by Cindi Myers
“What about Lauren?” Travis asked. Cody sat back. He saw his role as an observer. He’d let Travis do all the talking.
Adam sank onto the sofa. “She left yesterday,” he said. “We had a fight. I guess we got pretty loud. If some of the neighbors complained...” He let the words trail away and shook his head.
“Where was she going?” Travis asked.
“She said she was going out for a drive—that she needed to think.”
“You’d had a fight?”
“A disagreement. I wanted to take some money her folks gave us for Christmas and buy a boat, but she didn’t think we should do that.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. She isn’t answering her phone.” He picked up a cell phone from the end table beside the sofa and studied the screen. “When she didn’t come back last night I tried calling and texting—after a while I’d decided she must have gone back to Denver. She did that to me once before—left me stranded without a vehicle.”
“So you haven’t been worried about her?”
“A little. But mostly I’m angry. Like I said, she’s pulled this kind of thing before—she can be very impulsive.”
“What did you do last night when she didn’t come back?” Travis asked.
“I got drunk and went to bed.” He shrugged. “I’m not proud of it, but that’s the truth. Why? What’s with all these questions?” The first sign of fear shadowed his eyes. “Is something wrong? Has Lauren been in some kind of accident or something?”
“I’m sorry to have to inform you that your wife is dead, Mr. Grenado.”
He stared at them, eyes gone glassy. “No.” He shook his head. “No. She can’t be dead. She was fine when she left here last night.”
“She apparently died last night. Marshal Rankin found her this morning, in her car on a remote Forest Service road.” He nodded to Cody.
Adam shook his head. “No. That can’t be. How did she die? Was there an accident?”
“No,” Travis said. “She was murdered.”
The echo of the word hung in the air, stark and ugly.
Adam stared at them a few seconds more, then buried his head in his hands and began to weep, great, racking sobs that shook his body. Travis and Cody waited a moment, then Travis said. “Mr. Grenado, we need you to pull yourself together so you can help us find who did this.”
He nodded, and after a visible struggle, sat upright, though his voice broke when he spoke. “Who would do something like this?”
“What did you do after your wife left here last night?” Travis asked. “Did you follow her?”
“No. I stayed here.” His eyes widened. “You don’t think I—I would never hurt Lauren. I loved her. Sure, we had had a fight, but we did that sometimes. It didn’t mean anything.”
“So you were here all night?”
“Yes. I told you.”
“Is there anyone who can prove you were here all night?” Travis asked.
“No. I mean, I guess you could ask folks in the other condos if they saw me leave. But I don’t have a car. Lauren has it.”
“Do you know anyone else who might want to hurt her?” Travis asked. “Have you noticed anyone suspicious hanging around the condo, or following you while you were out?”
“No. Nothing like that. Lauren didn’t have any enemies.” He scrubbed his hand across his face. “Is this that serial killer? I thought I heard something about a serial killer. Did he kill my wife?”
“What do you know about the serial killer?” Travis asked.
“Not much. We’re on vacation, so we haven’t been following the news. But we were in a restaurant the other night and someone said something about this guy who had killed three women around here.” He frowned. “He had a funny name—you know, how the press always tags these guys with nicknames. Like people would forget them if they didn’t have a catchy handle.”
“The Ice Cold Killer,” Travis said.
“That was it. Did he kill my wife?”
“We don’t know, Mr. Grenado,” Travis said. “Do you know of any reason your wife would have been out on a deserted Forest Service road last night? Would she have gone there to meet a friend, maybe?”
“No. Lauren didn’t know anyone here.”
“Why did you come to Eagle Mountain?” Travis asked.
“We wanted a getaway, somewhere in the mountains. And the rates are good this time of year.”
“What have you been doing while you’re in town?”
“Just, you know—relaxing. We went out to eat. We rented snowmobiles and took them out one day.” He shrugged. “We were just hanging out.”
“And you didn’t see anyone suspicious or encounter anyone who made you nervous?”
“No.” His face crumpled again. “What am I going to do?”
“Do you have a family member you can call to come help you?” Travis asked.
He nodded. “My brother. He lives in Denver, but I know he’ll come.”
Travis stood. “I can send someone from my office to wait with you until he comes.”
“No.” He rose also. “I’ll be okay. Am I supposed to do something else, about my car and about...about Lauren’s body?”
“Someone from my office will call you later today with that information.” Travis handed him a business card. “If you have any questions, or you think of anything else that might help us, call me.”
“Okay. I will.”
Travis waited until he and Cody were at the curb again before he spoke. “What do you think?” he asked.
“He’s really grieving and logistically, I don’t see how he could have done it.” Cody glanced around the parking lot. “You’ll verify he and his wife only had one vehicle here. And then there’s that business card.”
“Information about that card has been in the paper.”
“So you’re thinking this could be a copycat killing?”
“It could be, but I don’t think so.” Travis looked back toward the building. “I think Lauren Grenado went out alone at night and the killer saw her and took the opportunity to kill her, then drove her to that remote location, thinking it would be a while before anyone found her.”
