Cold Conspiracy
Cindi Myers
The body count is mounting…And he’s the killer’s next target. Deputy Jamie Douglas and lawman Nate Hall are determined to capture the Ice Cold Killer. But a blizzard ravages their town, keeping everyone snowed in with this chilling killer. Can Jamie and Nate get to the truth before more innocent people wind up dead?
The body count is mounting.
And a deputy is the killer’s next target.
Capturing the Ice Cold Killer is the greatest challenge Eagle Mountain has ever seen. Thankfully, Deputy Jamie Douglas is determined to see justice done. Nate Hall is visiting for a wedding, and the vacationing lawman is more than willing to help. As a blizzard ravages the town, keeping everyone trapped with a killer, evidence begins to accumulate about a mysterious conspiracy. Can Jamie and Nate get to the truth before more innocent people wind up dead?
CINDI MYERS is the author of more than fifty novels. When she’s not crafting new romance plots, she enjoys skiing, gardening, cooking, crafting and daydreaming. A lover of small-town life, she lives with her husband and two spoiled dogs in the Colorado mountains.
Also by Cindi Myers (#u0ad51da8-d660-55ec-81d9-afc0a55bc029)
Ice Cold Killer
Snowbound Suspicion
Saved by the Sheriff
Avalanche of Trouble
Deputy Defender
Danger on Dakota Ridge
Murder in Black Canyon
Undercover Husband
Manhunt on Mystic Mesa
Soldier’s Promise
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Cold Conspiracy
Cindi Myers
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-09440-5
COLD CONSPIRACY
© 2019 Cynthia Myers
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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To the ladies of GJWW.
Contents
Cover (#uf7c9618e-68b6-591f-9389-7a0a7b0d21bf)
Back Cover Text (#u76a0d7b8-a395-52cc-b2c9-ea90ed705229)
About the Author (#ucb0231d3-8ca6-522f-9c15-8a6624dafcd6)
Booklist (#u6d62ec96-6fe3-54fd-8e4a-e663a968f40f)
Title Page (#u26802ff5-f1c5-5b05-a4ab-dd7f144fca23)
Copyright (#u1a10264f-f4a9-5bb2-b9c8-687120b769cb)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#udc291b09-cf9c-5949-8100-72af72e12acf)
Chapter One (#uc59d8338-9145-59f3-a2a3-27db50c6a047)
Chapter Two (#u2e48e15d-b060-5518-8bfa-94a0fc4199fa)
Chapter Three (#uaab85155-6c6b-59f0-946e-f7f0034b5d9c)
Chapter Four (#u2e18eb27-b94c-574c-ac00-f9192444e8ff)
Chapter Five (#uced1351c-cbba-548c-b58e-323e856b481e)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u0ad51da8-d660-55ec-81d9-afc0a55bc029)
“Come on, Donna. We need to head back to the house or I’ll be late for work.” Rayford County Sheriff’s Deputy Jamie Douglas turned to look back at her nineteen-year-old sister, Donna, who was plodding up the forest trail in snowshoes. Short and plump, her brown curls like a halo peeking out from beneath her pink knit cap, cheeks rosy from the cold, Donna reminded Jamie of the Hummel figurines their grandmother had collected. On a Monday morning in mid-January, the two sisters had the forest to themselves, and Jamie had been happy to take advantage of a break in the weather to get outside and enjoy some exercise. But now that she needed to get home, Donna was in no rush, stopping to study a clump of snow on a tree branch alongside the trail, or laughing at the antics of Cheyenne, one of their three dogs. The twenty-pound terrier-Pomeranian mix was the smallest and easiest to handle of the canines, so Donna had charge of him. Jamie had a firm hold on the leashes for the other two—a Siberian husky named Targa, and a blond Lab mix, Cookie. “Donna!” Jamie called again, insistent.
Donna looked up, her knit cap slipping over one eye. “I’m coming!” she called, breaking into a clumsy jog.
“Don’t run. You’ll fall and hurt yourself.” Jamie started back toward her sister, but had taken only a few steps when Donna tripped and went sprawling.
“Oh!” It was Jamie’s turn to run—not an easy feat in snowshoes, though she managed to reach Donna’s side quickly. “Are you okay?”
Donna looked up, tears streaming down her plump cheeks. “I’m all wet,” she sniffed.
“Come on, let’s get you up.” Jamie took her sister’s arm. “It’s not far to the car.” Though Down syndrome had delayed her development, Donna was only a few inches shorter than Jamie and outweighed her by twenty pounds. Getting her to her feet while both women were wearing snowshoes made for a clumsy undertaking. Add in three romping dogs, and by the time Donna was upright, both sisters were tired and damp.
Once she was assured Donna would stay on her feet, Jamie took charge of Cheyenne, adjusting her grip on all three leashes. But just then, something crashed through the undergrowth to their left. Barking and lunging, Targa tore from her grasp, quickly followed by Cookie and Cheyenne. All three dogs took off across the snow, on the trail of the mule deer buck who was bounding through the forest.
“A deer!” Donna clapped her hands. “Did you see him run?”
“Targa! Cookie! Come here!” Jamie called after the dogs, even as the clamor of their barking receded into the woods. Silently cursing her bad luck, she slipped off her pack and dropped it at Donna’s feet. “Stay here,” she ordered. “I’m going after the dogs.”
Running in snowshoes was probably like dancing in clown shoes, Jamie thought as she navigated through the thick undergrowth. She could still hear the dogs—that was good. “Targa, come!” she shouted. She needed to find the dogs soon. Otherwise, she’d be showing up late for the mandatory meeting Sheriff Travis Walker had called, and she hated to think what he would have to say. As the department’s newest deputy, she couldn’t count on him cutting her much slack.
The dogs’ tracks were easy to follow through the snow, which was churned up by their running paws. Here and there she spotted the imprints of the deer, too. She replayed the sight of the big animal crashing out of the woods toward them. What had made the buck run that way—before the dogs had even seen it? Was a mountain lion stalking the animal?
Fighting back a shiver of fear, she scanned the forest surrounding her. She saw nothing, but she couldn’t shake a feeling of uneasiness—as if she really was being watched.
She crashed through the underbrush and emerged in a small clearing. The dogs were on the other side, all wagging tails and happy grins as they gathered around a man on snowshoes, who scowled at the three of them. Jamie’s heart sank when she recognized the uniform of a wildlife officer—what some people called a game warden. He looked up at her approach. “Are these your dogs?” he asked.
“Yes, Nate. They’re my dogs.” She crossed the clearing to him and gathered up the leashes. Worse even than having her dogs caught in the act of breaking the law by a wildlife officer was being caught by Nate Hall. The big blond outdoorsman managed to look like a conquering Viking, even in his khaki uniform, though Jamie could remember when he had been a gawky boy. The two of them had been pretty successfully avoiding each other since he had moved back to Eagle Mountain four months ago, after an absence of seven years. “My sister fell and I was helping her up when they got away from me,” Jamie said.
“Jamie, you ought to know better,” Nate said. “The deer and elk are already stressed this winter, with the deep snow. Allowing dogs to chase them stresses them further and could even result in their death.”
What made him think he had the right to lecture her? “I didn’t allow the dogs to chase the deer,” she said. “It was an accident.” She glared down at the three dogs, who now sat at her feet, tongues lolling, the pictures of innocence.
“Hello!” They both turned to see Donna tromping toward them. She towed Jamie’s pack behind her, dragging it through the snow by its strap.
“Donna, you were supposed to wait for me,” Jamie said.
“I wanted to see what you were doing.” Donna stopped, dropped the pack and turned to Nate. “Hello. I’m Donna. I’m Jamie’s sister.”
“Hello, Donna,” Nate said. His gaze swept over Donna, assessing her. “Your sister said you fell. Are you okay?”
“Just wet.” Donna looked down at the damp knees of her snow pants.
“We really need to be going.” Jamie picked up her pack with one hand, while holding all three leashes in the other. “I have to get to work.”
“Let me take the dogs.” Not waiting for her reply, Nate stepped forward and took the leashes. She started to argue, then thought better of it. If the dogs got away from him, maybe he wouldn’t be so quick to blame her.
