Long Road to Mercy (Atlee Pine, #1)(44)

She had just undressed to get into bed when her phone rang.

It was Sam Kettler.

“Sorry to call so late,” he said.

“No, it’s fine. What’s up?”

“Just wondering if you had time for a beer?”

“I don’t think Tony’s is open now,” she said.

“I know. But I’m only about twenty minutes from your place and, well, I thought you might like to hang out for a bit. It’s a nice night.”

Pine didn’t answer. She was about to embark on a journey that might possibly be the beginning of the end of her career at the FBI.

Talk about lousy timing.

He said, “Hey, Atlee, it’s okay. Look, I was a knucklehead for calling out of the blue and so late, too. Don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll just—”

“No, it’s okay. Come on over. A beer sounds good right now.”

It actually does. And who knows when I’m going to get another chance?

“Hey, are you sure? I don’t want to pressure you into anything, and I sort of feel that I am.”

“You’ll come to find out that I’m sort of immune to pressure like that. But let’s drink in your Jeep. My place is sort of messy.”

“Oh, absolutely. I wasn’t thinking of inviting myself over like that. I thought we could just sit on the steps or something.”

She smiled. “Old-fashioned, I know.”

She gave him her address and put on shorts and a T-shirt. She kept watch out her window, and when she saw him drive in, she went downstairs without bothering to put shoes on. That turned out to have been a bad choice, since she had to hop across the asphalt because of the day’s heat retained there.

They sat in his open Jeep and cracked open two cold beers. The temperature was still around eighty at nearly eleven p.m.

“Damn, that is good,” she said, draining about half of her bottle.

He grinned and stared out the windshield. “Simple things in life, right?” Then he looked at her and frowned. “What happened there?”

He was pointing to the side of her face, near her temple, where her hair had fallen away when she turned.

She touched the Band-Aid there. “Just me being clumsy.”

“You don’t strike me as the clumsy type.”

“Yeah, well, you might be surprised. But, really, it’s nothing, Sam.”

He nodded and fidgeted.

She noted this and said, “What?”

His gaze on the steering wheel, he said, “There’s a…a concert tomorrow night in Phoenix. I switched to the day shift for it. It’s Santana. You interested?”

He looked over at her.

Pine felt very uncomfortable. “Um, thanks for the invitation. But I can’t make it. I’m sorry.”

He quickly looked away. “Hey, no sweat. Short notice. Don’t know what I was thinking.” He chuckled. “Always wanted to play guitar like Carlos. Me and a million other guys. Only problem is I can’t even hum without being off-key.”

“Rain check?”

“Sure, you bet.”

They were both silent for a few moments, staring off through the windshield.

Pine was feeling awkward and off-kilter. Part of her was thinking about the man next to her. And the other half was going through all the details of her upcoming journey.

For his part, Kettler seemed to have withdrawn into a shell after she had turned down his invitation.

Pine cleared her throat and said, “So, what made you come to work at the Grand Canyon?”

He perked up at the question. “Hell, it’s a fascinating place. It’s not just the geological formations and the terrain and the hiking and all that. It’s got this unbelievable history. So much started right here.”

“Like what?”

“Ever heard of Maasaw?”

“No.”

“He’s the Hopi god of death. He’s said to actually live in the Canyon. And you have the ancestral Puebloan granaries at Nankoweap Creek. And Eagle Rock at Eagle Point on the West Rim. It’s considered sacred by the Hualapai. And some in the Hopi tribe believe the Canyon is the site of the sipapu, the portal through which they climbed a reed cast into the sky and used it to reach the Fourth World.”

“You believe all that?” asked Pine, hiking her eyebrows.

He looked sheepish. “Well, I’d like to believe some of it. For me, the Canyon isn’t just a tourist destination. It’s a living, breathing place. It has a dozen plants that live nowhere else. And the place is constantly evolving. The algae in the river brought in crustaceans, which brought in trout, which brought in the bald eagle. It’s one of the only bird species that uses the river corridor as its winter habitat.” Kettler tapped his temple. “You see, it’s smart. It’s a living thing. How cool is that?”

Pine smiled. “The way you explained it, pretty cool, actually. I’m seeing another side of you, Mr. Kettler.”

“I keep a go pack at work. Sometimes when I’m off duty I go hiking or running. Or even do some climbing.”

“Climbing?”

“Yeah, I was an Army Ranger. To qualify for that status, you had to do a lot of mountain climbing. You do that down in Georgia. It’s sort of a hobby of mine now. I keep climbing ropes and D-links and other equipment in my go pack. And I’ve climbed mountains all over.” He glanced at her. “You might like it.”