Twist's Adventures: Climb Every Mountain...

Climb Every Mountain... And Building, Too

Writers often go to great lengths for research—at least that's my excuse for how I was almost arrested last summer.

In my legal-themed Pinnacle Peak mysteries, each book features a different sport. For me, part of the fun is actually experiencing the sport I write about. For Heir Apparent, I learned to team rope and entered a rodeo. For Family Claims, I rode my bike from the Pacific to the Atlantic Coast in less than a month.

Rock climbing fit the plot perfectly for my third book, Spurred Ambition. More specifically, bouldering—climbing without special gear, except for a chalk bag and climbing shoes. For safety's sake, a crash pad—a six-by-four-foot chunk of foam—is left on the ground below.

I didn't think learning to rock climb would be that difficult. After all, since retiring from trial law to travel and write, I'd mastered a number of other athletic endeavors: Ironman triathlons, outrigger canoe paddling, distance cycling, and skate-ski marathons, to name a few.

But that was before I learned about my fear of heights. And that I get vertigo, and readily pass out when I am upside down.

I wanted to start out on a real mountain, not in a climbing gym. However, it was winter and I was in training at the Olympic cross-country ski course in Alberta, Canada. All the nearby mountains were many feet deep in snow. But as my ski coach pointed out, Banff National Park is considered among the world's best ice-climbing sites.

That's how, ten days later, I came to be hanging over a fissure in the ice, holding on for dear life, frozen by the weather (minus 20 Celsius) and fear. It was so cold that whenever my eyes watered, my lashes would freeze together. My fingers had gone past tingling to numb, and I couldn't remember when I'd last felt my toes.

My instructor had chosen a route up a frozen waterfall. He led the way—turning titanium screws into the ice, attaching carabiners to them, feeding the rope through the protection as he ascended. When he reached a safe stopping point, he would secure himself to the ice. Then it was my turn to tie in and begin climbing on belay. Ice axe in each hand—double-headed pick and hammer in the right and pick and adze in the left, tools that I would have mistaken for butcher's implements in any other setting—I gradually ascended the vertical column of frozen water.

As we approached the top, the ice became increasingly rotten. Setting a screw, my instructor loosened a frozen sheet, sending it crashing down the mountain and exposing a wide expanse of granite. To continue the climb, we'd have to cross over a crack (a fissure in the ice and rock) to the other side of the waterfall. Luckily, an overhang connected the two sections. But because of the conditions, we'd have to transverse the span of ice and rock on its underside.

I watched my instructor move deftly across the bottom side of the overhang. Then it was my turn. I started out confidently. Only a few moves and I'm there, I told myself. Halfway across, the Velcro flap on my vest pocket started to come loose—I heard that r-r-r-r-i-p sound when the toothy side pulls away from the fuzzy side. My camera was inside that pocket, and I didn't want to lose the only photos of our ascent. So I paused mid-bridge to refasten my pocket flap.

What they say about “never look down” is true. One glance, and I was as frozen as the ice around me. Worse, the Velcro continued to separate. The noise grated like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Reach down and fasten the flap, my brain directed.

No way, my right hand said.

By now, my climbing instructor had joined the conversation. "Focus—you can do this. Just reach forward with your right axe."

Despite the cold, I had broken out in a sweat. My heart pounded loudly in my ears.

R-i-p went the Velcro.

Grab the camera! said my brain.

My right hand still refused to move.

As it always does, gravity eventually prevailed. With a final tearing sound, the pocket flap opened and the camera slid out.

One thousand one, one thousand two... I got all the way to three before I heard the camera hit the bottom of the crack.

That was all it took to render the rest of me as immobile as my right hand—full deer-in-headlights mode. It was another five minutes before my instructor—resorting to hypnosis—could talk me across to the other side.

After relocating to a warmer clime, I moved on to bouldering. The pattern was always the same: I would climb about a dozen feet up a rock face—just high enough so that a fall, even cushioned by a crash pad, knocked the breath out of me and left bruises—before peeling off and starting all over again.

My skills improved, and a friend suggested I try buildering. As the name indicates, buildings are the terrain of choice, rather than rocks or cliffs. Buildering can be done with or without aids—years ago, a guy walked up the World Trade Center with suction cups strapped to his hands and feet. It's also usually illegal, with trespassing the minimum charge.

As fate would have it, a climbing mishap left my friend in an ankle cast. Undeterred, I decided to go ahead on my own. Decked out in climbing clothes—black tights and athletic top—I set out late one afternoon for the neighborhood touted as having the most "rock-like" surfaces.

Leaving behind the orange crash pad—I didn't want to attract attention—I parked the car and sized up my first assault: a two-story restaurant. Fingertips taped for protection, hands coated with chalk from the bag around my waist, I reached for my first hold. The building was faced with brick, and I made it to the first floor window with ease. Elated with success, I quickly descended, then walked to the next building and tried again.

Structures with rock sidings were the easiest, although ridged concrete worked well, too—I almost reached the second floor on one try. Wood shingles gave me slivers, and metal was out of the question.

After about an hour, my fingers were pretty sore, so I decided to call it a night. I was half a block from my car when a vehicle pulled up alongside. One of the occupants shone a flashlight in my eyes.
"Everything all right, ma'am?"

Seeing the light bar on top, I realized it was a patrol car. What a nice town, I thought. The cops watch out for folks walking alone at night.

"Fine, thanks," I said, expecting the car to drive away. Instead, it pulled over to the curb and two uniformed policemen got out.

"What's your name?" asked the first, still shining the flashlight in my eyes.

"Twist Phelan," I responded, squinting against the glare.

"That a real name or street name?"

Street name? "Um, my real one."

"Mind if we see some ID?"

The part of me that is a card-carrying member of the ACLU minded a lot, but this was neither the time nor place to make a fuss. Besides, I'd left my purse locked in the trunk of my car.

"I'm sorry, but I don't have any with me."

"Are you out for a walk, or going somewhere in particular?"

I opted for the truth. "Actually, I was buildering."

Scarcely had I said the words when the cop pushed me against the nearest building, his flashlight digging into my back. After ordering me to assume "the position"—palms flat against the concrete, feet spread—he frisked me, while his partner talked into his radio.

"No ID, no tools on her," said the first cop.

I was more furious than afraid. "Illegal search and seizure ... no probable cause ... no warrant ... " I rattled off everything I could remember about the Fourth Amendment from law school and watching Law & Order.

"Take it easy, ma'am. We got a call about a burglar in the neighborhood," said the second cop. "And you did just tell my partner that's what you were doing."

Great, I thought. Of all the cops in town, I had to get stopped by two who were hard of hearing.

"I didn't say burglary. I said buildering." My neck muscles were starting to cramp from looking over my shoulder, and I turned to face the two cops.

"And that would be ...?" asked the second cop.

"Climbing up the outside of buildings."

He frowned, puzzled.

"I wanted to see if I could climb up high enough to get in a window,” I added helpfully.

From the look on the first cop's face, I knew he thought I belonged in the back of the patrol car on my way to lock-up.

My frustration got the better of my forbearance. "Oh, come on! Do I look like a burglar?"

The second cop eyeballed my black pants and shirt, my dark climbing shoes.

"Yeah, pretty much. And as far as no probable cause ..."

He nodded toward the wall where my hands had been pressed moments earlier. Two perfect white handprints stood out starkly against the dark brick. Then he pointed down the block. Even though it was twilight, I could see telltale chalk marks on half a dozen buildings.

Uh-oh. I started to babble. “I'm a mystery writer, it's research ..."

The first cop rolled his eyes, but his partner surprised me.

"You're a mystery writer? I liked The DaVinci Code."

"Oh," I said. "Dan Brown's book."

The second cop looked at me with interest. "You know him?"

"He comes to some of the meetings," I lied, praying he wouldn't ask me which meetings or, worse, if I could get him Mr. Brown's autograph. I was pretty sure passing off a forged signature as genuine was at least a misdemeanor, if not a low-grade felony.

The first cop still looked skeptical. How could I convince him that I was climbing for fun and not larceny?

"Look, I can prove I'm a mystery writer," I said. "My car's around the corner."

We proceeded to the car and I retrieved my wallet. Removing my driver's license, punch card for the local rock climbing gym, and Mystery Writers of America membership card, I handed them to the first cop.

He passed my driver's license to his partner, who proceeded to recite the information into his radio. The first cop glanced at the climbing gym card, but lingered over my MWA card. I wished the logo were something more professional-looking than a caricature of Edgar Allen Poe.

Clicking off the radio, the second cop nodded to his partner and gave me back my driver's license. After a long moment, the first cop returned the other two cards, and I let out the breath I had been holding.