“Nice day for snowshoeing,” he said as he fell into step beside Jamie, Donna close behind.
She didn’t really want to make small talk with him. The last real conversation they had had—seven years ago—had not been a pleasant one. Though she didn’t remember much of anything either of them had said, she remembered the pain behind their words. The hurt had faded, leaving an unsettled feeling in its place.
The dogs trotted along like obedience school protégés. When Targa tried to pull on the leash, Nate reined her in with a firm “No!” and she meekly obeyed—something she never did for Jamie. Apparently, muscles and a deep, velvety voice worked to impress female canines, too.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Donna said. “It’s supposed to be Jamie’s day off, but now she has to go to work.”
“Something come up?” he asked. His gray eyes met hers, clearly telegraphing the question he didn’t want to voice in front of Donna—Any more murders? Over the past three weeks, a serial killer had taken the lives of five local women. Dubbed the Ice Cold Killer, because of the calling cards he left behind with the words Ice Cold printed on them, the serial murderer had eluded all attempts by local law enforcement to track him down. Heavy snow and avalanches that closed the only road out of town for weeks at a time had further hampered the investigation.
“Nothing new,” Jamie said. “The sheriff has called a meeting to go over everything we know so far.”
Nate nodded and faced forward again. “When I moved back to town I was surprised to find out you were a sheriff’s deputy,” he said. “I never knew you were interested in law enforcement.”
“There’s a lot you never knew about me.” She hadn’t meant the words to come out so sharply and hurried to smooth them over. Otherwise, Nate might think she was still carrying a torch for him. “I stopped by the department one day to get an application to become a 911 dispatcher,” she said. “I found out they were recruiting officers. They especially wanted women and would pay for my training, as long as I agreed to stay with the department three years. The starting salary was a lot more than I could make as a dispatcher, and I thought the work sounded interesting.” She shrugged. “And it is.”
“A little too interesting, sometimes, I imagine,” Nate said.
“Well, yeah. Lately, at least.” She had been one of the first on the scene when the killer’s third victim, Fiona Winslow, had been found. Before then, she had never seen the body of someone who had died violently. Then she had responded to the call about a body in a car in the high school parking lot and found the killer’s most recent victim, teacher Anita Allbritton. The deaths had shocked her, but they had also made her more determined than ever to do what she could to stop this killer.
“The sheriff is getting married soon,” Donna said.
“Yes, he is.” Nate looked back at her. “I’m going to be in the wedding.”
“You are?” Donna sounded awed, as if Nate had announced that he was going to fly to the moon.
“I’m one of the groomsmen,” Nate said.
“I didn’t know you knew Travis that well,” Jamie said.
“We ended up rooming together in college for a while,” Nate said. “He’s really the one who talked me into coming back to Eagle Mountain, when an opening came up in my department.”
So Nate had returned to his hometown because of Travis—not because of anyone else he had left behind.
They reached the trailhead, where Jamie’s SUV was parked. Nate helped her get the dogs into the vehicle. “Where is your car?” Donna asked, looking around the empty parking area.
“I hiked over from the base of Mount Wilson,” Nate said. “I’m checking on the condition of the local deer and elk herds. The department is thinking of setting up some feeding stations, to help with survival rates this winter. All this snow is making it tough for even the elk to dig down and get enough food.”
“I could help feed deer!” Donna’s face lit up.
“I appreciate the offer,” Nate said. “But they’re too wild to come to people. We put out pelleted food and hay in areas where the animals congregate, and monitor them with remote cameras.”
Nate had intended to study wildlife biology in college, Jamie remembered. He was in his element out here in the snowy woods. That his job involved carrying a gun and arresting poachers would only make the work more interesting to him. He had always had a strong sense of wrong and right. Some people might even call him idealistic.
She didn’t have much room for idealism in her life these days—she had to focus on being practical. “We have to go,” she said, tossing her pack in after the dogs and shutting the hatch. “Buckle up, Donna.”
She started around the side of the car to the driver’s seat, but Nate blocked her way. “I’m glad I ran into you this afternoon,” he said. “We didn’t have much chance to visit at the scavenger hunt at the Walker Ranch.”
She shook her head. Fiona Winslow had died that day—no one had been in a visiting mood. “I’m sure we’ll run into each other from time to time,” she said. Eagle Mountain was a small town in a remote area—she saw a lot of the same people over and over again, whether she wanted to or not. “But don’t get any ideas about picking up where we left off.” She shoved past him and opened the car door.
After she made sure Donna was buckled in, she backed the SUV out of the lot. Donna waved to Nate, who returned the wave, though the look on his face wasn’t an especially friendly one.
Donna sat back in her seat. “He was cuuuute!” she said.
“Don’t you remember Nate?” Jamie asked. “He used to come over to the house sometimes, when he and I were in middle school and high school.”
“I remember boys,” Donna said. “He’s a man. You should go out with him.”
“I’m not going out with anybody,” Jamie said. She wasn’t going to deny that Nate was good-looking. He had been handsome in high school, but time and working out, or maybe the demands of his job, had filled out and hardened his physique. Though the bulky parka and pack he had on today didn’t reveal much, the jeans and sweater he had worn to the party at the ranch had showed off his broad shoulders and narrow waist in a way that had garnered second and third looks from most of the women present.
“Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” Donna asked. It wasn’t a new question. Donna seemed determined to pair up her sister with any number of men in town.
“I’m too busy to have a boyfriend,” Jamie said. “I work and I take care of you, and I don’t need anyone else.”
“But I want you to have a boyfriend,” Donna said.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I have a boyfriend!” Donna grinned and hugged herself.
“Oh?” This was the first Jamie had heard that Donna was interested in anyone in particular. “Who is your boyfriend?”
“Henry. He works in produce.”
Donna worked part-time bagging groceries at Eagle Mountain Grocery. Jamie made a note to stop by the store and check out Henry. Was he another special-needs young adult like Donna, or the local teen heartthrob—or even an adult who might have unknowingly attracted her? It was an easy mistake for people to think of Donna as a perpetual child, but she was a young woman, and it was up to Jamie to see to it that no one took advantage of her.
She slowed to pass a blue Chevy parked half off the road. The car hadn’t been there when they had come this way earlier. If she had more time, she would stop and check it out, but a glance at the clock on the dash showed she was cutting it close if she was going to drop Donna off at Mrs. Simmons’s house and change into her sheriff’s department uniform before the meeting.
“What is wrong with that car?” Donna looked back over her shoulder. “We should stop and see.”
“I’ll let the sheriff’s office know about it,” Jamie said. “They’ll send someone out to check.”
“I really think we should stop.” Donna’s expressive face was twisted with genuine concern. “Someone might be hurt.”
“I didn’t see anyone with the car,” Jamie said.
“You didn’t stop and look!” Donna leaned toward her, pleading. “We need to go back. Please? What if the car broke and someone is there, all cold and freezing?”
Her sister’s compassion touched Jamie. The world would be a better place if there were more people like Donna in it. She slowed and pulled to the shoulder, preparing to make a U-turn. “All right. We’ll go back.” Maybe the sheriff would accept stopping to check on a disabled vehicle as an excuse for her tardiness.
She drove past the car, then turned back and pulled in behind it, angling her vehicle slightly, just as if she had been in a department cruiser instead of her personal vehicle. “Stay in the car,” she said to Donna, who was reaching for the buckle on her seat belt.
Donna’s hand stilled. “Okay,” she said.
Cautiously, Jamie approached the vehicle. Though she didn’t usually walk around armed, since the appearance of the Ice Cold Killer, she wore a gun in a holster on her belt at all times. Its presence eased some of her nervousness now. The late-model blue Chevrolet Malibu sat parked crookedly, nose toward the snowbank on the side of the road, the snow around it churned by footsteps, as if a bunch of people had hastily parked it and piled out.
She leaned forward, craning to see into the back seat, but nothing appeared out of order there. But something wasn’t right. The hair rose up on the back of her neck and she put a hand on the gun, ready to draw it if necessary.
But she didn’t need a gun to defend herself from the person in the car. The woman lay on her back across the front seat, eyes staring at nothing, the blood already dried from the wound on her throat.
