“WELL, ISN’T THAT INTERESTING,” Colin murmured, staring down at the key card Backpack Boy had apparently been carrying. A key card designed to open doors at Arrow Lake Lodge and Resort—owned by none other than Marc Dubeau. “If a kid disappeared during a stay at Arrow Lake,” he said, “why wouldn’t we have heard about it? Have him listed as missing?”
Duane shook his head. “Couldn’t have been staying there. Maybe he’d snitched it and thought he could get into rooms to help himself to some valuables.”
Colin could think of half a dozen other possibilities without even trying, none of which explained the young man ending up dead and buried in the park. “It’s something,” he finally said. “We can show the picture to Dubeau and any longtime staff.”
He was only half-listening as the rest discussed the eight-by-ten photo. Protected from the elements by frame and glass, it was the first item from the backpack Colin had looked at. The damage around the edges hadn’t spread to the subjects, a dark-eyed, dark-haired woman and boy. From the resemblance, they had to be mother and son.
Jane Vahalik, part of the huddle that also included Ronnie Orr, her trainee, volunteered to contact the studio whose stamp appeared on the back. It was located on the west side of the mountains in Eugene.
“Good,” Duane said. “No guarantee that boy grew up to be our victim, but it’s worth a try. If we can identify the woman, she may be able to tell us something.”
Jane tapped her finger on the table, dragging Colin’s gaze from the key card and photo, lying side by side. “Here’s something interesting, too.”
A Purple Heart, he saw, startled. The ribbon was in bad shape, but Linda had cleaned up the medal.
“Damn,” Colin murmured, hit hard by his sudden understanding. “The kid was carrying around his memories of his parents. Why would he do that?”
Linda indicated the remnants of a few items of clothing. “Briefs, T-shirt, socks. A change of clothes, minus the jeans, which are maybe too bulky to carry all the time?”
Homeless. Shit. Colin didn’t like the thought that was taking shape in his mind. He couldn’t dismiss it, though. Homeless guy, sixteen, seventeen years old, probably good-looking—if he were the cute kid in the photo some years later. Killed, or at least buried, a stone’s throw from where Maddie had very nearly also been killed.
Say something? Or keep what he was thinking to himself until he could talk to Nell?
“This is all very interesting,” Duane said, “but here’s what I brought you down to see.”
Colin followed him to a brightly lit magnifier. Beneath it was a bank deposit slip, and his puzzlement became sharp interest when he took in the amount—$30,000.
“It survived,” Linda said, “because it was in a plastic bag, the kind you put green beans in at the grocery store. There were a couple of photos in there, too. I’ll see what I can do to restore the second one, but it may be hopeless.”
The better of the two suffered from smeared and faded color, but Colin could make out enough to feel a chill. The photographer had been standing a distance away and had nothing like a telephoto lens, but Colin was easily able to recognize Police Chief Gary Bystrom, talking to another man Colin didn’t know. Their expressions were intense. In the background... He leaned closer. “Isn’t that the airfield at Arrow Lake?”
Marc Dubeau’s resort was one of the few around Angel Butte that allowed small plane owners to fly in and out. The resort included some time-share condominiums and cabins, and a few larger, fancier ones leased year-round. An Oregon senator used one of the more impressive homes, a massive log structure, to host parties, offer getaways to staff and for vacations for himself and family. His passion for hunting didn’t help his cause with the Sierra Club crowd.
Duane was right beside him, staring down at the same photo. “I think so.”
“Anyone traced that deposit slip?”
“Yeah, that’s why you’re here.” Duane glanced at the others. “Linda, is that everything so far?”
She gestured toward a wad of papers that appeared glued into a block. “I’ll work on separating those, but what little I’ve seen so far appears to be class notes, quizzes. This kid was in school somewhere.”
That information didn’t tie to the rest of Colin’s speculation. If the kid were in school, damn it, where?
Duane nodded. “Good work, all. You know what to do.”
Vahalik and her sidekick took their cue and headed for the door. Duane glanced at Colin. “Let’s step outside.”
