CLOSE TO MADNESS, page 16
He twisted, his elbow catching Ben sharply in the ribs. Ben grunted in pain, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second. It was all Stone needed. He scrambled free and kicked out, his boot connecting with Ben’s knee. A bolt of white-hot pain shot up Ben’s leg.
Stone was up and running again, but Ben, fighting through the pain, lunged and grabbed his ankle, bringing him down hard.
“It’s over,” Ben growled, climbing on top of him, pinning him to the ground.
But Stone wasn’t done. “You don’t understand!” he hissed, his voice a venomous whisper. He twisted his body with a surprising, violent torque. “The research is too important!”
His hand, which had been scrabbling in the dirt, came up holding a rock. He swung it wildly, aiming for Ben’s head. Ben jerked back just in time, the rock grazing his temple, sending a shower of bright, painful sparks across his vision. The world tilted.
Stone used the moment to push him off and get to his feet. He stood over Ben, the rock raised high, his face a horrifying mixture of intellectual arrogance and feral rage. "You are just a variable," he spat. "An obstacle to progress."
Ben, lying on his back, his head throbbing, kicked out with his leg, his heavy boot connecting solidly with Stone’s chest. The impact was brutal. Stone staggered back, the rock falling from his nerveless fingers. He tripped over a root and fell backward, his head hitting the hard-packed earth with a sickening thud.
For a moment, he lay still. Then he groaned.
Ben was on his feet in an instant, ignoring the fire in his knee and the pounding in his head. He kicked Stone’s weapon—the rock—away into the darkness. He hauled the dazed man to his feet, spun him around, and slammed him against the trunk of a large cottonwood tree.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Ben said, his voice a low, ragged growl as he pulled a pair of cuffs from his belt. The click of the steel locking around Marcus Stone’s wrists was the loudest, most satisfying sound he had ever heard.
The chase was over. They had him
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
The world returned in fragments, a slow, painful reassembly of reality.
First came the low, steady rumble of a car engine, then the familiar, solid weight of Ben’s arm around Kari's shoulders. The chaotic, menacing landscape of the canyonlands had been replaced by the cracked vinyl of the SUV’s passenger seat. The terrifying visions were gone, but they had left behind a toxic residue—a pounding headache that felt like a spike being driven through her skull, a sour, chemical taste in her mouth, and a deep, cellular exhaustion that had settled in her bones.
Kari blinked, the flashing blue and red lights of a patrol car painting the dark interior of the SUV in strobing, disorienting colors. She could see figures moving in the distance, leading a handcuffed Marcus Stone to a waiting vehicle. His face, illuminated for a moment, was not one of panic or defeat, but of cold, indignant anger.
“Ben?” she whispered. It was difficult just to get that one word out.
“I’m here, Kari,” he said, his voice a low, comforting anchor in the swirling remnants of the nightmare. “It’s over. You’re safe. We got him.”
She leaned her head back against the seat, the relief so profound it felt like a physical weight being lifted off her chest, leaving her limp and drained. She had walked into the fire, and Ben had pulled her out. They had done it.
The hours that followed were a blur of procedural necessities. An ambulance arrived. The paramedics checked her over. She was lucid enough to refuse transport to the hospital, a decision that earned her a stern lecture about the unknown neurological effects of unidentified compounds, but it was a battle she won through sheer stubbornness. She gave a preliminary statement to a grim-faced Captain Yazzie, who looked at her with a mixture of profound relief and simmering anger. The unspoken reprimand for disobeying his direct order hung heavy in the air between them, a conversation for another, less fragile day.
The interrogation of Marcus Stone took place in the early hours of the morning, in a small, sterile interview room at the station. Kari watched from the observation room, a mug of hot, sweet tea clutched in her trembling hands. She was still too shaky, too close to the event, to conduct the interview herself. She left that to Ben and Captain Yazzie, who sat opposite Stone at the metal table.
