The sweet scent of yucca flowers filled the warm June air as Ophelia Clarke pulled her car up the narrow Sangre de Cristo Mountains road on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico. An early sunset spread across the endless sky above her, in a breathtaking array of orange, pink and purple brushstrokes. To her left, a playful goat-shaped sign beckoned her to visit the Cherish Ranch Petting Zoo. Tempting. Instead, she turned right through a large archway that welcomed her to the ranch’s wedding venue and the marriage of her second cousin Jared Clarke to his new bride, Gabrielle Martinez.
Rustically elegant adobe buildings seemed to cascade across the mountains ahead of her, their soft, clay-colored walls punctuated by dark wooden beams called vigas. A handful of people mingled, chatted and nibbled on appetizers in a huge courtyard underneath strings of patio lights. A large barn lay beyond it. She parked her small car at the main building, in between two far more lavish vehicles, each of which Ophelia guessed cost more than she made in a year in her job as a crime scene investigator for the Santa Fe PD’s Crime Scene Unit. Then she took a deep breath. As much as she loved her cousin Jared, their personalities had never really meshed. She’d always felt far more comfortable stepping under yellow police tape in a full-body white protective jumpsuit than she did standing around hobnobbing with his wealthy friends in a sundress and sandals. Not to mention her beloved great-aunt Evelyn, who was like the grandmother she’d never had, also had an incredible and accidental knack for making her feel inadequate.
Lord, please protect my heart and my mind from getting all hung up on what other people think of me. Even the opinions of well-meaning people I love.
She tossed her long blond hair out around her shoulders, stepped out into the hot, dry air—and heard a voice screaming her name.
“Ophelia!” The woman’s panicked voice seemed to be coming from all directions at once. “I’m so glad you’re here! There’s been a terrible crisis and I need your help!”
Ophelia yanked her phone from her pocket and was about to dial 911 when she saw Gabrielle running down a narrow flight of steps toward her.
“What happened?” Ophelia hastened to her. “Everything okay?”
“No!” Gabrielle shook her head and bell-shaped, yellow yucca flowers tumbled from her intricately braided black hair. “Chloe didn’t show up!”
“Who’s Chloe?” Ophelia asked. “Is she okay?”
“She’s my roommate from Albuquerque!” Gabrielle’s well-manicured hand grabbed her by the arm and started dragging her up the steps toward one of the buildings. Words poured from the bride-to-be’s lips so quickly Ophelia could barely catch them, let alone make sense of what she was safying. “The rehearsal starts in thirty minutes, but when Nolan went back to the hotel to pick her up Chloe still hadn’t checked in yet—”
“Who’s Nolan? I don’t understand.”
“And then I got a text from Chloe saying she wasn’t coming to the wedding at all!”
“So she’s not here?” Then where was Gabrielle dragging her so quickly? What was she so panicked about? “Where is she? What happened to her?”
“I have no idea!” Gabrielle said. She stopped before a door that seemed to be made of four horizontal planks of wood with huge metal hinges. The sign on it read Wedding Party Only. Gabrielle pushed it open. “Thankfully Jared’s grandmother said you’d be happy to rescue me.”
“From what?” But the words had barely left Ophelia’s lips when she stepped through the doorway and saw the ruffled monstrosity of lavender chiffon that hung alone on a clothes rack in the middle of the room.
Oh, no...
“I told Gabrielle that you’d be happy to help her out of her little crisis.” Evelyn’s voice rose from the corner of the room. “Aren’t you, my dear?”
Ophelia had been so distracted by the purple dress she hadn’t even realized her great-aunt was sitting in the corner of the suite. The seventy-four-year-old stood and crossed the floor in a haze of beautifully coiffed gray curls, flowing golden fabric and rose perfume. Now a widow, Evelyn had been a beauty pageant contestant when she was younger, and always dressed impeccably.
“Hello, Auntie, I didn’t see you there.” Ophelia hugged her gently, her own heart still racing from the fear there’d been an actual emergency. But as they pulled apart she saw a flicker of what seemed to be genuine worry cross her great-aunt’s face, and Ophelia felt another twinge of concern.
Hang on, was her great-aunt actually worried about this? Or was there something else going on?