Colin raised his eyebrows but went. They stopped under the overhang of the building.
“This is a political hot potato,” Duane said bluntly. “The account number belongs to Bystrom’s wife.”
Forgetting this wasn’t shirtsleeve weather, Colin gazed, unseeing, across the parking lot, his thoughts racing. It wasn’t so much the amount deposited. The Bystroms’ lifestyle suggested they were loaded. This amount could have been from a small inheritance, money moved from a CD that had come due, who knew what. The bigger question was why a murder victim thought the deposit slip held any significance.
“You want me to get a warrant.”
“Can we justify it?”
Colin rolled his shoulders and thought some more. This could be career suicide. Duane waited.
“I’ll need a copy.”
“Linda already emailed it to you.”
Colin grunted. “Coward.”
Duane gave him a puckish grin. “This is why you have the office with the best view.”
Colin laughed, thinking of the brick wall he looked out at. “That’s gotta be it.”
“What are you going to do?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Not exactly the truth. Of course they had to pursue every lead in a murder investigation. If he were going to step out on a limb already cracking under his feet, though, he needed some backing.
It was no stretch to decide the time had come to find out where Mayor Noah Chandler stood and what he was made of.
* * *
WITH COPIES OF the photograph and the deposit slip folded and tucked in the inside pocket of his suit jacket, Colin waited outside the mayor’s office a few hours later.
He knew Chandler in a superficial way. As he’d told Brian Cooper, he had gained the impression that the new mayor wasn’t all that impressed with his police chief. Which didn’t mean he’d give Colin the go-ahead to rake through Bystrom’s financial dealings.
Colin managed a surreptitious look at the time by checking for messages on his phone. Nothing from Nell. At least today she wasn’t alone. Her brother was supposed to have picked her up at ten and they were spending the day together. He wished that let him feel easy about her, but it didn’t. She was still out and about. Vulnerable.
Despite his best intentions, last night Colin had opened the front door the instant he’d heard Nell’s car, and she’d come in for a cup of tea. The scrape on her cheek had scabbed over but served as a graphic reminder of her close call. She’d admitted to having a few panic attacks on the drive from her parents’ house when she thought one set of headlights was behind her too long, but she’d followed his advice and realized after a turn or two that no one was following her.
Her face had momentarily glowed when she told him that her brother had come home to see her. The glow dimmed when she repeated the highlights from the private talk she and Felix had had.
Her perplexity made him ache with self-doubt. If he’d let her go on the way she had been, her life wouldn’t have been threatened.
Except he wasn’t so sure that was true. He had stumbled on her. Someone else could have just as well. All he had to do was remember her terror the night he confronted her to know that she carried that fear with her at all times. Answers might allow her to let go of the fear.
And what? Go back to her life as Nell Smith? He was having trouble imagining that. Maddie—Nell, damn it—had filled his world since he’d caught that fleeting glimpse of her on television. Look at him, nerves jumping under his skin only because he didn’t know where she was or what she was doing right this minute.
At least she’d agreed to let him take her out to dinner tonight. He had a plan for afterward he thought she’d like.
“Captain McAllister?” the assistant said pleasantly. “The mayor will be glad to see you now.”
Colin nodded his thanks and stood. No one had exited Chandler’s office. Colin hoped keeping him waiting hadn’t been some cheap power play.
The mayor’s office was more stripped down than Colin had expected. A couple of impressive paintings by local artists decorated the walls. The desk was a nice one, but it didn’t appear custom-made the way the desk installed by Chandler’s predecessor had. When Noah Chandler himself stood and came around the corner of it to greet Colin, he wore black slacks and a roll-neck sweater rather than a business suit. Heavy boots, too, which bore traces of dried mud.
Seeing the direction of Colin’s glance, Chandler grinned ruefully. “I was inspecting possible sites for a new sewer treatment plant. The ground’s a mess today.”
“I noticed.”
They shook hands and measured each other.