Chapter Two (#u0ad51da8-d660-55ec-81d9-afc0a55bc029)
Nate reached his truck parked at the base of Mount Wilson just as his radio crackled. Though a recently installed repeater facilitated radio transmission in this remote area, the pop and crackle of heavy static often made the messages difficult to understand. He could make out something about needing an officer to assist the sheriff’s department. He keyed the mic and replied. “This is Officer Hall. What was that location again?”
“Forest Service Road 1410. That’s one-four-one-zero.”
“Copy that. I’m on my way.” The trailhead on 1410 was where he had left Jamie and her sister. Had they found something? Or had something happened to them?
He pressed down harder on the gas pedal, snow flying up around the truck as he raced down the narrow path left by the snowplow. The Ice Cold Killer’s next to last victim, Lauren Grenado, had been found on a Forest Service road not that far from here. Maybe Nate shouldn’t have left Jamie and her sister alone. He could have asked them to give him a ride back to his truck, as an excuse to stay with them. But Jamie had said she was running late for work, so she probably would have turned him down.
Who was he kidding? She definitely would have turned him down. She clearly didn’t want anything to do with him, apparently still holding a grudge over their breakup all those years ago.
And yeah, maybe he hadn’t handled that so well—but he’d been nineteen and headed off to college out of state. He had thought he was doing the right thing by ending their relationship when it was impossible for them to be together. He had told himself that eventually she would see the sense in splitting up. Maybe she would even thank him one day. But she wasn’t thanking him for anything—the knowledge that he could have hurt her that deeply chafed at him like a stone in his boot.
He spotted her SUV up ahead, parked behind a blue sedan. Jamie, hands in the pockets of her parka, paced alongside the road. He didn’t see Donna—she was probably in the car.
He pulled in behind Jamie’s SUV and turned on his flashers. Jamie whirled to face him. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I got a call to assist the sheriff’s department.” He joined her and nodded toward the car. “What have you got?”
“Another dead woman.” Her voice was flat, as was her expression. But he caught the note of despair at the end of the sentence and recognized the pain shining out from her hazel eyes. He had a sharp impulse to pull her close and comfort her—but he knew right away that would be a very bad idea. She wasn’t his friend and former lover Jamie right now. She was Deputy Douglas, a fellow officer who needed him to do his job.
“I’ve got emergency flashers in my car,” he said. He glanced toward her SUV. Donna sat in the front seat, hunched over and rocking back and forth. “Is your sister okay?”
“She’s upset. Crying. Better to leave her alone for a bit.”
“Do you know who the woman is?”
She shook her head. “No. But I think it’s the Ice Cold Killer. I didn’t open the door or anything, but she looks like his other victims—throat cut, wrists and ankles wrapped with tape.”
He walked back to his truck, retrieved the emergency beacons and set them ten yards behind his bumper and ten yards ahead of the car. As he passed, he glanced into the front seat and caught a glimpse of the dead woman, staring up at him. Suppressing a shudder, he returned to Jamie, as a Rayford County Sheriff’s cruiser approached. The driver parked on the opposite side of the road, and tall and lanky Deputy Dwight Prentice got out. “Travis is on his way,” he said, when they had exchanged greetings.
“I was headed back to town to get ready for our meeting when I saw the car,” Jamie said. “It wasn’t here when I drove by earlier, on my way to the Pickaxe snowshoe trail.”
“The meeting has been pushed back to four o’clock.” Dwight walked over to the car and peered inside. “Do you know who she is?”
“I don’t recognize her, and I never opened the car door,” Jamie said. “I figured I should wait for the crime scene team.”
“Did you call in the license plate?” Dwight asked.
Jamie flushed. “No. I… I didn’t think of it.”
“I’ll do it,” Nate said.
Radio transmission was clearer here and after a few minutes he was back with Jamie and Dwight, with a name. “The car is registered to Michaela Underwood of Ames, Iowa.”
The sound of an approaching vehicle distracted them. No one said anything as Sheriff Travis Walker pulled in behind Dwight’s cruiser. Tall and trim, looking like a law enforcement recruiting poster, the young sheriff showed the strain of the hunt for this serial killer in the shadows beneath his eyes and the grim set of his mouth. He pulled on gloves as he crossed to them, and listened to Jamie’s story. “What time did you drive by here on your way to the trail?” he asked.
“I left my house at five after nine, so it would have been about nine thirty,” she said.
“Your call came in at eleven fifty-two,” Travis said. “How long was that after you found her?”
“I had to drive until I found a signal, but it wasn’t that long,” Jamie said. “We stopped here at eleven forty-five. I know because I kept checking the time, worried I was going to be late for work.”
Travis glanced toward her car. “Who is that with you?”
“My sister, Donna. She never got out of the car.” One of the dogs—the big husky—stuck its head out of the partially opened driver’s-side window. “I have my dogs with me, too,” Jamie added.
“All right. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
The others stood back as Travis opened the driver’s-side door. He leaned into the vehicle and emerged a few moments later with a small card, like a business card, and held it up for them to see. The bold black letters were easy to read at this short distance: ICE COLD. “Butch is on his way,” Travis said. Butch Collins, a retired doctor, served as Rayford County’s medical examiner. “Once he’s done, Dwight and I will process the scene. I’ve got a wrecker on standby to take the car to our garage.”
“It must be getting crowded in there,” Nate said—which earned him a deeper frown from the sheriff.
“Nate, can you stay and handle traffic, in case we get any lookie-loos?” Travis asked.
“Sure.”
“What do you want me to do?” Jamie asked.
“Take your sister home. I’ll see you at the station this afternoon. You can file your statement then.”
“All right.”
Nate couldn’t tell if she was relieved to be dismissed—or upset about being excluded. He followed her back to her SUV and walked around to the passenger side. The dogs began barking but quieted at a reprimand from Jamie. Donna eased the door open a crack at Nate’s approach. “Hello,” Nate said. He had a vague memory of Donna as a sweet, awkward little girl. She wasn’t so little anymore.
“Hello.” She glanced toward the blue sedan, where Dwight and Travis still stood. “Did you see the woman?”
“She’s not anyone we know,” Nate said. “A tourist, probably.” More than a few visitors had been stranded in Eagle Mountain when Dixon Pass, the only route into town, closed due to repeated avalanches triggered by the heavy snowfall.
“Why did she have to die?” Donna asked.
Because there are bad people in the world, he thought. But that didn’t seem the right answer to give this girl, who wanted reassurance. “I don’t know,” he said. “But your sister and I, and Sheriff Walker and all his deputies, are going to do everything we can to find the person who hurt her.”
Donna’s eyes met his—sweet, sad eyes. “I like you,” she said.
“I like you, too,” he answered, touched.
“All right, Donna. Quit flirting with Nate so he can get back to work.” Jamie turned the key in the ignition and started the SUV.
“You okay, Jamie?” he asked.
The look she gave him could have lit a campfire. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?” she asked. “I’m a deputy. I know how to handle myself.”
“I wasn’t implying you didn’t.” He took a step back. “But this kind of thing shakes up everybody. If you asked the sheriff, he’d probably tell you he’s upset.” At least, Nate had known Travis long enough to recognize the signs that this case was tearing him up inside.
“I’m fine,” Jamie said, not looking at him. “And I need to go.”
Look me in the eye and let me see that you’re really okay, he thought. But he only took another step back and watched as she drove away. Then he walked into the road, to flag down the ambulance he could see in the distance.
JAMIE SHIFTED IN the driver’s seat of the SUV, as uncomfortable as if her clothes were too tight. Nate had looked at her as if he expected her to dissolve into tears at any minute. He ought to know she wasn’t like that. She was tough—and a lot tougher now than she was when they had been a couple. She had had to develop a thick skin to deal with everything life had thrown at her.
She was a sheriff’s deputy, and she had seen dead people before. She wasn’t going to fall apart at the sight of a body. Though she had forgotten to call in the license plate of the car, which she should have done, even if she wasn’t on duty. And she should have stayed and helped process the crime scene.
