A Snippet from Betrayed!
#1 on Amazon, a Thriller by Joseph Lewis
After I had written six books, I wanted to take the reader back to the Navajo Nation Reservation in Northeastern Arizona, home of George Tokay, one of the adopted brothers in the Evans family. It is also home to a character I introduce in Betrayed, Michael Two Feathers, who everyone calls Two. His importance is key to the action in Betrayed, and in subsequent books, Blaze In, Blaze Out and Fan Mail.
This chapter takes place in a hospital on the reservation. Detective Pat O’Connor is banged up and suffering from a severe concussion when his truck was run off the road. FBI Agent Ron Reyna was shot by an unknown assailant. He suffers from a significant shoulder wound. The only healthy cop on the case is Detective Jamie Graff.
The three cops received a panicked message from Brett McGovern, a fifteen-year-old who, who along with Brian Evans and Two are hunted by an unknown group on the reservation. The cops don’t know why, and neither do the three boys. More alarming is that the boys don’t know they are being hunted. But clearly, they are in danger, as the injuries to the two cops indicate.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Sutured and wearing a sling, Reyna waved away any of the pain meds the emergency doctor offered him with the explanation, “I need to think clearly.”
“I’m sure you’re in a great deal of pain, but if not, you will be. You will need these meds.”
Reyna slipped his arm out of the sling and buttoned up his bloody shirt using his one good hand. He fumbled badly and got buttons linked to the wrong holes. He tucked in the front half of his shirt, but the back hung out. Reyna slipped his arm back into his sling and tried to smile at Graff, but failed. His dimple didn’t show. He listed to the side and steadied himself on the hospital bed. He fought off a wave of nausea, but regained his balance.
A young nurse holding a clipboard and pen opened the curtain, stepped around it, and closed the curtain behind her.
“Because it was a gunshot, there are a few questions to ask.”
“I gave you everything you need.” He nodded at Graff and said, “My partner and I need to go. We don’t have time.”
“Sir,” the nurse said as she stood in front of him.
Graff cleared his throat and said, “Ron, answer the questions. I’ll go up and see Pat. When you’re done, meet me up there.”
Reyna sighed, and to the nurse said, “What do you need?”
Graff turned around and left. The emergency doc was waiting for him beyond the curtain and motioned him away towards the nurse’s station.
“Here are pain meds. I know neither you nor I can force feed him these, but you know him better than I do. If he needs something, here they are,” he said handing them a small plastic bottle with ten pills. “Whether or not he admits it, he’s in a great deal of pain.”
Graff smiled, took the bottle and shoved it into his front shirt pocket. “He’s a tad bullheaded, but I’ll see what I can do.”
Graff went off in search of his friend and sometime partner. The room wasn’t hard to find because two men, a chubby, stocky Navajo cop, and a young guy with a haircut that screamed ‘Fed!’ sat outside the door. Both stood as Graff approached.
“I’m Jamie Graff, a detective from Waukesha, Wisconsin. Pat O’Connor is my friend. He’s a sheriff detective from Waukesha County. We’ve worked together, and both of us came out here to help George Tokay and Rebecca Morning Star find Charles, Rebecca’s brother and George’s friend.”
Neither of them moved.
Graff tried again. “Could one of you check with Pat and let him know I’m here?”
“Jamie, come in,” O’Connor said loudly enough for the bookends to hear.
“Excuse me,” Graff said. Neither moved, so he slid between them.
He spied O’Connor and chuckled. “You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit.”
Graff sat down in an uncomfortable chair at the side of the bed, stared at his friend, and said, “Seriously, how do you feel?”
“I seriously feel like shit.”
“What’s hurting?”
O’Connor slid a finger under the sunglasses he wore, rubbed first one eye and then the other and said, “Easier to tell you what doesn’t. I hurt all over. I think my head was run over. My back is killing me. I don’t know what the hell happened to my arms or hand, but they hurt when I move them.”
“At least you have good-looking sunglasses,” Graff smirked.
“Yeah, well . . .”
“I think the military calls them B.C.Gs.”
“What’s that mean?”
Graff smiled and said, “Birth Control Glasses, because anyone who wears them won’t get anything from anyone.”
O’Connor glared at him and said, “Besides giving me a hard time, is there a reason you came up here?”
Graff looked down at the floor, then leaned forward and spoke quietly.
“Something’s bothering me, Pat. Something’s not right about any of this.”
O’Connor waited.
“I get that Goodnight would check George’s land to see if anyone was on it. Reyna mentioned that word travels fast around here, so he might have picked up that George and the boys were there.”
“And?”
“That might explain Goodnight. He wants to build a resort, so he scares ranchers by killing their sheep to intimidate them.”
