Buried Secrets (Holding The Line Book 4) Read online

  They’ve been warned to stay away,

  But they won’t be deterred that easily.

  To halt construction of a casino on Yaqui land, ranger Jolene Nighthawk plants damning evidence. But she’s caught by her ex Sam Cross, a Border Patrol agent with his own interest in the land…and Jolene. There may be bodies beneath the desert, victims of a murderous cartel. As Jolene and Sam investigate, they find that theirs may be the next bodies hidden in the Arizona sand.

  “You’re going to use the discovery of the bones to launch an investigation into that construction area as a possible burial site for those missing people.”

  “Exactly.” He shook out his uniform shirt and hung it on the back of a kitchen chair. “It won’t carry the same weight as a sacred site, but it will definitely cause delays in the construction.”

  “Does that mean you’re not going to tell anyone that I dropped those bones there?”

  “Why should I? The interruption you caused will give me some time to poke around that land. Then when forensics discovers the bones are...whatever they are, I’ll have another reason to halt the project. Maybe I’ll make a similar discovery in Paradiso as we did south of San Diego.” He put his finger to his lips. “And you won’t tell anyone about my plans, either, right?”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  He stuck out his hand. “Then we have a deal.”

  “Deal.” She curled her hand around his, her smooth flesh sending tingles up his arm.

  BURIED SECRETS

  Carol Ericson

  Carol Ericson is a bestselling, award-winning author of more than forty books. She has an eerie fascination for true-crime stories, a love of film noir and a weakness for reality TV, all of which fuel her imagination to create her own tales of murder, mayhem and mystery. To find out more about Carol and her current projects, please visit her website at www.carolericson.com, “where romance flirts with danger.”

  Books by Carol Ericson

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Holding the Line

  Evasive Action

  Chain of Custody

  Unraveling Jane Doe

  Buried Secrets

  Red, White and Built: Delta Force Deliverance

  Enemy Infiltration

  Undercover Accomplice

  Code Conspiracy

  Red, White and Built: Pumped Up

  Delta Force Defender

  Delta Force Daddy

  Delta Force Die Hard

  Red, White and Built

  Locked, Loaded and SEALed

  Alpha Bravo SEAL

  Bullseye: SEAL

  Point Blank SEAL

  Secured by the SEAL

  Bulletproof SEAL

  Her Alibi

  Harlequin Intrigue Noir

  Toxic

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Jolene Nighthawk—A member of the Yaqui tribe, Jolene wants to halt construction of a casino on Yaqui land in the desert. Her father was murdered on that land and she wants answers. But when her former lover shows up looking for answers of his own, he throws her plans and her heart into turmoil.

  Sam Cross—He’s a Border Patrol agent on a mission to discover the burial ground of some missing people—and to win back the love of his life, Jolene Nighthawk, but he soon discovers that his two goals are intertwined and accomplishing one might lose him the other.

  Wade Nighthawk—Jolene’s cousin is a mover and shaker within the Yaqui tribe, but when his self-interests trump the interests of the tribe, it results in murder.

  Melody Nighthawk—Wade’s sister may have some personal challenges, but that doesn’t stop her from discovering secrets about the casino’s construction...secrets that put her life in danger.

  Tucker Bishop—He winds up in the wrong place at the wrong time and pays with his life.

  El Gringo Viejo—This notorious drug supplier has been identified and is on the run...or is he?

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Last Stand Sheriff by Tyler Anne Snell

  Chapter One

  The dark clouds barreled over the Catalina Mountains, and the skies opened. The rain pelted the highway, steam rising from the scorched asphalt. The first monsoon of the season had hit the Sonoran Desert with a vengeance, gleefully dousing the hot, thirsty landscape.

  Jolene slammed on the brakes of her truck, her back wheels fishtailing for a few seconds. She pounded one hand on the steering wheel and shouted. “Learn to drive!”

  She couldn’t risk getting into an accident right now, not with her cargo. Her cell phone rang from the console, and she glanced down at the display showing her cousin’s name before answering and switching to speaker.

  “Hey, Wade. What’s up?”

  “It’s Gran.”

  “Gran, if you’re just going to keep borrowing Wade’s phone, why not let me get you one of your own?”

  “I don’t know why I just can’t get my old phone back.” Gran clicked her tongue. “This is not progress.”

  Jolene twisted her lips. “Landline phones were discontinued on the reservation, Gran. They figured everyone had a cell phone.”

  “They figured wrong.” She coughed.

  “Are you still congested?”

  “It’s nothing. I called to find out when you were coming over. Wade told me you left town for a few days.”

  Her pulse picked up speed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Does something always have to be wrong? I just wanted to visit with one of my favorite granddaughters. Where did you go?”

  Jolene took a sip of water from the bottle in her cup holder. “I was in... Phoenix, visiting friends.”

