After her meeting with Odin Rogers, Kerry spent some time digging into Marlowe Colton’s life a bit more deeply, while she figured out her next move with Odin. Marlowe was known to be a workaholic. Was it possible she’d wanted to be CEO of Colton Oil so badly that she’d sent the email regarding Ace’s parentage? But that didn’t really make sense. If she’d known her brother wasn’t a biological Colton, she could simply have told her father discreetly and asked for a DNA test. Or given him what proof she had.
So she hadn’t known about Ace, but when they’d found out, she’d assumed she’d be named CEO. Perhaps she had been pissed that Payne had temporarily appointed himself to take Ace’s place before naming her to the position. So she’d shot her father?
But she had an alibi—her brand-new fiancé, Bowie Robertson. They’d been at his place. Making love, in case anyone wanted to run forensics. Or so she’d been told. She didn’t figure she’d get a warrant for those bodily fluids. Or get any proof even if she did, considering the time that had passed.
Nothing in any of the records she could search showed Marlowe to be anything but what she appeared, and from what Kerry had witnessed the night she’d barged into their family grieving session to bring in Ace for questioning, Marlowe had been hit hard by the shooting. Nothing, past or present, showed someone who’d resort to violence. She’d never even had a speeding ticket.
So she was on the bottom of the suspect list. Still there, but at the tail end.
Kerry’s list of leads was dismal. There were some forensics that she was still waiting on. She’d received a report on the bullet that had hit Payne. It was a common bullet from a common gun that was sold regularly—meaning any of a thousand people could have purchased it legally just in their part of the state and just in the past year.
And her shooter could have come by it illegally. She spent time looking at reports of guns stolen, cross-referenced them to anyone who seemed to have any link with the Coltons but so far had come up empty. And she looked for recent sales of ammunition, came up with several just in their area south of Tucson, but, again, nothing hit with any cross-reference searches.
Still, she’d spend the hours it took to follow up on all of the names, just in case.
And she kept thinking about Odin Rogers. Had to know what the man was up to. He sure as hell wouldn’t just be sitting around watching TV all day or spending his days investing money. Who did he see? Where did he hang out? What was he up to, right then, while she sat at her desk at the police station, looking for one particular gun in a sea of thousands?
There’d been known associates over the years, but Odin didn’t seem to keep many people around long. The MVPD had talked to many of them, had been able to arrest a few on small charges, but nothing that led them anywhere.
So she thought about what she did know. From her wall. From Tyler. Thinking about the mountain.
What she didn’t do was allow herself to drift off to thoughts of Rafe. Or the night she’d spent with him. That little treasure was hers to cherish. But only when she was alone. And off work.
For the moment, she was able to push it away every time it zoomed forward, which was way too often. Somewhat because her body was feeling the aftermath of so much lovemaking. It had been a while for her. Physical moment brought instant reminder.
As soon as Dane, who was officially looking into the ranger’s death, had left for the day, Kerry did, too. In her own Jeep, and without telling anyone what she was doing, she headed back toward Rogers’s neighborhood. Just to see.
If she knew where he went, who he saw, she’d be better able to find a clue that would piece everything together. Something that officially linked Tyler and Rogers. Or Rogers and the ranger, at least.
She didn’t even make it to his place. Half a mile away, she saw his truck pull around a corner and head away from town. She wouldn’t be able to follow him if he continued on, not directly. On a road where there was nothing to look at except for whatever vehicles might be in front of or behind you, he’d be sure to see her. But she could stick with him just long enough to see if he was headed toward the mountain. And then call Dane.
She almost missed Rogers’s turn off the main drive out of town, just a few blocks before leaving the town behind. Taking one street sooner, she made a quick second turn and ended up facing the road he was on just after he drove past her intersection. Good. He wouldn’t have seen her.
She let another car pass, and then pulled out behind it, keeping her distance, hoping the old gray truck stayed on the road as far as Odin did, giving her some cover. She could see Odin’s truck through the windshield of the truck between them, but didn’t figure he’d be able to make her out. He’d know her vehicle—not from their visit that morning, but from the mountain the night before.
Unless he’d hired someone to watch the mountain, and the ranger. Which actually made more sense. He’d have henchmen. She was pretty sure she could name one or two of them, not that she’d been able to get enough intel to be sure. It wasn’t like she was officially investigating or had any right to go questioning people about the man.
No, she was on the Colton case.
The ranger’s death was Dane’s.