"Don't go climbing up any more buildings," the first cop said gruffly.

"And you better not put this in a book," said the second cop, but he was smiling.

"I won't," I assured him, quickly getting behind the wheel. I wanted to leave before they asked to search my car.

How would I ever explain that copy of Sisters-in-Crime's Breaking and Entering on my back seat?

This essay first appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine, Issue No. 93 (2006).

Cowboy Up! →

Twist's Adventure: Cowboy Up!

Cowboy Up!

I like to write about things I like, and I usually don't know if I like something until I try it. (For the record, parachuting is a big “NOT.”) So when I thought about making team roping the feature sport in my first Pinnacle Peak Mystery, HEIR APPARENT, I decided to saddle up and give it a try.

Growing up and grown up, I was always involved with horses—in polo, show jumping, harness ponies, and trail riding—but it wasn't until I attended the Calgary Stampede a few years ago I discovered another aspect of the horse in sport: rodeo. An even better discovery was that real life cowboys are braver and more talented than the ones I had grown up watching on television. Roughstock riders take enormous risks for little money and less fame. The timed event competitors have true working partnerships with their horses. And I liked the way they all tipped their hats and called me “Ma'am.”

I found a pair of up-and-coming team ropers (the T brothers), who agreed to teach me the basics of the sport. Lesson number one: practice with your hat on. You naturally keep your throwing arm close to your head. When you add several inches of hat, you have to lift your arm higher to clear it. Otherwise your first loop sends your headwear spinning into the dirt “just like a dude's.” I soon learned “acting like a dude” was to be avoided at all costs. So I spent many evenings in the driveway, clad in cowboy hat and boots, throwing loops that looked more like handfuls of spaghetti than Roy Roger's perfect ovals.

When I could throw and keep my hat on, I progressed to the roping dummy—a plastic cow's head stuck into a bale of hay plunked in the middle of the front lawn. After several weeks, it was time to try tossing loops from the back of Hana, one of my polo ponies who had once been a roping horse. She waited patiently while I threw at fence posts, the roping dummy, anything that was immobile. I'll never forget the look on my unsuspecting friend's face when my loop floated over his head and snugged around his chest. I was as happy as the first day I rode my bike without training wheels.

When the T brothers decided I was ready for a mobile target, it was time to let the goats out. Released through the same chutes used for the calves and steers, the little buggers would squirt across the arena, me and Hana in hot pursuit. The cowboys working on the ranch would sit on the top rail of the arena and cheer us on. The first time I actually looped a goat, they all cheered—then rescued me from my efforts to disengage the little fellow. I had dismounted and hustled across the arena to free the goat. I was supposed to grab him in a bear hug, then loosen my rope. My hug wasn't bear quality. The goat slipped free and circled around behind me, still snagged by my lariat. The rope wrapped once around my shins, and down I went. For a week, I endured cowboy jokes about the goat hogtieing the cowgirl.

My first attempt at roping calves didn't go much better. Sitting atop Hana, I threw and threw but couldn't get a loop over a single head. So I put Hana up, then went back to the arena on foot to practice more throws. The ranch hands were moving stock through the arena where I was throwing. The instant I released, a wayward calf scampered across the dirt and ran directly into the path of my loop. Instinctively I pulled it tight. I don't know who was more surprised. “I got one!” I shouted. In my excitement, I forgot I wasn't on Hana any more and didn't have a saddle horn around which to dally my rope. The 250-pound calf kept running. He jerked me off my feet and water-skied me through the arena dirt until my brain got the message to my hand to let go. I had dirt everywhere—in my hair, in my boots, in my underwear. But I didn't care. Because the cowboy who helped me up clapped me on the back and said “That was a good throw, Ma'am.” Definitely not like a dude's.

Paired with one of the T brothers, I entered a local team roping event with reputedly slow and small stock. Brother T was the header, which meant he signaled for the steer, made the head catch, and turned the steer “around the corner”—a right angle from his direction of travel. At that point I was supposed to rope both the hind feet. Right before it was our turn to go, an old cowboy approached and patted Hana's neck. “Lemme give you one bit of advice,” he said. “Make sure you keep your thumbs out of the way when you dally.” He raised his right hand. Where the thumb used to be was a reddish stump. “Good luck, Ma'am.”

I heard my name over the bullhorn, gathered up my reins (hard to do now that I was keeping my thumbs stuck straight up), and guided Hana into the heeler's box. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Brother T nod his head. The steer exploded out of the chute, and Hana leaped in pursuit. I twirled my loop over my head and tracked his path. But he never turned the corner. Brother T had done the improbable; he had missed. Later that night when he bought me my “heeler's due” (a header who misses stands his partner to a drink and vice versa), Brother T told me how well I had done. “You were right where you were supposed to be, and your loop looked good.” He flashed me the familiar gesture. “Thumbs up, Twist,” he said, looking perplexed when I started to laugh.

This essay first appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine, Issue No. 77 (2002).

Blazing Paddles →

Twist's Adventures: Queen of the Road

"Queen" of the Road

Whoever coined the phrase “as easy as riding a bike” never started out on two wheels on the Pacific coast and ended up at the Atlantic less than a month later...

My bike was a custom titanium Seven—very light, very shiny, with tires as thin and hard as Hula-Hoops. I named it Luna, Spanish for moon. Only later would it occur to me it is also the root word for lunatic.





I am not a camping-type person—I like warm showers and a real mattress. Nor am I a bike mechanic. My preferred tool for fixing flat tires is my cell phone. So we (I convinced a friend to join me) rented a motor home and hired Bob, bike mechanic and vegetarian chef, to drive. This freed us up to make good mileage (weight slows you down) and provided us with predictable sleeping quarters. After fixing dinner every night, Bob stayed at the best motel in town (which in rural America is sometimes the only motel in town) while we bunked in the motor home.

We started in California in September. Damp and cold, due to the marine layer blanketing San Diego. But by mid-afternoon it was in the 100s. At least the desert was flat—you could see your dog run away for three days. First leg was 112 miles. All the salt we ingested via tablets ended up sweated out into our clothes. And I learned you can never slather on too much Bag Balm (used by dairy farmers; the name says it all) as a preventative for saddle sores.

And so we rode, with infrequent stops to replenish our sunscreen. Through the Imperial Valley to the Arizona border. A moment of celebration: “Hey, a whole state is behind us!” Some minor mechanical problems, but Bob was only a cell-phone call away. We tried to be on the road every morning around sunrise, which meant between 6:00 and 6:30 AM. During the day we ate PowerBars, PBJ sandwiches, and bananas, and drank lots of energy drinks. Dinner was usually tofu with veggies and rice or pasta.

Our route took us north. I stood on the “corner” in Winslow, Arizona, before more riding through land that took a long time to change. My first flat tire of the trip (I would have five more) happened when I collided with a sheep on the Navajo reservation. The sheep was unhurt, but I scraped my knee and thigh. It was my fault—I was listening to a recorded book on my MP3 player and didn’t realize until too late the white rock on the roadside was moving.

Feeling adventurous, I detoured north on my own for a quick look at the Grand Canyon. My map showed a thin line that appeared to be a shortcut to the South Rim. After riding an extra 90 minutes, I gave up. The biggest hole in the entire earth, and I couldn’t find it. Later I discovered the “shortcut” was a stray pen mark!

Next stop was Four Corners, where we munched on fry bread and snow cones (we didn’t always eat like athletes), then on to Colorado, where the real mountains were. Stopped at an all-you-can-eat buffet—at $6.99, the restaurant lost money on us, even as vegetarians. One week down and almost a thousand miles under our tires. A map posted in the motor home was marked with our planned stops. Every night I drew a line showing our progress.

We started to climb, and I felt the effects of thinner air: shortness of breath, slight headache, extra thirsty. Lunch was at 8,000 feet. The greenery was a welcome change from unrelenting brown. Day Ten we crossed the Continental Divide. It’s hard enough on bicycles—I can’t imagine making the trip in a covered wagon. Rain threatened and it was time to break out the jackets and warmer clothes. We got a ticket from a deputy sheriff for riding side by side. (I tried to get him to change it to speeding.) Fatigue set in that would dog me for the rest of the trip. From then on, no part of my body ever felt fully rested. Even my eyelashes felt tired.

Day Eleven—the longest leg (150 miles)—took us from Colorado into Kansas. The trip was made even longer by a strong crosswind; I had to really grip the handlebars to avoid being pushed across the road, which made my shoulders ache. A lot of standing on the pedals to rest my bottom. (I was starting to walk bowlegged.) The road finally turned and the crosswind became a tailwind. My companion took off for a sprint. As soon as he was out of sight, I flatted my rear tire. Worse, I was in a dead area for cell service.

