12:29 P.M.
IDAHO PANHANDLE
Located at the northern end of the Idaho Panhandle, encompassing twenty-five square miles, and home to a small cluster of inhabitants, the unincorporated village of Elmer boasted a general store, village post office, and a rental business; all of them housed under one roof and run by fifty-year-old Mark Denny.
Dressed in blue jeans, a black thermal underwear top, a blue jean jacket, and six-inch-high brown work boots, the top of his head parallel with Devlin’s chin, Denny stood behind the general store’s counter looking up at her and Randall. A wide runway of skin separated a horseshoe of gray hair curving around to the back of his head.
On Devlin’s right, Randall picked up a map of the area and studied the topography.
Devlin eyeballed the shorter male. “So, you haven’t had any contact with the man renting that cabin?”
“I was just getting ready to make a run up there to see if he arrived, ask if he had any questions,” Denny pulled a tattered white handkerchief from a pants pocket, “you know...the usual.” He blew his nose, wiped it, and returned the soiled hanky to his pocket. “But that’s when that female marshal called me and started asking questions. Is she with you?”
“She is.” Devlin leaned right, toward her partner, to scan the map he held.
“According to this, the cabin we want is,” Randall pointed, “right there, almost to the top of that peak.”
She nodded. “How long will it take us to get there, Mr. Denny?”
He glanced beyond her left shoulder and squinted at a light snow falling outside, adding to the inch already on the ground. “I can set you up with a couple four-wheelers,” he glimpsed the federal agents, “for a charge, of course. I’m not running a charity here.”
Her gaze never straying from the map, she waved off the businessman. “Money’s no object.”
He smiled, hunched over, and pinched the map in Randall’s grasp. “May I?”
Randall let go.
Denny cleared off a patch of real estate on the counter, laid the paper down, and pointed. “We’re here.” He moved his pointer finger. “There’s where you want to go.” Tracing a squiggly line between the two locations, “If you take this trail,” he doled out directions, “and go around the mountain, then join up with this trail, which will lead you right to the cabin, you should make it in less than an hour.”
Devlin glanced up from the map. “And there aren’t any other people staying at the cabins in the surrounding area?”
“The next nearest rental is five miles away, but there is an old man who has a small spread about a mile north/northeast. Been living there longer than I’ve been running this place.”
“Any way of contacting him?”
“I’m sure there is, but,” Denny shrugged, “I’ve never had reason to do so.” A beat. “But if you’re worried about him getting caught up in your business, he keeps to himself.”
Devlin motioned. “Show me where his house is at.”
“Unless you’re looking for it, the driveway to his place is hard to find.” He tapped a spot on the paper, “Right there,” then straightened up and peeked outside. “This late-season storm is supposed to dump upwards of a foot of snow in the higher elevations over the next twelve hours.”
After picking up a pen and marking an ‘X’ on the location Denny had just indicated, Randall picked up the flat atlas. “Mind if we take this?”
The older man nodded. “Have at it.” A moment. “There are a lot of sharp turns along that path, especially on the other side of the mountain. So, with this white stuff coming down the way it is, I wouldn’t recommend going too fast.”
“Thanks for the tip.” The deputy marshal folded the chart, stuffed it into a jacket pocket, and poked his chin at the owner. “Where do we find our quads?”
“Out back.” Denny shuffled down the length of the worktop while beckoning them with a wave of his arm. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
*******
12:47 P.M.
His six-five wide body engulfing her five-three slim figure, her lean lower legs wrapped around his midsection, Duke Hammer groaned while Samantha Eichorn screamed into his right ear.
Seconds later, the tangled mass of arms and legs became two distinct human beings again when he rolled onto his back to lay on her three o’clock, a bed of currency—fifties and hundreds—beneath them.
Breathing rapidly, the twenty-year-old blonde-haired woman went to her right side, propped herself onto her right elbow and rested her head on her same side palm to regard Hammer.
Staring at the crisscrossing wooden beams overhead, his protruding chest rising and falling with each gasp for air, he wiped his brow.
With her free hand, she dragged a forefinger over his pectoral muscles before leaning in, giving him a passionate kiss, and pulling back an inch to admire his blue eyes. “I love you, Duke.”
Still panting, he turned toward her. His gaze dropping to her smallish breasts a beat later, then to her hips and thighs, he rotated toward her to reach around and spank her on the butt once. “Same here, Sam.” He jumped to his feet, snatched her t-shirt from off the floor, and flung it. “Now...”