The guy had one of those faces that was too crude to call handsome. Thuggish came to mind. He had longshoreman shoulders, too, and hands that looked as if they should be wielding a sledgehammer or maybe drawing beer for a living. No rings, his watch was utilitarian. The ponytail might be gone, but well-cut hair hadn’t succeeded in giving him a glossy veneer. Blue eyes were intelligent and guarded. Noah Chandler wouldn’t be an easy read.
“Sit down.” He gestured toward several leather chairs grouped around a coffee table.
Colin chose one and waited while Chandler did the same.
“I assume this isn’t a let’s-get-acquainted meeting.” Bluntness seemed to be his style, which Colin liked.
“No. I’d like your backing to do something that could get ugly.”
Chandler’s mouth quirked. “That sounds interesting. Explain.”
“Are you aware of the bones found in River Park when the contractors hauled a stump out of the ground?”
Chandler leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees. “Sure. Have you identified the victim yet?”
“We were stymied when the ground was frozen. Once we were able to start digging again, some more bones turned up right away. With them was a backpack.”
That sharp gaze didn’t waver.
“Techs are still trying to peel apart papers that look like schoolwork. For now, though, they’ve found a couple of interesting things.”
“Which is where I come in, I take it.”
Colin’s jaw muscles flexed. “Yes. The kid was carrying a key card for a room at Marc Dubeau’s resort. These were also in the pack, sealed together in a plastic bag.” He removed the folded sheets of paper from his pocket and handed them over. “Copies, of course.”
Chandler unfolded them and studied the picture in silence for a minute. His eyebrows momentarily climbed when he saw the amount on the deposit slip. At last he looked up. “You do have a problem,” he said. “I assume the account number is your boss’s?”
“His wife’s.”
“And you believe these items are in some way connected to the murder.”
He’d been right; Noah Chandler wasn’t giving much away.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Colin said, choosing his words with care. “At this point, however, we have to pursue what few leads we have. We have no missing persons listed who were staying at Arrow Lake Lodge, nor from any resorts in the close vicinity. The medical examiner is sure the bones belong to a young male, likely between about sixteen and twenty years of age. Given that we have the jaw, we’ve been able to compare teeth with X-rays from a couple of young men who are listed as missing in the right time frame, one from Bend, the other from Klamath Falls. Neither matched. Who was this guy? What was his connection to Dubeau’s resort? And why was he carrying that photo and the deposit slip? Packaged together, no less.”
The mayor mulled that over. “Did you consider asking Chief Bystrom?”
“I did. If it had been only the photograph, I’d have done so.”
“What is it you intend?”
“I want to look at his bank records. Find out who wrote the check, if it was one, deposited on that date. Make sure there isn’t a pattern of unexplained deposits.”
“Do you expect that there will be?”
For the first time, Colin hesitated. “I can’t answer that,” he said at last. “Chief Bystrom and his wife live very well, clearly beyond his salary. I’ve always assumed there was family money. I have no idea. I will tell you that this would be part of our investigation no matter who it was.”
“All right,” Chandler said abruptly, folding the two pieces of paper and laying them on the coffee table. “Unless you already had a judge in mind, I’d suggest you go to Tenney. I’ll give him a call.” He rose to his feet. “And thank you for the warning.” Amusement glinted in his eyes. “I like to know before the shit hits the fan.”
“Chief Bystrom is going to see this as an attack. You may not be aware that he and I don’t have an entirely cordial working relationship.”
“He’s said things.” Chandler gave the faintest of smiles. “Chief Bystrom and I don’t, either. Do what you have to do.”
They didn’t shake hands again. Colin left, fully satisfied.
Half an hour later, he had his warrant, which included bank and investment accounts in the names of Gary Bystrom and/or Marcia Bystrom.
It didn’t take long to determine that Gary Bystrom and his wife had deposited over half a million dollars over a period of about fifteen years, distributed over a number of different bank and investment accounts. Many amounts were small enough not to catch anyone’s attention, but there were too many of them. A decent supplemental income. Colin was going to have to ask his boss what the source of that money was, and then bring a forensic accountant in to verify the truth of his answer.