“He’s stupid, but not really a criminal, if you know what I mean.”
Graff nodded, “Agreed!”
“So,” O’Connor prompted.
“We also know that Desert Security is on the reservation ostensibly to protect some mining company who wants to do some drilling.”
O’Connor almost nodded, but thought better of it and sat still.
“But there’s something bothering me about all of this. How did they know you were a cop? How did they know where you were staying? How did they know what road you were on?”
“I found a GPS tracker on my car, remember?”
Graff nodded and said, “Yeah, I remember. But how did they know to put it on your car? How did they know you were dangerous to them?”
O’Connor looked towards the door as Reyna strolled in.
“What the hell happened to you?” O’Connor asked.
“Someone shot at us. We left Goodnight and were headed to the pond to check on the boys,” Reyna said.
“What the fuck is going on?” O’Connor asked.
“That’s only part of what bothers me,” Graff said.
“What?” Reyna asked.
“Here’s the thing,” Graff said. “According to Brett’s email and the pictures he sent to you, three guys just happened to show up at the Trading Post. According to Brett, who is perceptive about this shit- way more than any fifteen-year-old should be- they came looking for them. One of them said something like, ‘I thought you’d be bigger!’ when Michael came through the backdoor.”
“He thought Michael was George?” O’Connor said.
Reyna sat down on the side of the bed. He said, “Why would they be after the boys?”
“That’s one question. The other would be, how did they know the boys would be at the trading post?” Graff said.
The three men sat quietly. Finally, Reyna said, “They knew the boys would be there.”
O’Connor sat up straighter. He said, “Who told them the boys would show up there and at that time?”
“Why would someone tell them?” Reyna asked. “What could they possibly want with the boys? For all they or anyone knows, they’re camping and hunting. Dozens of tourists do that.”
“None of this makes sense. In any crime, pieces fall into place,” O’Connor said. Then he added, “This is doing nothing for my headache.”
Graff stood up, looked out the window, and then stepped quietly to O’Connor’s bed. He leaned over and whispered, “I don’t know the answers to your questions. I don’t know how the boys fit into this. Maybe just collateral. You’re right, nothing fits. Two seemingly separate groups of bad guys both wanting something that seems to be unrelated. But I’m wondering.” He paused, sat back down in the chair and leaned forward. He had whispered before, but he spoke even more softly. “I wonder if the same guy who shot at Ron and me tipped off the three guys about the boys being at the trading post.”
He let that sit there like an unexploded grenade.
It was Reyna who first registered the magnitude of Graff’s suggestion. Though aching and suffering from a major concussion, O’Connor wasn’t far behind.
“That makes sense in a weird way. What would he hope to gain?” Reyna asked as he squinted at the window beyond Graff.
“And why?” Graff added.
“We need to warn the boys,” Pat said.
—
FBI Agent Reyna is a new character and appears only in Betrayed, so far. I might bring him back in a future book. Detectives Graff and O’Connor are two characters who consistently appear in each book from Stolen Lives, Book One of the Lives Trilogy through Fan Mail and my newest that drops at the end of the year, Black Yéʼii (The Evil One). Of course, the Evans boys appear in each and every book.
I’d like to know what your thoughts, so please use the comment section below. You can find information for each of my books on my Author Website at www.jrlewisauthor.com
For your convenience, I’ve given you some reviews on Betrayed, along with the description and the purchase link. Betrayed is available in three formats: Audio, Kindle and Paperback.
#1 Best Seller (Amazon) in Traditional Detective Mysteries
Barnes and Noble Bestseller
2021 Maxy Award Runner-Up – Mystery/Suspense
2021 PenCraft Book Awards 1st Place – Thriller
Integrity is protecting someone who betrayed you. Courage is keeping a promise even though it might mean death.
A late-night phone call turns what was to be a fun hunting trip into a deadly showdown. Fifteen-year-old brothers George Tokay, Brian Evans and Brett McGovern face death on top of a mesa on the Navajo Nation Reservation in Arizona. They have no idea why men are intent on killing them.
Betrayed is a contemporary psychological thriller and an exploration of the heart and of a blended family of adopted kids, their relationships to each other and their parents woven into a tight mystery-thriller.
“…a larger mystery that quickly turns violent – even deadly.” -Books with Bircky
“An action-packed thriller that grabbed my attention from the start.” -Sharon Beyond the Books
“To call Betrayed a thriller alone would be to do a disservice.” –Midwest Book Review
“A stirring and unusual tale of teenage love, adventure and murder.” –Best Thrillers
“A layered story that explodes into a bullet-riddled climax.” –Rick Treon, award-winning author of Deep Background
“…a great psychological thriller…This book was entertaining and I loved learning about the different tribes.” -Hannah Loves to Read
