Fatal Intent - Jamie Jeffries Page 0,8

her and hung on for dear life.

~~~

Dylan arrived at work at the usual time the next morning, to discover there’d been a shake-up over the few days he was gone. His former supervisor had taken a sudden leave of absence among rumors of a serious illness, and a new senior ranger was in his place. A woman, around fifty years of age if he had to guess. He liked her immediately when she took his hand as he introduced himself and expressed her condolences. She’d done her homework, it seemed.

“Call me Helen,” she said, after the introductions were complete. “And do you go by Dylan, or Dyl?” Only Ange ever called him Dyl, and he often thought she meant it as a play on words, like dill like a pickle. Or dull, maybe.

“I answer to either,” he said. “But if you call me Dyl, I reserve the right to call you Hel.” His grin came easily. If Helen were thirty years younger, she might be able to give Alex a run for her money.

“Dylan it is,” Helen said, just as quickly and with a big grin of her own. “Now, tell me, do you have anything to handle in the next few days or weeks? Your mother’s estate?” she’d sobered enough to be correct when she asked that.

“I don’t think so. She didn’t have much. I guess I’m going to have to go through her trailer, clear it out and figure out what to do with it. It isn’t big enough for my boys and me.” He assumed she knew about his brothers, since she knew about his mother. But it appeared he was wrong. Her eyebrows rose as her mouth parted.

“Your boys? I understood you were single. Not that it matters,” she hastened to add.

“I am. The boys are mine by adoption. My little brothers. We knew Mom wouldn’t live to raise them.” His words, a mixture of pride in his family and sadness over his mom’s passing, seemed to soften Helen’s expression.

“Well, so you’re a single father. I’ll remember that. We’ll work things out so you can be there for them when they need you. Any special requests for your schedule? I’ll be reorganizing it to accommodate everyone’s needs as much as possible,” she said. Dylan shook his head in amazement. Not six months before, he’d stood in this same office and been told that any more unexpected absences would result in his dismissal. He said as much.

Helen’s expression became guarded. “Well, that’s as may be. I have a different philosophy.”

All Dylan could do was say thank you. After settling that he was indeed off on Saturday and accepting Helen’s congratulations to Alex in her behalf, he went out to the bullpen and found Rick Anson waiting for him.

“Ready for a run out to the Springs?” Rick asked. Dylan nodded. That was a crazy drive, but the destination, Quitobaquito Springs in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, was a bit of heaven in the midst of what could often be hell. It was an oasis in a desert as deadly as any on the planet if you weren’t prepared for it. The run would take the rest of the workday.

Dylan sent Alex a text when he arrived home that afternoon. They were on for Saturday. He went to pick up the boys at their after-school care program and then got dinner started while they did their homework. He didn’t remember having homework in the first grade, but Davi seemed to have plenty to keep him busy. While it was relatively quiet, he went to the mailbox and returned with a handful of mail. As he stood at the kitchen trash receptacle, he sorted. Junk, junk, junk, something from Medicaid. Maybe he’d finally get a chance to settle his mom’s bills. He sat down with the letter and opened it, not without some misgivings.

He’d learned in November of the previous year that his mother was an illegal alien, having been born on the Mexican side of the border on the Tohono O’odham reservation. It explained why the pharmacy kept refusing her Medicaid card for her medications, but he wasn’t certain what would happen with her medical bills. If he had to pay them, it would bankrupt him. Nevertheless, as an upstanding citizen and government employee, he couldn’t let it go unreported. He’d made a call and received a bunch of unintelligible gibberish in the mail a week later, which he turned over to Rick Englebright to straighten out.

As he opened