Slipping covers over my cleats, I shouldered my bike and hiked almost two miles to a gas station-diner-bar-feed store. I walked into the bar section, where four farmers were enjoying an afternoon beer. They were in denim; I was wearing neon yellow and green, with reflective sunglasses that looked like aphid eyes and a bike helmet decorated with orange flames (it had seemed a good fashion choice at the time).

“May I use your phone?” I asked the bartender/cook/gas station attendant. “You have telephones on your planet?” cracked one of the farmers. They gave me a lift back to Bob, not understanding why I was biking across the country when I had a perfectly good motor home available. “You can have a cold beer whenever you want while you’re driving,” said one of them wistfully. (Another reason to pull far to the right whenever a Winnebago appeared in my rear-view helmet mirror.)

We finished out the week in Kansas and hit Missouri on Day Fifteen. The states were getting smaller; progress seems faster when you can say “I rode across a whole state today!” Folks pronounce their state’s name “Mizzer-ah.” At the end of the day I thought it should be “Misery.” A beautiful place, but wet. Downright downpour, actually. It shorted out my speedometer, and the slick roads were treacherous. After navigating two tricky hairpin turns, I was feeling rather successful. What is it that comes after pride? Oh yeah. The next corner did me in—a skid became a slide, the slide became a lay-down. Acres of road rash and a smashed digital camera. Ouch! A heretofore fan of Southern cuisine, chef/driver Bob (who usually ate dinner in town wherever we stopped) announced he was swearing off chicken-fried anything. I bet him in another two days he’d be eating veggie burgers with us.

The next morning was sunny, and the rolling hills that had been tortuous yesterday were now beautiful. Monarchs fluttered across the road like pieces of stained glass and historical markers sprouted everywhere. (I wanted to read them all but realized I wouldn’t make 20 miles for the day if I did.) For the record, we never encountered any nasty drivers. Several honked and there was a stray raised finger or two, but no attempts to run us off the road. There was, however, the occasional dog-induced sprint, and a few semis nearly vacuumed me under their wheels.

Eighteen days, and we were crossing the Mississippi. The flat boat was my second “lift” of the trip (after the Kansas farmers). We could have ridden over a very narrow bridge, but the water route seemed more fun. I wanted to pedal around the deck (to “ride” across the river) but the captain wouldn’t let me.

Illinois. Kentucky. Tennessee. The states were whipping by now. Our route (more or less) was Route 66. Whenever I saw one of the famous road signs I would hum (badly) a few bars of King (make that Queen!) of the Road. We were tired, I think mostly from not eating enough. I never thought this would be a problem. One night I fell asleep in between bites of spaghetti. I put my head on the table and was gone. Three weeks into the ride, and I was ready for it to be over. I began daydreaming about sleeping late, wearing something other than Lycra shorts, riding on four wheels instead of two.

Georgia. South Carolina. Whitewater rivers, cool forests. Lots of kudzu. My odometer was still acting up after its soaking, so I had to figure out the miles on my laptop. The hills were steep but not long. Calves burning, I climbed them listening to S.J. Rozan’s latest book, comforted by the thought that going up meant downhill on the other side. I passed a sign for the city of Homer, “Home of the Largest Easter Egg Hunt.” Are they looking for the largest Easter egg? my fatigued mind wondered.

Bob had managed to make it thus far without getting on a bike. He took a spin in a Wal-Mart parking lot (many of our overnighters were at Wal-Marts; great prices on Gatorade, by the way) and promptly crashed into a light pole, breaking his arm. A delayed start that day while we visited the local emergency room. The nurse was flummoxed. “You-all are the bike riders and it’s your driver with the broken arm?” My companion took the wheel, with a pain-pilled but protesting Bob at his side (“C’mon, that only means you can’t drive tractors and stuff like that”), while I pedaled.

Day Twenty-four. The last day—less than 100 miles to go. Small towns, country roads, friendly people. Watermelon and boiled peanuts for lunch. Finally, the beach at Charleston. I kicked off my shoes and ran into the surf carrying my bike. We had made it!

Two-hundred-plus hours in the saddle. (And some extreme tan lines.) Over 3100 miles on the road. That evening, I enjoyed my first bite of sweet potato pie. “I’d ride across the country for a second helping,” I told the waitress. Almost.

This essay first appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine, Issue No. 83 (2004).

Climb Every Mountain ...And Building, Too →

Twist's Adventures: Blazing Paddles

Blazing Paddles

“Hut, hut, HO!”

No, that isn’t the marching cadence for a squad of ladies of the night. It’s the call for a stroke changeover in outrigger canoe paddling.

I write the Pinnacle Peak series, legal-themed mysteries featuring different sports. As part of my research, I’ve team-roped in a rodeo, bicycled across the country, and climbed mountains and buildings. Kayaking suited the story in my latest book, FALSE FORTUNE, enabling me to draw upon my experience surf ski paddling and outrigger canoe racing in Australia and Hawaii.

I didn’t set out to be an endurance athlete. After I retired as a plaintiff’s lawyer in my early thirties, I moved to Australia to embark upon a new career of vigorous loafing. Reading and travel, with an occasional jog on the beach or dip in the ocean, was the plan. But then a triathlete moved in next door. We went from exchanging greetings while retrieving the morning newspaper to swimming, cycling, and running together. Weight training and yoga were added to the mix. I had the vigorous right; time to work on the loafing. But then I fell for yet another sport.

Even though I grew up within sight of the ocean, paddles were for swatting Ping-Pong balls and water sports involved chlorine. But one morning while running on the beach, I saw a long, narrow craft being propelled though the waves by six women wielding wooden paddles. When they came ashore, I helped them drag the four-hundred-pound boat above the tide line.

“Our five had to quit. Ya want to give it a go?” said another.

What did a five do? “Sure!” I said.

“See ya Wednesday morning, America.”

I had a new sport, a new team, and a new nickname.

If you’ve ever watched a Hawaii Five-0 rerun, you’ve seen an outrigger canoe, a long boat with a separate float (ama) connected by two perpendicular arched cross beams (iako) on one side.

Lesson one was the paddle stroke—rotation and power come from the hips. Next I learned timing. The team faces the front of the boat. Odd numbers paddle on one side and even numbers paddle on the other (this keeps the canoe in balance), with the number six steering. The lead paddler sets the pace under the steerer’s direction, and everyone synchronizes her stroke to the person directly in front.

Paddling on one side is fatiguing, so every sixteen strokes, paddlers switch sides. To maintain speed and avoid capsizing, everybody has to switch at the same time. The paddler in the number two position calls out in time to the last three strokes—“hut, hut,” followed by a HO!” that everyone shouts while lifting her paddle from the water to start stroking on the opposite side.

Outrigger canoes move fast. This makes the canoe less stable, which is when the ama comes into play, preventing the tippy canoe from capsizing.

In theory.

We set off. I was in the five seat. A salty breeze blew over my sun-warmed face. We passed what looked like a floating rock that turned out to be a sea turtle.

At first, boat speed wasn’t great, largely because of the rookie (me). But I caught on to the rhythm, and soon we were hydroplaning. When the steerer upped the cadence, I ended up a half tick off the pace. It was time for the stroke changeover.

“Hut, hut, HOLY SH—!”

One instant we were paddling along; the next, we were all in the ocean with the boat floating beside us, upside down. A huli.
We righted and bailed out the canoe, then started for home. Stroking hard, we caught a swell that carried us all the way onto the sand. My teammates congratulated me over brekkie.

“Good on ya!” said the number two paddler as I tore into a pumpkin scone like a rescued castaway.

The number four wiped orange juice from her mouth. “You’ll be apples by race day.”

Race day? Turns out she was talking about a forty-two kilometer open ocean marathon at the end of the month. I spent the next three weeks essentially learning how to be a galley slave.

The day of the competition, the waves were so high that when we came ashore during a practice run, I felt as if we’d jumped off the top of a three-story building, then had the building chase us down the street.

“Noah’s weather,” said the number four paddler. “Keep yer eye out.”

I was learning the Oz rhyming slang. Noah’s had to be short for Noah’s ark. But the word it replaced...

She saw my puzzlement. “Shark.”

I managed a tense smile. Shark?

The starter’s gun cracked. We were last off the mark.

“Come on, girls!” yelled the steerer. “Pull!”

Our lead paddler picked up the pace. We matched it, our paddles moving as one. Pain radiated from my wrist, and I dry-swallowed ibuprofen from the stash in the wet sack lashed to my seat. A silver flow of small fish, hundreds of them, knifed through the water underneath us. Each stretch between buoys, we reeled in and passed another racer.

