A layer of dust coated everything in the interior of the abandoned cabin. Selena sneezed, then chuckled when Scout began to do the same. “My K-9 and I share everything, including allergies.”
“I forgot that about you,” Finn said. “Want to wait outside while I clean this place up a tad?”
“Are you joking?”
“Yes. And no. I will try to wipe off the furniture, but I don’t expect you to leave me alone while I work.”
Crossing to a small sink—all there was of a functional kitchen—Selena tried the dry taps, then looked underneath and found a gallon of water. “I doubt this is drinkable since it’s not sealed. We can use it to trap the dust on damp rags.”
Hearing Finn snort and looking over at him, she saw him gesture before saying, “I’d volunteer this jumpsuit if I didn’t think it would make things even dirtier. It’s plenty wet.” As if to illustrate, he shivered.
Selena was chilly enough in her uniform jacket to easily understand. “Okay. I’ll take care of things in here. You go check out the bedroom and see if there’s anything dry that fits you.”
“You’re going to let me change?”
“Only for the sake of your health,” she told him, hoping she sounded more convincing than she felt. “There’s no fireplace, but I’ll see if I can get a warming fire started in the woodstove.”
She saw him eyeing the stack of split logs piled next to the kitchen wall. “Later, if we need to keep the fire going for heat, we’ll bring in more.”
“Selena...” Finn paused. “Thank you.”
“For saving your bacon?”
“That too,” he said tenderly, “but I meant for believing in me.”
Lots of possible replies flashed through her mind. Merely nodding, she kept them to herself. Never in a million years would she have dreamed she’d ever be in a situation like this, especially not with Finn. She’d long ago stopped thinking of him as “my Finn,” and yet here they were. Temporarily stranded and having to depend upon each other.
Deciding to pray and beginning reverently, silently, she was surprised to find herself thinking, I hope whatever clothes he finds are ugly. That made her smile because it was so ridiculous. Finn Donovan had still been ruggedly handsome when he was covered in mud and wearing that awful orange jumpsuit. It wasn’t going to matter how he was dressed. He was always going to be attractive in her eyes.
Something about him had changed, though. Something intrinsic. Invisible. He’d mellowed all right, and then some. The fact that there was still a spark of wit and humor in his personality was a plus, and yet there was also an underlying sadness. That figured since he’d lost his adoptive father, found his birth dad and then lost Zeb, too. Being blamed for his murder had to have hurt more than she could imagine, and part of her wanted desperately to comfort him.
The best way to do that was probably to figure out who had really killed Zeb Yablonski, except that wasn’t her job. She was there to chase down a missing labradoodle and set a trap for a serial killer, not to take on an Idaho case that had already been adjudicated.
After former Young Rancher’s Club members Henry Mulder and Peter Windham had been found dead in their barns in Montana and Colorado, respectively, the MCK9 task force had concentrated on a prime suspect for the Rocky Mountain Killer. Naomi Carr-Cavanaugh had grown up in Elk Valley with the victims and found herself at the center of cruel prank they’d orchestrated ten years ago. But her name had recently been cleared. The task force was fresh out of leads for the RMK, but they’d gotten a lead for their missing therapy dog. A witness had spotted Cowgirl in Sagebrush of all places and had surreptitiously taken a photo of the man she was with—tall, blond, wearing sunglasses and a hat.
While mulling the case over, Selena had wiped down the kitchen table and two side chairs when she heard Finn’s voice. He was backing out of the bedroom with his arms full.
“Look what I found. Drinking water. Cases of it. They stored it in a closet.”
“Wonderful.” Selena coughed to cover her true reaction. If a professional stylist had dressed Finn, he could not have looked better. The faded jeans fit perfectly and so did the T-shirt under an open red plaid flannel shirt. His image would have made a great ad for an outdoor magazine.
He plunked the case of water on the countertop she’d wiped, handed her a bottle and opened one for himself. Past thirsty, Selena took a swig.
When she looked over at Finn again, her heart began to open like a spring bud in sunshine. Instead of taking a drink himself, he’d bent and cupped his hand to offer the first sips to Scout.
“He’s trained to refuse food and water from strangers,” Selena told Finn. “I’ll have to give it to him.”
“A dish would probably be better, too.” He straightened. “I just figured he’d be as parched as I am.”
“I should have thought of it long before you did,” she said, feeling guilty.
“Hey, you’ve had a lot on your mind these past few hours.”
“Ya think?”
That brought a smile. “Yeah. Me too.”
She watched him lean against the edge of the counter and finish one bottle of water while she gave Scout a drink and reached for a second, arching a brow. “Okay?”
