Fatal Intent - Jamie Jeffries Page 0,85
the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.”
Uh-oh. She was serious. He studiously returned his attention to the blog, locating the article about Dawn’s loss of her leg and the work she was doing to gain the use of a prosthesis.
She must have been something.
A lump came to his throat as he thought about all the pain and frustration she’d endured, only to end up dead after all.
“How did she die?”
Alex jerked. She must have been in a brown study, because he saw her deliberately focus her eyes as he spoke to her. “I’m not sure. I’ll have to get the details from Lt. Watson, not that I’m going to print them. Just for background. Dylan, she was an amazing person, and I only knew a fraction of it. That’s why I lost track of time last night.”
Alex’s eyes shined with excitement as she told him story after story her friends and relatives had shared with her. How even as a child she’d been part of the activist group her parents had started, how she’d taken it on herself to organize a chapter on campus that became the voice of the group as it grew.
“I only put half of what she went through in the rehab story. She knew she’d lose the leg if she survived. That whole three days while she waited to be found, she knew what she was going to go through. And yet, she always had the best attitude about it.”
“Did Watson ever find out why the Patriots stopped harassing Latinos and started in on the Pima?” he asked.
“No, but I did. Mr. and Mrs. Redbird started that group, and one of the things they did after the Patriots were implicated in the deaths of some illegals was call them out for criminal activity. The illegals were Tohono O’odham.”
Dylan’s face changed, became harder. “Like my mom.”
“I don’t know that they were like your mom. She lived here as a citizen. Most of the people the Patriots have murdered were transients. It isn’t an excuse, but you can kind of see their point. They didn’t want illegals coming across with drugs, and they figured a few murders would be a deterrent. But then they got careless about who they targeted, and some of them were people born in the US. Their rhetoric got as ugly as their actions, and before long they were calling anyone with brown skin a wetback, even if the person’s family had been here since before this was even US territory.”
“Why do you care so much about this, Alex?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” she countered.
“Because it isn’t your fight. Because it could be dangerous, and because I want you to be safe.”
“And I want to be safe. For you and the boys, I’ll do everything in my power now to stay safe. But I can’t help who I am. I grew up hearing my dad rail against the company whose safety regulations were so laughable they were worse than nothing at all. His dad died when he was a young kid, and he always quoted Edmund Burke at me when he told me about Grandpa’s death and how the company didn’t even care,” she said. She was becoming more passionate about her subject, and consequently more beautiful than ever.
“Edmund Burke?”
“You know. You’ve heard this too, I’ll bet. He said ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ I can’t just do nothing. It would be a betrayal of my upbringing.”
“I can see that,” he murmured. “I understand. But I’ll never stop worrying that I’ll lose you.”
~~~
Dawn’s memorial service was held on Sunday at the church where she and her parents attended services that honored their traditional beliefs as well as a Christian doctrine that embraced the similarities. Alex had loved the concepts of balance and harmony with nature and with one’s fellow man since Wanda explained him’dag to her.
While she’d been raised outside a church and Dylan had been raised more-or-less Catholic, they could agree on this spiritual platform. Dylan and the boys attended the services with her, and the Redbirds expressed surprise that she’d never told them her boyfriend was Native.
Alex shrugged. It hadn’t occurred to her. Dylan was Dylan, and that he was Native wasn’t the most important thing about him. That he loved her was the most important, followed closely by his sense of duty to his family, his work ethic, his honesty. By the time she couldn’t think of any more good qualities, she knew