“You sure everything’s okay?” Ophelia asked Gabrielle. “When you said there was a crisis, I thought something was actually wrong.”
“Of course, something’s really wrong.” Gabrielle’s brown eyes widened and Ophelia couldn’t help but notice she was only wearing one contact. “I’m getting married on a cliffside at sunset tomorrow and one of my bridesmaids didn’t show. I can’t just have three bridesmaids standing on one side and four groomsmen on the other. It will completely throw off the symmetry.”
Symmetry? Ophelia bit the insides of her cheeks and managed to stop herself from snorting.
“I got all the bridesmaids matching heart-shaped lockets to wear,” Gabrielle went on. “Sadly, I’ve already given Chloe hers, but it’s too late to do anything about that now. I guess this means none of the other bridesmaids will get to wear theirs, either, so your outfits match.” She sighed. “Of course, you’re welcome to stay in Chloe’s hotel room. It’s a five-star hotel and I’d love to have the whole wedding party staying together. Now, there isn’t any way you can rustle up a date for yourself, can you? Jared told me you’re hopelessly single, but it’ll also throw off the seating plan if you don’t have a date.”
Hopelessly single? She was a thirty-one-year-old career woman, not some teenager in a 1950s movie who’d just been dumped on prom night. Ophelia felt her jaw clench. She hadn’t wanted to be a bridesmaid in the first place and now this whole thing was snowballing. It was just one weekend, she reminded herself. And this was family. She’d just grin and bear it. By tomorrow night it would all be over. “No, I won’t be bringing a date,” Ophelia said.
Gabrielle’s lips turned down in a pretty pout.
“I’m sorry, but did you know you’re missing a contact?” Ophelia added. “Do you need help finding it?”
“Wow, you’re right!” Gabrielle blinked twice and then laughed. “What an odd thing to even notice about someone! I guess I’ve been so distracted with wedding plans I didn’t realize.”
“Sorry,” Ophelia said automatically, then wasn’t exactly sure why she was apologizing for trying to be helpful. “It’s a hazard of my job. I’m used to noticing the little things. You never know when one victim’s missing contact is the key to catching a serial killer.”
She meant it as a joke, but Gabrielle didn’t laugh. Out of the corner of her eye, Ophelia could see her great-aunt frantically signaling her to drop the topic. She definitely seemed a bit more on edge than usual.
“But Jared said you were some kind of science nerd who worked with animals?” Gabrielle asked.
“Well, I’m working on a PhD in using DNA markers to help track the endangered Rocky Mountain wolf population,” Ophelia said, “and also working full-time for Santa Fe PD’s Crime Scene Unit.”
In fact, she’d received a wonderful financial grant that covered most of her studies, so most of her salary could go to covering her day-to-day living expenses. She’d always felt passionate about conservation but had also realized pretty quickly during her undergraduate science degree that her greatest strengths lay in the lab. Now all she had to do was successfully juggle her work with her research, and she’d be able to fulfill both her dreams of being a CSI and doing life-changing research. It just meant hitting some pretty tight PhD deadlines that often had her researching and writing late into the night. She barely had time to eat and sleep, let alone think about finding a date for her second cousin’s wedding.
“Ophelia has always loved animals,” Evelyn said, “and I’m sure she won’t mind stepping in as an emergency bridesmaid.” She turned to her great-niece. “Do you, Ophelia?” Evelyn asked, firmly.
“No, of course not, Auntie.” Although Jared had promised he wouldn’t try to rope her into the wedding party. Ophelia and Jared were both only children and, despite their differences, were the closest thing each had to a sibling. With the same blond hair and blue eyes, they even looked like brother and sister. Ophelia’s parents had traveled a lot for work and her own grandmother had died before she was born. Evelyn had stepped in, inviting her to spend every holiday and vacation with her and Jared. Ophelia could do this much for them.
“See, I knew this would be sorted out,” Evelyn said, turning to smile at Gabrielle. “Ophelia’s been a bridesmaid more times than I can count.”
“Four, actually,” Ophelia said softly. “This will be number five.”
She was practically an expert at smiling uncomfortably in a dress she’d have never chosen for herself, while standing next to a beamingly happy couple.
“Five times,” Evelyn said brightly. “You know what they say—”
Please, don’t say it.
