Naked Edge (24 page)

He spotted her desk right away. A small dream catcher adorned with four small turkey feathers hung in the window beside it. Aging bouquets of white flowers stood in vases toward the back. Manila folders sat in organized stacks off to one side, a framed photograph of an old Navajo woman standing in front of a hogaan on the other. The old woman's face was a mass of deep wrinkles, reminding Gabe of an old apple. She wore a blue headscarf, a green long-sleeved shirt and long black skirt, a traditional squash blossom necklace of silver and turquoise hanging around her neck.

Kat set her purse and briefcase down on the desk and turned on her computer. "That's my grandmother. She--"

"Kat! God, I'm glad you're safe!" Another I-Team member--a pretty woman with strawberry-blond hair--stood, hurried over to her, and gave Kat a fierce hug.

Kat hugged her back. "Thanks, Sophie."

"I heard about what happened. I'm so sorry!" Sophie looked up at Gabe, held out her hand, and gave him a warm smile. "You must be Gabe Rossiter, the rock jock. I'm Marc's wife, Sophie Alton-Hunter. Marc tells me you saved Kat's life. I'm so happy to meet you and to have the chance to thank you in person. I hear you were hit."

So this was the woman Marc Hunter had taken hostage at gunpoint--and then married. Gabe shook Sophie's hand. "It was just a graze, so--"

"Oh, Kat!" A woman with long dark hair and the features of a porcelain doll came up behind them, still wearing her coat, briefcase in hand, and gave Kat a quick kiss on the cheek. "I just about had heart failure when Tom told us someone had tried to shoot you. Bless your heart! Are you okay?"

The woman spoke with a southern accent of some kind. New Orleans?

Kat took the woman's hand, gave it a squeeze, the look in her eyes telling Gabe that she was deeply touched. "Thanks, Natalie. Yes, I'm fine-thanks to Gabe."

Natalie held out her hand. "Oh, the park ranger. Hi, Gabe. I'm Natalie Benoit. I work the cops and courts beat."

"There she is!
Mi chula!"
A young Latino with a camera bag over his shoulder hurried down the hallway toward them. He dropped his bag on the desk and drew Kat into his arms in a way that instantly raised Gabe's hackles. Then the kid drew back, one hand lingering on Kat's shoulder. "Did they catch the bastards yet?"

"No." She put her hand on Gabe's arm. "Joaquin, this is Gabe Rossiter. I wouldn't be here this morning if not for him."

Joaquin stepped away from Kat and held out his hand to Gabe. "Thanks for watching her back. She means a lot to us."

Gabe found himself wondering exactly how much she meant to Joaquin.
Mi chula,
huh? He had an absurd impulse to put his arm around Kat's shoulders to mark his territory and warn the kid away.

You're a Neanderthal, Rossiter. You've got no claim on her.

Instead, Gabe shook the young man's hand. "I'm glad I was able to help."

He watched while Kat gave her friends the
Reader's Digest
version of what had happened yesterday at the butte, answering a dozen questions and reassuring her friends she was fine before everyone went back to their desks.

"You can sit here if you want." Kat motioned to a vacant workstation beside hers. "This is usually the intern's desk, but we don't have an intern at the moment. The computer is connected to the Internet if you need to check e-mail. Can I get you a cup of coffee or some water?"

"I'm fine for now. If there's a cafeteria here, I might head down while you're in your meeting and get some--"

"Hey, Harker, what's up, man?" Joaquin called. "You look like hell!"

Gabe followed Kat's gaze and saw a young man with reddish hair walking slowly down the hallway. Unshaven and sporting a serious case of bedhead, he looked like someone had just run over his dog.

Kat took a few steps in his direction. "Matt, what's wrong?"

The man--Matt--stopped and looked up at Sophie. "The city's finance director..."

"The man who embezzled city pension funds?" Kat prompted.