“Hut, hut, ho! Hut, hut, HO!”

My sore wrist disappeared in a surge of adrenaline and Advil. The steerer called for another tempo increase. Sweat ran steadily down my forehead from under my cap, leaving a frosting of salt on my eyebrows. The shoulder muscles of the paddler in front of me rippled like water passing over rocks.

With the only remaining opponent barely a boat length ahead, we turned for the final leg, a perpendicular run to the beach. By now, I moved in a kind of trance. Catch. Pull. Lift. Catch. Pull. Lift.

The finish buoys loomed ahead. We were closing the gap to the other boat when a crosswind snatched the cap from my head.

“Watch the ama!” someone yelled.

I glanced at the outrigger in time to see my cap sink. It was followed by my heart when a big gust of wind lifted the ama out of the waves.

We’re going to huli.

“Drop your paddle!” shouted the steerer into my ear. “Push down on the iako.”

I reached over the side and leaned on the iako. It wasn’t enough.

I braced one foot where the iako was lashed to the canoe, and balanced the other on the boat’s edge. With a brief thought to my dental work, I lunged. The ama crashed back down onto the water.

The boat kept going, with me suspended between the float and the canoe like rigging. My ab muscles screamed while waves slapped my face. My grip started to slip on the fiberglass.

“Hang on, America!”

Beneath the water I glimpsed a rock . . . or was it a triangle fin? I shut my eyes.

We smacked into the beach. The impact jarred me loose onto the sand. I spat up salt water while my jubilant teammates pounded me on the back.

“Way to hang twenty, America!”

I staggered to my feet and traded a few low-fives. My sore shoulders couldn’t manage high ones.

Later I would find out that our opponents had hulied just meters before the finish. It had been a classic yard sale—hats, bailers, paddles, and paddlers scattered into the ocean. And that we were the first come-from-behind team to ever win this race.

I momentarily passed on the celebratory champagne, rummaging through the wet sacks for what I really wanted.

Where the heck was the Advil?

Short Stories →

Family Claims: Chapter One

Monday, July 20

The narrow ribbon of asphalt sliced through the great expanse of tan that led away in all directions—borderless, inarticulate, nearly astonishing. Distant mountains wavered and glistened in the heat like a mirage, a tweed of saguaros and palo verde clothing their lower slopes. Overhead in the midday blue, a “V” of Canadian geese sped homeward, more sound than sight.

Hannah Dain’s long, lean body, taut as a bridge cable, stretched over the pencil-thin bike frame as it sped down the swath of highway. Muscles bunched and lengthened, driving her legs in an unceasing tempo—eighty times a minute, ninety, one hundred. Her feet seemed to dance on the pedals to the humming of the tires.

The road curved and Hannah down-shifted, skidding through an intersection studded with white crosses commemorating the unluckier head-on collisions and rollovers. Salty dampness crept out from under her arms and spread across her back. One more month, she thought as she returned her cadence to a punitive rate, soft grunts accompanying each downstroke.

As usual, any beauty in the desert was lost on Hannah. After the metallic sheen of the East Coast, Arizona’s landscape seemed too drab, and there was too much of it. The apparent lack of boundaries made her uncomfortable. She viewed its stark never-ending space as a personal test, imposing on her an obligation to fill it, make her presence known. Far different from the city, where she just had been expected to be part of the masses.

A pair of familiar whitewashed pillars came into view. Spokes glinting in the sunlight, Hannah hurtled past her father’s gated driveway without a sideways glance. Richard Dain’s Spanish Colonial was a large dwelling with courtyard gardens, period furniture, and an extensive wine cellar behind thick adobe and ironwork. When she was little, Hannah thought it looked like a castle. Her older sister, Shelby, had lived there until she finished law school, but Hannah hadn’t spent much time within its stucco walls—just school holidays as a child, staying in a guest room, and now during the occasional dinner, always as one of at least half a dozen guests.

Usually Hannah didn’t put much emphasis on her childhood, mostly because the facts added up to a lot of heavy weather. And her father’s lack of interest and her sister’s unfriendliness had long ceased to matter. She was reconciled to her place on the periphery, among them but not of them. Her sense of self was grounded in her professional life as a transactions lawyer, not as a daughter or a sister. Diligence, exactitude, thoroughness—the troika pulling along her legal career.

And that career had just been given a boost, thanks to Eddie Keene. The first client to seek out her legal services—her other clients were referrals from Richard —Eddie had needed financing for his planned development of auto malls: small strip centers providing only vehicle-related services, such as oil changes, window tinting, and car detailing. Working largely by herself, Hannah had taken his company public via a nine-million-dollar stock offering. The stockbrokers had quickly sold all of the IPO’s shares, and the funds had been released yesterday. Two million dollars had been transferred to the title company to finalize the purchase of the eight sites Eddie had previously selected and put under contract. The other seven million raised by the deal would be used to construct the buildings and finance other improvements.

And what better time to tell Richard she was resigning from the firm than after giving him a check for the legal fees from Eddie’s deal? Anticipation welled up through her chest as she thought of the letter with the Boston postmark tucked away in her office drawer. We are pleased to confirm our offer of a position as an associate attorney... Sidewalk cafés, urban anonymity, a range of seasons that went beyond hot and hotter—all hers a month from now.

She savored the idea of her new home, stamping the word into her pedal stroke. Bos-ton, Bos-ton, Bos-ton. Twenty-three hundred miles between her and the firm, the desert, her family. Before, physical distance hadn’t mattered — obligation had pulled her back to Arizona. She had spent three years learning to be a lawyer—and three years failing to connect with Richard and Shelby. Now, her duty done, she’d be able to leave without looking back.

Leave? Or run away? Without warning, painful thoughts crowded aside her happy expectations. An aloof Richard, a hostile Shelby, an absent Elizabeth—the memories stung like cactus needles.

Hannah’s jaw clenched. She muscled through a turn, then ratcheted up the tempo again. Haunches tight, lungs pumping like bellows, she forced the irritation out of her soul and into her legs, oblivious to her surroundings until a shape moved by the roadside.

“Dammit!”

She grabbed the brakes and laid down rubber as a coyote darted across the pavement. Barely clearing her front wheel, he disappeared into the chaparral, his coat the yellow-brown-gray of most desert creatures.

Chest heaving, she sat up in her seat and coasted while her adrenaline ebbed, taking the rest of her ire with it. Brushing sweat from her eyes with a gloved hand, she took a long swallow from her water bottle, then another.

Once it subsided, she felt foolish at her flare of temper. At two years shy of thirty, she should know better. She was the one who had chosen to come back to Arizona, to give it a try with the family law firm. She slipped the bottle back into its cage. Some fissures were apparently too deep to bridge.

A car approached from behind, tiny in her helmet mirror. The intrusion was unexpected—this stretch of road didn’t get much traffic. Hannah dropped back onto her handlebars and steered the bike onto the shoulder where the asphalt was less even.

“Hurry up and pass,” she said through gritted teeth as her tires jolted over the rough pavement.

But the car slowed to her pace, keeping its distance. Ten seconds went by, then twenty. Hannah felt the first pinprick of nervousness. There were drivers who took out cyclists just for the fun of it. She resisted the urge to accelerate. It was pointless—there were a dozen miles of nothing between her and the next building.

The headlights blinked once, twice, the flash reflecting off her mirror. Hannah threw a quick glance over her shoulder. The car looked familiar, but glare made it hard to tell. Her breathing became shallow and rapid. She could smell the fear in her sweat.

The driver gunned the engine, propelling the vehicle closer. Hannah’s anxiety turned into alarm. The front bumper was within twenty feet of her rear tire. She was twisting in the saddle for another look when the car’s horn began to blare.

Instinctively, Hannah wrenched the handlebars to the right, fighting to keep the bike vertical as her tires dropped off the pavement and sluiced through sand. Unclipping her feet from the pedals, she quickly dismounted and whirled to face her pursuer. Her heart was beating so fiercely, her ribs hurt.

The car, now parked next to the spot where she had gone off the road, was an old-style white Cadillac, complete with fins and dice hanging from the rear view mirror. Recognition hit, and relief—quickly followed by fury—coursed through her.

“Goddamnit, Eddie! What the hell are you doing?”

The driver’s door creaked open and Eddie Keene clambered out.

“The property—it’s gone! Every single parcel. That jerk sold it to somebody else!” Built like a bear, Eddie had a pale round face and poodlish hair, mostly dark blond. His baggy Guayabera shirt flapped over his cargo shorts, making him look like an aging beach bum.

Hannah slung her bike onto her shoulder and picked her way through the cactus back toward the pavement. “What are you talking about?”

