Holly was furious. She just couldn’t believe that Ty had simply given up the chase. In fact, he’d even seemed almost relieved when three other squad cars showed up, along with a Forest Service ranger and an on-duty game warden who wanted to help with the chase. She couldn’t believe that the only person who didn’t want to go after this guy was Ty. It didn’t make sense.
She was so mad she could have almost spit.
He was out talking to the game warden now, some guy named Aaron. She appreciated that he was being chummy, but talking wasn’t bringing their attacker to heel.
What doesn’t Ty understand? He knows this guy is trying to kill me, but he is too busy talking to do what has to be done.
She looked over at the steering wheel and the set of keys that were dangling from the ignition of his pickup. The lady on the radio for dispatch broke the tense silence inside the cab. “Reports of a white King Ranch being seen on forest road 17890, headed west.”
She continued, but Holly’s attention was diverted by the two patrol units, SUVs, that pulled around them and onto the dirt road and headed toward the mountain and what must have been the named road. One of the deputies who had taken the call said something over the radio to dispatch.
Two other deputies had already headed out. Ty and Aaron just stood there, talking.
She looked at the keys again. Maybe she could just start the truck and get his attention and gently remind him she was chomping at the bit.
As if he could sense her frustration he turned and looked at her. She put her hands up, trying not to be too much, but still getting her question of what was going on across. He gave her a thumbs-up.
She couldn’t stand it; she reached over and started the pickup, hoping that it would act as some sign that she was waiting impatiently. Ty looked surprised as he glanced over at her and the running pickup. She didn’t know how much clearer she could be. He said something to the game warden, and slowly approached the pickup. He walked around to the driver’s-side door and opened it, looked at her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
She’d screwed up.
Her impatience had won out over her logical thinking. Why did she have to be that way sometimes?
“Sorry, I was getting cold, I didn’t mean to bother you.” She tried to cover up her mistake.
He glanced at her warm winter clothing but nodded. “You’re fine.” He climbed into his seat. “I’m sorry that took a little bit—I am trying to get everybody lined up and in place. So far, none of our guys have spotted him, but a civilian just called in with a possible sighting.”
She nodded, thinking about what she’d heard over the radio.
“But I did get the search warrant filed with the judge.”
“Search warrant? For what?” She felt horrible for having been impatient.
“While my crew is looking for Robert up here, I am going to see if we can find anything of interest in his residence.”
“What do you mean anything of interest?” Holly asked. “What are you hoping to find?”
“I think based on his behavior, that Robert may have either significant mental health issues or a drug problem. Do you think it’s possible that he’s been running drugs out of your clinic?” He shot her a glance, and it made her wonder if he somehow questioned whether or not she would have been involved in something as ethically and legally questionable as what he was assuming Robert was capable of.
“We don’t overlap on patients, and I don’t review his work, so I guess it’s possible. However, he hasn’t acted like this before and he hasn’t been this erratic, so I’m not sure what is going on.”
He sighed.
She could understand his frustration, she was feeling that way, as well. At least his life wasn’t the one on the line. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, Robert had been shooting at him, too. Part of her wanted to tell him to take her home, but at the same time she was probably better protected with Ty by her side. Not to mention the fact that there was something about being with Ty. Heck, he couldn’t even leave her in the truck while he spoke with the game warden without her getting impatient and needing him closer.
It was quiet in the truck as Ty got them going on the logging road. He dialed the phone and held it between his shoulder and cheek. She could hear someone answer on the other side. “Hi, Doctor Schultz, I was hoping to get a report on George Dolack’s autopsy. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there, however we had an incident arise and I needed to stay close to Big Sky.”
The medical examiner said something in the background that she couldn’t quite hear. As the man spoke, Ty’s expression darkened, and he gripped the wheel hard.
“Can you go ahead and send me your report when you get it written?” he asked.
There was a heaviness in his voice that made Holly wonder what the examiner had told him. It clearly wasn’t good, but nothing about this situation had been thus far so she didn’t know how she could expect anything different.
They spoke for a few more minutes. She watched out the window as the snow-covered timber flashed by her window while they made their way out of the woods and back toward town. As they neared the intersection where the shots had been fired, she felt her body stiffen.
