven together with fabric to create a concealed observation post.
Then, in one quick movement, she drew her weapon and turned toward the blind. "Police!" she called. "If anyone's in there, identify yourself immediately!"
No answer. Kari waited, a vein thrumming hard in her neck.
"I know you're there!" she said sharply. "Come out now!"
This time there was movement inside the blind, followed by a voice—male, nervous. "Don't shoot! I'm unarmed!"
"Come out slowly," Kari commanded, keeping her weapon raised. "Hands where I can see them."
The blind's covering parted, and a man emerged—mid-thirties, with sandy hair, wearing khakis and a field vest covered in pockets. His hands were raised, one holding what looked like an expensive camera.
"I'm not armed," he repeated. "I'm a researcher."
"On your knees," Kari ordered. "Hands on your head."
He complied immediately. "My name's Michael Burnham. I'm an anthropologist from NAU. I can explain."
"I'm sure you can," Kari said, keeping her weapon trained on him while she radioed Maria. "I've got someone. Unarmed, cooperating. Come to my position."
She could hear Maria responding, could hear her partner crashing through the brush, but her focus remained on Burnham. Up close, she could see his vest pockets were full of notebooks, measurement tools, what looked like archaeological supplies.
"What are you doing out here?" she asked.
"Documenting," Burnham said. "The petroglyphs, the ceremonial sites. Before they're destroyed."
"You have permission to be here?"
His hesitation was answered enough. "It's complicated."
Maria arrived, slightly winded. "This our killer?"
"I haven't killed anyone!" Burnham protested. "I'm trying to prevent killing—cultural killing. The destruction of irreplaceable historical sites."
Maria checked him quickly for weapons, but didn't find any.
"You can get up," Kari told him. "But keep your hands visible, Dr. Burnham."
"Just mister," he corrected, standing slowly. "I'm ABD—all but dissertation."
"What exactly are you documenting?" Kari asked, nodding toward the blind.
Burnham's passion overtook his nervousness. "Everything. Every petroglyph, every ceremonial marker, every sacred site along the proposed pipeline route. I've been creating a comprehensive record that proves this area should be protected under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act."
"Without permission from the tribal authorities," Kari said.
"They wouldn't give it!" Burnham said. "Too much politics, too much pressure from both sides. Meanwhile, surveying continues, sites get damaged by equipment and foot traffic. Someone had to document what's here before it's lost forever."
"How long have you been doing this?" Kari asked.
"Three months. Mostly at night or early morning to avoid detection." He gestured toward the wash. "Those cairns you found? I've been marking locations of particular significance. Each object represents a different type of site—military history, trade routes, ceremonial spaces."
"You've been here at night," Maria said slowly. "Did you see anything unusual? Anyone else documenting or visiting these sites?"
Burnham's expression shifted. "Actually, yes. There's been someone else. A woman, I think. I've seen her at several locations, always very late or very early. She performs some kind of ritual—burning herbs, leaving offerings."
Kari and Maria exchanged glances. "Can you describe her?"
"Professional looking, not what you'd expect for someone conducting ceremonies. Business clothes sometimes, like she'd come straight from work."
Kari made a note of this. "We'd like you to come down to the station and answer a few more questions."
"I'll cooperate fully," Burnham said quickly. "I have nothing to do with those murders. I'm trying to preserve, not destroy."
As they walked him back to their vehicles, Kari couldn't shake the feeling that they'd just found another piece of the puzzle. Burnham's secret documentation project put him at these sites regularly, gave him intimate knowledge of the area, and potentially made him a witness to Rodriguez's activities—or someone else's.
Time would tell whether they'd caught a witness or another suspect. But either way, the night's work had provided new leads in a case that seemed to twist with every revelation
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Danny Torres had been a security guard for fifteen years, the last three with Sunburst Energy, and he'd dealt with everything from drunk teenagers using construction sites as party spots to hardcore eco-terrorists trying to sabotage million-dollar equipment.
But these ritual murders had him jumpier than anything he'd faced before.
"Just another night," he muttered to himself, climbing out of his company truck to begin his final patrol of the evening. The dashboard clock read 10:47 PM, late enough that most protesters had gone home but early enough that the real troublemakers might still be active.
His supervisor, Carl Finkley, had held an emergency meeting that morning after the news broke about the second body. The whole thing had been picked up by national media now, with CNN running a segment about "Ancient Curses and Modern Conflict" that made Danny want to throw his remote at the TV.
"I don't care what the news says about curses and ceremonies," Carl had told the assembled security team. "Your job is to protect company property and document any suspicious activity. But—" and here his voice had taken on an edge Danny had never heard before, "—nobody patrols alone anymore. Always in pairs, always in radio contact."
Except tonight Danny was alone because his partner Rick had called in sick with what sounded suspiciously like a hangover, and Carl needed coverage more than he needed to follow his own rules. The overtime pay was too good to pass up, and besides, Danny had his radio, his flashlight, and the .38 revolver he was licensed to carry.
What could go wrong?