Matt nodded slowly, anguish on his face. "He committed suicide last night. In front of his wife and teenage kids. Blew his own head off."

There was a collective gasp.

"Oh, Matt!"

"Jesus!"

"Harker, you're late." A big bear of a man strode into the newsroom, a newspaper and notepad under his arm, a cup of coffee in his other hand. "Snap out of it. If a corrupt public official decides to be a coward and kills himself to avoid lawful prosecution, that's not your fault."

So this is Tom Trent.

He was almost Gabe's height but probably outweighed Gabe by a good sixty pounds. He exuded an air of a man who was used to being in charge and didn't put up with bullshit. He turned to Gabe. "Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my newsroom?"

Kat stepped forward. "Tom, this is--"

"I'm Gabe Rossiter, the park ranger who saved Kat's life yesterday." Gabe didn't need her help dealing with this prick. He held out his hand. "I'm acting as her bodyguard until this is over."

Tom took his hand and shook it, measuring him through cool blue eyes. "Good to meet you. You can stay. The rest of you get to the conference room. We've got a newspaper to make. Not you, Harker. You go home, take a shower, and get yourself together. I want you in my office in an hour."

The I-Team members sent Matt looks of sympathy--and glared at Tom's back as he walked off down a side hallway.

Kat walked over to her desk and picked up a notepad and pencil. "Are you going to be okay here? This usually takes about an hour."

"I'll be fine." With Joaquin still in the room to see, Gabe gave in to his inner caveman, ducked down, and planted a light kiss on Kat's lips.

Her eyes went wide for a moment, pink spots blooming in her cheeks.

He watched her walk away, then sat and booted up the computer. He had a few things he wanted to research.

"WELL, THIS is quite the conundrum." Tom tapped his pencil against his notepad, his gaze fixed on Kat's. "We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. If we report that there's looting of artifacts at Mesa Butte, we'll be letting every pot pincher in North America know that Mesa Butte is worth a visit. On the other hand, our readers have a right to know what is happening out there, including the truth--whatever it turns out to be--concerning Red Crow's death."

With those words, Tom summed up the dilemma that had been gnawing at the back of Kat's mind since breakfast. As a Native woman, she wanted to do all she could both to clear Grandpa Red Crow's name and to protect the artifacts at Mesa Butte. But now those two goals seemed to contradict one another. Should she protect Grandpa Red Crow's name and preserve all that he meant to Denver's Native people, or protect Mesa Butte and its heritage? What was more important--her duty to Grandpa Red Crow and the present or her duty to the land and the past? And what about her duty as an investigative journalist--a duty to tell the truth?

"Does it make any difference that they've closed the butte?" Natalie held up a press release. "The city of Boulder just announced that the place is now closed to the public and under round-the-clock surveillance."

Kat considered that for a moment. "What happens when this blows over and they quit watching the site? Anyone interested in looting Mesa Butte simply has to wait till the coast is clear."

"Maybe these bastards have stolen everything worth stealing," Joaquin offered.

Sophie shook her head. "I don't think they'd have tried to shoot Kat and Gabe if that were true. People don't kill to keep secrets that aren't worth keeping."

"That's right." Tom leaned back in his chair. "Clearly, someone didn't want James and the park ranger to see what they saw. But I'm not certain that our priority as the press is to conceal the existence of these artifacts so much as to expose the looting and the public officials who allowed it to happen."

For a moment, the conference room was silent.

It was Tom who spoke next. "James, what do you think we should do?"

Kat hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "I think our priority should be to find out exactly what's going on at Mesa Butte and to report it in a way that's culturally sensitive. That might mean being vague about what kind of artifacts are there, or it might mean reporting on the issue of looting in such a way that the public comes to see how damaging it is from the Native perspective."

Tom tapped his pencil a few more times, his brow drawn into a thoughtful frown, then pointed the eraser tip at Natalie. "Benoit, you cover the shooting. The
News
had a paragraph on it this morning, but nothing worth reading. Interview James and the park ranger and see what you can put together."

