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Rachel took this in, her gaze not leaving his. She noted the slight hitch in his tone at the mention of the trucker, as if he were offended she even needed to ask. The air between them crackled with unspoken questions, with the weight of blood ties strained by suspicion and the need for truth.
"Recognized?" she echoed, her mind racing. How well? By whom? The questions lined up like dominoes, ready to fall in sequence once nudged. She held back, though. Timing was everything.
"By one of my deputies," Dawes added, almost as an afterthought, but there was a tightness around his eyes that Rachel didn't miss.
"Right." Her reply was noncommittal, though inside, the gears turned relentlessly. "Anything else I should know?" Her question hung in the air, a challenge masquerading as inquiry. She waited, her eyes steady on his, searching for the flicker of evasion, the twitch of discomfort. Nothing.
"Nothing that concerns you right now," Dawes said finally, his voice low, a growl almost.
"Someone recognized Anna? She's not local, is she?"
"She's from the reservation, but not local. No."
"So how did they recognize her?"
"How does anyone?"
"You didn't ask your deputy?"
"Are you questioning my methods now?" The words snapped from Dawes like a whip, a sudden crack in the calm façade. He squared his shoulders, his stance echoing the stoic lines of the surrounding mesas.
"Sir..." Her voice trailed off, caught in the dry wind. She watched a hawk circle overhead.
"Because it sounds like you are." His voice was a low rumble, a distant storm threatening to break. "Like I can't handle my own cases."
She held his gaze, noting the way his jaw tensed, the slight narrowing of his eyes. Rachel's thoughts churned like a river after a storm—swift, relentless. She breathed in the desert heat.
"Your competence isn't on trial here," she said softly.
"Sounds like it is," he retorted, a muscle twitching in his cheek.
"Consider it... professional curiosity." Rachel kept her tone even, her face an unreadable mask honed by years of navigating the terrain of law enforcement as both an insider and outsider. "You're the one who asked me here, and I'm starting to wonder why. Clearly, I'm not welcome."
He scoffed, but said nothing.
Still, she could taste the acid of the sound.
Rachel's fingers traced the weathered wood of the sheriff station's railing, flakes of old paint crumbling under her touch. The same hawk she'd spotted earlier cawed in the distance, its cry echoing across the vast, silent expanse that stretched behind the squat building. The sun dipped lower, painting the sky in strokes of orange and red—a beauty that seemed almost cruel in its indifference to the sorrow etched into this place.
"Uncle," Rachel said, voice steady but low, "I know Remi was more than just a name in a case file to you."
Sheriff Dawes stood motionless.
"Remi..." he began, the name carrying a weight that seemed too heavy for just two syllables. "She was shot. From afar." He turned, eyes seeking hers, and in them, she read a storm of anger and despair. "Like the others."
The words hung between them, a bridge over which neither could fully cross. Rachel nodded, her throat tight as she processed the parallel threads tying Remi Dawes' death to the recent killings. She imagined the scene: a figure cloaked by distance, a bullet traveling with lethal precision, a life extinguished before it even knew danger was near.
"Distance suggests a sniper," she murmured, more to herself than to him.
"Sniper," Sheriff Dawes echoed, his voice a dry leaf skittering across pavement. "Means nothing good for any of us."
"Shootings got a pattern," Dawes said, eyes not quite meeting hers. "Targets are native."
"But Kendra wasn't," Rachel countered, using the woman's fake name.
"Right... right. And she was a delivery driver?" His brow creased under the brim of his hat.
"Trucker," she clarified. Silence hung for a moment, tenuous as the last rays of sun clinging to the horizon.
