by Jan D. Payne
Release date: September 17th, 2024
Genres: Adult, Mystery,
Blurb:
They say you can’t go back home, but Marin Sinclair, end-of-life doula, doesn’t expect her life to be in danger when she answers a mysterious plea for help from a long-ago friend and returns to Dinetah, the Navajo Nation. Her past there holds memories she is reluctant to confront, but what about her life then would make someone want to kill her?
Navajo Nation Police Sergeant Justin Blue Eyes shares a connection with Marin from the past, and he has a few questions of his own when Marin disappears―such as why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agents investigating the abandoned uranium mines on the reservation and how Marin is connected.
Marin needs to survive to find any answers, and to do so she is forced to run, going off the grid on her own in the Lukachukai mountains with unknown killers close behind.
Purchase:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/
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Excerpt:
The wheels of the big Chevy truck came to a sliding halt beside Marin’s small sports car, churning sand and scattering rocks, and Bud Tolliver stepped out before the vehicle came to a full stop, a flashlight in his hand.
He spoke to Cecil as he slammed the truck door.
"She's got to be close by,” he said. "Probably hiding in the rocks.”
He leaned into the driver's window of Marin’s car. "Keys are gone," he said and reached to flip open the glove box. "She must have her wallet and phone on her. She's hiding alright."
"Or running," Cecil said.
Tolliver swore and started for the rocks a few yards away, and Marin lay unmoving in her hiding place, trying to silence the sound of her own breathing.
"Get the headlights on those rocks, Cecil."
"Bud, listen. We've got what we wanted. She's off the main roads, she's alone, there's nobody out here to help her. There’s no way she can make it back to the highway with us watching the road. Let's let it go, come back at daylight."
"Let it go?" Bud turned and spat into the sand.
"Look around, Bud. Where's she gonna go? We're miles from anywhere and our instructions," he paused and repeated the words, "our instructions were to keep her out of Shiprock."
"Maybe my instructions were more explicit than yours," Bud said.
"Nothing was said about hurting her," Cecil insisted.
Tolliver laughed. "Who's going to hurt her? We're just going to hold on to her for a while."
"Is that what was going on today, Bud? You were just holding on to her? You got us mixed up with the Navajo Police, and that wasn't part of either of our instructions!"
Bud took a quick step toward Cecil and pushed him against the door of the truck. "I need your help, Cecil, but not so much that I can’t do without it," he said.
Marin didn’t move, her heartbeat loud in her ears. A drop of sweat ran across her nose and into one eye, but she didn't move, and she heard her small car’s hood slam shut a few minutes later.
"Make sure you got the coil pack," Tolliver barked, and her heart sank at the loss of the car. "I don't want her going anywhere when she decides to come out of hiding. We’ll come back at first light. With any luck, she'll freeze to death." He lifted his voice into a shout, and the hair rose on Marin’s arms.
"We know you're out here, in the dark, on foot, alone. Alone!" he yelled. "You hear me? Alone!"
Marin heard him. His words echoed long after she heard the Chevy truck start up and drive away, but she remained still, shivering, afraid of a trap.
All remained quiet, the normal nighttime sounds of the desert resuming around her, and gradually she began to believe she was alone. It was time to think of more immediate matters, like getting through this night…
It was slow going, walking cross-country in the dark, and she vowed never again to be without a flashlight. When she walked into the branches of a small juniper tree, she stopped, defeated, deciding to wait for the moon to top the mountains. She slid down against the tree trunk and wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging herself for warmth and singing quietly under her breath.
"...gazing at the moon ’till I lose my senses..." but the words reminded her of Vangie, and she let the song die away.
She pulled her jacket tighter, lonely and homesick—no family to miss her or wonder where she was…lost, cold, and alone.
Suddenly the full moon appeared, floating up and over the rainclouds in the eastern sky until gradually the clumps of sage and the gnarled branches of the juniper tree were washed in its silver light. She could see to walk now, but she sat for a minute longer, staring at the moon as it rose higher, the rabbit clearly visible, tilted to one side.
She was like that rabbit, perpetually struggling to stand upright, trying to find an even surface in an unfair world. Tonight, she was as vulnerable as any rabbit fearing the whoosh of wings or the pad of clawed feet.
She fingered the gun Tolliver had left in her jacket pocket.
Maybe not quite that vulnerable, and she stood, pulled Edison’s red cap down tight, and walked into the mountains.
GIVEAWAY
Blitz-wide giveaway (INT) ends October 10
- $25 Amazon gift card
AUTHOR BIO:
Drawing from her years in the Southwest and the Navajo Nation, Jan Payne writes on themes of courage, regret, hope, and restoration in a world of created kinships. Through her characters’ lives and shared dangers—Marin Sinclair, end-of-life doula; Sergeant Justin Blue Eyes of the Navajo Nation Police; Cullen MacPherson, agent for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Garret Washburn, teenaged ward of Marin’s, and Lewis George, Raven spirit-guide-cum-trickster—she takes readers on a journey through the complex interactions of cultural backgrounds and personal histories, highlighting the way kinships forged in crisis have the power to reshape our lives.
Jan Payne lived on the Dineh (Navajo) reservation in Sanostee, on the New Mexico side of the Lukachukai mountain range, where she spent summers climbing mesas, taking camping trips on horseback, exploring ghost towns in the mountains of Colorado, or working with her dad breaking and training horses in Sanostee. Her two most memorable summer jobs were at a Durango, Colorado dude ranch working with pack mule trains and a brief stint as a camp cook at a uranium mining site.
Jan Payne lived on the Dineh (Navajo) reservation in Sanostee, on the New Mexico side of the Lukachukai mountain range, where she spent summers climbing mesas, taking camping trips on horseback, exploring ghost towns in the mountains of Colorado, or working with her dad breaking and training horses in Sanostee. Her two most memorable summer jobs were at a Durango, Colorado dude ranch working with pack mule trains and a brief stint as a camp cook at a uranium mining site.
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