The garment hit her chin before ending up draped across her chest.
“...get cleaned up. We have to count and bundle this money.”
*******
1:42 P.M.
20 MILES NORTHEAST OF
ELMER, IDAHO
Riding a pair of matching Kawasaki four-wheel ATVs, Randall in the lead, the federal agents zoomed around a bend in the trail before he held up his left fist and came to a halt at the start of an upward-sloping pathway just wide enough to accommodate the length of a sheet of plywood.
Devlin stopped on his left, flipped up her black helmet’s visor, and raised her voice to be heard above the idling machines. “What is it?”
He shut off the ATV and removed his helmet. “I think we should go on foot from here. If Hammer is renting this place, I don’t want him to—”
“Hear us coming.” She killed her Kawasaki’s engine and stripped off her headgear. “Good thinking.”
Swinging his left leg over the back of the four-wheeler, Randall dismounted. “The cabin’s only a half mile from here and the overarching trees and pines will shield us from the snow...at least somewhat, anyway.”
Devlin climbed off her ride and hung her helmet on a handlebar. “Let’s get going.”
Dressed in black leather jackets and blue jeans, their clothing, and now their hair, dusted with white from a heavy falling snow, the two ducked off the main trail and headed up the winding, wooded lane, their black tactical boots making two-inch-deep footprints behind them.
*******
1:57 P.M.
Barefooted, wearing light blue sweatpants and a white, long-sleeved flannel shirt, Samantha pushed aside a purple curtain and glanced left and right to watch the falling snow, as the precipitation coated everything between the front of the cabin and the start of the trees seventy feet away. “It’s really coming down out there.”
Seated at a table behind her, facing the door located on her port side, Hammer finished counting, lined up a stack of hundreds, and banded them together. “It’s not supposed to stop for quite a while, either.” He grabbed more loose bills, bunched them together, and licked his thumb. “How about you get your skinny little,” he swore, “back here and help me count this?”
She smiled. “You didn’t think it was so skinny when you were spanking it.” Samantha pivoted away then spun back toward the glass and squinted while swaying her head back and forth to see through the haze of snow.
He noticed her sharp turnaround. “Something spook you?”
“I,” she paused, “I’m not sure.”
“Don’t worry. There’s no one else around for miles.”
She gave the area another inspection. Must just be the snow playing tricks on me.
“Now, get over here. I’m not counting this all by myself.”
Two beats later, she let the curtain fall closed again and padded across the single-room cabin.
*******
1:58 P.M.
Overhead, dark clouds held back most traces of the sun while tall trees blotted out any rays that managed to peek through, giving people on the ground the impression that nightfall was fast approaching.
Almost completely camouflaged from the snow falling around them, both squatting on their haunches at the end of a driveway near the tree line, Devlin and Randall watched a slim woman, silhouetted by yellow lighting, staring straight at them from the other side of a windowpane.
The woman looked to her left and right before walking away from the glass, the curtain falling closed again.
Devlin let out the air she had been holding and slowly nodded her head. “She fits the slim-woman profile from the robberies.”
On her right, Randall agreed. “The right height, too.”
“If Hammer would just poke his head outside, then we’d know for sure.” A beat. “I’m open to suggestions on how we should approach this. Since they’ve already demonstrated that they’re not afraid to kill LEOs, I’m not interested in giving them another target.” She faced him and shed a quick smile. “I meant targets.”
He acknowledged her with a dip of his chin. “I appreciate being included in your concerns.”
Picking up on the feigned indignation in his voice, she nudged him with her elbow. “You know I love you.”
“I’m,” he scanned the open land all around the single-story, dark-brown cabin sporting a three-inch-thick ‘snow roof’ before glimpsing two outward-facing motorcycles parked alongside the structure on his one o’clock, “I’m telling Curt you said that.”
“Go ahead. He knows he has nothing to worry about.” A moment. “Besides, I’m just a loving kind of person.”
Randall hiked a corner of his mouth. You ARE a kind-hearted soul, Jess. “Okay. My instincts are on fire here.”
Keeping her nose pointed at the cabin, Devlin shifted her gaze toward the man on her right. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,” he paused, “we’re not walking up there and knocking on the door. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they just opened fire on us outright. We have to get them to come out, show themselves.”
“Okay. I’m all ears. How do we do that?”
He pondered for a moment then faced her. “How about we just ask?”
∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞
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