“Sure. There’s plenty more where this came from. We can all have as much as we want.”
She chose a chair at the small wooden table, taking her water with her. “Good. The fire’s helping. It’s getting warmer in here. How are you feeling?”
Finn joined her, rested his elbows on the table and sighed. “It’s almost a letdown to have a chance to catch my breath. How about you?”
She sighed too. “Yeah. If we didn’t have Scout, we’d have to station a lookout.”
“He knows he’s still supposed to be working? Lying there with his tongue lolling and eyes half closed isn’t particularly comforting.”
“He’s still alert. We train for all situations.”
“So, tell me,” Finn urged, sounding truly interested, “how did you go from being a Bearton County sheriff’s deputy to a K-9 cop?”
Selena smiled. “A better question would be, how did I get fortunate enough to be invited to join the Mountain Country K-9 Task Force?”
“Because you’re so good at your job?” Finn raised his water bottle in a mock salute.
“That and my boss, Chase Rawlston, is FBI. He chose members of our federally run task force from various Rocky Mountain states so we’d have a broad base of experience.
“Makes sense. Tell me more. It looks like we have plenty of time.”
“I can’t give you any privileged information, but I can tell you what we’ve released to the press,” Selena said. “Have you heard anything about a spate of killings in Wyoming? Specifically, Elk Valley?”
“Nope, can’t say I have. We don’t get a lot of crime news in prison.”
She shrugged. “Okay. It all started ten years ago after a winter semiformal dance.”
“That long?”
Selena shot him a disgruntled look for interrupting.
“Sorry. Go on.”
“Three young men were shot in the chest a month later on Valentine’s Day. All three had been at the dance, and all three were members of the town’s Young Ranchers’ Club, the YRC for short. Their cell phones showed matching messages, supposedly from a flirty woman, inviting them to a clandestine meeting in a specific barn. The texts all came from the same burner phone.”
“I take it those murders were never solved. Why look into it now?”
“Because it’s happening again,” Selena said soberly. “This last Valentine’s Day, two more former members of the YRC were killed, shot in the chest just like the first two. Ballistics matched all the bullets, although we’ve never found the gun.”
“You said ‘Wyoming.’ What does Idaho have to do with it?”
“Let me finish, will you?”
“Sorry. Just interested, that’s all. It sounds like a worse puzzle than mine.”
“It has more potential suspects, that’s for sure,” Selena said. “After the club disbanded, many of its members moved away. These recent murders were of club members who were at the same party where it all began, but these victims had moved to Montana and Colorado. If it weren’t for their connections to Elk Valley and the similar notes the killer left pinned to their chests, we might never have made a connection.”
“What about Idaho?”
“I’m getting to that. As far as we know, the first three victims were all bullies who had pulled a cruel prank and humiliated the same young girl. Her date for that night claims he wasn’t in on it, but his buddies convinced her he’d only asked her out on a dare.”
“That’s a long time to wait for revenge.”
“We aren’t even sure that’s the motive. We thought all the victims were equally guilty of embarrassing her, but the last one was apparently not. He’d moved to a ranch in Colorado shortly after the initial incidents.”
Finn drank again rather than ask more questions, pleasing Selena, so she went on.
“Which brings me to how I ended up back home,” Selena said, recalling an earlier conversation with her boss. “It all started with Cowgirl, a dognapped comfort K-9 in training. She’s a reddish labradoodle with a distinctive darker mark on one ear. Otherwise, she’d look like hundreds of dogs who were crossbred just like she was.”
“Hold on. I’m confused. What does that dog have to do with all those murders?”
She hesitated to relate everything but supposed it wouldn’t hurt to run a few facts past Finn. He did have a quick mind, and he had been associating with criminals lately, like it or not.
“It’s complicated,” she began. “Chase, our team leader, got a taunting text, complete with photos of Cowgirl wearing a pink collar with her name on it in rhinestones, only it said, Killer. That’s what the guy who has her says he’s calling her now.”
“Wait a minute. What’s the connection?”
“The font type on the note that’s propped up next to the dog’s picture for one thing and the wording in the threat is a perfect match for the notes our serial killer’s been leaving on his victims.” She swallowed hard. “Plus, he alluded to being the RMK, the Rocky Mountain Killer, that we’re after. He also hinted that he wasn’t done.”
“Why send you back home to Idaho?”
“Because Cowgirl was seen, right here in Sagebrush, and there was a tall blond man with her at the time a civilian witness snapped a photo.”
“So, you came here chasing a stolen dog? Don’t you think it’s stretching the imagination to think your RMK guy has her? I mean, it’s pretty unlikely.”