He slowed down by the little coffee shop. There was a series of spray paint marks where they had been parked and where the shooter had been.
She shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was slightly taken aback that so much had been investigated already at the scene of the shooting. More than anything, what shocked her was that other patrol officers had already been there and left in the time that they had been on the mountain. It didn’t feel like they had been gone that long.
The shooting had been such a canon event for her, and yet the on-scene investigation had only taken a few hours. It was amazing to think that they were already done and had aggregated their findings. Then again, they were there just collecting information—not passing judgments. As such, there was little gray area when it came to the actual physical evidence.
Once they had parked back at the station, she got out and took a peek at the truck. There were four bullet holes, one in the glass where Ty had been sitting. Oddly enough, it was the only one that had been close to hitting either one of them. Either Robert was a terrible shot, or he hadn’t really been trying to kill them. She had to lean toward him being a horrible marksman.
Ty hung up the phone and stepped out of the pickup. He was gritting his teeth and the color had leached from his face as he took a series of pictures of the damage to his work truck. He sent the pictures off on email to his evidence techs. She wasn’t sure what to do, or if she should try to get him to talk or to let him stew in silence until he was ready. Maybe she could extend her hand. She yearned to console him.
As though he could sense her feelings, he held out his hand, palm up expectantly. As she looked at his hand, he nudged his chin toward his fingers, like he was trying to persuade a gentle horse to do his bidding. She wasn’t the kind of woman to be told what to do, and yet she found herself reaching over and slipping her hand into his. He wrapped his fingers around hers and finally sent her a small smile.
He grazed the back of her hand gently with his callused thumb.
There was a sickening lump in her stomach as she thought about how close they had come to being killed. She glanced at the bullet hole in the driver’s-side windshield, mere inches from where Ty had been sitting. She grabbed his hand harder. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry about? You’ve done nothing wrong.” Ty turned and gave her that sexy half smile that had a way of making her feel safe.
“I’m sorry for bringing all this into your life.”
“You don’t need to apologize anymore. This chaos, this constant edge of the seat living, that is my life.”
“You can’t tell me that you’re getting shot at every day, or that your friends get killed.” She instantly regretted saying the last bit.
Why did she have to keep circling back to things that brought Ty pain? It was like she just kept having to put more salt in his wounds.
“No, but there’s always something. My life is never really easy. I’m always busy. I’m always involved in some sort of investigation or sex crime or death.”
She stood in silence, unsure how to respond other than to simply let him speak. She wondered if he ever just talked about the things he faced.
Though she understood the emotional upheaval that likely came with being in law enforcement, she hadn’t thought about the drain it must have placed on him. Of course, things like this were part of his daily life and it threw a harsh light on her own blessed experience.
For her, an exciting day meant that one of her patients had done their exercises as prescribed and were seeing her pain-free; that was what it meant to do a good job or have a job well done. For him, a job well-done meant that he put all the pieces of a death together, or any crime, and made sense of a myriad of perspectives and stories until a condensed version of the truth was exposed.
“For now, I’m going to leave my work truck here so the evidence team can go over it with a fine-tooth comb. I hope you are okay with riding in style.” He motioned toward the employee lot where a late-model Dodge Ram pickup was parked. “It ain’t fancy, but she is mine.”
She smiled, but the action was forced. She didn’t mind riding in his pickup, just so long as she was able to continue working by his side. “I don’t care about fancy...as long as we are safe and can get some answers.”
He nodded, but his face became stern. “Yeah... Did I tell you the medical examiner said that Moose also had a puncture wound to his chest? He said it was consistent with likely being caused by a large knife.”
She stopped walking and stood in shocked silence for a long moment. Ty kept walking, but after a moment he turned and came back for her.
“What? But on the mountain...no one had mentioned any wounds besides that on his neck.”
“The coroner must have missed it. There had been a ton of blood and Moose had been wearing heavy layers. It’s not unusual for the initial findings to be incomplete under those types of conditions.” He slipped his hand in hers and helped her toward his pickup and then inside.