If it turned out a trust account had been paying out, Colin was up shit creek without a paddle—unless Mayor Noah Chandler chose to hand him one.
* * *
DELIGHT BLOSSOMED IN Nell the moment Colin turned into the parking lot of the Wolf Creek Resort that evening. The elevation was higher than the town of Angel Butte, which meant the ground was still white from the last storm. The outdoor ice-skating rink was surrounded by a two-foot bank of snow. More snow weighed down the branches of small evergreen trees scattered throughout the grounds. The ones around the rink were strung with tiny white lights. The restaurant he escorted her into looked out onto the rink.
They were seated by a window, and her gaze kept being drawn to the winter wonderland outside.
“You are planning to take me skating?” she murmured, as she closed her menu, decision made.
Colin laughed. “There’s a reason I told you to wear pants.”
“Oh! That’s going to be so much fun.” Her gaze strayed to the window again, and the sight of a man crashing to the ice made her wince. “I think.”
“You said you knew what to do. I’m counting on you keeping me on my feet.”
She laughed at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
His expression was appropriately surprised. “Why would I be kidding?”
“Because you outweigh me by just a teensy bit. Like sixty, seventy pounds? You do know what would happen if we were holding hands and you started to go down?”
“Huh.” A smile crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes. “I’d take you down with me.”
“Yes!”
“I’ve never been ice-skating, but I do cross-country ski. How hard can it be?”
Thus spoke a man arrogantly certain of his prowess. Nell rolled her eyes. “Maybe we won’t hold hands.”
His smile deepened. “Oh, we’ll hold hands.” His voice had deepened, too.
She couldn’t look away. The velvety rough tone of his voice gave her quivers and she found herself squeezing her thighs together to try to contain them.
“I’ll sue you for any bruises,” she said lightly.
He chuckled. Both were distracted then by the waitress, who took their orders. When she was gone, he asked Nell about her day.
“It was fun.” She made a face. “First time you’ve ever heard that word out of my mouth, isn’t it? But I really like Felix, and we did have a good time. He told me this was my trip down memory lane. Mostly, it was his memory lane, but that’s okay. I found out where he went skinny-dipping, where teenagers in Angel Butte park to make out—” At Colin’s expression, she mock-glowered at him. “So okay, you could have told me that.” Her voice softened. “He showed me places we rode our bikes, where Mom and Dad took us on picnics. We went out to Arrow Lake. I don’t know if Dad was there or not—we didn’t ask for him. I got to sit on this rock that sticks out into the lake. Wrong time of year, of course, but I remember lying on it for hours at a time watching the minnows and dreaming. When there’s so much I don’t remember, visiting a place I do made me feel...anchored, I guess.” She shrugged, probably a little awkwardly.
“I’m glad.” He reached across the table for her hand. “That you had a good day, and that some of your memories are happy ones.”
She squeezed his hand, hoping he couldn’t tell that her reaction to his touch was a whole lot more than friendly. “Thank you.”
They’d been served their entrees when he became quiet. A couple of lines between his eyebrows made his expression brooding. Beginning to feel apprehensive, Nell waited.
When he met her eyes, he looked troubled. “Something came up today I’d like to talk to you about, see if it awakens any memories. If it does, they probably won’t be good ones. Damn,” he muttered. “What am I thinking? We can do this later.”
The too-familiar band around her chest tightened. “Sure, like I’m going to be able to think about anything else now. Tell me.”
His reluctance was obvious, but finally he dipped his head. “You know some bones turned up in River Park.” He explained how and when it happened, and that the continued search for both evidence and more bones had paused until the freeze let go of the ground. “You heard Detective Vahalik yesterday.”
“Yes,” she said, trying to hide her sense of foreboding.
“Here’s what we’ve learned so far.” He explained that they knew the victim was male and likely in his late teens. The exciting part for investigators was the recovery of a backpack with contents preserved well enough they knew the young man carried what might be items deeply personal to him, including a photo of a woman and boy and a Purple Heart. Oddly, he also had a change of clothes in the pack.