“Only if we assume the connection is random. We don’t dare ignore such a strong clue. Besides, one of the men on our possible victims list lives around here. So far he’s been hard to convince of the danger, but we plan to drop by his home.”
“That still doesn’t explain how or why a murder suspect stole a dog belonging to the unit assigned to hunt him down. That’s too far-fetched to be an accident.”
Selena sighed. “I agree.” Pensive, she rested her chin on her hands, elbows propped on the table. “If we assume that the killer was the one who stole Cowgirl, she may be the link we need to finally track him down. Providing it is a man and he’s working alone, that is.”
Stretching, Finn leaned back in the chair. “I think you’re reaching. It’s too easy. A guy who’s facing life in prison or the death penalty isn’t going to play games with the law. He’d be crazy to draw attention to himself.”
“Except,” Selena said, tilting her head, “he may be a person who wants it known, wants credit for wiping out members of the defunct Young Ranchers’ Club. All the victims belonged, and they were all at the dance that preceded the first three shootings. So were the two men killed recently.”
“They can’t expect you to catch this guy all by yourself.”
“Of course not. Other members of my team are coming, if they’re not already in Sagebrush waiting for me.”
“That’s comforting.”
Finn had sounded so cynical that Selena laughed just as a growl came from beneath the table. She jumped to her feet, drew her weapon and crossed to the door. Scout stayed right behind her.
“Throw me your Taser,” Finn called. Selena ignored him.
A rumbling chorus of engines outside was getting louder. She opened the door, peeked out, closed it again and then reached for the safety chain.
Ignored, Finn ducked and crawled into the bedroom looking for a defensive weapon. He saw a kerosene lamp, realized it could set the cabin on fire if he broke it and then cast around for an alternate weapon. There was nothing usable but a ski pole, so he chose that, wondering absently if jousting with gun-toting assassins was a smart choice.
He emerged from the bedroom in moments and closed the distance between Selena and himself.
She glanced over her shoulder and waved him back.
Her radio crackled. She reached for it.
The door burst open.
In a split second Finn realized who was confronting him and how it must look with him standing behind Selena wielding a ski pole like a javelin.
Lawmen were shouting. Pointing guns. Charging into the cabin.
Selena threw herself in front of Finn, hands raised, shouting, “Don’t shoot!”
They rushed past her, knocked him down and sat on him—arms, legs and torso. Resisting being manhandled and fighting to catch his breath, Finn wondered if she was going to be able to call them off.
She was doing her best to explain amid the chaos. Nobody was listening until an older officer entered the fray and shouted, “Stand down! That’s an order.”
As soon as Finn was clear, Selena reached for his hand and urged him to get up before turning to the newly arrived man and saying, “Chase Rawlston, meet Finn Donovan.”
“The FBI guy you talked about?” Finn asked, coughing.
“Yes. My boss.”
Common courtesy urged Finn to offer to shake hands. Instead, he extended both arms forward, wrists close together to accommodate handcuffs, and formally surrendered. “When I say it’s my pleasure, I mean it,” Finn told Chase. “We’ve been dodging bullets ever since a truck forced the prison van off the road.”
Rawlston studied him briefly, then focused on Selena. “True?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, nodding. “If we hadn’t helped each other, survival would have been iffy.” She sobered. “I’m sorry about the guards. There was nothing I could have done to save them.”
“We’ll do a debriefing later,” Rawlston said. He gestured to her. “Cuff him and let’s go.”
Although Finn was cooperative about everything, he paused at the door before stepping out. “You have checked the woods for snipers, right?”
Selena rested her open hand on his back. “They’d have to be nuts to start shooting at a group like this. Everybody can shoot back except you.”
“My point exactly,” Finn said with a lopsided smile. “These others weren’t the target. I was.”
Rawlston hesitated and looked at Selena. “Truth?”
“Probably,” she said, much to Finn’s relief. “He says he made some enemies in prison.”
“Undoubtedly.” The FBI agent directed local sheriff’s deputies to four points of the compass as armed sentries, then motioned to Selena. “Bring him out. And make it fast. You can tell me more on the drive back to town.”
Selena put one hand on Finn’s bent head and quickly ushered him to Rawlston’s SUV. It actually surprised him when nobody shot at them, and by the time he thought to appreciate her special protection, it had ended, and he was secure in the rear of the official task force vehicle.
Next to him on the seat, Scout was panting and looking quite pleased with himself. When Finn turned to look at the dog, he was rewarded with a big slurp on his cheek.
He didn’t have to wonder if Selena had seen it happen because her hand was clamped over her mouth to mute a giggle, and her shoulders were shaking.