Eddie paced at the edge of the road, his flip-flops smacking against the bottom of his feet.

“My insurance guy called this morning. He tells me he can’t write a policy on the auto mall properties ‘cause there’s something funny with the titles, and that I better call the County Recorder’s office. I did, and he was right—all eight parcels were sold to some other company, day before yesterday. And for a couple hundred grand less!” Eddie’s words tumbled out in a steady stream.

Hannah leaned her bike against the Cadillac, the lawyer part of her mind clicking into gear. Why would the seller breach his contract with Eddie? She’d reviewed the purchase documents. If the properties weren’t delivered as promised, Eddie’s claim for damages would be in the hundreds of thousands. It didn’t make sense.

“My insurance guy says unless the other buyer was in cahoots with the seller, it’s a done deal.”

“He’s right,” Hannah said. “If the other buyer is a bona fide third party—that means he didn’t know about your contract—the property is his.”

Eddie waved his hands in the air. “What the hell am I supposed to do now? Those were perfect locations. And who’s gonna give me back my two million bucks?”

“That’s why we bought title insurance. If there’s a problem involving the chain of title, you’re covered,” Hannah said, projecting a confidence she didn’t feel. Truth was, she had never had a deal come apart like this before. She pointed at the Cadillac.

“Can you give me a lift to the office? With the front wheel off, the bike’ll fit in your trunk. I want to phone the title company right away.”

“No problem. Then I’m going back to the west side. I called the seller’s office but I couldn’t get through. Thought I’d stop by this afternoon.”

His comment brought Hannah up short. Raised in one of New York’s tougher neighborhoods, Eddie had a checkered history he swore was behind him. But that was before his nine million dollar deal had crashed and burned.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Eddie,” she said. “It’ll only make things more complicated.”

“You mean no do-it-yourself lawsuits.”

Hannah hefted her bike into the trunk and shut the lid. “Do-it-yourself?”

Eddie held up his hands, balled into fists. “Here’s the judge and jury.”

Hannah opened the passenger door but didn’t get in. Instead, she locked eyes with her client over the car roof. “No self-help, Eddie. I don’t want to bone up on my criminal defense.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll do things your way.” Hannah didn’t miss the unspoken “for now” made plain by his grimace.

Eddie slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and swung the car into a U-turn. “So if the property’s history, what happens next? Do I start looking for other locations?”

“Yes, but you can’t use the money raised by the offering to pay for them. Unless you purchase the properties specified in the investor documents, the deal has to be rescinded and the money refunded to the investors.”

Including the funds that were supposed to be paid to Dain & Dain. Under his agreement with the firm, Eddie still owed attorneys’ fees even if the deal didn’t close. But Hannah knew her client’s financial status—rather, his lack thereof. You can’t collect what isn’t there. So much for her triumphant march into Richard’s office that afternoon with a six-figure check.

Eddie groaned. “You mean I have to start all over again? I’m gonna sue that jerk!”

“You can, but I’m not sure how much you’d recover. Your damages are mostly future profits, and those are always hard to prove. You also might have a problem collecting.”

Eddie sighed. “How long is it gonna take to undo this mess?”

“Hard to say. Depends how cooperative the title insurance company is and how hard you want to go after the seller.”

“A week? A month? Longer?”

“I hope not,” Hannah said, thinking of the letter from Boston. “I really hope not.”

Chapter One of Spurred Ambition →
Chapter One of Heir Apparent →
Chapter One of False Fortune →

Spurred Ambition: Chapter One

Sunday, September 13

Hannah Dain parked her Subaru behind a stand of sun-faded palo verde. She didn’t know much about breaking and entering, but figured that hiding the getaway car was probably a good idea.

Dressed in black athletic tights and long-sleeved top, she reached into the rear seat for her rock-climbing shoes. The rubber soles would be quiet and provide good traction if she had to make a run for it. Slipping on her backpack and largest pair of sunglasses, Hannah checked out her reflection in the car’s side mirror.

All I need is a balaclava to complete the burglar look. But a woolen hood would attract too much attention, especially in the middle of a hot Arizona afternoon.

Head down, she zigzagged through the chaparral toward the lone building. Two single-story wings stretched out from a high central section, stucco walls bright white against the sharp blue sky. The windows were covered with iron grilles that Hannah suspected were more functional than decorative. A pergola draped with vines led past well-groomed lawns to tennis courts and a lap pool.

Once in the parking lot, Hannah continued to work her way forward, using the cars as cover. Thirty feet from the building’s main entrance, she crouched in the shade of an oversized SUV to survey the scene.

She had timed her visit for the afternoon, when the “guests”—Hannah thought the term ridiculous—were confined to their rooms and the staff spent more time in their offices. So far, the only person in sight was the security guard standing next to the front door.

White and in his mid-thirties, the guard wore mirrored sunglasses and a duty belt heavy with billy club, mace, and gun. He remained nearly as stationary as the building itself for the twenty minutes Hannah watched him.

Maybe he’ll go to the bathroom soon. She toyed with the idea of plying him with a Coke from the gas station down the road.

Walking past the guard was Hannah’s only option. There were alternative means of entry—climbing in through an air-conditioning vent, prying open a window, picking a lock on a side door. But they all required equipment and skills that Hannah didn’t have. She wondered if the penalty was less severe for entering sans breaking.

On the street side of the parking lot, Hannah heard an engine rumble, then downshift. She squatted lower behind the SUV as a truck displaying a nursery company’s logo rolled up to the building’s main entrance. The driver’s side window was down, and Hannah heard the blare of mariachi music.

Two Hispanic men wearing dark green shirts and matching baseball hats got out of the cab, slid open the door in the back, and started unloading plants. Hannah didn’t know what kind they were, but it didn’t matter. They were tall and leafy and just the thing to get her into the lobby past the security guard.

Keeping out of sight, Hannah crept up to the truck and, standing on the running board, looked through the open driver’s window. A cap emblazoned with the nursery company’s name, like the ones the two delivery men wore, lay on the front seat. Hannah reached in, snatched the cap, and pulled it low on her head. Walking to the rear of the truck, she picked up the closest plant—a four-foot-tall specimen with thick fronds in a black plastic tub—and carried it toward the building entrance.

The two delivery men were already hauling tubs of their own. Hannah fell in line behind them, grateful for her dark hair and olive skin. If her fellow plant bearers noticed that their number had increased, they gave no sign.

As the two men passed the security guard, one turned to the other and spoke in rapid Spanish. The other laughed and answered. Hannah decided she better join the conversation.

“Dé mis recuerdos a sus tíos,” she said as she went by the guard, hoping he was as monolingual as he looked. Otherwise he might wonder why Hannah had just given her regards to his aunt and uncle. It was one of the few Spanish phrases she could recall from a summer course a few years ago—her East Coast prep school had emphasized French. Luckily, the guard ignored her.

The building’s lobby was tastefully appointed with wood and leather furniture. Beautiful photographs of the Grand Canyon covered several walls. But despite the resort-hotel façade, Hannah wasn’t fooled. Fully equipped gym, gourmet cuisine, and decorator-chosen color scheme aside, the place still had the air of a prison.

Holding the plant high in front of her, Hannah frog-marched across the tile floor. The plastic tub was starting to feel heavy—all told, her camouflage probably weighed forty pounds. At least it wasn’t a cactus.

Eyes averted, she passed the reception desk, on course for the door that led to guest housing. Only when she got closer did she see the five-button keypad.

Now what? Hannah needed a free hand to work the lock, but didn’t want to risk discovery by setting down the plant. In any event, it was a hypothetical dilemma. She didn’t know the lock combination.

“Looks like you have your hands full. Let me help you.”

A woman in a nurse’s uniform reached around Hannah and tapped in a sequence on the keypad. There was a loud click. The woman grasped the handle and opened the door.

“Muchas gracias,” Hannah mumbled into the fronds.

As soon as the door shut behind her, Hannah put down the plant and rubbed her aching biceps. Her arms felt so stretched out, she almost expected her sleeves to be too short.

She was in a narrow corridor lined with closed doors. Each one had a nameplate mounted beside it, and Hannah blew out a small sigh of relief. Finding the right room was going to be easier than she had thought.

Hannah read the first name.

Nope.
She crossed the hall and looked at the nameplate there.

Not this one.
She reached down, grabbed the rim of the plant, dragged it ten feet, then stopped and read the next name.

Uh-uh.

She checked the door across the way.

Not here either.

Hannah dragged the plant another ten feet, then paused, hands propped on her knees. Sweat dampened the bill of her cap.