“Always a bridesmaid, never a bride!” Evelyn said. “You know, I worry sometimes that nobody’s going to marry this one. Which would be a shame, because Ophelia is so wonderful and I love her like my own grandchild. I thank God every day for bringing her and Jared into my life.”
That was her great-aunt in a nutshell—accidental insults and a genuine compliment in the same breath.
Evelyn waved her hand toward Gabrielle. “Now go visit with your guests. Ophelia and I will see how the dress fits.”
“Thank you so much for this. I owe you one.” Gabrielle disappeared out the door and closed it behind her.
Evelyn sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“Do what?” Ophelia pulled the dress off the hanger and disappeared with it into the adjoining room. The sooner she got trying the dress on over with, the sooner she could go join the party.
“Talk about things like murders and crime scenes,” Evelyn said. “It’s impolite. Besides, you never know who you’re going to meet at an event like this, and no man wants to marry a woman who pokes around in blood and guts for a living.”
“Which is why I expect I’ll never get married,” Ophelia called, lightly. A few minutes later she emerged again in layers of flowing purple fabric and did a little spin. “Thankfully, the dress isn’t terrible.”
Her great-aunt looked her up and down, critically.
“No, it’s not,” she conceded and dropped into a chair. “Which is a relief, considering.”
“Considering what?” What exactly was Evelyn concerned about? Ophelia knelt down beside her. “Auntie, what’s wrong? You can tell me.”
“Absolutely nothing you need to worry about,” she said firmly. “Gabrielle’s parents are just running late because their flight from Europe was delayed due to a storm. So Jared just needed some help sorting some money things with the venue. You know they’re buying Jared and Gabrielle a piece of land near the Pecos Wilderness as a wedding present?”
“Yes,” Ophelia said, “he took me up there a few weeks ago to show me, before he put the offer in. Got my help to tie balloons to the trees for when he took her up to surprise her with it. Said they were going to build a house there ‘where the mountains meet the sky.’ It was all terribly theatrical.” The land had been beautiful but completely undeveloped, except for a small shack the previous owners had left behind, but the views had been extraordinary. “Is there some problem with the land?”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing.” Evelyn waved her hands airily as if batting away invisible cobwebs. “There was just a minor hiccup with the initial down payment, due to restrictions on foreign buyers, so he had to step in and cover it. They’ll pay him back. Plus, this whole wedding has just been so lavish.”
Evelyn pressed her lips together as if she’d been about to say more and caught herself.
“Are Jared and Gabrielle struggling for money?” Ophelia asked. “I thought he had an excellent job.”
“He does and everything’s fine,” Evelyn said, with a tone that Ophelia knew meant that even if it wasn’t, she was changing the topic. “You should really consider staying with us in the hotel. The rooms they’ve booked are just gorgeous. Now, I have a plan to get you a date for this wedding. One of my friends told me about this wonderful telephone thing she used to help her grandson find a wife.”
“That’s kind, but I’m not looking to date anyone right now. Between my full-time job and a PhD, I don’t really have time.”
But Evelyn had already gone to get her large cell phone from her purse. She opened it to a bubble gum pink dating app. Ophelia gaped as her grandmother started to swipe through the smiling faces.
“It’s called Loving Meddlers,” Evelyn said. Her blue eyes twinkled. “Isn’t that perfect? You can put your grown children and grandchildren on it, and it shows you lovely young people nearby who you can introduce them to, through whoever put them on the thing. Like, see, this man’s mother just logged in that they’re visiting a petting zoo less than a quarter of a mile away. He’s a cop and has a little boy.”
Ophelia glanced down at the screen and felt a rush of heat rising to her cheeks, to see the dark hair and intense brown eyes of FBI Agent Kyle West of the Mountain Country K-9 Task Force looking back up at her. Ophelia bit her lower lip as if the incredibly handsome detective could see her through the screen.
“I actually know that one,” she admitted, “or at least I know of him. We’ve worked several of the same crime scenes. He’s an FBI agent who specializes in serial killers.”
“Oh.” Evelyn grimaced. “Maybe not him, then.”
A loud bang sounded from somewhere on the other side of the door. Instinctively, Ophelia froze. A second bang sounded. A distant voice screamed.
“Is somebody setting off fireworks?” Evelyn asked.