If she had been a man, would the sheriff have asked her to stay? No, she decided, her gender didn’t have anything to do with this. Travis Walker was as fair a man as she had ever known. But she had had Donna with her. She had to look after her sister, and the sheriff knew that. They had discussed her situation before he hired her. With their parents dead and no other relatives living nearby, Jamie was responsible for Donna, and might be for the rest of her life. While Donna might one day want to live on her own, with some assistance, most programs that would allow that were only available in larger cities—not small towns like Eagle Mountain. As long as Donna wanted to stay in their childhood home, Jamie would do whatever she could to make that happen.
She was happy to take care of her sister, but it meant making certain adjustments. She wasn’t free to go out whenever she liked. She couldn’t be spontaneous, because she had to make sure Donna was safe and looked after. She didn’t think many men her age would be open to that kind of life.
Which was fine. She didn’t need a man to make her complete.
She didn’t need Nate Hall. When his plans changed and he decided to go away for college, he had shed her as easily as if he had been getting rid of last year’s winter coat or a pair of shoes he’d outgrown.
He had told her he loved her, but when you loved someone, you didn’t treat them like you were doing them a favor when you said goodbye.
“I’m hungry. We missed lunch.”
Jamie guessed Donna wasn’t too traumatized, if she was thinking about food. “I’ll make you a sandwich before I drop you off at Mrs. Simmons’s,” she said. “I think there’s still some tuna in the refrigerator. Would you like that?”
“I don’t want to go to Mrs. Simmons’s house,” Donna said. “I want to stay home.”
“I have to work this afternoon,” Jamie said. “And I may be late. You can’t stay in the house by yourself.”
“Why not?” Donna asked. “I know how to dial 911 if something bad happens.”
Jamie tightened her hands on the steering wheel until her knuckles ached. “It’s not safe for you to stay by yourself,” she said. Even if Donna’s mental capacity had matched her physical age, Jamie wouldn’t have wanted to leave her alone. Not with a killer preying on women in Eagle Mountain.
“I’m old enough to stay home by myself,” Donna said.
“Mrs. Simmons’s feelings will be hurt if you don’t stay with her,” Jamie said. For sure, their older neighbor would miss the money Jamie paid her to watch over Donna while Jamie worked.
“You could explain it to her.” But Donna sounded doubtful. She was very sensitive to other people’s feelings—perhaps because her own had been wounded so often by unthinking remarks.
“If you don’t go see her, you’ll miss your shows,” Jamie said. Every afternoon, Mrs. Simmons and Donna watched old sitcoms and dramas on a classic TV station. Since Jamie didn’t subscribe to the expensive cable package required for such programming, Mrs. Simmons was Donna’s only source for her beloved shows.
Donna sighed—a long, dramatic sigh that would have done any teen girl proud. “I guess I had better go, then.”
“Thank you.” Jamie leaned over and squeezed her sister’s arm. “I really appreciate you being so nice about it.”
“What time will you be home?” Donna asked.
“I don’t know. I have this meeting, but if the sheriff wants me to work after that, I will.” She sat up straighter, her next words as much a pep talk for herself as for her sister. “The work I do is important. I’m helping to keep people safe.” Though she and her fellow deputies hadn’t been able to keep Michaela Underwood and the Ice Cold Killer’s other victims safe. The knowledge hurt, and it goaded her to do more. To do better.
“Will you see Nate at the meeting?” Donna asked.
Jamie frowned. “Nate is a wildlife officer—he doesn’t work for the sheriff’s department.”
“He’s nice,” Donna said. “And cute.”
“You think every man you see is cute,” Jamie teased.
“I don’t think Mr. McAdams is cute.” Donna made a face. Mr. McAdams was the meat market manager at Eagle Mountain Grocery. Jamie had to admit he bore a startling resemblance to the photo of last year’s Grand Champion steer that graced the door to the meat freezer at the grocery.
“Is Henry cute?” Jamie asked.
Donna grinned. “Oh, yeah. Henry is cuuuute!” She dissolved into giggles, and Jamie couldn’t help giggling, too. She could never feel gloomy for long when she was with Donna. Her sister had a real gift for bringing joy into the lives of everyone she knew.
They reached home and the dogs piled out of the SUV and raced into the house, then out into the backyard, through the dog door Jamie’s father had installed years before. Three laps around the yard, noses to the ground, then they were back inside, lined up in formation in front of the treat cabinet. “Treat!” Donna proclaimed and took out the bag that held the beloved bacon snacks. She carefully doled out one to each dog, pronouncing “Good dog!” as each treat was devoured.
The next hour passed in a blur of lunch, changing clothes and hustling Donna two houses down to Mrs. Simmons, who met them at the door, a worried expression on her face. “There’s some cookies for you on the table,” Mrs. Simmons said to Donna. “You go get them while I talk to Jamie.”
When Donna had left them, Mrs. Simmons said, keeping her voice low. “I heard they found another woman’s body.”
“Yes.” There was no sense denying it. Half the town listened to the emergency scanner, the way some people listened to music on the radio. “I don’t know anything to tell you,” she added quickly, before Mrs. Simmons could press her for more information.
“I never thought I’d see the day when I didn’t feel safe around here,” Mrs. Simmons said.
Jamie wanted to reassure the woman that she would be fine—that there was nothing to worry about. But with six women dead and the department no closer to finding the killer, the words would be empty and meaningless. “I have to go,” she said. “I’m not sure how late I’ll be. If it will be later than nine, I’ll call you.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Mrs. Simmons said. “Donna is welcome to spend the night if she needs to. She’s good company.”
Ten minutes later, Jamie parked her SUV in the lot behind the sheriff’s department. She stowed her purse in her locker and made her way down the hall to the conference room. Dwight and Travis’s brother, Deputy Gage Walker, were already there, along with Ryder Stewart from Colorado State Patrol, and US Marshal Cody Rankin, his arm in a sling.
“How’s the arm?” Jamie asked as she took a seat at the table across from Cody.
“The arm’s fine. The shoulder hurts where they took the bullet out, but I’ll live.” He had been shot by an ex-con who had been pursuing him and the woman who was catering Travis’s upcoming wedding. “I’m not officially on duty,” Cody added. “But Travis asked me to sit in and contribute what I could.”
The sheriff entered and everyone moved to seats around the table. Though newspaper reports almost always included at least one reference to the sheriff’s “boyish good looks,” today he looked much older, like a combat veteran who has seen too many battles. He walked to the bulletin board in the center of the wall facing the conference table and pinned up an eight-by-ten glossy photo of a smiling, dark-haired woman. The image joined five others of similarly smiling, pretty females. The victims of the Ice Cold Killer.
“Her name is Michaela Underwood,” Travis said. “Twenty-two years old, she moved to Eagle Mountain to live near her parents. She recently started a new job at the bank.” He turned to face them. “These killings have got to stop,” he said. “And they have to stop now.”
Chapter Three (#u0ad51da8-d660-55ec-81d9-afc0a55bc029)
The meeting at the sheriff’s department had already begun when Nate arrived. He slipped into the empty seat next to Jamie. She glanced at him, her expression unreadable, then turned her attention back to the sheriff, who was speaking.
“We’re putting every resource we’ve got behind this case,” Travis said. “We’re going to look at every bit of evidence again. We’re going to reinterview everyone even remotely connected with the women who died, everyone in the areas where they were killed—anyone who might have possibly seen or heard anything.”
“What about suspects?” Nate asked. He indicated a board on the far left side of the room, where photos of several men were pinned.
“Where we can, we’ll talk to them again.” Travis said. “We’ve ruled them out as the murderers, but they may know something.” He rested his pointer on photos of a pair of young men at the top of the chart. “Alex Woodruff and Tim Dawson drew our attention because they were at the Walking W Ranch the day the third victim, Fiona Winslow, was killed. They didn’t have an alibi for the previous two murders, of Kelly Farrow and Christy O’Brien. Once the road reopened, they disappeared. I’m still trying to confirm that they returned to Fort Collins, where they’re supposedly attending Colorado State University.”
He shifted the pointer to a photo of a handsome, dark-haired man. “Ken Rutledge came to our attention because he lived next door to Kelly Farrow and had dated her business partner, Darcy Marsh. When he attacked Darcy several times and eventually kidnapped her, we thought we had found our killer. But since his arrest, there have been three more murders.”
