“First of all,” she said into the heavy silence, “I am not the enemy. I do not know what is going on over there. That’s what I was hired to find out. I am neither judge, nor jury; I am impartial investigator. If the men working for Calligan are innocent, they have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by talking to me. I am trained in investigation—you aren’t and neither are they. I may see or hear something with their help that will allow us to find whoever did cause that explosion. What’s more, you seem to be operating under some assumption that I’m working for the police or some other investigative organization. I’m not. The insurance company that hired me doesn’t care if those men are innocent or guilty; all they want to know is if Rod Calligan concealed evidence that his company had been threatened before any of this happened.”

That obviously took David aback. “They don’t care? They—I get it, if Calligan was concealing threats, it would invalidate his claim, right?”

Jennifer had to give him credit; David could pick up on things quickly if he chose to. “Exactly. But there are plenty of people in Tulsa who would like to get an easy conviction. And if those workers are innocent, I might be able to convince some of the cops who are on the case that Calligan’s men had nothing to do with it.”

David’s face hardened at that. “If?”

She let her own face assume the mask of the warrior. “Just what I said. If. Because if they’re not innocent, they’d better truck their asses out of town as fast as they can, because sooner or later either I’ll find out what happened or the cops will—and if it’s me, I’ll turn them in. I won’t lie to you, David; I’ll turn in anyone else who uses terrorist tactics and death to make a point.”

His eyes narrowed, and his teeth clenched as his temper rose again. “That makes you a traitor, in my book—”

She cut him off, this time using the Power to choke the words in his throat. His mouth worked, without anything coming out. He was, however, so angry that he hardly seemed to notice.

Her own temper had reached the snapping point. “Just who the hell am I being a traitor to, David Spotted Horse?” she snarled. She couldn’t help but think, perhaps with some conceit, that her temper was the trained warhorse—and his the wild mustang. “Why don’t you go take a quick trip over to the morgue before you start on me? So far there are four people dead. Go look at what’s left of the damn bodies, if you have so much courage! I did! A fair share of those dead bodies are our people, and red or white, their blood demands retribution!”