Stolen Sisters is about human trafficking, but it’s also about Mexican wolves, family responsibilities, livestock guardian dogs, and lying to family and friends to save them. It’s from the point of view of a woman on the cusp of middle age who has no time for that. She’s has a job that sometimes calls for getting elbow deep in death – and sometimes calls for the small power she has inherited from her curandera grandmother and the warrior’s instincts of her ancestors to face the hugeness of murder.
Jessie Torres is back!
Special Deputy Jessie Torres is an Apache woman born and raised in the high wild country of western New Mexico. After a stint as a veterinary student at UC Davis and later as a Berkeley, CA police officer, Jessie is back in New Mexico investigating wolf conflicts with humans and domestic animals for the Mangas County Sheriff’s Department. This often involves performing field necropsies on days-old decomposing carcasses to determine if it was because of Mexican wolves or something else. It’s hardly the kind of work she expected to be doing, but it suits her – and besides, it’s better than 9 to 5 in an office.
Then [in Dark Green] the day came when Jessie backtracked a Mexican wolf to the trail’s end, where the savaged body of a human being sprawled in mud. By the time the body was bagged and taken away to the State Medical Examiner in Albuquerque, Jessie was sure that had been the worst day of of her life.
But she was wrong. The worst day was a week later when she killed a man, someone from her past.
Stolen sisters – early cover idea
Now, a year after the shooting, Jessie is still haunted by the incident. It’s even made her question whether she should stay in law enforcement. Still, when two young woman are discovered dead in a car in a flood and the hunt for a murderer begins Jessie can’t help but get involved. Meanwhile, her real job is dealing with wolf depredation, and of course that has to come first. But when Jessie learns her sister has gone missing and her grandmother has been involved with questionable activities, Jessie must decide whether the oath she swore to uphold the law or her need to protect her family comes first.
EXCERPT FROM STOLEN SISTERS
By the time she reached the McKee house it was nearly 9:30 and just about dark. With the truck windows rolled down to catch the fresh evening air, she heard the roars of fighting animals even before she reached the McKee’s parking area. The battleground was the front yard of the sprawling one-story log McKee headquarters.
The shotgun was released and in her hands before she had time to think about it. She grabbed the weapon and was running before her brain clicked in. Stu would be pissed off if she unloaded a few rounds of 12-gauge buckshot into his dogs. He seemed to have the situation more or less under control, anyway.
One straining dog was being dragged away by two men and Stu knelt on the neck of another dog lying on the ground with a blanket thrown over its head. A third dog sat on the sidelines, watching interested]y but showing no inclination to get involved.
Jessie stopped a respectful distance from the scene. Like the dog observing from the sidelines, she wasn’t interested in getting in the middle of any of that. She glanced down at the shotgun and flicked on the safety, relieved she didn’t have to shoot anything tonight.