Ophelia cracked the door, a sliver of darkness. Her cigarette smoke rushed out through the narrow opening. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered.
“Looks like I’ve been granted a fucking audience.”
She unlatched the chain and pulled the door open, standing in front of Alex in a peach chiffon robe that was virtually transparent. Underneath she wore nothing; Alex dispassionately noticed that the shadow between her legs did not match the hair on her head. She blew a ring of smoke into Alex’s eyes. “To what do I owe the honor?” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“I’ve come for Cassie,” Alex said, already pushing past Ophelia into the tiny living room of the apartment.
He felt hands picking at the back of his shirt, ineffectual, like the feet of tiny wrens. “Well, you might want to start by looking in a place where sheis,” Ophelia said. “I haven’t even talked to her since that day at the apartment. I thought she’d be in Scotland withyou.”
Alex peeked behind the floor-length hanging curtains, peered into closets. “You’re a shitty liar, Ophelia. Just tell me where she’s hiding.”
He barreled into the kitchen, checking the pantry and the floor-level cabinets, knocking over a half-finished bottle of cabernet.
When he turned back to Ophelia, her eyes were so wide Alex could see a ring of white going all the way around her irises. Good, he had her terrified. He grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her hard. “Did you put her up last night? Did she tell you where she was headed?”
Ophelia let out a little cry, and at that the bedroom door creaked open. Alex released her abruptly, running around the corner and slamming into a man in a flowered silk robe, still groggy from sleep.
“Alex, Yuri. Yuri, Alex.” Ophelia ground out her cigarette against the half of an orange fermenting on the kitchen counter. “See, Alex? Ihaven’tbeen hosting Cassie. I was otherwise occupied.”
Alex didn’t even bother to glance at her. “Get out,” he murmured to Yuri.
A dawn of recognition flashed across Yuri’s eyes. “Hey,” he said.
“Aren’t you—”
“Out,” Alex yelled. He propelled Yuri to the door and locked him on the other side of it, still wearing Ophelia’s robe.
Ophelia threw herself at Alex, yelling and scratching. “Howdareyou,” she screeched. “You walk right into my apartment like you own the fucking world and—”
“Ophelia,” Alex said softly, his voice breaking, “I can’t find her. I looked everywhere. I can’t find Cassie.”
Ophelia absently rubbed her hand over her black cast, watching Alex Rivers sink onto her stained couch. Her mind raced through possibilities and places that she was certain Alex had already tried. What would make Cassie leave in such a goddamn hurry? If it was Alex, didn’t Cassie know that she would have done anything to help?
Ophelia stiffened her spine and walked toward Alex until she was standing directly in front of him. “What have you done to her?” she said, her voice tight and cold.
Alex buried his face in his hands. “God,” he said. “I don’t know.”
IT WAS A TWO-HOUR RIDE FROM THE RAPID CITY AIRPORT TO PINE Ridge, and as Cassie bounced up and down in the rental truck she noticed two things: that the land stretched unmarked so far it could have been a sea, and that the deeper they drove into this swirling red earth, the more uptight Will became.
There was a policeman at the border of the reservation, someone who gave Will a high five and let his eyes slide down Cassie in the passenger seat. “Hau, ko´la!” he said. He began speaking in a language Cassie did not understand. To her surprise, Will whipped off his sunglasses and started to talk to the policeman in the same dialect, then pulled the car onto a grass trail.
“What did he say?” Cassie asked.
“He said hi,” Will muttered. “In Lakota.”
“Lakota?”
“The language of the People.”
Cassie brushed a flyaway strand of hair away from her mouth. “Is your Sioux nameKo´la?”
Will couldn’t help himself; he laughed. “No,” he said. “It means
‘friend.’ ”
Cassie relaxed in her seat. If they were back on the reservation and Will had already seen someone he knew well, it was a good omen. “So he’s a friend of yours,” she said, making conversation.
“No,” Will said. “He’s not.” He ran his hands over the steering wheel, telling himself Cassie had no right to demand explanations about his life and yet knowing that she wouldn’t shut up until he told her more. “He’s tribal police. We were in the same grade together in school.