The burden of these killings showed on Travis’s face. Cody knew he took each death personally. “I’ve asked the Colorado Bureau of Investigations to send some help,” Travis said. “Now that the road is open, someone should be able to get through.”
Cody nodded. “You’ve been hung out on your own until now. It’s a lot for a small department to handle.”
“Still, it’s my county. There aren’t that many people here—I should have been able to handle it.”
Cautioning Travis not to be so hard on himself wouldn’t do any good. He was wired to take responsibility—it was one of the things that made him a good sheriff. “Tell me what I can do to help,” Cody said.
“Right now I need you to go back to the ranch and let everyone there know what’s going on. Tell the women especially to be on their guard. They probably shouldn’t drive anywhere alone. I already talked to Lacy.”
“All right. But if there’s anything else, you know I’m here.”
Travis stared down the quiet street, snow mounded on the sides of the road, no sign of activity in the surrounding homes. If not for the knowledge of what had happened near here, it would be an idyllic scene of winter peace. “The killer is here, too,” Travis said. “And I need to find out where, before he kills again.”
Chapter Seven
The town of Eagle Mountain might have been a village in the mountains of Switzerland or Austria—Victorian buildings lining narrow streets in a valley below snowcapped peaks. Glittery snowflake decorations adorned light posts along the town’s main streets, and storefronts advertised winter sales. Bette guided her car slowly through town, struck by the jarring dis
cordance of such horrible violence taking place in such a peaceful setting.
It hadn’t taken long for news of the latest murder to spread through town. As Bette guided her grocery cart down the aisles of Eagle Mountain Grocery, she overheard customers discussing the murder, speculating on the identity of the latest victim and the motives of the killer. Most people seemed to think the woman who was killed was a visitor to town, since no one knew of any local who was unaccounted for.
Weather and news that the highway remained open were the next most popular topics of conversation, though some people were of the opinion that the town’s reprieve wouldn’t last. “Those avalanche chutes above the pass are full to bursting and all this sunshine is making them more unstable,” one woman said to a friend as they perused the selections in the dairy case. “I’m stocking up while I can, before the snowslides start and they have to close the road again.”
Bette selected several pounds of butter and two cartons of cream, then steered her cart toward the center aisles. As she had feared, good strawberries weren’t to be had this time of year in the mountains, so she had switched her menu to chocolate-covered dried fruit. She was trying to decide between apricots and cherries when an attractive woman with streaked blond hair approached. “Excuse me, but are you Bette Fuller, the caterer?”
“Yes,” Bette said, cautious in spite of the woman’s friendliness.
“I’m Brenda Prentice.” The woman offered her hand. “I’m Lacy’s maid of honor. It’s so good to meet you. Lacy has told me so much about you.”
How much? Bette wondered. Did Brenda’s friendliness mean she didn’t know about Bette’s past—or that she knew and had decided to give her the benefit of the doubt? Bette hoped it was the latter, but she knew better than to expect that. “It’s good to meet you, too,” she said, shaking Brenda’s hand.
“It was so kind of you to come all this way to cook for the wedding,” Brenda said. “I know it means a lot to Lacy.”
“I was happy to do it.” In her opinion, Lacy was the one who was being kind.
“I’m looking forward to the tea this weekend,” Brenda said. “Such a clever idea to do that instead of a girls’ night out at a bar.”
“It was all Lacy’s idea,” Bette said. “But it should be a really fun party. Lacy said you’re married to one of Travis’s deputies.”
“That’s right. Dwight Prentice. We went to high school together, but it wasn’t until after my husband died that we connected again.”
“Lacy mentioned you’re a newlywed.”
“Yes. She still hasn’t forgiven me for cheating her out of being a bridesmaid in a big, fancy wedding.” She shifted the package of salad she carried to her other hand. “I’d better get back to work. I only swung by to grab something for lunch. See you on Saturday.”
“It was good to meet you.”
Bette took her time completing her shopping. Brenda had been very nice—exactly the sort of woman she would have pictured as one of Lacy’s best friends. If Bette and Lacy hadn’t been thrown together in prison, she doubted they would have ever made a connection at all. Lacy came from a conventional family in a small town. She had always been loved and protected and, even after she had been convicted of murder, her family and friends had stood by her.
Bette was a city girl from a broken home. She had been on her own since she was seventeen, and had never had much support from anyone. It didn’t take a psychologist to see that was why she had fallen so hard for Eddie. He had not only promised to love and protect her, he had made her believe he couldn’t do anything without her by his side. When he told her of his dream of opening a garage, she had believed every word, because she had always wanted to open her own catering business. When he proposed robbing the bank where she worked to get the money to make those dreams come true, she had hesitated only a few hours before he made her believe it was the right thing to do.
She had had years since then to regret her decision, and to see how Eddie had manipulated her. He had never had any intention of opening a garage, and the people he had introduced to her as friends of his who wanted to help had only been criminals like him, out for their share of the take. All Eddie’s flattery and lovemaking had been a lie. He had singled her out for attention because she worked at the bank, and he recognized her as someone he could manipulate.