When Odin turned again, she felt that tiny thrill of excitement that came when she was close to getting somewhere on a case. He’d turned right instead of left this time. Not going in a circle.
Could be he’d spotted her, was giving her the runaround, but she didn’t think so. He wasn’t varying his speed.
And the man was probably just cocky enough to figure he could get away with anything he chose to do so wouldn’t bother with worrying about surveillance.
He’d been smart enough to get away with a life of slimeball crime for years, she reminded herself. Her mistake would be to underestimate him.
As she approached the road where Odin had turned off—a gravelly lane that led through a run-down neighborhood filled with old cars, broken gates on scarred stucco walls, homes in disrepair and yards with no landscaping—she drove slowly past so she could get a look at what he was doing. He’d slowed outside a house and she made a quick U-turn, pulling off to the shoulder, just before the intersection. She could see Odin and not be seen.
A minute or so later a beat-up black sedan with a dented front bumper and cardboard where the front passenger window should have been pulled out of a drive farther down the road and approached Rogers, slowing as the car came up alongside. She couldn’t tell what the vehicle’s occupants were doing, but the two vehicles sat there, side by side, for a good minute before the sedan started forward again, and Odin, turning in a driveway, followed behind it.
Kerry turned quickly, making it to the next block before either of them made it to the end of their street, and was turned around and ready to pull out behind them as they left. Tapping her steering wheel as she waited impatiently for another vehicle to drive up behind them so she could turn out, she almost lost them, but caught up before they reached Mustang Boulevard. Odin turned back toward town, but the car he’d met—obviously with a particular mission, since he was now headed back the way he’d come—headed out of town.
Straight toward the mountain.
She had a choice to make. Call Dane, hoping that her fellow detective would see merit in Odin’s meeting and head out to actually find the car she had her eye on, or make certain that she found out what was going on by following the guy herself. No brainer there.
But remembering the night before, the ranger’s death, the attempt on her life, the warning she’d received that morning, she knew she couldn’t head up the mountain without someone knowing where she was. If she called the station, she’d be told to stand down. The case wasn’t hers. And she’d already been targeted.
And that was the only reason she texted Rafe. He was the only other person who knew what was going on. And she trusted him not to get in the way of her need to bring Tyler’s killer to justice.
After that, she was all business, staying far enough behind the old car that she almost lost it a couple of times. Going slow to ensure that other cars pulled in between them on the long open road. And when they reached the mountain road, she pulled off anytime she thought she’d be visible, waiting at turns, taking it slowly. So much so that she almost missed that the car had stopped, pulling off into some brush on a flat piece of land that butted up to the cliff.
Kerry continued on up the mountain until she could turn around, and then as quickly as she could, retraced the route, passing the parked car and heading down just until she found a place where she could somewhat hide the Jeep. Getting out she hiked the quarter mile back to where she’d seen the car. And then, picking each step carefully, tried to catch sight of the guy, to figure out where he’d gone, without alerting him that she was there. At least she didn’t have to worry about rattlesnakes. It would be another three months before they’d be out sunning themselves again.
The phone in the holster attached to her hip vibrated. Once. Text message, not a call. Could be from anyone at the station. One of the friends she and Lizzie hung out with at the bar in town on occasion. Or Rafe.
Any or all of them would have to wait. Still, it was...nice...to feel the presence of someone she knew as she ventured off into a potentially dangerous unknown.
It didn’t take her long to find the guy. Probably because he didn’t know he was being followed and, unlike her, he wasn’t choosing his steps carefully. Dressed all in black, with dark hair and a beard, he was plodding in black work boots up what she could see now was a trail carved around the side of the mountain, leading gradually up to...something.
A cave? The place where Rogers stashed his guns and drugs? Or both?
Heart pounding, she held back a second, focused on the sounds he was making, keeping herself close enough to hear him without being seen. Stopping when she came to flat pieces of land with cliff overhang above her, little hiding places that allowed her to let him get far enough ahead of her that he wouldn’t discover that she was behind him.
Adrenaline poured through her. Two years of yearning, of studying, investigating, knowing, and she was finally starting to get some answers. If it hadn’t been for the ranger’s rudeness the night before, and then the attempt made to run her off the road, alerting her to the fact that she wasn’t wanted up on the mountain, she’d never have known that she was onto something.
The chief always said that everyone made mistakes and sometimes cracking a case meant waiting for the perp to make his.