Syd, who'd sat silently this entire time, turned to Tom. "Will ten inches do?"

Tom nodded. "James, you stay on the main story. Get us something for the front page. I don't care what. Just keep the Mesa Butte story moving. We'll leave the cultural sensitivity to you. Let's get to work."

And the meeting was over.

Kat walked back to the newsroom with Natalie, the two of them working out a time for their interview and strategizing about how Kat could get the documents she'd requested from the city last week without waiting till after Thanksgiving.

"I read about a reporter who bought a portable copy machine, carried it with him to some government office, and started going through files and photocopying everything," Natalie told her. "As long as the documents are public, they can't stop you from walking in there and looking through them."

But Kat barely heard her. Ahead of them in the newsroom she spotted Gabe standing by the intern desk, a cup of coffee in his hand, a smile on his face. He was deep in conversation with Holly, who leaned in, touched her hand against his arm, and said something that made him laugh.

Kat's step faltered, a strange, jagged emotion catching in her chest.

Beautiful Holly, with her blond hair, big brown eyes, and perfect body. Horny Holly, who went through men ... the way Gabe went through women.

They were as alike as two kernels of corn from the same cob. And they were obviously enjoying one another's company.

"Don't let it get to you, Kat," Sophie whispered from behind her. "Holly knows better. Besides, the way that Gabe was watching you this morning, I'd say she wouldn't stand a chance anyway."

Kat felt strangely reassured by Sophie's words, as if what she were feeling were ... jealousy?

At that moment, Gabe turned and caught sight of her, and his smile broadened.

"See?" Sophie whispered. "He's not interested in Holly."

But Kat wasn't so sure.

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND. If Grandpa Red Crow had been drinking in secret all these years, why was his liver not damaged?"

"Maybe he didn't drink that often." Gabe looked over at Kat and saw that her knuckles were white, her hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. "Are you sure you don't want me to drive?"

They'd done their interviews with Natalie and were on their way back into Boulder, where Kat hoped to use the new portable copier she had just talked her boss into buying to photocopy all documents in the city's Mesa Butte files. Gabe thought it was a bad plan, one that was more likely to get her arrested than get her the documents she wanted, but she was determined.

She tossed him an angry look. "I'm fine."

He didn't know whether he should call her on her lie or not. She hadn't been fine all morning. Ever since she'd come out of the I-Team meeting she'd seemed upset. He couldn't shake the feeling that she was irritated with him, though he couldn't figure out why. For once, he couldn't think of anything he might have done to piss her off--unless she'd checked the intern computer and had seen what he'd been up to this morning.

While she'd been in the meeting, he'd called Hunter and arranged to meet with him and Darcangelo for lunch. Then he'd gone back down to speak with Cormac, the security guard, and had worked with him to arrange special parking for Kat in the secured underground parking garage so that he wouldn't have to worry about some asshole firing at her while she walked from her truck to the building. When that was done, he'd come back upstairs and had spent the next thirty minutes reading about Navajo traditions--Navajo sexual traditions, specifically.

What he'd read online had proved to him that Kat was very much a modern Navajo, caught between her people's mores and the very different beliefs of the world around her. It had also made him realize how he must look through her eyes.

Can you say "man slut," Rossiter? Sure you can.

Traditional Navajo culture held that sex was for making babies and that masturbation was evil, beliefs reinforced by Navajo creation stories. From what Gabe had read, solo sex was a forbidden topic, something people simply didn't discuss, lumped in with sodomy, homosexuality, pedophilia, and rape. Exposing one's genitals, even to one's husband or wife, was still considered shameful by some, sex something to be done at night in the dark in silence. And until recently, oral sex had been illegal on the rez. Taken together, he could see why Kat was still a virgin--and why she'd looked so shocked when he'd asked her to show him how she brought herself to orgasm.