It was a good thing for her the police had caught the robbers. If her arrest hadn’t halted her brief criminal career, there was no telling where she would have ended up. Now, thanks to Lacy and people like her, she at least had a chance to live her dream.
She paid for her purchases and loaded them into her car, then drove slowly through town. She had no desire to live in a sleepy place like Eagle Mountain, but she could enjoy visiting here. She hoped she would have the chance to come back in the summer or fall and explore the surrounding mountains more.
Reluctantly, she turned the car and headed back toward the ranch. She didn’t look forward to the inevitable confrontation with Rainey when she went to unload the groceries she had purchased. She wasn’t anxious to see Cody again, either, though she needed to talk to him about the paint she had found in the bathroom. And she needed to come up with a way to keep intruders out of her cabin.
Her mind full of these thoughts, she didn’t notice the vehicle coming up behind her until it was on her bumper. The dark SUV raced up behind her, the insistent blare of the horn shattering the peace of the quiet countryside. Alarmed, Bette steered her car as far over to the side of the road as she could safely go. The vehicle surged up beside her and she took her foot off the gas, anxious for it to pass. Instead, the car stopped in the road, and the driver got out. She had an impression of black—black pants, black gloves, black coat with the hood pulled up to hide the driver’s face. As he raced around the car toward her, she pressed down on the gas, determined to drive away, but the tires spun in the soft snow. The man, whose face she still couldn’t see, beat his hands on her closed window. Bette groped for her phone, to call for help. Then the window shattered. A large rock hit the side of her head, then the door opened and the man dragged her out, into the snow.
* * *
SNOW HAD STARTED falling again by the time Cody headed back toward the Walker ranch. Flakes whirled toward his windshield in a mesmerizing onslaught and his SUV plowed through already-forming drifts across the road.
So much for his fishing trip. Maybe he’d try again in a day or two, and this time, he’d ask Bette to go with him. It would give him a chance to question her about the paint and about her intentions toward the Walkers, without an audience to overhear.
He didn’t see the car on the side of the road until he was almost on it. Snow drifted over the vehicle, which listed in the ditch like a boat taking on water. He braked hard and turned on his wipers in an attempt to clear the snow from his windshield. No movement in the other car, but the vehicle looked familiar. With a jolt, he realized it looked like Bette’s Ford.
He punched the button to turn on his emergency flashers and stopped in the road, then bailed out of his RAV4 and trudged down into the ditch and around the car. The driver’s side door was open, snow sifting over the upholstery. A large rock rested in the driver’s seat. Cody stared at it, trying to make sense of the sight. Fields and woods lined this stretch of road, not rocky cliffs. For that rock to get there, someone must have thrown it.
And where was Bette? Had she gotten her car stuck in the ditch and decided to walk to the ranch for help? But that didn’t explain the rock.
“Bette!”
The silence swallowed his shout. He stepped back, intending to set out to look for her. His foot struck something soft and yielding.
Something that groaned.
Bette lay in the ditch, snow sifting over her still body. Cody knelt beside her and felt for a pulse at her neck. Relief flooded him when he found the steady beat and felt the warmth of her skin. “Bette, wake up.” H
e tapped her cheek with the back of his hand.
She groaned and rolled her head away from him.
He pulled out his phone and called 911. “There’s been an accident on County Road Seven,” he said. “About a mile from the Walking W Ranch. A woman is unconscious.”
The dispatcher promised to send an ambulance and a sheriff’s deputy. Cody pocketed the phone and examined Bette more closely. Blood oozed from a jagged cut over her left temple, but he could find no other injuries. She groaned again. Cody squeezed her hand. “Bette, it’s me, Cody. You’re going to be okay.”
Her eyes fluttered, snow caught in her lashes. “What happened?” She stared at him, her gaze unfocused, tense with pain.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I found you here, in the ditch beside your car. You must have been on your way back to the ranch.”
She moaned and tried to sit up, but he pressed her gently back down. “The ambulance is on its way,” he said. “Don’t try to move.”
“I’m cold,” she said.
Of course she was cold—lying in the snow. Cody stripped off his coat and laid it over her. “The ambulance will be here soon,” he said, hoping the words were true.
“What happened?” she asked again.
“Something hit your head. I think a rock. What do you remember?”
She closed her eyes. “I can’t remember. I was at the store, talking to a nice woman—Brenda. I bought some butter and cream.” She shook her head, wincing. “I can’t remember.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“My head hurts.”
“I know. It will be all right soon.”
She didn’t try to talk after that. Had she passed out again? Should he try to wake her? Her hand in his was so cold, a chill he could feel even through his gloves. He gathered her other hand between his palms and chafed them both gently. Her nails were short and she wore no rings—maybe jewelry got in the way of cooking. She had long, slender fingers and delicate wrists. He pressed her palms to his cheek—the skin was like satin and smelled faintly of roses.