Marcus, stripped of his arrogance, looked small and pathetically academic under the harsh fluorescent lights. He had waived his right to an attorney, possessed by a chilling, narcissistic need to explain, to justify, to make them understand the elegant logic of his actions.
“You have to understand, it was never personal,” he said in a calm, rational monotone. He spoke not to the detectives, but to the camera in the corner of the room, as if delivering a lecture to a rapt audience. “It was a matter of data integrity. The research Dr. Alarcon is doing… it’s monumental. It has the potential to remap the human consciousness, to cure untold suffering. But its success depends on clean, replicable results.”
He leaned forward, his eyes bright with a fervent, unhinged light. “The subjects I chose… they were outliers. Their unique physiologies produced anomalous reactions. Maria Sandoval’s spiritual framework was too rigid; she fought the medicine. Jerome Natanii’s guilt response was disproportionate. Robert Benally’s physical reaction was atypical. They were statistical noise. Their experiences, if documented, would have skewed the data, calling the entire project into question. I was simply… curating the study.”
“You were murdering them,” Captain Yazzie said coldly.
“A regrettable but necessary pruning,” Marcus answered, a flicker of annoyance on his face. “To ensure the health of the entire tree. I was protecting Dr. Alarcon’s work from failure. I was protecting her legacy.”
He went on to explain how he had synthesized the enhanced compounds in his private, off-campus lab, a small space he rented in a Flagstaff industrial park, circumventing his own chemical sensitivities with a state-of-the-art ventilation hood he’d bought with his student loan money. He described how he had identified his targets through Dr. Alarcon’s own meticulous research notes, using her data to pinpoint the most problematic subjects.
“And the reporter?” Ben asked. “Gavin Thorne. How did he know to look at Daniel Crowfeather?”
Marcus almost smiled. “A simple, anonymous email from a disposable account,” he said. “I’d learned through Dr. Alarcon’s files that Crowfeather was accepting the most funding for community engagement. It made him the most logical target for an accusation of greed. I knew a reporter like Thorne wouldn’t be able to resist such a salacious, simple narrative. It was the perfect diversion. Everything was working so splendidly, until…”
“Until me,” Kari said softly from behind the one-way glass.
“The detective,” Marcus said in the other room. “She was intelligent, persistent. She was getting too close. Her death would have been the final, perfect data point: proof that even a strong, rational mind could be tragically overwhelmed by the power of the medicine. It would have solidified the ‘accidental death’ narrative forever.”
The confession was ironclad. By dawn, the case was, for all intents and purposes, closed.
Later that morning, after a few hours of restless sleep on the cot in the station’s break room, Kari knew there was one last thing she had to do. She and Ben drove back to Tucson.
They found Dr. Alarcon in her lab. The news of her assistant’s arrest seemed to have aged her ten years overnight. The fierce, defiant anger was gone, replaced by a shattered, hollowed-out expression of horror and disbelief. Her lab coat was rumpled, her eyes red-rimmed. She was surrounded by her life’s work, a body of research that was now inextricably tainted by murder.
“I still can't believe it,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. She didn't offer them a seat. “Marcus… Is it true? Was he really behind those deaths?”
“He confessed to everything, Doctor,” Ben said gently. “He said he was doing it to protect you. To protect your research.”
A choked sob escaped her. “Protect me?” she said, a bitter, incredulous laugh catching in her throat. “He destroyed me. He destroyed everything.” She swept an arm across her desk, sending a stack of academic journals crashing to the floor. “This work… my life’s work… was about healing. It was about understanding. He took that and twisted it into something monstrous.”
She sank into her chair, her head in her hands. “I saw the signs,” she whispered, her voice thick with self-recrimination. “His intensity. His obsession with purity in the data. He would argue with me about methodology, insisting my protocols were too cautious. I saw it as youthful ambition, as dedication. I encouraged it. I praised his meticulous nature.”