Standing at a jutted-out piece of the face of the mountain, half hiding behind it, Kerry listened. She couldn’t hear the thug—or a perfectly nice guy who just happened to know Odin Rogers and hang out at the site of a murder from the night before—and couldn’t move until sound alerted her to his whereabouts. He could, at any time, head back down the mountain and if he did, she had to make damned sure he didn’t find her.
Looking around for an alcove big enough for her to fit in, she noticed a pile of tumbleweeds off to her left. They generally blew and conglomerated in places where they got stuck—an inlay? Looking around the craggy mountainside, to see if she could make out any indication that anyone was coming back down, she turned, thinking she’d hide for a minute or two, just in case, maybe check her phone to see if she had service...
Before she could move, blinding pain struck the back of her skull.
Rafe had had no problem finding Kerry’s car. From there he had no idea where to go, but figured up was more likely than down so he headed up the road, keeping to the mountain side, looking for any sign of underbrush that had been broken down recently, stepped on. Listening for any sign of human habitation.
Was he too late?
No way was he going to be too late.
As soon as he’d gotten her text he’d headed out of the office, and into a clothing store half a block away. Bought the first pair of jeans and tennis shoes he could find in his size, and wore them out of the store, carrying his pants and dress shoes with him.
He thought he heard a rock drop. Stopped. Listened, and then saw an old, beat-up black car pulled off into an alcove on the side of the mountain. Instinct told him Kerry would have seen it, too, and he headed in that direction. It didn’t take him long to find the trail that led up the back of the mountain.
Could just be a hiker out there. It wasn’t uncommon, especially with January being the beginning of hiking season, but something was telling him that Kerry needed him.
Or maybe he just needed her to need him.
Wanted her to need him.
He’d gone a quarter of a mile up the trail when he heard a sound that gave him a sickening feeling. Maybe a startled yelp. Human, he thought. But a large thump, too. Like something had been dropped, as opposed to sliding rubble.
Visions of the brick thrown through Kerry’s front window that morning had him racing toward the sound. Whoever was out there would hear him, but he figured that couldn’t be bad at the moment. Not if the distraction saved Kerry’s life.
Could be she’d just slipped.
Might not have been her he heard at all. His feet raced forward anyway, sliding on the mountainside as he veered off the uneven path, taking shortcuts wherever he found them.
He saw her a couple of minutes later, lying in an unmoving lump on the ground—several yards below him. He’d gone too far.
Movement off to his left alerted him he wasn’t alone just as a hunk of black came sailing toward him.
“What did you do to her?” he yelled as he caught the flying weight and threw it down to the ground. Thank God for the karate lessons he’d taken to spite Payne during college. The man, all in black, was easily fifty pounds heavier than Rafe, but the anger fueled energy flowing through him, and the heavy landing with the man’s own weight working against him, gave Rafe the upper hand. If this man had killed Kerry, he wasn’t getting off the mountain alive.
He punched. And punched again. With every bit of force in him, he kept attacking until he realized that the other man wasn’t fighting back. He didn’t know if he’d killed his opponent, or just knocked him out, but left him on the ground there as he raced toward the body lying so still down below.
God, let her still be breathing. She had to still be breathing.
If she wasn’t...
She was breathing. He could discern the small up-and-down movement of her chest while he was still several feet away.
“Kerry,” he called, aware that the guy up above them could regain consciousness at any moment.
She moaned. Blinked. Then lay still again.
“It’s okay, Ker,” he said softly, not sure if he was crying or not. Hoped not. Suddenly, he was thirteen again, being forced to stay in his room and watch the person he loved most in the world heading out to their hill all alone.
Crying as he knew he’d lost her.
They were the last years he could remember shedding tears...
He felt for her pulse as soon as he reached her. Let out a breath as he felt the strong beat.
“Okay, I’m going to lift you, sweetie. I hope it doesn’t hurt, but I have to get you off this mountain.”
Her lashes fluttered once more, but she didn’t open her eyes again.
Rafe wasn’t going to worry about that yet. He’d seen a small stain of blood on the ground as he lifted Kerry’s head. There was a gash on the back of her skull. With all her hair, he couldn’t tell how bad it was, but figured that the man up above had dropped something down on her. Probably a rock. He didn’t take the time to find out which one of the many ones around them could have been the one. Taking off his belt to tie her to him, he wrapped one arm around her and used the other to balance them both as he half climbed, half slid down the mountain.