The foreboding had swelled until it hurt to contain. She managed a choppy nod.
“The clothes could have been because he’d just been to the gym.” He paused. “But the framed photo? The military medal? My first thought was that he was homeless. Carrying what he absolutely needed with him, and some mementos of his parents. Things he wouldn’t have left even if he had a temporary place to stay. The schoolwork complicates that explanation, though. I don’t know what to think now.”
“You’re asking if he was my boyfriend,” she whispered.
Regret darkened his eyes to charcoal. “Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering. He was buried so close to where you were assaulted, the coincidence has been nagging at me.”
She pushed against the darkness that separated her from all the things she should be able to remember, and was paid back by pain stabbing through her temple. Thinking at all became a struggle, but she made herself.
“I was wearing a shirt that I don’t think was mine when I came to in the trunk.” Filthy. Bloody, but still comforting even though she didn’t know why. It was the only thing she’d had to hold on to...something. Someone. “The sleeves come down to here.” She held her hand six or eight inches from the tips of her fingers on the other hand. “The patch on the shoulder says ‘Airborne’ and has a feathered wing holding a sword. I looked it up online and learned it’s from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. They took heavy casualties in Vietnam.”
“Which means lots of Purple Hearts were awarded,” he said slowly.
She nodded.
He let out a heavy breath. “It’s not sounding good, sweetheart.”
Her heart took a little hop. Did he realize what he’d just said? The way he’d reverted to brooding made her suspect it was a slip.
The moment of hope was only a blip in the dark cloud of anxiety that had her clasping her hands on her lap to hide her shaking from Colin.
“I have the shirt with me. I mean, back at the apartment. It’s...” Precious? No, that wasn’t right. “I wore it a lot those few first years. It meant something to me. I just don’t know what.”
“If your parents didn’t know you had a boyfriend, you wouldn’t have dared wear that shirt where they’d see it. Or run it through the wash at home.”
“No. He might have let me wear it sometimes.” The pain in her head splintered until she saw black spots before her eyes. “That night...” Her voice broke.
Colin leaned forward, his intensity a force field. “Maybe you weren’t running to Emily. You were running to him.”
Nell had to close her eyes. She pressed fingers to her temple, pushing hard, harder. A whimper escaped her.
The next thing she knew, a big, warm hand captured hers and lowered it. Then he began to massage, far more gently, almost a caress. Her temple, her forehead, her cheekbone. The pain subsided slowly, ebbing like a tide sweeping all debris with it.
The tension gradually left her neck and shoulders, until she felt so weak her head fell back. But not far—it rested against him. His belly, rock-hard but moving with each breath he drew. He was standing behind her, she gradually came to realize, both hands now squeezing her shoulders until she moaned softly.
“Ma’am?” she heard someone ask. “Sir? Is there a problem?”
“Migraine.” Colin bent forward so his lips had to be close to her ear. “Do we need to go home?”
She felt weirdly relaxed, and she wasn’t sure she could stand. The relief was huge. Somehow she shook her head slightly and slitted her eyes open. People at neighboring tables were watching them. Belated self-consciousness had her straightening.
“No, I...feel better.” To her astonishment, she did. The pain had to have been purely psychosomatic. Am I just a little crazy, or a lot? She blinked a few times. “Thank you, Colin. You saved me.”
His worried gaze not leaving her, he returned to his seat. “God, I’m sorry, Nell. That was entirely my fault.”
“No.” Her head still felt a little wobbly when she shook it. “I’ve...had that happen before, when I tried too hard to remember. It’s one reason I quit trying.”
His frown deepened. “Does it happen only when you try to remember certain things?”
Nell bit her lip. “I think so. Not school or friends or Felix. Not even my parents,” she admitted. She stared at him, wide-eyed. “Oh, my God. You don’t know what a relief that is. It never was them.”
“You did remember their faces.”