He started his rounds at Station 7, where survey equipment worth about thirty thousand dollars sat locked in a reinforced cage. The locks were intact, no signs of tampering. He made his notes on the clipboard—old school, but Carl didn't trust tablets in the field—and moved on.
The night was cooler than recent days, a hint that autumn might eventually arrive despite the desert's stubborn grip on summer. Danny had grown up in Phoenix, but his wife Eleanor had convinced him to take the job up here in Flagstaff when their daughter started showing signs of asthma. The higher elevation and cleaner air had worked wonders for little Sofia, now six and starting first grade at Sacred Heart Elementary.
Station 8 was also secure, though Danny noticed fresh graffiti on a nearby rock: "BLOOD FOR BLOOD" in red spray paint. He photographed it with his phone, made another note. The company would send a cleanup crew in the morning, but by afternoon, there'd probably be new graffiti to replace it.
As he drove between stations, Danny thought about how much had changed since the murders started. Before, the protesters had been almost polite in their opposition—signs and chants and the occasional attempt to block access roads. Now, there was an edge of real menace in the air. Yesterday someone had left a deer carcass at the main gate of the field office, its throat slit and herbs stuffed in its mouth in what Danny assumed was a grotesque imitation of the murders.
"Sick bastards," he said aloud, then immediately felt bad. Eleanor would have scolded him for the language, even alone in his truck. She was trying to break him of his cursing habit—Sofia had already picked up a few choice words that she liked to surprise them with.
Station 9 sat near a cluster of petroglyphs, the ancient symbols barely visible in the wash of his headlights. The company had been forced to route around this area after the tribal council raised hell, but survey stakes still dotted the perimeter like fluorescent flowers. Danny had to walk about fifty yards from where he parked to reach the equipment cage, his flashlight beam cutting through the darkness.
His radio crackled with static, making him jump. He waited for a transmission, but nothing came through. Just atmospheric interference, probably. The high desert played havoc with electronics sometimes.
The equipment at Station 9 was secure, but as Danny turned to head back to his truck, his flashlight beam caught something in the sandy soil—footprints that definitely hadn't been there during his 7 PM rounds. Fresh ones, with a distinctive tread pattern that looked like hiking boots.
He keyed his radio. "Base, this is Mobile 3. I've got fresh tracks at Station 9. Probably nothing, but I'm going to look around."
More static, then Carl's voice, tinny and distant: "Copy that, Mobile 3. You want backup?"
Danny considered it. The smart move would be to wait, but the tracks might belong to some kid with a spray paint can, and he'd feel stupid calling in the cavalry for a teenager. "Negative, Base. Just going to do a quick perimeter check."
"Your call. Keep me posted."
He followed the tracks with his flashlight, noting how they circled the equipment cage before heading toward the petroglyphs. Definitely suspicious—protesters often targeted the ancient sites for photo ops, posing with signs about protecting sacred land. Good for social media, bad for Danny's paperwork.
The trail led him around a large sandstone formation, and his flashlight beam swept across more petroglyphs—spirals and humanoid figures and shapes that might have been animals or might have been something else entirely. Danny had grown up Catholic, didn't really believe in native spirits and curses, but something about those ancient carvings always made him uneasy. They seemed to watch, to judge, to find him wanting.
A sound behind him made him spin around, hand moving instinctively to his weapon. His flashlight beam cut through the darkness, revealing—
"Shit, you scared me," Danny said, relaxing as he recognized the figure. His hand dropped from his gun. "What are you doing out here?"
A smile. "Sorry, Danny. Didn't mean to startle you."
"No worries," Danny said, turning back toward the petroglyphs. "But seriously, you shouldn't be out here. It's not safe with everything that's going on. Did you see anyone else around? I found fresh tracks—"
The blow came from behind. Danny's vision exploded into stars, his knees buckling as his flashlight tumbled from nerveless fingers. He tried to turn, tried to cry out, but a second impact sent him sprawling face-first into the sand.
The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was a voice, soft and regretful: "I'm sorry, Danny. But the ceremony requires specific participants. And you've been chosen."
His radio crackled again, Carl's voice calling for a status update. But Danny couldn't answer, couldn't move, couldn't do anything but lie there as footsteps circled him, as hands began tugging at his limbs.
Above them, the ancient petroglyphs watched with eyes carved by hands dead for centuries, bearing witness to another chapter in a story that had begun long before Danny Torres was born and would continue long after his part in it ended.
The desert night swallowed all sounds—the static of the radio, the whisper of ceremonial preparations, the last struggling breaths of a security guard who'd simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Or perhaps, from another perspective, exactly the right place at exactly the right time
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The fluorescent lights in Interview Room 3 had developed an annoying flicker sometime around midnight, adding to the headache building behind Kari's temples. She'd lost count of how many cups of coffee she'd consumed, but the caffeine had stopped helping hours ago. Across the table, Michael Burnham looked equally exhausted, weary cooperation replacing his earlier enthusiasm to share his research.
"Let's go through it one more time," Kari said, her voice hoarse from hours of questioning. "Tuesday morning, between 4 and 7 AM. Where were you?"
