“When was that?”
“About ten. Um...logged at ten eighteen, Chief.”
He glanced at the dash. It was past noon. Frasco Dosela had better be home on house arrest.
Gabe was already hitting the gas.
“Anything going on?” he asked, checking on the day’s activities.
“One thing. Officer Chee isn’t in yet.”
His patrolman had been on the force for less than a year, was green as grass, inexperienced, lacked confidence but he was punctual.
Gabe lifted the radio. “You call him?”
“Yes, Chief. Home and mobile. No answer.”
“Send a unit.”
“Ten-four.”
“Anything else?” Gabe asked.
“Pretty quiet.”
“All right. Keep me posted on Chee. Out.”
Wouldn’t be the first time someone missed a shift. Still, it wasn’t like him, and Gabe had that uncomfortable sensation that often preceded bad news. It sort of felt like there was a cold spot in his gut. He had that numbness now, though whether over his officer’s absence or Selena’s little mystery passenger he was not sure.
Gabe knew Selena’s route as well as he knew his own. The delivery of fresh baked goods took her around the entire 113-mile loop through the reservation and usually before ten in the morning.
She should have been done and home by now.
“Where you going, Selena?”
“Who are we meeting?” Selena asked her father as she hunched over the wheel of her box truck, her eyes flashing to the side mirrors as she periodically searched for Gabe.
“Escalanti’s men. They’re at the meth lab with a small delivery. Dryer, too.”
Matthew Dryer was the man from the Department of Corrections who was supposed to have put a tamper-proof anklet on her father. Instead, Dryer had given him the easy-on, easy-off model. Not standard issue.
Her father continued with the plan as Selena kept one hand on the wheel and the other clenched in her hair. How could this be happening?
“Eventually they need a regular run. Bring a few barrels of chemicals to the meth lab each week for production. Then transport the finished product from the lab down to Phoenix.”
“We can’t transport off the rez.”
The moment they rolled one tire off the reservation, they both lost their protected status as members of the Black Mountain Apache Tribe. Any crime they committed could be tried in state or federal court instead of in their own tribal judicial courts.
“Escalanti doesn’t give a damn about our protected status. Only his.”
Escalanti, the new leader of the Wolf Posse, had a reputation for never leaving the reservation. In fact, he rarely left the shabby house they called headquarters.
“So that guy from the Department of Corrections is Raggar’s man?”
Her father hesitated. “Yup.”
Her dad was an excellent liar, but he had that little tell, the hesitation before answering. Selena released her hair and put both hands on the wheel. So, who was Dryer really?
“Don’t you think, with Gabe Cosen sniffing around, we should try this another time?”
“It’s all arranged. And it’s a big reservation. Besides, he won’t follow off the reservation.”
“He might. Or he might be waiting for us when we come back.”
“You can drop me. You’ll be alone. Stop worrying. You’re like an old woman.”
This just got better and better. She knew that her father had been approached in prison by the leader of the Raggar crime family, who was managing the business nicely from federal prison. Better access to criminals, she supposed.
“And what happens if we turn around, find Gabe and tell him everything?”
“Gabe arrests me and probably you. Escalanti tells his people down across the border that we can’t deliver the product and they send killers to our home. Plus Raggar won’t get the delivery and he’ll be after us, too.”
Selena had had this pressed-to-the-wall feeling since her father returned home this morning. It felt as if someone was kneeling on her chest.
“Where are we going, exactly?”
Her father directed her to Sammy Leekela’s junkyard off Route 60, just shy of the border of their sovereign land.
Sammy Leekela had a part for everything stockpiled on his four-acre lot that was ringed by rusting fencing to keep out the scavengers of the animal and human variety.
“Here? They’re cooking meth here?” she asked.
“Perfect place. Off the beaten path but close to Route 60. Lots of land. Fenced. Nothing to kill with the fumes.”
“I thought it was a mobile meth lab,” she said.
She paused at the rusty gate. Usually, if she needed a part, she went to the office. But today the gate receded the instant she pulled into the drive. Because they were expected.
She shivered with dread. Right now her father had broken parole and she had helped him. But if she continued, she’d be a drug trafficker, just like her father.
If she didn’t, they’d kill her family.
“Let’s go,” he said.
She touched the gas and they lurched forward. Her father shot her an impatient look as they rolled in. Sammy gave them a friendly wave and closed the gate, then retreated to his office. Her father directed her to a series of abandoned tractor trailer beds. Some were rusty and dented. But now she noticed one that had an unusual addition—a stovepipe. The trailer in question sat tucked between several others, further hiding it from detection. The only other clue was the number of footprints and tire tracks in the snow. That trailer was getting a lot of foot traffic.
She couldn’t believe it.
“I bought our used flatbed here. I still owe Sammy almost nine thousand dollars,” said Selena, her indignation rising.
“You want me to ask for a discount?” asked her father.
“No. I do not. I want to go home.”
“And we will, right after we drive to Phoenix and back.”
“That’s six hours, you know?”
Frasco shrugged. “I brought sandwiches.”
As her father had warned, Department of Corrections officer Matt Dryer was there to meet them. He was the only one they saw. He left the center trailer carrying a blue plastic tub in two hands.
“That’s it?” asked Selena. “You don’t need a truck for that.”
“First run. Only a few hundred thousand.”
“Dollars?” she squeaked looking at the innocuous plastic storage tub.
Selena wondered how many years in prison that would translate to. Her father had enlisted Selena to make the runs because it was too dangerous for him to be out of the house so much and because she refused to involve Mia in this.
“You know there’s no end to it,” Selena said. “Once we start, they won’t let us quit.”
“Hush up now,”