“No.” Ophelia could feel a danger warning tingling at the back of her skull. “Those were gunshots.” The property didn’t have a range and handguns were prohibited for hunting in Santa Fe. She snatched up her bag, opened the door a crack and listened. Voices were shouting in what sounded like panic and confusion. “Stay here and don’t open the door to anyone but me or Jared.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, sweetie,” her great-aunt called. “If there’s something wrong it’ll be handled by law enforcement.”
“I’m a part of law enforcement.”
One without a gun, but still she wasn’t about to just hunker down and hide when someone might be in danger.
She locked the door handle behind her and slipped back out into the heat. The courtyard was empty, leaving nothing but fallen chairs and plates of food. The gunshot and scream seemed to have been coming from the direction of the barn where the wedding reception would be. She made her way toward it, gleaning what bits of information she could from the shaken guests she passed.
Then she saw Jared running toward her in an expensive tan suit, his eyes wide with panic. He grabbed her arm. “Ophelia!”
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Have you seen Gabrielle?”
“No,” she said. “But your grandmother is safe and inside one of the suites.”
His blue eyes scanned past her. He still hadn’t answered her question and she wondered if he’d even heard her.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” His skin was paler than she’d ever seen it before and so clammy she wondered if he was about to be sick. “I heard this popping sound. People dropped their food and ran into the building. Somebody said someone was shot.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I heard someone scream.”
“I did, too,” she said. “Has anyone called 911?”
“I...I don’t know...” His head shook. She wondered if he was in shock. “I have to find Gabrielle.”
“When you find her, get inside!”
In the meantime, she was going to call 911. She dialed the number and ran for the barn, down stone paths hemmed in by tall, flowering bushes. A dispatcher answered immediately.
“This is CSI Ophelia Clarke of the Santa Fe PD,” Ophelia told her. “I’m at Cherish Ranch’s wedding venue in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I heard gunfire and there’s a report of someone being shot. I’m trying to find that person and see if I can help them.”
And if not, she was going to secure the scene and keep people from trampling on whatever evidence there was. Her sandals slipped on the terra-cotta tile, threatening to trip her up. She kicked them off and ran for the barn barefoot.
“We’ve got law enforcement heading your way,” the dispatcher told her. “But they’re twenty-two minutes out.”
Which might be too late if the victim was bleeding out. And an eternity if the shooter was still on-site.
“Call FBI Agent Kyle West of the Mountain Country K-9 Task Force,” Ophelia said. “He’s apparently less than a quarter mile away.”
“We’ll try to reach him.”
She silently thanked God for her great-aunt’s ridiculous app for alerting her to that. Ophelia reached the barn. A handful of guests were standing around the front, taking pictures on their phones, while a couple of men in suits, who she guessed were ranch security, tried to stop them from getting too close.
She wedged her phone into the crook of her neck, yanked her identification badge from her bag and flashed it at them. “CSI Clarke, Santa Fe PD,” she said. “I’m on the phone with dispatch now.”
They waved her through. The huge sliding door was open a couple of feet. She came to a stop.
“Hello?” she called. No answer.
She took a deep breath to steal her nerves and stepped inside. The barn was deep and cool. Chandeliers constructed from hundreds of vintage lightbulbs hung down from the ceiling above. Tables were stacked along one side, covered with mason jar oil lamps. Chairs decked in flowing fabric sat in clumps waiting to be set up for the reception, along with pedestals of flowers and buckets of soapy water and cleaning supplies. Silently, she tiptoed through them.
Then she saw him.
The man lay on the floor behind an empty cake stand. He was tall, blond, casually dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and dead from a gunshot wound to the chest.
“Down!” Brody said. The toddler wriggled in Kyle’s arms and waved his hands toward the scampering baby goats as Kyle stepped through the gate to the Cherish Ranch Petting Zoo’s goat pen and closed the gate behind them. “Want pat!”
Kyle chuckled.
“Me, too, buddy.” He knelt down, set the little boy on the ground and held him steady with one arm strong around his waist, knowing that otherwise he’d run off and try to climb on the very same wooden climbing frame the tiny hooves now balanced on. “But I’m not sure any of them are going to stay still long enough for that.”