She looked up at Kari, her eyes swimming with tears. “He took advantage of my trust, used my own research to choose his victims. Those people… they trusted me. And I led him right to them.”
It was clear she had been an unwitting accomplice, her ambition and her passion for her work having blinded her to the monster she had cultivated in her own lab. In that moment, Kari felt a pang of something akin to pity for the woman. Dr. Alarcon was a different kind of victim in this, her life’s work forever linked to an unspeakable tragedy.
“The Native American Church chapters I work with have already severed ties,” Alarcon said, her voice empty. “And they are right to. The university has suspended my grant and opened a full ethics investigation. My career is over.” She looked at Kari, a question in her tear-filled eyes. “The things he did… the detective who was dosed… was that you?”
Kari just nodded.
Alarcon closed her eyes, a fresh wave of pain washing over her. “I am so sorry,” she whispered.
There was nothing more to say. They left her there, alone in the ruins of her life’s ambition.
The drive back was quiet, but it was a different kind of quiet than before. It was the quiet of resolution, of an immense weight being lifted.
As they drove, Kari reflected on the past week. The forced ceremony, the terrifying, poison-fueled journey through her own mind… it had been an ordeal, but it had also been a profound, unwanted education. It had given her a glimpse into the world her mother had been trying to understand, a world of spiritual power that was both beautiful and vulnerable. It hadn’t provided the neat, clean answers of a police procedural. It had left her with more questions, but they were different questions now. Deeper ones.
“What Marcus did…” Kari said finally, as the familiar red rocks of the reservation came into view. “He perverted the ceremony for his own purposes. But the ceremony itself… the part before he interfered… it was real, Ben. The feeling of connection. The visions. They felt… meaningful.”
“I know,” Ben said quietly. “My father used to say the medicine doesn’t show you what you want to see. It shows you what you need to see.”
Kari thought about the vision of her mother, of the filing cabinets from her father's world appearing behind her for a fleeting second. It hadn’t been a clue for this case. She felt a sudden, strange certainty about that. It was a clue for the other one. Her mother’s case. It was a message, a signpost pointing her back to the research, back to the records.
The vision hadn't been an answer, but a directive for where to look next.
She realized then that her avoidance of her traditions wasn’t a sign of strength or objectivity. A shield, yes, but one she clung to out of fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of her own heritage. Fear of becoming her mother.
But the ceremony had forced her to confront that fear. It had dragged her, kicking and screaming, onto a path she had never intended to walk. And now that she was on it, she found she was not entirely sure she wanted to leave
EPILOGUE
One month later, in the heart of a cold, clear February, the community gathered. It wasn’t a formal ceremony, but a simple, open-invitation potluck at the chapter house.
The event, organized by the families of the victims, was an act of quiet defiance, a way to reclaim the fellowship that had been fractured by fear and suspicion. The air, which for weeks had been thick with tension, now smelled of fry bread, mutton stew, and the sharp, clean scent of burning juniper from a large bonfire crackling in the center of the yard, its sparks dancing up to meet the brilliant, brittle stars.
Kari stood near the edge of the crowd, a cup of warm cider in her hands, watching the firelight soften the tired lines on the faces of her neighbors. She had come with Ruth, not as Detective Blackhorse—she had deliberately left her badge in the car—but as Kari, Anna Chee’s daughter. It was a role she was still learning to inhabit, and it felt both unfamiliar and deeply right.
The community, wounded and wary, had begun the slow, deliberate process of healing. Kari saw Daniel Crowfeather talking with Joseph Begay near the food tables. The two roadmen, one who had been falsely accused by the media and one whose ceremony had been the stage for Kari’s own ordeal, were not separated by bitterness, but united in a shared purpose. They were part of a new council of elders, working to draft stricter protocols for engaging with any outside researchers. The spiritual walls of their circle, having been breached, were being rebuilt from within, stronger than before.