Quickly, Travis summarized the case against the remaining suspects—three high school students who had been seen the night Christy O’Brien was murdered, and a veterinarian who resented Kelly Farrow and Darcy Marsh setting up a competing veterinary practice. “They all have solid alibis for most of the murders, so we had to rule them out,” he concluded.
He moved back to the head of the conference table. “We’re putting together profiles of all the victims, to see if we can find any common ground, and we’re constructing a detailed timeline. If you’re not out on a call, then I want you studying the evidence, looking for clues and trying to anticipate this killer’s next move.”
They all murmured agreement.
“Some of this we’ve already done,” Travis said. “But we’re going to do it again. The person who did this left clues that tell us who he is. It’s up to us to find them. Colorado Bureau of Investigation has agreed to send an investigator to work with us when the road opens again, but we don’t know when that will be. Until then, we’re on our own. I want to start by considering some questions.”
He picked up a marker and wrote on a whiteboard to the left of the women’s pictures, speaking as he wrote. “Why is this killer—or killers—here?”
“Because he lives here,” Gage said.
“Because he was visiting here and got caught by the snow,” Dwight added.
“Because he came here to kill someone specific and found out he liked it,” Jamie said. She flushed as the others turned to look at her. “It would be one way to confuse authorities about one specific murder,” she said. “By committing a bunch of unrelated ones.”
Travis nodded and added this to their list of reasons.
“Are we talking about one man working alone, or two men working together?” Ryder asked.
“That was my next question.” Travis wrote it on the whiteboard.
“I think it has to be two,” Gage said. “The timing of some of the killings—Christy O’Brien, Fiona Winslow and Anita Allbritton, in particular—required everything to be carried out very quickly. The woman had to be subdued, bound, killed and put into her vehicle. One man would have a hard time doing that.”
“Maybe he’s a really big guy,” Cody said. “Really powerful—powerful enough to overwhelm and subdue the women.”
“I agree with Gage that I think we’re probably looking at two men,” Travis said. “But that should make it easier to catch them. And if we find one, that will probably lead us to the second one.” He turned to write on the board again. “What do we know for certain about these murders?”
“The victims are all women,” Dwight said. “Young women—all of them under forty, most under thirty.”
“They’re all killed out of doors,” Nate said. “Away from other people.”
“Except for Fiona,” Jamie said. “There were a lot of people around when she was killed.”
“They were all left in vehicles, except Fiona,” Ryder said. “And they were alone in their vehicles.”
“The killer uses the weather to his advantage,” Gage said. “The snow makes travel difficult and covers up his tracks.”
“I think he likes to taunt law enforcement,” Ryder said. “He leaves those cards, knowing we’ll find them.”
“He wants us to know he’s committing the murders, but is that really taunting?” Dwight asked.
“He killed Fiona at the Walker Ranch,” Gage said. “When the place was crawling with cops.” He shifted to look at Jamie and Nate. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew the two of you were nearby when he killed Michaela this morning.”
Jamie gasped. “That deer!”
Nate touched her arm. “What deer?”
“When my sister and I were on the trail this morning, a buck burst out of the underbrush suddenly, as if something had startled it,” she said. “That’s what my dogs were chasing. I wondered at the time if a mountain lion was after it. And when I was trying to catch the dogs I felt…unsettled.” Her eyes met his, tinged with fear. “As if someone was watching me.”
“That could be a good thing, if he thinks he’s taunting us,” Travis said. “We might be able to draw him out into the open.”
“So far he’s been very good at evading us,” Gage said.
“He has, but from now on, we’re going to be better.” Travis pointed to Nate. “Did you see anyone else when you were in the area near the murder this morning?”
“I talked to an ice fisherman—checked his fishing license. A local guy.” He searched his memory. “Abel Crutchfield.”
“Gage, find him and interview him,” Travis said.
Gage nodded.
“Anyone else?” Travis asked.
Nate shook his head. “Nobody else—except Jamie—Deputy Douglas—and her sister.”
“Jamie, did you see anyone while you and your sister were out there?”
“No one,” she admitted. “We didn’t even pass any cars once we turned off the main highway.”
“You start with the women,” Travis told her. “See if you can find any commonalities—or any one woman who had a reason someone might want to kill her. Enough that he would kill others to cover up the crime.”
“Yes, sir.”
Travis gave the others their assignments—Nate was going to work with Gage on re-canvassing people who might have been in the vicinity of the two murders that occurred on forest service land.
The meeting ended and they filed out of the conference room, unsmiling and mostly silent. Nate stayed close to Jamie. “Is Donna upset about all this?” he asked.
“A little.” She shook her head. “Not too much. She does a good job of living in the moment, and I try to keep things low-key—not bring the job home or act upset around her.”
“These killings have everyone on edge,” he said.
“It’s frustrating, having him do this right under our noses. I realize it might be more than one person, but it’s awkward to keep saying ‘killer or killers.’”
“I get that,” Nate said. “We all say ‘he,’ even though we suspect more than one person is involved.”
“This is a small community,” Jamie said. “We ought to be able to spot someone like this.”
“He knows how to blend in,” Nate said. “Or to hide.”
She rolled her shoulders, as if shrugging off some burden. “I was surprised to see you here this afternoon,” she said.
“The sheriff asked me to sit in. I’ve been one of the first on the scene for three of the murders. I spend a lot of time in the backcountry, where several of the women were found. He’s trying to pull in every resource that might help. And I want to help. There’s not a law enforcement officer in the county who doesn’t want to catch this guy.”
“Of course. Well, I’d better get to work. I’m going to start reviewing all the information we have about the victims.” She started to turn away, but Nate touched her arm, stopping her.
“Now that I’m back in Eagle Mountain, I’d really like us to be friends again,” he said.
The look she leveled at him held a decided chill. “I don’t have a lot of time for hanging out and reminiscing about the old days,” she said.
She shrugged out of his grasp and started down the hall but was stopped by Adelaide Kinkaid. The seventy-something office manager alternately nagged and nurtured the sheriff and his deputies, and kept her finger on the pulse of the town. She peered over the tops of her purple bifocals at Jamie. “Where’s the sheriff?” she asked. “There’s someone here to see him.”
“I think he’s still in the conference room, talking to Gage,” Jamie said.
“I’ll get him.” Adelaide started to move past Jamie, then said, “You go on up front and stay with the couple who are waiting. I’m thinking this might benefit from a woman’s touch.”
Nate followed Jamie into the small front lobby of the sheriff’s department. A man and a woman in their early thirties huddled together near the door, arms around each other, the man’s head bent close to the woman’s. They both looked up when Jamie and Nate arrived, the woman’s face a mask of sorrow, her eyes puffy and red from crying.
“I’m Deputy Douglas.” Jamie introduced herself. “The sheriff will be here shortly. Can I help you in the meantime?”
“We’re Drew and Sarah Michener.” The man offered his hand. “We came to find out everything we could about…about Michaela Underwood’s death.” He looked down at his wife, who had bowed her head and was dabbing at her eyes with a crumpled tissue. “We just heard the news, from her parents.”
“Michaela is…was…my sister,” the woman—Sarah—said. “We heard she was killed in the woods near here this morning. I want to know if that man—Al—killed her.”
“Who is Al?” Jamie asked.
“The man she was supposed to meet this morning, to go snowshoeing,” Sarah said. “If you found her by herself, and he wasn’t there, he must have been the one to kill her.”
“I’m Sheriff Walker.” Travis joined them in the lobby. “I understand you wanted to talk to me.”
“This is Drew and Sarah Michener.” Jamie made the introductions. “Michaela Underwood’s sister and brother-in-law.”
Travis shook hands with the Micheners. “We’d better talk about this in my office,” he said. Jamie started to turn away, but Travis stopped her. “Deputy Douglas, you come, too.”
Nate moved aside to let them pass, Travis leading the way to his office, Jamie bringing up the rear.
Gage joined him in the lobby. “What’s up?” he asked, watching the couple disappear into Travis’s office.
“Michaela’s sister and her husband think they know who killed her,” Nate said. “Or at least, she was supposed to meet a man—someone named Al—to go snowshoeing this morning.”