It had been a long afternoon at the petting zoo. They’d finished their picnic dinner and the sun had begun to set. But still, Brody’s energy level hadn’t even begun to flag. Keeping up with his nephew had been an adjustment since he’d been unexpectedly thrust into single fatherhood after his brother and sister-in-law had passed. With green eyes and a mop of curly dark hair, Brody was the spitting image of his father, Kevin. Kyle’s heart ached with the thought of how Brody’s parents would miss seeing the little boy grow up. Thankfully, he had the help of his widowed mother, Alice West, who had moved in to help raise Brody. Together, the three remaining Wests had formed a small, fractured family.
Kyle’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Jostling around the squirming toddler, Kyle reached in, fished it out and glanced at the screen. It was his Mountain Country K-9 Team Leader, Chase Rawlston. Kyle sent it through to voice mail and made a mental note to check it later. Chase had promised Kyle a week off to spend with his family, and Kyle had been determined not to let anything get in the way of spending time with Brody.
It had barely been two weeks since Kyle had gotten back from assisting Selena Smith, a sheriff’s deputy in Sagebrush, Idaho, and a member of the Mountain Country K-9 Task Force, in protecting a targeted convict. And while, thankfully, the case had been closed and the convict found to be innocent, the entire MCK9 Task Force was still working flat out to catch a pernicious serial killer—dubbed the Rocky Mountain Killer—who’d murdered six people so far across Wyoming, Montana and Colorado. The RMK had also managed to evade them.
“I can pat!” Brody declared confidently. He stretched his tiny fingers out toward a small kid with black-and-white fur and tiny curling gray horns. “Come here, pat!”
“He definitely doesn’t lack confidence, does he, Kyle?” Alice West chuckled.
Kyle turned and looked through the fence, to where Brody’s grandmother stood, holding the dogs’ leashes. With her long gray hair in twin braids and clad in blue jeans and cowboy boots, his sixty-two-year-old mother had a deep faith and perpetual joy that belied the tragedy of having been married to an abusive man and then losing her eldest son. To Alice’s right sat Kyle’s K-9 partner, Rocky, a magnificent black-and-tan hunting hound who specialized in cadaver detection, especially in the rough and hilly terrain of the Rocky Mountains. Rocky watched the goats, with his head cocked and his long, velvety ears attuned to any sign of trouble. Rocky’s half sister, Taffy—a three-month-old puppy who was the spitting image of her big brother—was tangled up in the leash as she tried to run in multiple directions at once. Kyle had adopted her as a family dog when the puppy’s sweet but goofy temperament had been deemed to be unsuitable for the rigors of K-9 training. Truth was that most days he felt more like Taffy than Rocky.
It had been over a year since Brody’s parents—Kyle’s brother Kevin and wife, Caitlyn—had died when their small helicopter had suddenly gotten caught in a treacherous thunderstorm in the Rocky Mountains. To Kyle’s surprise, Brody’s parents had specifically mentioned in their will that their hope was Kyle would adopt Brody and become his father if anything ever happened to them.
“He reminds me of Kevin,” Alice added. His mother’s smile faded as the words froze on her lips. An old familiar ache turned in Kyle’s chest.
“Me, too,” Kyle said wistfully. His fraternal twin might’ve only been six minutes older, but he’d been Kyle’s hero and filled with a strength and confidence Kyle could only hope to find.
Lord, I feel like I’m never going to be able to fill the hole left in this little boy’s life. Please guide me in Your path.
His phone buzzed again. Kyle frowned. Chase was calling back.
“Do you need to get that?” his mother asked.
“Yeah, I probably should.” He scooped Brody up into his arms and stood, despite the boy’s wails of protest, and carried him back out of the goat pen. “He knows it’s my week off, so hopefully nothing’s wrong.”
Deftly Alice handed him Rocky’s leash with one hand, while taking her still-protesting grandson into her arms. “We’re going to go get ice cream. Come find us when you’re done or give me a shout if you’ve got to run.”
“Will do. Thanks, Mom.”
She waved a hand for him to go, and he silently thanked God for her.
Kyle glanced down at his partner. Rocky’s serious dark eyes looked up at him, silently asking him what was going on. Yeah, he wondered that, too.
He started toward the privacy of the parking lot, with his partner at his side, and answered the phone.