  “Rain’s rolling in.” Gran sighed. “I felt it in my bones two days ago.”

  “It’s already hit up here, confounding all the drivers from out of state. I’m just south of Tucson, so it’s following me down to Paradiso.” She cranked on her defroster. “It’s going to be a good soaking.”

  “Well, you keep track of those weather patterns more than I do.” Gran sniffed and said something to someone in the background—probably Jolene’s cousin Wade. “There have been a few changes in town since you left.”

  Jolene rolled her eyes. Gran loved to gossip. “In two days? I doubt that, Gran.”

  “You know that young Border Patrol agent, Rob Valdez?”

  “Pretty face, pumped-up arms? Yeah, I know Rob.”

  “He’s off the market.”

  “What market would that be, Gran?” Jolene clamped her mouth closed against the laugh bubbling against her lips. She knew exactly which market Gran meant.

  Gran huffed out a breath. “The marriage market, Jolene. He and some young woman left on an extended vacation together.”

  “A vacation? You’re kidding. That seals his fate right there. He might as well attach
a ball and chain to his ankle.”

  “Oh, you can laugh, but he was an eligible bachelor, one of the few left in town.”

  “Nice guy, but not my type. Too young for one thing.”

  “I know your type, Jolene, and the loss of Rob isn’t so bad given the other news I picked up while you were gone.”

  Jolene’s jaw tightened for a second. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Gran. What is this other blessed event that occurred to counteract Rob Valdez’s vacation with a woman?”

  Gran paused for maximum dramatic effect. “Sam Cross is back in town.”

  Jolene’s hands jerked on the steering wheel, and a wall of water from the puddle she’d veered into washed over the side of her truck. She swallowed. “Sam’s back?”

  “I know Sam is your type.”

  Jolene gripped the steering wheel. “Sam is married. That is most certainly not my type.”

  “He’s divorced.” Gran moved the phone from her mouth and yelled, “Just a few more minutes, Wade.”

  Jolene snorted. “He’s been back for two days, and you already know his marital status? I doubt it, Gran. He would never leave his daughter.”

  “He had lunch at Rosita’s yesterday, and Rosie told me he wasn’t wearing a wedding band and when she asked to see pictures of his daughter, he showed her pictures on his phone of the girl but none of his wife.”

  Tears stung Jolene’s eyes, and she blinked them away. “That’s it, then. No wedding ring and no pics of the wife. You and Rosie are quite the spies.”

  Gran lowered her voice. “You don’t have to pretend with me, Jolene.”

  “Sounds like Wade wants his phone back.” Jolene cleared her throat of the lump lodged there and said, “I’ll drop by the rez tomorrow. I have something to do tonight when I get home.”

  “Drive carefully and come over any time tomorrow.” Gran must’ve handed the phone back to Wade without hanging up, as voices floated over the line before Wade cut off the call.

  Jolene blew out a long breath. What was Sam doing in town? It must have to do with work. He wouldn’t be in Paradiso long, and she could probably avoid seeing him. She hoped she could avoid seeing him.

  She drove the rest of the way to Paradiso hunched over the steering wheel, the rain not putting her on edge as much as the task before her. She could do it. She had to do it. As her father had taught her, sometimes the ends did justify the means.

  Twenty minutes later, as she rolled into Paradiso, the rain came in with her, lashing through the town, flooding the streets. By the time she pulled into her driveway, the storm had spent itself with the dark clouds rushing across the desert and breaking apart at the border, as if an invisible wall existed there.

  She pressed her thumb against the remote-control button in her truck that rolled back the garage door. She slid from the vehicle and took a quick glance around her neighborhood before opening the back door of the cab. She pulled out her overnight suitcase and set it on the ground, and then she grabbed the duffel bag on the back seat with both hands and hauled it from the truck.

  She hitched the strap of the bag over her shoulder and lugged it into her garage, wheeling the suitcase behind her. She stashed the duffel under a counter next to her ski boots and bindings, nudging it into place with the toe of her wet sneaker.

  She locked her truck and closed the garage door, standing still in the middle of her garage for several seconds until the automatic lights went out. Her eyes picked out the duffel bag in the dim confines of the garage, and then she spun around and charged through the door connecting her garage to her kitchen.

  There was no turning back now.

  She unpacked her suitcase. She hadn’t lied to Gran about spending a few nights away, but she’d been in Tucson, not Phoenix. Nobody needed to know where she’d been.

  After she unpacked, she searched through her kitchen for suitable dinner fare and ended up grazing on hummus, crackers, a stale flour tortilla and a handful of trail mix.

  She watched the time on her cell phone and the rain outside the window. When the digital numbers ticked over to ten o’clock and the remainder of the storm clouds skittered across the sky, she headed for her bedroom and changed into a pair of jeans and a dark blue T-shirt.