“And you didn’t see any sign of him out there with her, did you?” Gage asked.
“No.” He continued to study the closed door, wishing he could hear what was going on in there. “Even if he didn’t kill Michaela, the sheriff is going to want to find him and talk to him.”
Gage put his hand on Nate’s shoulder. “Right now, the sheriff wants me to talk to this ice fisherman, Abel Crutchfield. You up for coming with me?”
“Sure.” He’d planned to finish his report on the condition of elk and deer herds in the area, but that could wait. A murder investigation took precedence over everything.
JAMIE FOLLOWED THE Micheners into Travis’s office, closing the door after her. She stood by the door, while the Micheners occupied the two chairs in front of Travis’s desk. Even if Jamie could have found more seating, there wasn’t room for it in the small room.
Travis settled behind the desk, a neat, uncluttered space with only a laptop and a stack of files visible. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said. “Losing a loved one is always hard, but losing them to murder is especially tough. We’re doing everything we can to find who did this, but if you have anything you think can help us, we certainly want to know.”
Sarah looked at her husband, who cleared his throat. “Can you tell us more about what you already know?” he asked. “We got the call this morning from Sarah’s father—Michaela lived with them, so I assume that’s how you knew to contact them. But they’re understandably upset and didn’t have a lot of details.”
“We found Michaela’s body in her vehicle on the side of Forest Service Road 1410,” Travis said. “The medical examiner thinks she was killed earlier this morning. Do you know why she would have been in that area?”
“She had a date to go snowshoeing with a man,” Sarah said. “Someone named Al. I don’t know his last name.” She leaned forward, clenched hands pressed to her chest. “I told her not to go out with someone she didn’t know—especially not to someplace where there weren’t a lot of other people around. Especially not with this…this madman going around killing women. But she wouldn’t listen to me.” Her face crumpled. “If only she had listened.”
Drew rubbed his wife’s back as she struggled to pull herself together. “Michaela was young,” he said. “Only twenty-two. And she trusted people. She still thought she was invincible.”
“How did she meet this man?” Travis asked.
Sarah sniffed, straightening her shoulders. “She met him at the bank. She just started the job on the first of the month. She’s a teller. I guess they flirted, and the next day he came back and asked her out. She said…she said he was really nice and cute, and that she thought the idea of going snowshoeing was fun, and would be a good way to get to know each other without a lot of pressure.”
“When was this—when they met?” Travis asked.
“I think it was Thursday when he first came into the bank.” Sarah nodded. “Yes, Thursday. Because Friday she and I met for lunch and she told me about him—then she called me later that day to tell me he’d come back in and they’d made a date for Monday. She had the day off, and I guess he did, too.”
“Did she say where he worked?” Travis asked. “Or what kind of work he did?”
“No.” Sarah sighed. “I asked her that, too. She said she didn’t know and it didn’t matter, because that was the kind of thing they could get to know about each other on Monday. She told me I was too uptight and I worried too much. But I was right to worry! He must have been the one who killed her.”
“What time were they supposed to meet?” Travis asked. “Or did he arrange to pick her up at your parents’ house?”
“She said they were meeting at eight thirty at the trailhead for the snowshoe trails,” Sarah said. “She told me she was being smart, driving herself, because if the date didn’t go well, it would be easy for her to leave.”
Travis looked to Jamie. “You said you got to the trailhead about nine thirty?”
“Yes,” Jamie said. “There wasn’t anyone else there. And no other cars in the parking area. We didn’t pass any cars on the way in, either.”
“Her parents said she left their house at eight,” Drew volunteered.
“She didn’t tell them she was meeting a man,” Sarah said. “Just that she was going snowshoeing with friends.”
Travis nodded. “Tell me everything your sister said to you about this man—even if you don’t think it’s important. Did she describe what he looked like? Did she say where he lived, or if he gave her his phone number?”
“She just said he was cute. And funny. I guess he made some joke about how nobody could rob the bank with the road closed, because they wouldn’t be able to go very far and she thought that was funny.”
“What was he doing at the bank that day?” Travis asked. “Was he making a deposit or cashing a check?”
“I don’t know. Sorry. I don’t know if she had his number, though I think she said she gave him hers.” She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking and thinking about this ever since we got the call from my dad, and there really isn’t anything else. She got kind of defensive when I started quizzing her about the guy, and I didn’t want to make her mad, so I changed the subject. I made her promise to call me when she got back to the house and let me know how things went, but I wasn’t worried when I didn’t hear from her by lunch. I just figured they were having a good time and decided to go eat together. But all that time, she was already dead.” She covered her hand with her mouth and took a long, hiccupping breath.
Travis took a box of tissues from a drawer of his desk and slid it over to her. “Thank you for coming to talk to us,” he said. “We’ll follow up with the bank, see if anyone there remembers this man. If we’re lucky, he’ll be on the security footage. And we may want to talk to you and to your parents again.”
“Of course,” Drew said. He stood and helped his wife to her feet, also. “Please keep us posted on how things are going.”
“We will.” Travis came around the desk to escort the Micheners to the lobby. Jamie stepped aside, then followed them into the hall. She was still standing there, reviewing everything the Micheners had said, when Travis returned.
“I’ve got Dwight checking Michaela’s phone records for a call or text that might be from Al,” he said. “Meanwhile, I want you to come to the bank with me. I’ll call Tom Babcock and ask him to meet us there. We need to get those security tapes and see what this guy looks like. Maybe we’ll recognize him.”
“Do you really think he’s the Ice Cold Killer?” Jamie quickened her steps to keep up with the sheriff’s long strides.
“He’s the best lead we’ve had so far,” Travis said. “I’m not going to let him get away.”
Chapter Four (#u0ad51da8-d660-55ec-81d9-afc0a55bc029)
Abel Crutchfield lived in a mobile home on the west side of town that backed up to the river. His truck sat beneath a steel carport next to the trailer home, which was painted a cheerful turquoise and white. A trio of garden gnomes poked out of the snow around the bottom of the front steps, and a Christmas wreath with a drooping red ribbon still adorned the door.
Abel answered Gage’s knock and his eyes widened at the sight of the two officers on his doorstep. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions.” Gage handed him a business card.
Abel read it, then looked past Gage to Nate. “You’re the game warden I talked to this morning, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Nate gave him a reassuring smile. “This isn’t about that. We’re hoping you can help us with something else.”
“You’d better come in.” Abel pushed open the screened door. “No sense standing out in the cold.”
The front room of the trailer was neat but packed with furniture—a sofa and two recliners, a large entertainment unit with a television and a stereo system, and two tall bookshelves filled with paperback books and ceramic figurines of dogs, bears, more gnomes, angels and others Nate couldn’t make out. Abel threaded his way through the clutter and sat in one of the recliners and motioned to the sofa. “It’s my wife’s afternoon for her knitting club,” he said. “So I’m here by myself. What can I help you with?”
“Did you see anyone else while you were fishing this morning?” Gage asked.
“Nope. I had the lake to myself.”
“What about on the way to and from the lake?” Nate asked. “Did you see anyone on the road, or in the parking area?”
“What’s this about?” Abel asked. “Not that it makes any difference in my answers, but I’d like to know.”
“Another young woman was killed in that area this morning,” Gage said.
Abel sat back, clearly shocked. “You don’t think I killed her, do you?” he asked. “I was just out there fishing. I go fishing every Monday. Usually I bring home something for supper.”
“We’re not accusing you,” Gage said. “But we’re hoping you might have seen or heard something that could help us find the killer. Where were you between eight and ten this morning?”
“I was at the lake. I always try to get there by eight, and I leave about eleven to come home for lunch.” He turned to Nate. “You saw me there. It must have been about nine or so when we talked.”
Nate nodded. “That’s about right. And you didn’t see anyone else while you were at the lake?”
“Not a soul. I passed a couple of cars on the highway on my way out there, but once I turned onto the Forest Service Road, I didn’t see any other cars, and none in the parking lot. I saw a woman out walking, but that was all.”
Gage tensed. “A woman out walking? Where? What did she look like?”