Thirty seconds to check four doors. Thirty seconds wasn’t very long. Unless you were hauling a heavy plant down a hallway where you didn’t belong with another dozen doors to check—on each side. And when at any moment one of the doors might open, with the person behind it wanting to know just what in the heck you were up to.

On a hunch, Hannah jogged the length of the corridor. From what she could tell, the rooms at the end were slightly larger, and so might be considered premium accommodations. She was pleased, and not altogether surprised, to find the name she was looking for on the last door on the right.

Hannah ran back to the plant and dragged it over beside the main door. In case she had to dash, she didn’t want any obstacles in her way. And if someone else showed up, Hannah hoped that the plant would divert attention long enough for her to escape.

She returned to the room at the end of the corridor. Scarcely breathing, Hannah stood close to the door and pressed her ear against the metal, but she couldn’t hear anything—to be expected in a place where the insulation was thick enough to muffle the occasional scream.

Hannah reached for the knob. It turned under her hand, and she felt a surge of excitement. Heart pounding, she eased the door open about half an inch, unsure what she was going to find on the other side.

Just then, voices sounded at the other end of the corridor.

“What’s this plant—”

Hannah pushed the door open wider and stepped into the room.

Chapter One of Heir Apparent →
Chapter One of False Fortune →
Chapter One of Family Claims →

Heir Apparent: Chapter One

Friday, October 4

Gliding down the Beeline Highway at three miles over the limit, Atticus Barclay couldn’t help but chuckle. Despite speed cameras and sheriff’s patrols, cars were flowing by him like he was a rock in a stream. No matter the odds against them, some people just had to flout the law.

Not Barclay. In his mind the law was a big wall, like the one the Feds had put up along the Mexican border. As a plaintiff’s attorney, it was his job to get his clients over it, under it, or around it, so they could collect their due on the other side. Climbing, digging, even flying over—it didn’t matter how he got them there as long as he operated within the ethics rules. He settled more comfortably into his sheepskin-covered seat and flicked on the cruise control.

Despite the Mercedes’ speed, the ocotillos and saguaros along the roadside seemed to roll leisurely by, a silent movie in sepia tones. A fiery sunset flared at the horizon, flames of red licking the opalescent air. Beneath the purr of the air-conditioning, the big German sedan ran as smoothly and silently as a desert puma.

Barclay held the tan leather steering wheel with a light touch. His fingers were grimy, and there was dirt under his nails. Legal work involved a lot of things, some of them messy. Barclay didn’t like to leave important details to paralegals or even other lawyers. Legal research was one thing, but unearthing evidence was another. Sometimes a lawyer had to get his hands dirty. You never knew when you might find something you didn’t even know you were looking for. And you didn’t always let anyone know where you were looking either.

The air thickened with purple. Twilight softened the gaunt land of splintered peaks, torn valleys, and hot skies. But Barclay knew that beneath the apparent tranquility remained a harsh reality. The desert imbued everything with an insatiable drive to endure—indeed, to prevail. Including his law firm.

Barclay, Harrington & Merchant wasn’t big, not by Phoenix standards, but it was a force in Pinnacle Peak. Barclay knew there were those who would undermine all the hard work that had gone into building it into a premier boutique practice.

His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror where the reflection of a dually’s hood loomed large. Barclay could see the pickup was pulling a horse trailer, one of those stock models designed to carry a half-dozen horses, head to tail. He wondered if the equine passengers were watching the traffic zoom by, too.

In the morning he would have to make a move in the KB Enterprises case. Schedule more depositions, respond to the latest motion for summary—

He looked again at the rearview mirror. What the—? Before he could check the side view, brakes screeched like a horse’s panicked whinny. There was a crunching thump followed by a metallic scraping, and then the Mercedes was skidding and turning and tipping.

Barclay’s head smacked against the driver’s window as the road cartwheeled in front of him. Images of the people at his firm—they were all family to him—tumbled unbidden through his mind. Forrest Whitford—how had he let such a stiff advance so far in the litigation department? Jerry Dan Kovacs—a crackerjack lawyer, a kid with a great future. Trudy Cummings ticking off clients with her Equal Opportunity Annoyer t-shirt. Sydney Gardner with dark circles under sad eyes. Young Joe McGuinness . . . first thing tomorrow he’d tell him—

There was a flash. A rush of hot air followed by fire roiled over him. Within a minute the Mercedes was a car-be-cue, and all Barclay’s worries had gone up in flames. Barclay, too.

Chapter One of False Fortune →
Chapter One of Family Claims →
Chapter One of Spurred Ambition →

False Fortune: Chapter One

Monday, November 2

“I think we’re being followed.”

Hannah Dain adjusted her rearview mirror, trying to get a better view of the driver in the white SUV. Looking for a license plate would be pointless—Arizona didn’t require them in the front.

“Of course we are,” Shelby said. “This is the only road around the lake.”

“I mean the car behind us. I saw it when we stopped for gas.”

Her sister glanced over her shoulder, then rolled her eyes. “At the one station this side of town. Do you know how many SUVs there are in this state, especially white ones? Stop being paranoid.” Shelby consulted the map print-out on her lap. “Anyway, we’re almost at the fry bread stand.”

“If you say so.”

They hadn’t seen a road sign for at least twenty minutes, not even a mile marker. In this part of the desert, land took a long time to change. If you didn’t know where you were going, you didn’t belong out here, Hannah thought.

The grill of the white SUV filled the side-view mirror, shining through the words stenciled in the glass: Caution: objects in this mirror may be closer than they appear.

No kidding, Hannah said to herself. If the hulking vehicle were any nearer, she’d be able to see the bugs splatted on its chromed front. She pressed down on the Subaru’s accelerator, pushing the needle on the speedometer from fifty to fifty-nine. Landscape rushed by in a blur of desert colors—sagebrush green, red rock, yellow sand. The SUV grew smaller in the mirror until it looked like a toy car.

Shelby grabbed the door handle. “Hey! Slow down! These curves are making me sick.”

Hannah eased up on the gas. The tortuous road was called El Espinazo del Diablo—the Devil’s Backbone—and ran along an arête, with canyons nearing a hundred feet deep dropping off to either side. The canyon to the south was filled with volcanic rock dotted with cacti, the one to the north with water. The latter was dubbed Lake Lagunita, one of those bilingually redundant names like Table Mesa and Calle Road that Hannah found so annoying.

They came up on another vehicle. Hannah checked for oncoming cars, then steered around a pickup with a sheep in its bed. Unlike the four-lane parkway that carried casino patrons to the west side of the rez—the Tohono O’odham Indian Community—the road to the south entrance was single lane, and cars came at one other at great speed. Most of the traffic was tribe members, and alcohol-fueled crashes were frequent.

“So tell me more about your case,” Hannah said.

All Shelby had said during last night’s phone call was that she was co-counsel in a toxic tort case involving radiation contamination, and needed to video the old mines that had been used as dump sites. The mines were on the rez, reachable only by a barely-maintained axle-busting dirt track—impassable via Shelby’s red sports convertible, but no barrier to Hannah’s trusty Subaru wagon. As Shelby had never learned to work a stick shift, Hannah would have to drive, too.

They were heading for the eastern shore of Lake Lagunita, directly opposite the area where Hannah paddled most mornings before work. She had taken up kayaking as physical therapy for her twice-injured shoulder. The manmade lake straddled the boundary between Pinnacle Peak and the rez, and non-tribe members were restricted to the town-owned side, near the casino.

Her hard-plastic boat strapped to the roof, Hannah had met her sister at the boathouse that morning. Now they were on the south side of the lake, halfway to their destination.

“I don’t know all that much. Daddy just told me about it,” Shelby said.

Richard Dain was on leave from the firm, serving as a special prosecutor in a federal case back East. Dain & Daughters employed only four attorneys. With Olivia Parrish still on sabbatical in Africa and Hannah specializing in business law, Richard’s pending cases had become Shelby’s responsibility.

“Where did the radiation come from?”

“In the 1950s the tribe let the Department of Defense test some top-secret project on the rez,” Shelby said. “Probably an atomic bomb, but no one will say for sure. Whatever it was, leftover uranium ended up being dumped into old mine shafts, and poisoned the groundwater. We represent the tribe members who lived next to the dump sites and drank the water. Lead counsel is Franklin Rowley. He and Daddy went to law school together.”

“Toxic waste? Mass tort? Wow. Sounds like one of Elizabeth’s trials.”

Hannah regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. Their mother wasn’t an easy topic between the two sisters, and recent discoveries had made things even more complicated for Hannah. She had yet to tell Shelby about Elizabeth’s affair—the one that had produced Hannah—or about her newly-discovered half-sister, Anuya.