  She grabbed a small purse and a backpack, leaving her phone charging on the counter. Stepping from the kitchen into the garage, she hit the lights and stuffed some gloves, a spade, a flashlight, a rope, wire cutters and a few other items into the pack. She opened the garage door and unlocked her truck. The purse went into the front seat and the backpack went into the back.

  She returned to the garage and curled one hand around a shovel. She balanced it on her shoulder and approached the truck. The puddle of water in the bed rippled as she laid down the shovel.

  Placing her hands on her hips, she pivoted toward the garage and eyed the duffel. She huffed out a breath and strode toward it, her boots clumping on the cement floor of the garage.

  She dragged the bag from beneath the counter and hauled it over her shoulder. She swung it onto the floor of the truck’s back seat and brushed her hands together—as if that were it. That wasn’t it. That was part one.

  She climbed into her truck and punched the remote with her knuckle. She watched her garage door settle into place before backing out of her driveway.

  When she merged onto the highway, she flicked on her brights. The crescent moon didn’t have enough power to light up the desert, and the road didn’t have many travelers. When the odd car did approach from the oncoming lane of traffic, she dimmed her lights.

  Finally, she didn’t meet any other cars coming the other way, and she expelled a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding. Nobody else would be out here at this time of night.

  Her headlights illuminated the mile marker on the side of the highway, and she glanced at her odometer to track the miles. At two miles past the marker, she eased off her gas pedal and peered over the steering wheel.

  She spotted the break in the highway and turned onto an access road. Her truck bounced and lurched as it ate up the rough ground beneath its wheels.

  If you didn’t know the fencing was there, you could drive right into it, but she caught the gleam from the metal posts and the heavy-duty wire strung between those posts.

  She pulled up next to the fence and cut her lights. Her flashlight would have do. She didn’t want to advertise her presence on this land, just in case another driver saw her lights out here from the highway. She hopped from the truck, opened the back door and snagged her backpack first.

  Flicking on the flashlight, she ran its beam along the length of the fence. It hadn’t been designed to keep people out so much as to stake a claim.

  She ground her teeth together and ducked between the two wires that stretched from post to post. At least nobody had thought to electrify this fence, but again they didn’t have anything to protect—not yet.

  She stumbled across the desert floor for about twenty feet, and then dropped to her knees at a slight dip. Her flashlight illuminated the area—no rocks, no cactus, no distinguishing features.

  She wedged her pack in the dirt to mark the spot and jogged back to her truck. She grabbed the shovel and wrestled the duffel bag from the back seat. The items slowed her progress back to the perfect spot, but she still had enough energy to do what she came here to do.

  She dragged the backpack out of the way and plunged her shovel into the sand. In and out, she dipped the shovel into the sand and flicked it out to the side.

  Sweating, she pinched her damp T-shirt from her body and surveyed her work. How deep did it have to be? Enough to conceal but not hide forever.

  She unzipped the duffel bag at her feet, positioned it at the edge of the hole...and dumped the contents into the shallow grave.

  * * *

  SAM PUSHED HIS laptop away and with it, the faces of the missing people
. Gone without a trace. How did that happen? And all of them last seen near the Arizona border towns.

  He didn’t believe in coincidences.

  He’d thought at one point that the bones of the missing might be found in the myriad tunnels that ran between the US and Mexican border, but Border Patrol had gotten a line on most of those tunnels and no bodies had turned up inside them.

  Still, the Sonoran Desert provided a vast graveyard. He pulled his laptop toward him again and switched from the faces of the mostly young people to a map of the desert running between Paradiso and the border.

  One area on the map jumped out at him, and he traced his fingertip around the red line that marked the location where the new casino was planned. That land, which belonged to the Yaqui tribe, had always been somewhat reachable due to the access road.

  He stood up, stretching his arms over his head. He wandered to the window of his motel room and gazed at the drops of water glistening on the glass. The rain had stopped, nothing preventing him from his expedition now.

  He grabbed his weapon and his wallet and marched out to his rental car. When did Border Patrol ever stop working? Especially when an agent didn’t have anything better to do.

  He pulled out of the motel parking lot and headed toward the highway. His headlights glimmered on the wet asphalt, but on either side of him, the dark desert lurked, keeping its secrets—just like a woman.

  Grunting, he hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand and cranked up the radio. Two days back and the desert had already weaved its spell on him. He’d come to appreciate its mystical, magical aura when he lived here, but the memory had receded when he moved to San Diego. When he left Paradiso, he’d tried to put all those feelings aside—and failed.

  When he saw the mile marker winking at him from the side of the road, he grabbed his cell phone and squinted at the directions. He should be seeing the entrance to an access road in about two miles. A few minutes later, he spotted the gap and turned into it, his tires kicking up sand and gravel.

  His rental protested by shaking and jerking on the unpaved stretch of road. He gripped the wheel to steady it. “Hold on, baby.”