She sat staring out the window, half expecting to see the hole and cracking where a bullet had shattered the glass, but she found it complete and unmarked. Someone out there was determined to commit murder—they had completed their job once—what was stopping them from killing them? Or, what if there was more than one killer?
Ty climbed into the pickup and started the engine.
“His death was clearly no accident.” She had thought it was possible that he’d been murdered, but she had held out a sliver of hope that it was nothing more than a tragic accident, but that hope had been dashed. “Who was on that mountain that would have wanted him dead?”
Ty shook his head. “I looked at the pictures we took up on the hillside, but it was hard to see anything too distinctive. There weren’t any good foot tracks, but the footprints that were in the snow that weren’t his were slightly smaller. They were wearing snow boots, but beyond that I have no idea as to who was wearing them.”
Holly pursed her lips. “That’s not a bad place to start. Whoever murdered him must likely have been shorter and smaller than him. How tall was Moose?”
Ty shrugged. “He was taller than me, but not by much so I think he was probably about six foot two.”
“So, he probably wore about a size twelve and a half shoe?” There weren’t a whole lot of people she could think of around town who were taller or bigger than what he was describing, but this kind of thinking made her feel as though she was grasping at straws.
“Whoever did it could have been someone he knew, making it easier to get access to him. What I can’t make sense of is who had access like that and why they’d risk murdering him in such a remote area? There had to be other times and places they could have killed him that would have been easier.” Ty tapped on the wheel. “I just don’t get it.”
“Do you have a list of the SAR members who were out on the slopes that day?”
Ty nodded. “Of course, but there were only handful people and all of them were accounted for. No one was alone, they were working in pairs. The only person who was trying to lone wolf besides me was Moose.”
“Have you talked to everyone?” she asked.
“I talked to most of the team. We’ve all been texting after what happened.”
“But you didn’t talk to any of them in person?” she countered.
“We have a scheduled debriefing tonight, but with everything happening...”
“I think you should make sure that happens. Even if they were accompanied at all times, maybe one of them saw something who could help us figure out what happened up there on the hill.”
He sighed, as though he had already been thinking that and she was simply voicing his plans. She should just shut her mouth. He was the detective, and she was only along for the ride. She had to remember her place—or did she?
“I’ll talk to them, too.”
He nodded. “Sure, but let’s work this thing together.”
His reaction surprised her. It was a funny thing, sometimes she found that her worst enemies were her thoughts. The only thing holding her back was herself and her assumptions.
She squeezed Ty’s hand, grateful that he couldn’t hear the things that she was thinking. She didn’t want him to know the battles she fought within herself, about not only her way of thinking but also about how she felt about him.
It would be a lie if she told herself that she didn’t have feelings for him and that they hadn’t been reawakened during this time together. She wanted him in ways she hadn’t wanted a man in a long time. She wanted him to take her, to own her.
However, the desire to be owned didn’t sit right with her. Men and women were to stand side by side, not to have a man in front and to take control. Then again, there were times when that was exactly what she wanted and she hated it. Perhaps what she hated most was that there was no strict duality in her thoughts and feelings. Maybe what she really wanted was for things to be easy; and for them to have the simple love and feelings that had been at the pinnacle of their youth.
It would be unreasonable to think that they could ever go back to those days and that kind of love. It was also important that she didn’t get stuck in the recursive loop of yearning for moments in time and life that had slipped from her grasp like dust motes. All she could do now was to grasp the moments she had as they fluttered by and live them as fully and as greatly as she was capable.
Before she realized, they were parked in front of the chestnut-brown seventies-style house she recognized as Robert’s. Ty let go of her hand and opened up his computer and tapped away at his emails. Her skin cooled from where his hand had been pressed against hers. She wanted him...more than just his hand in hers, more than just a simple touch. She wanted all of him.
“Did you get what you needed?” she asked, aware that she wasn’t only asking about a search warrant or some email.
He looked up at her, as though he had heard something else in her question, as well. “The judge has it now. I think the search warrant will be signed within the next ten minutes or so. In the meantime, we will wait here in case Robert shows back up. We also have other units coming in from DCI to act in a supporting role in this case. You know, all hands on deck.”
He looked resignedly at the computer screen like he was willing the judge to come through.