“Kyle here,” he said. “Hey, Chase, what’s up?”
“Hey,” Chase said. His boss sounded a bit tired, but with every ounce of the same determined grit Kyle had come to appreciate from the task force leader. A supervisory special agent with the FBI, Chase had lost his wife and child in a revenge bombing in DC five years ago. A lesser man might’ve packed up his badge and given up his faith along with it. Chase had moved back to Elk Valley to work in the Wyoming bureau, before heading up the task force Kyle was so proud to be a part of. “Sorry to bother you on your week off, but there’s been a report from Santa Fe PD about an incident at the Cherish Ranch wedding venue in Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Guests reported hearing gunshots. Victim was found in the barn, male in his twenties, with a single gunshot to the chest.”
That was the Rocky Mountain Killer’s MO.
“But the crime scene investigator, who was first on-site, told dispatch that you were in the area and requested you by name,” Chase added.
“I’m at the petting zoo next door.” But he had no idea how anyone would know that. He and Rocky jogged toward his truck. The cell signal crackled and he hoped it wouldn’t cut out. Phone reception wasn’t the best here in the mountains and made worse by the fact that he was on the move. “I’m on my way and two minutes out. Who requested me?”
“A CSI Clarke.”
An unexpected wave of relief washed over him. “Oh, she’s excellent.”
In the year or so since he’d come into contact with Ophelia Clarke, Kyle had quickly pegged her as the very best investigator he’d ever worked with. Her work was both thorough and meticulous. Not that Kyle thought they’d ever exchanged two words. Or, come to think of it, even knew what Ophelia looked like under her full-body protective gear, booties and mask. But between the old-fashioned name and her excellent work, he’d always envisioned her as being around the same age as his mom, with curly gray hair, a sharp gaze and well-disciplined grandchildren.
Kyle knew nothing would be missed whenever he saw Ophelia Clarke’s name on a case.
“Got it.” Kyle opened the back door of his SUV for Rocky. The dog leaped into the back seat and lay down. Kyle hopped in the front and plugged his phone into the vehicle’s hands-free system.
“Do we know if it’s connected to the RMK?” he asked.
“That’s what I’m hoping you’ll be able to find out,” Chase said.
It had been a decade since three young men had been found shot dead in Elk Valley, Wyoming, on Valentine’s Day night. The three friends had all been members of the Young Rancher’s Club, known to local police as troublemakers and lured to a barn by a flirtatious text from a burner phone. They’d been shot—each with a gunshot wound to the chest. The murder weapon had never been found, but ballistics had matched the 9mm slugs. The case had gone cold for ten years until, four months ago, two more men were found shot the same way, one in Colorado and another in Montana. Then recently a sixth victim was found in Idaho. Every weapon left its own unique pattern of ridges and marks on each bullet it fired. CSI had determined the three bullets found at the new crime scenes, and those from the original murders, had not only been fired from the same type of gun, but the exact same gun.
Could this new shooting be connected?
“Santa Fe PD and paramedics are fourteen minutes out,” Chase added. “You and CSI Clarke are the first on the scene.”
“Understood.”
Thank You, Lord, that CSI Clarke was there. Please help us get the evidence we need to stop the RMK and crack his case.
“Let’s meet up via video call tomorrow morning at eight,” Chase went on. “I’m going to ask Isla to join us, too, and maybe others. If this does turn out to be related to the RMK, I want to make sure you have the backup you need.”
“Sounds good.” The MCK9 Task Force’s technical analyst, Isla Jimenez, was second to none and someone Kyle was thankful to call a friend.
“I’ll also coordinate with the Santa Fe PD,” Chase went on, “as I’m sure it’ll end up being a joint investigation if there is a RMK connection. But at the moment it’s too soon to know anything really.”
“Understood. Talk soon.”
They ended the call. Kyle sent his mom a quick text letting her know that he had to work a scene nearby and would be in touch later. Then he peeled out of the crowded petting zoo parking lot as quickly as he safely could and followed a small sign directing him to the wedding venue. In a matter of moments, he pulled through an arch welcoming him to the wedding of Jared Clarke and Gabrielle Martinez. The top of the rustic barn appeared ahead through pine trees. He drove through the parking lot and down a small access road. He stopped the vehicle as close as he could to the barn, got his badge and gun from his glove compartment, then hopped out and ran down the winding path, with Rocky by his side.