Alice Benally, Robert’s widow, walked over to Kari, a small, sad smile on her face. “Detective,” she said softly. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course,” Kari said. “It’s good to see everyone together.”
“It is,” Alice agreed, her gaze drifting toward the fire. “It helps. Knowing he wasn’t just… careless. Knowing that someone is being held responsible for what they did. It doesn’t fix the hole in my family, but it stops the questions from eating us alive.” She squeezed Kari’s arm gently. “Thank you.”
As Alice walked away to join her son, Kari felt the familiar satisfaction of a closed case mingle with a deeper, more personal sense of responsibility. This was what it was all for. Not the thrill of the chase, but the quiet, fragile peace that could follow.
Ruth appeared at her side, holding her own cup of cider. She didn’t speak, just stood with Kari, watching the flames.
“I saw Ben earlier,” Ruth said after a long, comfortable silence. “He was helping Samuel Sandoval chop more wood for the fire. He is a good man. He has a steady heart.”
“Yes, he does,” Kari agreed. Ben had been her shadow for the past month, a quiet, protective presence, always showing up with food or a fresh pot of coffee, never asking about the nightmares she knew he could see in her eyes.
“He worries about you,” Ruth said, stating a simple fact.
“I know.”
“You are different since that night,” her grandmother observed.
It was true. The experience in the tipi had left its mark. The terror had faded, but the clarity of the visions had not. They were a part of her now, a strange and vivid chapter in her own story.
“I saw her, Grandmother,” Kari admitted, her voice so low it was almost lost in the crackle of the fire. “I saw my mother.”
Ruth nodded slowly, her expression unsurprised. “What did she show you?”
Kari thought about how to describe the chaotic, cryptic images. “She showed me the others who died. And… she showed me a place from my father’s world. Filing cabinets. Like the ones at the FBI office.”
“Hozho,” Ruth said, the word for balance, for harmony. “She was showing you that you cannot walk one path without the other. Your father’s world of records and facts, and her world of spirit and connection. They are not two separate paths, Asdzą´ą´ K'os. They are two hands that must work together to weave the whole blanket.”
The simple wisdom of it settled over Kari, a profound truth she had spent her whole life resisting.
Later that evening, back in her own apartment, the quiet felt different. It was no longer the heavy silence of a stalled investigation, but the calm, focused silence of a new beginning.
The forced participation in the peyote ceremony had not given her a magical solution. It had not shown her the face of her mother’s killer. It had done something far more profound. It had broken down the wall she had built inside herself, the one that separated Kari the Cop from Kari, Anna Chee’s daughter. It had forced her to confront the legacy she had inherited, a legacy not just of pain, but of fierce, protective strength.
She looked at the photo of her mother pinned to the bulletin board above her small desk. Anna was smiling, her eyes bright with a fire Kari now recognized in herself. The grief was still there, a permanent ache in her heart, but it was no longer a paralyzing weight. It was fuel.
The path ahead was long and dangerous, shrouded in the secrets of the past. But for the first time in a year, she was truly open to where it might lead her.
And she knew she would not stop until she found the truth.
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CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT
(A Kari Blackhorse Suspense Thriller—Book Seven)
“A masterpiece of thriller and mystery.”
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Amidst the haunting beauty of sacred tribal lands, Detective Kari Blackhorse finds herself pitted against an adversary weaving fresh murders into the fabric of Hopi myths. Her investigation will challenge everything she knows about her heritage and demand she solve not just the crimes, but also unearth the truth hidden within ancient legends.
CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT is the seventh book in a long-anticipated new series by #1 bestseller and USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose bestseller Once Gone (a free download) has received over 7,000 five star ratings and reviews. The series begins with CLOSE BY (book #1).
The Kari Blackhorse series will keep you riveted, turning pages late into the night in this fast paced mystery series. Packed with shocking twists and featuring a brave and brilliant heroine, it offers a fresh take on the mystery genre—and a thriller that will keep you wanting more.
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