“She was on the forest road, about a mile before the turnoff to the lake. She was tall and thin, with long blond hair—a lot of it.”
“What was she doing?” Gage asked.
“Just walking along, talking on the phone. She didn’t even look up when I passed.”
“What else can you tell me about her?” Gage asked. “Did you recognize her?”
“She was wearing jeans and hiking boots and a black parka. I didn’t get that good a look at her. She had her head bent, with that phone pressed to her ear and her hair falling all in her face.”
“Had you ever seen her out there before?” Nate asked.
“No. I usually don’t see anybody—not in the winter, anyway,” Abel said. “I don’t think there are any houses out that way.”
“Didn’t you think it was odd she was walking out there by herself?” Gage asked.
Abel shrugged. “People like to walk. It’s none of my business. She didn’t look like she was in trouble or anything. Just walking along, talking on the phone.”
“What time was this that you saw her?” Gage asked.
“Well, it was before eight. Maybe seven fifty.”
“Which direction was she walking?” Nate asked.
“North. Same direction I was headed.”
They talked to him a few more minutes, but he couldn’t tell them anything further. They said goodbye and returned to Gage’s cruiser. Neither man spoke until they were headed back to the sheriff’s department.
“The woman he saw wasn’t Michaela,” Gage said. “She has short, dark hair. And what was a woman doing out there by herself at that time of morning, anyway?”
“Something else really strange about that whole story,” Nate said.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Gage said. “What was she doing on the phone?”
“Right. Jamie had to drive a ways to call in when she found Michaela. There’s no phone signal out that way. None at all.”
BANK PRESIDENT TOM BABCOCK met Travis and Jamie at the Mountain States Bank, a worried expression on his face. “I hope we can help you,” he said as he led them past the teller windows to the back of the building. “It’s unnerving to think a murderer is one of our customers.”
“If he is a customer, it will make it easier for us to find him,” Travis said.
“You said on the phone you wanted to see footage from our security cameras,” Babcock said. “I’ve asked our IT specialist, Susan Whitmore, to meet with us. She knows her way around the system much better than I do.” He opened the door to a small office filled with computer equipment. “While we wait for her, can you tell me a little more about this? You said our teller, Michaela Underwood, was murdered? And this man she met at the bank might be her killer?”
“We don’t know that he killed her,” Travis said. “But he was supposed to meet her this morning. It may be he knows something about what happened. Were you here on Thursday?”
“Yes. Michaela worked eight to five that day. She took lunch from eleven thirty to twelve thirty, and was the only teller on duty from twelve thirty to three.”
“Do you remember her talking to a young man?” Travis asked. “Flirting with him?”
“I can’t say that I noticed anything like that.” He frowned. “Michaela was always very friendly. Customers liked her. We’re going to really miss her. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her…”
His voice trailed away as a chime sounded. “That will be Susan now.” He leaned out of the open door. “We’re back here, Susan,” he called.
Susan Whitmore was a trim woman with very short platinum hair and piercing blue eyes. “Tom filled me in on the phone,” she said after introductions were made. “Just tell me what you need, Sheriff, and I’ll do my best to help.”
“Michaela Underwood made a date to go snowshoeing this morning with a man she told her sister she met here at the bank Thursday,” Travis explained. “He returned Friday and asked her out. We need to find this guy and talk to him. All we have is a first name—Al. If we can spot him talking to her on your security footage, we’re hoping that will help us locate him.”
“If you find him, we can look at the time stamp on the image and I can link him to a particular transaction,” Tom said. “That should give you a name if he was cashing a check or making a deposit, or a payment on an account with us.”
“Do you have a particular time you want to look at?” Susan asked. “Or the whole day?”
“Let’s start with twelve thirty to three,” Travis said. “When Michaela was the only teller working.”
“All right.” Susan inputted information into a computer and pulled up a black-and-white image showing four screens—ATM, front door, back door and a wider shot that took in most of the lobby. She clicked on the lobby view and enlarged it. “We’ll start here, since this gives us a good view of Michaela. I’ll scroll forward and stop on any male customers.”
Jamie and Travis leaned in as Susan began to forward the film. Michaela waited on an older couple, a young woman with a child and two middle-aged women. Then a single man approached the counter. “Stop,” Travis ordered.
Susan stilled the film. Jamie studied the image of a slender man, maybe six feet tall or just under. He wore a dark knit hat pulled down on his head, the collar of his dark coat turned up.
“Can you zoom in?” Travis asked.
Susan enlarged the image until it began to blur. Travis furrowed his brow. “Is there another camera, focused on the teller, which would give us a view of his face?” he asked.
“No,” Susan said.
Travis sighed and stepped back. “The way he’s standing, we can’t tell anything about his face. We can’t even tell whether his hair is light or dark.”
“Do you think that’s deliberate?” Jamie asked.
“Maybe,” Travis said. “If he is the killer, he wouldn’t want to be seen on video. The hat and coat do a good job of obscuring his face. He’s wearing jeans and hiking boots.”
“Maybe the brand of the boots will tell us something,” Jamie said.
“We’ll try,” Travis said. He nodded to Susan. “Advance the tape again. Let’s see what he does.”
They had a clear view of Michaela, smiling and at one point even laughing, as the man stood in front of her. Then he left. But instead of turning to face the camera, he took a few steps back, still talking to Michaela. When he was almost out of reach of the camera, he whirled, head down, and hurried out of the frame.
“I’m willing to bet he knew about the security camera and didn’t want to be seen,” Travis said. “Let’s see the footage for Friday.”
But the footage from Friday yielded no sign of the man. They spent almost an hour running through everything and saw no images of him. “Maybe she met him outside the bank,” Jamie said. “On her lunch break or something.”
“Maybe,” Travis said. “It would be easy enough for him to wait for her in the parking lot or on the sidewalk and stop her before she went into the bank.” He turned to Tom. “Did anything about him look familiar to you—like someone who had come into the bank before?”
Tom shook his head. “I’m sorry, no.”
“What about the name Al? Does that make you think of anyone in particular?”
“I know an Allen and an Alvin, but both of them are in their fifties or sixties. And that wasn’t them we saw on the video just now.”
“I’m going to need all your security footage from the past week, including what we looked at today. It’s possible this guy came in earlier, checking things out.”
“Of course. Susan will get it for you.”
“Can you tell us what kind of transaction he was making here Thursday?” Travis asked. “The time stamp on the security footage showed he walked up to the teller window at two sixteen.”
Tom walked to a computer farther down the counter and began typing. A few moments later, he groaned. “Looks like it was a cash transaction.”
“Such as?” Jamie asked.
“Breaking a large bill or cashing in rolled coins,” Tom said.
“Here are the security discs for the time period you wanted.” Susan handed Travis an envelope. Travis wrote out a receipt for her, then he and Jamie left.
“I got chills when Tom said it was a cash transaction,” Jamie said when they were in Travis’s cruiser. “Al had to know we couldn’t trace that.”
“Or maybe he was using the transaction as an excuse to hit on the cute teller,” Travis said. He rubbed his hands along the steering wheel. “Not that I really believe that. I think we’re on to something.”
“This might be the killer.” A shiver ran through Jamie as she said the words.
“Maybe.” He shifted the cruiser into gear and began backing out of the parking spot. “In any case, this feels like the closest we’ve gotten.”
NATE AND GAGE returned to the sheriff’s department and waylaid Travis and Jamie as soon as they returned. “We got something from Abel Crutchfield that might be useful,” Gage said as they followed Travis into his office. Jamie hung back, then followed, too, squeezing in to stand next to Nate. The soft, herbal scent of her hair made his heart race with a sudden memory of the two of them making out in the old Ford pickup he had driven at the time. Hastily, he shoved the memory away and focused on the conversation between the sheriff and his brother.
“Abel says he saw a woman—tall, thin, blonde—walking along Forest Service Road 1410 this morning,” Gage said. “She was alone, no car around. He said he didn’t get a real good look at her, because she had her head bent, talking on her phone.”
“Except there isn’t a phone signal out there,” Nate said. “For any carrier.”
“That does seem suspicious,” Travis said.
Beside Nate, Jamie shifted. “Maybe it isn’t really suspicious,” she said.