There wasn’t another emergency vehicle in sight. But a couple of men in crisp black suits and sunglasses, who he guessed were ranch security, were standing by the entrance, holding back a small gaggle of well-dressed gawkers in pastel dresses and paisley ties, who seemed to be trying to film whatever they could with their phones.
He held up his badge and identified himself to the security officer closest to the door.
“FBI Agent Kyle West, Mountain Country K-9 Task Force,” he said. “Has anyone been inside?”
“No, sir.” The guard shook his head. “Just the chick.”
Chick?
He couldn’t imagine anyone referring to Ophelia Clarke like that. Had one of the party guests breached the perimeter? Whoever he was talking about, she shouldn’t be in there.
“We need a twenty-five-foot perimeter around this barn,” Kyle said. “Get everyone out of here and keep them back. They’ll all need to be questioned. The priority is figuring out where everyone was at the time the gunshots were fired and not giving anyone the opportunity to coordinate their stories.” Not to mention, the last thing he needed were people trampling all over the evidence or crime scene pictures ending up on social media. “Make sure the entrance is clear for emergency services when they get here.”
The guards nodded and started yelling for people to get back. Kyle signaled Rocky to stay close to his side and started for the door. The double barn door seemed designed to open all the way on both sides, but for now it was only open a couple of feet. For someone to slip in and out without being seen? A soft growl rumbled in the back of Rocky’s throat, letting him know that death lay on the other side. Kyle pulled his weapon.
“Agent Kyle West, Mountain Country K-9 Task Force,” he called. “Drop your weapons and get down on the ground with your hands up.”
“It’s clear,” a female voice called. “He’s already dead.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “You really can’t be in here. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
He stepped through the door and froze. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen knelt on the floor in a flowing purple dress beside the bloodied body of a man in jeans and a T-shirt. She seemed to be checking the corpse’s pockets.
“No wallet, no phone and no identification,” she said, as if he hadn’t just politely told her to leave. “We seem to have a John Doe.”
She tossed her long blond hair around her shoulders and stood. Dazzling blue eyes fixed on his face. He felt his mouth open and close again, like a goldfish.
“Single gunshot wound to the torso,” she went on. “Pretty much dead center and still imbedded in his chest. I checked his vitals and attempted CPR. But I’m afraid he’s gone.”
She ran her hands down her skirt, leaving bloody streaks on the delicate fabric. Only then did he notice she was wearing plastic gloves. She looked down at them as if debating extending a hand to shake his, before deciding against it. “I’m glad you got my message.”
He holstered his weapon. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Ophelia Clarke.” Something hardened in the blue of her eyes. Her chin rose. “Crime Scene Investigator for the Santa Fe PD’s Crime Scene Unit. It’s good to see you again, Agent West.”
He just stood there and blinked, while his brain struggled to compute the fact that the most impressive crime scene tech he’d ever worked with also just happened to be the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Come on, man, he chided himself. He’d worked with a lot of strong and talented female officers, detectives, agents and CSIs for his entire career. So, what was it about this particular one that had suddenly robbed his tongue of its ability to form words?
“The groom is my second cousin,” Ophelia added. She pulled her gloves off. “I came for the rehearsal party and they were trying to rope me in as a bridesmaid, when I heard the gunshots. Thankfully I always keep a few gloves and evidence bags in my purse.” Ophelia glanced at his partner and a warm smile crossed her face. “Hello, Rocky.”
She ran her hand down his side. His partner’s tail thumped against the floor. Seemed Rocky had no problem recognizing her.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t recognize you without the protective gear. I assumed you were a guest who’d just wandered in and started playing detective.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but she didn’t smile.
“I’m glad you’re here, too,” he plowed on, hoping to find the right thing to say to put the investigation back on track. “You’re a really good CSI.”
“Uh, thank you?” Now it was her turn to blink.
Had he said something else wrong? Or was she just not used to being complimented? Either way, it seemed he’d managed to put his foot in it again.
Then she glanced past him and her face paled.
“There’s a man in a mask in the trees,” she said. “He’s got a gun pointed right at the barn.”
Before he could turn, a gunshot sounded and the barn door behind him exploded into splinters.
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