Burnham rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Same answer as the last three times you asked. I was at the Motel 6 off Route 89, room 237. Asleep. Alone. No witnesses because most people are in bed, asleep, at 4 AM, just as I was."
"All night?" Maria asked from her position by the door. They'd been switching off, one questioning while the other observed, looking for inconsistencies in Burnham's story. So far, they'd found none.
Burnham sighed wearily. "Yes, all night."
Kari flipped through the printouts of Burnham's photographs—hundreds of images showing petroglyphs, ceremonial markers, landscape features. His laptop had yielded a treasure trove of data about the pipeline route, all meticulously organized and annotated. If he was their killer, he'd done an exceptional job maintaining his cover identity.
"This photo here," she said, sliding an image across the table. "You took this at Cold Water Canyon on September 2nd. Five days before Jake Monroe was killed at the exact same location."
"I've documented over forty sites along the pipeline route," Burnham said wearily. "Yes, I was at Cold Water Canyon. Also at Willow Springs, Echo Wash, Rabbit Ridge, and a dozen other places where nobody got murdered. Are those off limits too?"
Maria and Kari exchanged glances. It was a fair point—one Maria had been making for the past hour. Burnham's presence at future crime scenes proved opportunity, but his presence at many more spots that weren’t crime scenes suggested coincidence rather than planning.
"The woman you photographed," Maria said, pulling out the image Burnham had inadvertently captured. "Tell us about her again."
"Professional looking, like I said. Dark hair, business clothes. She was at the petroglyph site around 5 AM on August 28th." Burnham studied the photo, though the woman's face was turned away from the camera. "She had a small bag with her—I assumed it was offerings. Herbs, maybe corn pollen. I've seen traditional practitioners leave similar items."
"But she didn't seem traditional," Kari pressed.
"No. Everything about her seemed... studied. Like someone following instructions from a book rather than cultural knowledge." He looked up. "Is she your suspect? Is that who you're really after?"
Kari didn't answer. They'd been careful not to reveal anything about Rodriguez or their investigation beyond what was necessary to question Burnham. But his observations aligned disturbingly well with their profile of someone using corrupted ceremonial knowledge.
"I need a break," Kari said, standing abruptly. The room felt too small, the air too recycled. "Maria, you good to continue?"
Her partner nodded, sliding into Kari's vacated chair with the smooth efficiency of long practice. As Kari left, she heard Maria beginning another round of questions about Burnham's documentation methods.
The hallway outside the interview rooms was blessedly quiet, the night shift skeleton crew keeping the station running with minimal fuss. Kari leaned against the wall, closing her eyes and trying to organize her jumbled thoughts. They had two strong suspects—Rodriguez, with her false credentials and suspicious behavior, and Burnham, with his unauthorized research and presence at crime scenes. But neither felt quite right for these ritual murders.
"Detective Blackhorse?"
She opened her eyes to find Officer Begay approaching with a fresh cup of coffee. "Thought you might need this," he said, offering the mug.
"Bless you," Kari said, accepting it gratefully. The coffee was terrible—burnt and bitter—but it was hot and caffeinated. "Any word from Houston?"
He nodded. "I didn't want to interrupt you. Houston PD called about an hour ago with an update on Rodriguez. Left a detailed message with dispatch."
"Thanks," Kari said, taking a sip of the coffee and heading toward the dispatch office.
The dispatcher, Janet Yazzie—the captain's cousin, as half the department seemed to be related to each other in some way—handed her a sheet of notes.
Kari scanned the notes quickly. Rodriguez was in custody, talking freely, claiming to be a potential victim rather than a suspect. The details were sparse, but it seemed she was offering explanations for everything they'd found suspicious about her.
"Can you get Houston back on the line?" Kari asked. "I need more details."
"Sure thing." Janet began dialing while Kari found an empty desk in the bullpen.
The call connected after a few rings. "Detective Ruiz, Houston PD."
"Detective Blackhorse, Navajo Nation Police. I understand you have Elena Rodriguez in custody?"
"That's right. Your person of interest has been extremely cooperative. Been talking our ears off for the past two hours."
"And?"
"She's in full self-preservation mode. Claims she received death threats—real ones this time, not the vague ones she told you about." Ruiz paused. "She's practically begging to stay in protective custody."
"What about her fake credentials?"
"She admits to padding her resume. The master's degree is fake, yes. But she claims the gap year studying indigenous cultures is real—just informal. Living with a family in Taos, learning by observation rather than academic study. Says she can provide names, contacts."
"The GPS data placing her at the crime scenes?"
Ruiz paused. "This is where it gets interesting. She admits to visiting those locations multiple times. Says she was conducting her own informal surveys, trying to understand why these particular sites were so significant to protesters. Claims she was building a case for rerouting the pipeline to avoid the most sensitive areas."
"Without telling her employers," Kari said skeptically.
"She says Sunburst would have fired her for even suggesting major route changes. So she was gathering evidence quietly, planning to present it as a cost-benefit analysis—avoid the most sacred sites to reduce protests and delays."
Kari took a long sip of coffee, processing this information. "It's plausible. Fits with her liaison role, trying to find middle ground."
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