“Yes!” Her ebullience didn’t last long. “I can’t picture Beck at all, if that was his name. When I try, I get filled with this...this horrible pressure that makes me think my head is going to explode. The minute Emily mentioned him, I had this ominous feeling and I didn’t want to talk about him.”
“Because he hurt you?” His jaw flexed. “Or because you saw someone hurt him.”
She stared at him, hating this sensation of dread, hating whatever blocked her from remembering.
At whatever he saw on her face, Colin half rose to his feet, then closed his eyes and sat again. “Okay, that’s it,” he said, voice raw. “No more, I promise. Thank you for trying, Nell. We’re not doing this again tonight.” The strength of his concern for her made her tremble.
“It’s okay. Really.” Seeing his expression, she reached for his hand. “I came back to Angel Butte to remember. I have to keep trying. So I want you to tell me what else you found in the backpack. If any of it was important.”
His expression closed. “I wanted you to have a good time tonight.”
“I will, once we get this over with.”
They conducted a silent battle, gazes clashing. At length his breath gusted out. “Fine. There was a framed picture of a woman and a boy, maybe nine, ten years old.”
“What did they look like?”
“Dark hair, brown eyes.”
“Can I...can I see it?” Inside she recoiled. I don’t want to. Please don’t make me.
“Damn it, Nell!” Colin said explosively.
“Please.” She would not listen to the fear.
He groaned. “Maybe. Probably.” After a moment he continued. “A couple of other odd things. He had a key card from your dad’s resort. Looked like he or someone else was taking snapshots there, too. There was one of two men at your dad’s airfield.”
“That...sounds like something I would have done.”
“What?”
“I think...” This didn’t make her head hurt. “I went through a sort of Nancy Drew phase. Why do I remember this?” There wasn’t any answer to that question. “I had a camera, not a good one, but I remember sneaking around spying on guests. If he’d caught me, my father would have killed me.” Appalled, she stopped.
Colin’s expression remained gentle. “You don’t mean that literally.”
“No, but...”
He shook his head. “You know that’s not what happened, don’t you?”
Nell sucked in a deep breath. “Yes.” She couldn’t picture any more of that evening than ever, but...she knew. “Yes. It was someone else.”
“Okay.” He smiled at her. “Now we’re going to let this go.”
He was careful to keep conversation light while they finished eating. When he asked if she wanted dessert and she declined, he took care of the bill. Then they walked out, hand in hand, going to the open window by the rink, where rental skates were handed out.
After they’d both donned theirs, Colin produced fleece hats from his parka pockets. She snatched the navy blue one so he had to wear the white one with a small pom-pom, laughing at his expression.
Either he’d lied about never having ice-skated, or he was right that expertise at Nordic skiing translated well, because he moved with reasonable assurance on the blades. The rink wasn’t huge—nowhere near the size of the indoor one in Seattle where she’d skated before. But she loved this, with the black arch of sky above them, the smell of snow and pine needles in the air, the sparkle from strings of white lights the only illumination except for the golden windows of the resort and restaurant.
Nell didn’t let herself think about anything except this moment. Her mind muted the voices and laughs of the other people on the rink with them. Mostly she heard the scrape of blades on ice. Felt the comfort of that big gloved hand holding hers, even as she half wished for skin-to-skin contact. Colin laughed when he faltered, pretended he was going to fall, coaxed her into showing him how to skate backward. He kept her on her feet when she tried a leap.
Inevitably, his blade caught on a rough spot and he went down. He tried to let go of her first, but she didn’t let him. Which meant she crashed to the ice next to him, their legs tangled, both laughing as they slid to thump against a snowbank.
He rose on one elbow to look down at her, flat on her back.
“Told you,” she teased.
“You did.” His expression was utterly intent, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. Only her. Slowly he lowered his head.
Nell’s heart pounded hard as she waited.
“I shouldn’t do this,” he said.
“I wish you would.” She hoped she didn’t sound as if she was begging. I want to know what it’s like.
Shock and understanding transformed his face.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. She’d said it out loud.
“I want to know, too,” he said, low and rough. And then he kissed her.