She flushed when all three men turned to look at her but continued, her voice even. “Maybe she was nervous, being out there alone. She heard the guy’s truck and pulled out her phone and pretended to be talking to someone so whoever was driving past would get the idea she could summon help if she needed to.”
“Do women really do things like that?” Nate asked and wished he could take the words back as soon as he said them.
“Yeah, they do,” she said, the expression in her eyes making him feel about three feet tall. “Because you know—men.”
None of them had a good response to this. The silence stretched. Finally, Travis said, “Let’s see if we can find anyone else who saw this woman. I also have a list of bank employees. Let’s talk to them and see if any of them remember ‘Al.’ Jamie, I want you to help with that. Most of the employees are young women—they might be more willing to open up to you.” He clicked a few keys on his laptop. “I just forwarded the list to you.”
“I’ll get right on it,” she said, then slipped out the door.
“I’ll see if I can find any campers or snowshoers or skiers or fishermen who might have seen a woman who fits the description Abel gave us,” Nate said.
“Let’s not drop the ball on his,” Travis said.
“Right,” Nate said. He wasn’t going to drop the ball on Jamie, either. He’d do whatever it took to make her see he wasn’t the boy who had hurt her seven years ago. She might never feel close to him again, but at least they could be friends.
Chapter Five (#u0ad51da8-d660-55ec-81d9-afc0a55bc029)
Jamie left the sheriff’s department at nine o’clock, after working her way through half the bank employees on the list Travis had forwarded to her. So far, none of the people she’d spoken to remembered Michaela talking to anyone special, and they had no recollection of a single man who stood out for them.
She picked up a sleepy Donna from Mrs. Simmons’s house. Donna had already taken a bath and changed into a pair of flannel pajamas with large, colorful dogs all over them. Jamie had a pair just like them. Over the past couple of years, Donna had gotten into the habit of keeping a number of clothes at the caregiver’s house, which made things easier for everyone. As Jamie put an arm around Donna and escorted her into their house, she caught the smell of the coconut shampoo her sister used. The scent and the feel of the soft flannel beneath her hand transported her back to the days when Donna was little and Jamie, seven years older, often helped her get ready for bed. Once Donna was bathed and dressed in pajamas, the sisters would snuggle together in Donna’s bed, and Jamie would read to her until she fell asleep.
Tonight, she led her upstairs to the room across the hall from Jamie’s own and tucked her in. Donna turned on her side and studied the big whiteboard on her bedroom wall, where Jamie drew in a calendar every month and noted both sisters’ schedules. Donna liked knowing what was supposed to happen each day. “Work tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll see Henry.”
Right, Jamie thought as she kissed her sister, then switched out the light. Sometime tomorrow she’d have to find time to stop by the grocery store and check out Henry. He was probably harmless, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.
She walked across the hall to her room and exchanged her uniform for yoga pants and an oversize sweatshirt. Taking off the heavy utility belt and body armor was the definite signal that she was off duty. Time to relax. Except she was too restless to settle. She went downstairs and wandered through the familiar rooms—the kitchen, with its white-painted cabinets and blue Formica countertops; the formal dining room she had turned into a home office; and the wood-paneled living room with its comfortable tweed-covered sofa and chairs and heavy wood tables. The house was out of style but comfortable and familiar.
She and Donna had grown up in this house and had lived here together until Jamie had gone off to college. She hadn’t gone far—only across the mountains to Boulder, and the University of Colorado. She had studied business, thinking she would look for a job in Junction, so that she could be close to Donna and her parents. Then, her parents had been killed in a car accident, plowed into by a tourist who was texting while driving. The tourist had walked away with only a few bruises, while her parents had both been pronounced dead at the scene.
So much for a business career in Junction. Jamie needed to be in Eagle Mountain, with Donna. She might have sold the family home and moved with her sister to Junction or Denver or somewhere else, but the thought made her heart ache. Eagle Mountain was home. And Donna didn’t do well with change. She needed familiar things—her home, the neighbors she knew, her job at the grocery store—to keep her firmly grounded.
Jamie had moved back to Eagle Mountain for good four years ago. After a series of low-paying clerical jobs, the opportunity at the sheriff’s department had been a welcome relief—a way for Jamie to stay in Eagle Mountain and earn a living that would support her and her sister. But it had also been a lifesaver because it gave Jamie a focus and purpose. She had discovered, somewhat to her surprise, that she loved the work. She liked looking out for her hometown and the people in it, and she liked being part of a team that was trying to protect everyone here.
Oh, it wasn’t all good feelings and easy times. She had been sworn at by people she stopped for traffic violations, kicked and punched by a shoplifter she had chased down on Main Street, with half a dozen locals and tourists standing around watching the battle and no one lifting a finger to help her. And she had looked on the bodies of those murdered women and felt a mixture of sickness and anger—and a fierce desire to stop the man before he hurt anyone else.
The loud trill of an old-fashioned phone startled her. She raced to grab her cell phone off the hall table, and frowned at the screen, which showed Unknown Number. A sales call? A scammer? Or maybe one of the bank employees, calling her back because he or she had remembered something. She answered, cautious. “Hello?”
“It’s Nate. I called to see how you’re doing.”
The deep voice vibrated through her, making her heart flutter, but she steeled herself against the sensation. The question—coming from him—annoyed her. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Finding a dead woman shakes up most people. It shook me up.”
She settled onto the sofa, a pillow hugged to her stomach. “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s part of the job. I knew that going in.”
“From what I saw today, you’re good at your job.”
Was he flattering her, trying to persuade her to forgive him? She sighed. “Nate, I don’t want to do this.”
“Do what?”
“I don’t want to pretend we’re friends. We’re not. We can’t be.”
“Why not?”
“You know why not.”
A long pause. She began to wonder if he had hung up on her. Then he said. “So, because we were once lovers—each other’s first lovers—we can’t be friends now? Jamie, that was seven years ago. We were kids.”
“And now we’re adults, and we don’t have to pretend we’re two old pals.”
“I don’t know why not,” he said. “There was a time I knew you better than anyone—and you knew me better.”
“Like you said, that was seven years ago.” A lot had happened since then. She wasn’t the same woman anymore.
“We’re going to be working together on this case,” he said. “We shouldn’t be enemies.”
“You’re not my enemy.” Did he really think that? “But we can’t be…close…anymore.”
“Why not?”
Because if she let him too close, she knew she would fall for him again. And she couldn’t trust him to not leave her again—at the next promotion, or if someone better came along. He had proved before that he looked out for his own interests and he wasn’t one to stick with a relationship if things got tough. “It would be too complicated,” she said. “I know you don’t like that.” He had said that when he broke up with her before. There’s no sense us staying together. It would be too complicated.
Was that sound him grinding his teeth together? “You’ve got a lot of wrong ideas about me,” he said.
“You’re the one who gave them to me.”
“Fine. Have it your way. We won’t be ‘close’—whatever that means to you. But we can be civil. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Now I’d better go. We’ll have another long day tomorrow. Good night.”
She didn’t wait for him to answer but hung up. She’d handled that well, she thought. No sense starting something that was bound to end badly. She’d been very mature and matter-of-fact. She ought to be proud of herself.
She knew a lot about grief now. The pain never went away, but with time, it always got better.
NATE SCANNED THE sheltered meadow at the base of Mount Wilson with his binoculars, counting the number of elk in the small herd gathered there. Most of them still looked to be in good shape, but this would be a good place to put one of the feeding stations the Department of Wildlife had decided to set up starting this weekend. Local ranchers and hunters had volunteered to help distribute the hay and pellets to the three main feeding sites in the area. The supplies were being delivered by helicopter, which meant the project wouldn’t be hampered by the still-closed highway.
He entered the information about the herd into a database on his phone, then snowshoed back to the trailhead where he had left his truck. Once inside the cab, with the heater turned up high, he headed down the road, his speed at a crawl, alert for signs of anything unusual. As he passed the turnout toward a closed campground, he caught a flash of color through the trees and stopped. The binoculars came out and he zeroed in on a dark gray SUV parked up against an icy expanse of exposed rock. He scanned the area and focused in on two climbers halfway up the ice.
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