“Does this have anything to do with the fact that I’m female?” she hazarded, a little impatient with the man. “Or that I’m a—ah—minority? If this is a bow toward tokenism, I’ll take your job only if I’m really suited to doing it. Otherwise I would be very happy to recommend someone else who can handle it better and you’ll have made your federally mandated attempt.” She’d taken a “token” job a few times in the past; they had always turned out to be unmitigated disasters. Now, even if she needed the money, she always turned them down. There was a “PITA” factor—“Pain In The Ass”—that only very generous pay could compensate for.

“It has everything to do with the fact that you are Native American, Miss Talldeer,” Sleighbow replied, relief quite obvious in his voice. “And no, there is no one who is better qualified, and it has nothing to do with federal mandates.”

“All right,” she said, feeling that this time he was coming straight with her. “If you’ve got time, I’ve got time. Why don’t you start at the beginning, and I’ll sit and listen.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“ARE YOU FAMILIAR with the Riverside Mall project, Miss Talldeer?” Sleighbow asked. His tone didn’t tell her much, but her instincts told her to be careful. “Rod Calligan is the developer there.”

“Vaguely,” she replied with caution. Not a good idea to tell him she had been among the protesters when the area had first been proposed for development. He might take a dim view of that. Not that it mattered much anymore, really. She and everyone but a few diehards had finally given up on stopping the project when it became painfully clear that the developer had everyone, from the Feds on down, firmly in his back pocket. There was no other way to explain why so many issues she and the others had raised had been so neatly “taken care of.” But there had been no way to prove corruption, so she had dropped out, as had most of the others.

“There’d been some trouble with Native American protesters back when the site was first selected,” Sleighbow continued, his tone completely noncommittal. “When Calligan came to us, he presented us with a package that indicated that every objection had been taken care of. Frankly, we thought his presentation was a good one, and when the developer made a point of hiring as many Native Americans as he could, far beyond the point of government—ah—recommendations, our specialists assured us that there would be no further problems from that angle. That was why we agreed to insure him. Romulus does not specialize in high-risk insurance.” The last was said with a certain emphasis, and agreed with everything she had heard about his company.