And Hannah planned to keep the secret for a while. Never close in the past, she and Shelby were finally intersecting, with a wobbly “not-quite-friendship” the result. In fact, since Hannah had rejoined the firm last month, Shelby had been almost nice to her younger sibling. Hannah didn’t want her recent discoveries to jeopardize their fledgling relationship.

Besides, given how rocky things had been with Shelby, Hannah wasn’t all that sure how she felt about having another sister. She and Anuya had exchanged several emails, and Hannah was content to leave it at that for now.

Shelby’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Do you think she would have been a good mother?”

Hannah blinked. Elizabeth Dain had died within days of giving birth to Hannah, twenty-eight years ago. “I . . . I don’t know,” she said.

“Everyone says she loved her work. And Daddy, too.”

Hannah winced, then hoped Shelby hadn’t noticed.

“But no one ever talks about her as a parent,” her sister continued.

Was Shelby trying to tell her she knew about the affair? About Anuya? Hannah fixed her eyes on the line where the pavement disappeared into the horizon. “You were only two when she died, Shelby. She didn’t have a lot of time to be a mom.”

Hannah steered the Subaru around a pothole and the conversation back to a safer topic.

“Isn’t the government going to say the radiation came from uranium that was already in the ground? How are you going to prove the contamination is the DOD’s fault?” Hannah knew most of the radioactive ore used during the nuclear era came from mines in the Southwest. The tribe’s water supply could have been polluted through natural causes.

“We don’t have to. The government admitted liability, supposedly because of national security, though what can be so important fifty years later is beyond me. Franklin thinks it’s because private contractors—who are also big political contributors—want to start mining on the rez again.”

“For more uranium? I thought we won the arms race,” Hannah said.

“This is about fuel for nuclear power plants. China and India are building reactors like crazy, and our government is pushing nuclear energy as an alternative to oil.”

“So what will the victims get?”

“Anyone who can prove damages is entitled to reparations. Apparently, the side effects of radiation poisoning are pretty ghastly—nerve damage, paralysis, blindness. Franklin thinks video of the mines and the plaintiffs’ houses will make the jury more sympathetic. He wants to remind them of how things were on the rez before the casino.”

Housing, schools, hospitals—Hannah knew they had all been made possible by the ka-ching! of slot machines and the clatter of chips on poker tables. Only after her temporary job with the tribe had she seen the dark side of such wealth.

A tote bag decorated with a designer’s logo was at Shelby’s feet. She took an atomizer from an outside pocket and spritzed both sides of her neck, something French and flowery.

Hannah wrinkled her nose. “Is that perfume?”

“Of course. I would never use eau de toilette. Want some?”

“No!” Hannah lowered the window halfway. “You’re stinking up the car.”

“And that would be a bad thing?”

With an expression of distaste, Shelby picked up a half-empty Gatorade bottle from the passenger-side footwell and set it in the cup holder. She glanced around the car’s interior, taking in the paddling suit draped over the back seat, Post-its bearing scribbled training times stuck to the glove box, the partially-eaten PowerBar protruding from the dashboard cubby next to an iPod with its headphone wires in a tangle. “You look ready for your Modern Squalor magazine photo shoot.”

Hannah grinned. “I like my spaces to have a lived-in feeling.”

Shelby snorted. “Don’t you mean homeless?”

“This car is a temple to athletic endeavor.”

“Not a religion I’d belong to.” Shelby reached into the tote bag again, this time taking out a camcorder. She touched a button on the silver case and a lens emerged.

“Cool. Is that yours?” Hannah asked.

Shelby squinted through the viewfinder. “Jake’s.” The corners of her mouth curved upward. “Works indoors, even with the curtains drawn.”

Hannah held up a hand in mock disgust. “I so didn’t want to know that.”

Jake Lyman was an EMT and volunteer firefighter whom Shelby had met while she was in rehab. Jake had been inspecting the premises for fire-code compliance. Even in sweats and no make-up, Hannah’s sister was a head-turner.

What had surprised Hannah was that Shelby had given Jake a second look. From blue-collar stock, he wasn’t her sister’s usual date material. And Hannah had been dubious about a relationship that began while her sister was supposed to be climbing the twelve steps. But the romance had taken hold, and was still going strong after two months, a long time in Shelby-years. Hannah was fine with it—she liked Jake. Maybe the new boyfriend, not the stint in rehab, was the reason for her sister’s change in attitude toward her?

Romance was not on Hannah’s agenda, at least not soon. She had broken up with Cooper Smith—for the second time—at the conclusion of the tumultuous events surrounding her brief career as a contract lawyer for the Tohono O’odham tribe six weeks ago. Too many pending family issues left her no time for someone else, she had told herself.

The road curved along the shoreline, and Hannah glanced at the lake. The water was green, the same shade as Cooper’s eyes. She remembered what it felt like to lose herself in their depths and tightened her grip on the steering wheel.

“So are you and Jake going to move in together?”

“Why would you ask that?” Shelby’s tone was sharp.

Hannah glanced at her sister, surprised. “Because he spends nearly every night at your place. That is, when you’re not at his. Or is the reason you’re wearing that gray suit two days in a row just because you like it so much?”

“Not that it’s any of your business—” Shelby’s eyes widened. “Look out!”

Hannah yanked her attention back to the road. Two mountain bikers peddled side-by-side, straddling the shoulder line. She jerked the wheel and the Subaru swung wide, narrowly missing the inside cyclist. In the rearview mirror she saw one of them raise his hand. But instead of the expected finger, he gave her a friendly wave. Eyes still on the mirror, Hannah noticed the white SUV had gained ground again. She watched it swerve around the cyclists, then shifted her attention back to the road ahead.

Shelby pressed a hand against her stomach. “I’m not feeling so great. Do you have any water?”

“No, but you can have the rest of that Gatorade.”

Shelby looked at the lime-colored contents of the bottle and shuddered. “Now I am going to be sick.” She peered through the bug-dotted windshield. “There’s the fry bread stand. Pull in. They’ll have something”—she forced a swallow—“not so fluorescent.”

Hannah steered the Subaru across the opposite lane and onto a swathe of gravel. The car crunched to a stop, and Shelby threw open the door and dashed for the portable toilet next to the makeshift stall. A quarter mile ahead was the south entrance to the rez, where only tribe members and permit holders were allowed to enter.

Hannah got out of the car more slowly. She pressed her hands into the small of her back and stretched, watching the white SUV approach. Its speed slackened, and for a moment Hannah thought it was going to turn in. But then the car sped up again, and it roared by the turnout. As it passed, Hannah saw that the blond woman behind the wheel was talking on a cell phone.

No wonder she was tailgating. Hannah headed toward the fry bread stand, conceding that Shelby was right about the driver of the SUV. The events of the past summer and fall notwithstanding, there were enough bad people in the world without her having to invent them.

The fry bread stand—a latillo roof supported by four posts—leaned to one side, looking as though one more puff of wind would push it over. Two wooden tables with mismatched chairs were arranged in front of a flour-dusted counter. Sitting in one of the chairs was a small woman with skin the color of reddish earth. Broad-shouldered and wide-hipped, she was shaped like the jar of flour next to the griddle. A sign tacked to one of the posts said NEVER TOO HOT, NEVER TOO COLD. In smaller writing were the words in winter after HOT and in summer after COLD.

The Indian woman stood.

“Fry bread? Very good.”

There was a pyramid of juice containers and bottled water in a Styrofoam container on the floor, ice cubes puddling around them.

“Just a water and an orange juice, please.” Hannah opened her wallet.

“Can make with saguaro jam. Or like taco. Very good.”

“The drinks will be fine.”

The woman shrugged as if to say it was Hannah’s loss for passing on the fry bread, and took the bills.

“Keep the change,” Hannah said.

The woman shrugged again. “No coins.”

Carrying the water and juice, Hannah walked over to the portable toilet’s door and rapped on it.

“Shelby, you okay?”

“Go away,” came the muffled reply, followed by a retching sound.

Shelby was barely a month out of rehab. Hannah knew post-discharge therapy often included a drug that would induce nausea if alcohol was ingested. Had Shelby relapsed? Hannah raised her hand to knock again, then paused.

Not that it’s any of your business. Shelby’s words echoed in her head. Although things between them were better, they were still far from great. Hannah didn’t know her sister’s favorite color, what movies made her cry—if any even did. How could she ask Shelby if she were drinking again?

Hannah turned away from the toilet door. She spotted another sign propped against a boulder. WATCH OUT FOR RATTLESNAKES. Doubting this one was a joke, she kept her ear tuned for the telltale buzz as she walked toward the far end of the turnout.