“Do you need to wait until another unit gets here or can you go in without them?” she asked, having no idea what kind of protocols he was supposed to adhere to.
He looked over at her with a slight grin and it made her want to lean over and kiss him. “Nothing about this case has been normal. In fact, there have only been a handful of cases in which we’ve even needed to call in other counties for partnership assists. I’m sure that the sheriff has been on the phone with DCI all morning, too.”
“DCI?”
“It’s the division of criminal investigation from the state DOJ. They are out of Helena, and they are the oversight unit that works across the state. In our case, the sheriff will likely request that they come in and handle the entire case as an oversight since we are using resources from multiple counties. It’s just another way to create a hierarchy and accountability—especially since Moose was one of our own.”
She nodded, understanding why a unit like theirs would be necessary, though she hadn’t heard about them before. There was so much that Ty did that she’d never realized and she continually found herself humbled.
“So, in essence, you will be accountable to them?”
He nodded, slightly. “Yes, but I’m not concerned. I’m always accountable to a myriad of people for every choice and action I take. There’s a lot resting on my shoulders.”
His statement made something inside her shift. He really was an incredible man. He bore so much and was currently facing what had to be one of his largest crises yet, not to mention the personal toll of losing his friend, and he was handling it all with a level of professionalism and aplomb that was truly commendable.
“I wish we had gotten Robert back there on the road. It would have made my job easier. At least I could concentrate on Moose’s death. I don’t know what it is about this job, but it seems like any time something big happens, something bigger comes along. It’s never one thing at a time.”
Now that was a feeling she could relate to. “That’s how it is at the clinic, too. If there’s an emergency, then there is at least one more in the same hour.”
She snorted as she thought about the last time it had happened a few months ago, when a man had come in with excruciating back pain and they had found out it wasn’t stemming from his back and instead he was suffering from a heart attack. At the same time, a woman came in with neck pain and they realized she had, in fact, broken a vertebra and was lucky not to be paralyzed. Both people had to be sent by ambulance to the emergency room in Bozeman.
The EMS workers had even asked them if they were going to send another and, if they were, if they could just pick them up at the same time in order to save themselves a trip—they had really thought themselves funny.
Luckily, both of her patients had survived and come through their traumatic events.
He moved his computer out of the way and leaned closer to her. “You know...while we have a second...” His gaze met hers and she found herself only thinking about the depths of the darkness at the center of his.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice far breathier than she had intended.
He smiled brightly. “You know...when we get this all sorted out, I’d love to take you on a real date. One that doesn’t include search warrants or autopsy reports.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Why do I get the feeling that such a thing would be asking for a lot?”
He reached over and took her hand again. “It would be, but for you...it would be worth it.” He lifted their entwined fingers and gave her a gentle kiss to the back of her knuckles.
The unexpected kiss and the warmth of his mouth made her gasp. Her body clenched and she felt a warmth rise up from between her thighs.
He couldn’t have known what he was doing to her or what he was making her feel. It wasn’t fair to tease her like this...to make her want and fantasize about him doing things to her that were not going to happen.
He looked up at her again and smiled. Reaching over with his free hand, he cupped her face and drew her mouth to his. He tasted of peppermint gum as her tongue grazed his lip. As their kiss deepened, she found that her own urgency was matched by his.
He wanted her.
He wanted her just like she wanted him.
She ached as she opened her legs wide, willing him to find his way between them.
He leaned back, breaking their kiss as he looked down and saw her body waiting to receive him. He smiled widely. Her gaze moved down him, and she found that he was wanting her just as much. Her mouth watered as she looked at how hard he pressed against his pants and down his thigh.
Some things about the past and their relationship she had forgotten, but how much he brought to the bed wasn’t one of them.
“Ty...” She said his name like it was a moan. “Do you know how much I missed you?”
He nodded. “Probably half as much as I missed you, Holly.”
Suddenly, there was the roar of a pickup and Ty dropped his hand from her face as he jerked his attention toward the sound.
Pulling up behind him was a black Tahoe.
He sighed. “It looks like we have company.”
She touched the wetness on her lips. She didn’t care about company. What she cared about was Ty and what they had just started and would hopefully, someday, get to finish.