It was one of those perfect November mornings, the kind that could almost made her forget the summer and its sledgehammer heat. Horsetails of clouds trailed across nearby peaks, and the air was laden with the soapy pungence of creosote. A hummingbird cased her orange shirt, rejected it, and retired to a nearby bush.

A low wooden guard rail, more decorative than functional, rimmed the gravel parking area. On its other side, the ground dropped abruptly away. Hannah walked to the rail and looked over. Sixty feet below, Lake Lagunita lapped at the cliff base. A band of white mineral-stained rock separated the green of the lake from the red canyon walls. There was something surreal about the huge quantity of water and a nearly-fifty-mile coastline in the middle of the parched landscape. The water was relaxed and clear, and Hannah could see the contours of the canyon that had been drowned when the river collected behind Diablo Dam. The gray boulders strewn across the bottom looked like sleeping turtles.

An engine growl broke the quiet, and Hannah glanced over her shoulder. The white SUV came into view again. It passed her and turned in to the graveled area, stopping on the other side of the fry bread stand next to the Subaru.

The blond driver got out and walked to a mass of brittlebush next to the drop-off. Squinting into the sun, Hannah made out a descanso tucked among gray-green leaves. The roadside memorials to accident victims dotted the Southwest’s highways, reminders that mass times velocity squared often had a horrible outcome.

Hannah watched the woman take a square of blue from her purse and place it under a rock next to the shrine. She stood for a moment with her head bowed, then got back into the SUV. The heavy vehicle lumbered back onto the pavement toward town.

The door to the portable toilet was still closed. Hannah debated knocking again, but instead walked over to the descanso.

A bunch of poppies was propped against the base of the white cross. Heads heavy in the heat, the flowers looked as if they were panting. Next to them was a blue envelope, Garth written on the front in the same script as the Garth Weller that had been hand-lettered on the wooden crosspiece. Curiosity tugged at Hannah, but she left the envelope where it was.

“Howdy, Hannah!” boomed a male voice.

She turned to see the cyclists they had passed on the road bumping over the gravel toward her. The two men braked to a stop, unclipped their pedals, and took off their helmets.

“Hi, Jerry Dan,” Hannah said, recognizing the generous grin and just-woke-up hair.

Jerry Dan’s grin widened. “I thought that was your green Subaru.”

He laid his bike on the gravel, careful not to scratch the titanium tubing. Hannah’s gaze roved over the aerodynamic arcs and top-of-the-line components, then cut to the Port-A-Potty. She was relieved to see that the door was still closed.

Jerry Dan Kovacs was a trial lawyer with another firm in town. Hannah had met him three months ago, when he bought her mountain bike through an online auction—the same bike Shelby had given her a scant two weeks earlier. The gift was a replacement for the bike Hannah had lost as a result of last summer’s events. But Hannah was done with mountain-biking, the sport too grim a reminder of those terrible days. Unable to bear having the bike around, she had sold it—without telling Shelby.

“What are you doing way out here?” Hannah asked.

“Training for the State Orienteering Championships.” Jerry Dan indicated his companion. “Dr. Glouster’s a prof at ASU and the course designer. The race is going to be on the rez this year.”

The other man nodded a greeting. “Ed Glouster.”

“Hi,” Hannah said. “So what’s orienting?”

“Orienteering,” Jerry Dan said, emphasizing the ee sound. “You use a compass and a topo map to navigate through a series of control points, usually on bike or foot, sometimes skis. The person with the fastest time wins.”

“Sounds like an ordinary race to me,” Hannah said.

“Not exactly. The course is kept secret until the day of the race, and has a staggered start, so there’s no following other competitors. You choose your route based on the map, and the best way isn’t always the shortest distance between two control points. So not only do you have to be fast, you have to be able to navigate, too. Gives a sports klutz like me a chance. Plus now I’m riding a hot bike, thanks to you.” He patted the top tube affectionately. “Me and Silver are going for the win.”

“Silver? Not Trigger?”

As Hannah had learned the day he picked up the bike, Jerry Dan was a fan of all things cowboy. Roy Rogers was a particular favorite—she recalled something about a petition for an honorary Oscar. The Lone Ranger had merited only a passing mention.

Jerry Dan looked pained. “Trigger was a palomino.” At Hannah’s puzzled expression, he added, “A gold-colored horse.”

Hannah glanced at the bike’s titanium frame, gleaming white in the flat light.

“Hi ho,” she said, stifling a smile.

A door banged, loud in the still air. Hannah jerked her head to see Shelby standing in front of the blue cubicle.

“Gotta go,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Glouster. Good luck at the race, Jerry Dan.”

Hannah hurried over the gravel toward the fry bread stand, wishing she had donated her bike to charity. Shelby stood in the meager shade of the latillos. Hannah held up the water bottle and juice carton.

“Orange or not orange?”

Shelby chose the water. Lifting up her pale hair, she pressed the bottle against her neck with an unconscious grace that Hannah no longer envied, then nodded toward Glouster and Jerry Dan. The two men were looking at the descanso, their bikes still on the ground beside them.

“Who are they?”

“Those cyclists we passed on the road.” Hannah popped the tab on the juice container and gulped down the pulpy liquid. Winter in Arizona was like summer everywhere else—temperatures in the seventies. And being near the lake always seemed to make her thirstier. She finished off the juice, tossed the empty container into a rusty drum next to the counter, then burped. Catching Shelby’s frown of disapproval, she made herself burp again.

Her sister sighed. “Can we get going? Some of us have other things to do.”

Sweat shone on Shelby’s ivory skin, and Hannah noticed that her sister’s hand shook slightly as she sipped from the bottle of water. Did Shelby’s other things to do include getting a drink? Worried, Hannah thumbed the remote.

Shelby opened the door on the passenger side and sat down. “Do you think we’re not close because we didn’t have a mother?”

Hannah put a hand on the door frame to steady herself. She and Shelby didn’t have these type of conversations. In fact, until her sister’s stint in rehab, they hadn’t talked much at all.

The automatic response—Of course we’re close—pushed against her teeth. But seeing Shelby’s expression, Hannah bit back the denial and opted for the partial truth instead.

“I don’t know. Probably didn’t help that I wasn’t around much.”

From fourth grade on, Hannah had attended boarding school back East, going on to the Ivy League and law school. After graduation three years ago, she had come to Arizona and joined the family firm. But until recently, she might as well have stayed away for all the warmth shown her by Richard and Shelby. Their aloofness had stung. And despite Hannah’s newfound understanding of family history, it still did.

“But now you’re staying? At the firm, I mean.” Shelby dropped her eyes and fiddled with the camcorder.

Something twisted inside Hannah. Until you find out my secrets and want me to leave. “I’ll be around,” she said.

Insects hummed around them, their buzz gradually drowned out by the sound of an approaching vehicle. The now-familiar white SUV hove into view, moving fast.

The big truck veered into the parking lot. Fishtailing on the gravel, it barreled toward the Subaru. The same woman was at the wheel, shoulders hunched, hooded eyes staring straight ahead.

She’s going to hit us. Instinctively, Hannah grabbed Shelby’s arm and yanked her sister from the car.

“Hey!” Shelby exclaimed as she went sprawling.

The SUV banged into the Subaru’s bumper, splintering the plastic taillight cover and denting the metal. Unhindered by a parking brake, Hannah’s car began to roll forward. The SUV, now heading for Jerry Dan and Ed, didn’t slow.

“Jerry Dan! Look out!” Hannah yelled.

The two men scattered while the SUV stayed its course. Just missing the bicycles, the big vehicle plowed over the descanso and into the stand of brittle brush. Branches scraped against its door panels and snagged on its side mirrors as the SUV cleared the chaparral and crashed through the guardrail.

“Oh my God,” Shelby whispered.

Hannah watched, slack-jawed, as the SUV ran out of ground. The vehicle plunged over the cliff edge, trailing wisps of brittle brush. Seconds later, a belly-flopping splash careened off the canyon walls.

“Hannah! Your car!” Jerry Dan shouted.

The Subaru, helped by momentum from the slight downhill, was still rolling. Hannah broke into a run. If she could just get to the still-open door, jump in, and pull the emergency brake . . .

The Subaru was twenty feet from the edge of the cliff. Hannah ran faster. She had pulled even with the rear window when her foot slipped on the gravel. The car kept going as she fell to her knees.

“No!” she cried as the front bumper hit the guard rail. The flimsy wood gave way.

The Subaru teetered on the edge for a moment before succumbing to gravity. With a sickening scrape of its undercarriage against the rock, it slid out of sight.

Chapter One of Family Claims →
Chapter One of Spurred Ambition →
Chapter One of Heir Apparent →