“Robo, out,” she said, releasing him from his stance.
Robo looked disappointed, as he released his bunched muscles only slightly, still keeping his gaze fixed on Tracy Lee. She’d used up her supply of gloves and didn’t have an evidence bag with her, so she picked up the knife with two fingertips by the very end of the blade and placed it lengthwise on top of the snacks inside Tracy’s fanny pack. She would have to carry it that way until they reached the others down at the falls.
“Let’s go,” she said as she pointed the way.
He headed out tentatively, evidently not wanting to turn his back on Robo. “Don’t let that dog bite me.”
“He’s a professional, Mr. Brown. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” As Tracy Lee began to walk away, Robo gave her a glance that she interpreted as asking permission for one of his favorite parts of the job. “Go ahead. Book him, Robo.”
Robo trotted forward, his head high and his tail waving, eager to escort their prisoner by walking near the man’s left heel. Tracy Lee let out a squeak that sounded like a mouse and drifted to the right while he tried to walk and keep his eyes on Robo at the same time.
Since Mattie followed behind, she allowed herself the pleasure of a smile. Sometimes her dog cracked her up. And she loved him more than words could express.
As they broke out of the timber and approached the swampy drainage basin, a flash of lightning followed instantly by a roll of thunder shattered the air. Rain spattered and turned rapidly into a downpour, the frigid drops soaking Mattie’s jacket at once. The dark sky had finally broken open, and this elevation—near tree line—was a most dangerous place to be.
She scanned the area for a boulder under which they could seek shelter. It was best to just hunker down and wait for the storm to pass, but from the looks of the sky, that might be a long time.
* * *
Cole and his party crested the last ridge on the Hanging Falls trail. Lightning cracked nearby on the peaks, injecting the smell of ozone into the air. Cole’s mount, a bay gelding called Duke, tucked his tail and spooked, hopping to the side and making Cole pull the reins tight so he wouldn’t set off the other horses in the string. Mountaineer, the packhorse Cole was leading, plodded along behind, his placid nature providing a steady example for the other horses.
As the dark clouds dumped a torrent of rain, he could hear both Brody and Stella muttering curses behind him. Keeping a tight rein on Duke, he turned to check on them. Stella LoSasso, unused to riding horseback but gaining experience during her tenure as Timber Creek County’s only detective, wore a green slicker several sizes too large for her that almost swallowed both her and her mount. The slight woman sat hunched in the saddle on the back of a gentle palomino mare named Honey.
“How are you doing, Stella?” he called over the rush of the pouring rain.
“I’ve been better, that’s for damn sure,” she replied, looking at him from under a droopy hood that covered her long auburn hair.
Brody, more comfortable around horses, rode behind her on a black-and-white paint mare named Fancy. Ken Brody was a tall man with broad shoulders and a gruff exterior, but over the past few months of working with him, Cole had learned that his tough outer layer and machismo attitude covered a softer heart that cared a lot about justice and his fellow members of the human race. He also wore a sheriff’s department slicker, although his fit his large stature better than Stella’s fit her.
“Ken, is everything okay?” Cole called.
“Yup, but we better get the hell off this ridge.”
“Heading downhill now.”
Having grown up on a ranch near Timber Creek, Cole had been to Hanging Falls countless times. It was an easy hike or ride on a well-groomed trail with a beautiful, pristine spot to enjoy at the end. Hard to believe someone would sully it by killing a person up here.
He leaned back slightly as Duke picked his way down the rocky trail. Cole was anxious to see Mattie, and he searched the stand of trees down by the lake, hoping to spot her. Two forms materialized from the trees—a person and a dog—and they moved down toward the lake before stopping. The dog ran around with excitement when he spotted their party and began to bark.
Cole could recognize that bay anywhere—Moose. The person is too tall for Mattie. Must be Glenna.
As they approached, a yellow spot near the lake assumed the shape of a covered body. Cole reined Duke through the downpour toward Glenna and dismounted when he drew near.
Glenna’s drenched, floppy hat did very little to protect her from the deluge, and the curly dark hair that typically frizzed around her face lay plastered against her cheeks. At least she did receive some benefit from the lightweight rain jacket she wore, though she looked chilled standing there in her shorts and hugging herself with her tightly wrapped arms.
A bolt of lightning struck a lone pine on the far side of the lake, followed by thunder that echoed off the rim. “Is there someplace we can take shelter?” he asked Glenna.
“Follow me.” She turned and headed back into the grove of pine she’d come from. Apparently loving the rain, her big Rhodesian ridgeback gamboled in front of her.
Cole glanced behind to make sure Stella was still upright and forward in the saddle, but Brody had evidently helped her dismount. She was following Cole, her slicker a few inches from the ground, while Brody led both horses.
Leading Duke and Mountaineer, Cole spoke up so that Glenna could hear. “Where’s Mattie?”
Glenna glanced back over her shoulder. “She climbed up to the ledge above the falls about an hour ago. She thought someone was watching from up there earlier while I was gone, and she wanted to take Robo to check it out.”
Alarm shot through him. This was what scared him most about loving Mattie—when it came to doing her job, she never hesitated to put herself in danger. She’d thought someone was watching … and so she’d gone up to investigate. Alone and no doubt hoping to catch the guy before he got away. And now she’d be at the upper elevation, exposed to lightning.
Glenna reached a huge boulder and turned. “There’s not enough room for the horses, but I think we can shelter here until the storm passes.”
“So where exactly did Cobb go?” Brody asked as they squatted around the base of the monolith, making themselves as low to the ground as possible.
“There’s a steep trail that leads to the ledge where the waterfall spills over,” Glenna said. “She went up there.”
A frown of concern etched itself into the hard planes of Brody’s face. Rain dripped from his hood. “This ground is saturated. And this amount of rainfall will probably cause the lake to rise. Once the lightning stops, we’re going to need to process this scene and pack that body out before the trail becomes impassable.”
“Mattie and I took photos before she covered it,” Glenna said.
Not knowing where Mattie was and if she was okay, Cole couldn’t stand to wait. “I’ll climb up and find Mattie.”
“Going up there now would be foolhardy,” Brody said, his voice a deep-pitched growl. “Cobb’s smart. She’ll find a place to take shelter and come down when she can.”
As if to punctuate Brody’s words, a simultaneous clap of thunder and crack of lightning struck nearby. Cole could feel the hairs on his forearms rise in the electrified air.
“Don’t take an unnecessary risk, Cole,” Stella said.
Times like these made him think of his kids. They needed him. Though his ex-wife had tried to recover from her depression, her mental health was still a work in progress. If something should happen to him, he couldn’t count on her to raise the girls alone. Clenching his jaw, he decided to wait ten minutes to see if the lightning would let up, and he leaned back against the boulder, the cold chill of the stone immediately seeping through his slicker and into his back.
While they waited, Glenna filled them in on Mattie’s daring retrieval of the corpse, a tale that made Cole’s skin crawl. He imagined what it would be like to plunge into that icy water beside a
dead man.
The thunder and lightning gradually rolled away toward a neighboring set of peaks. Although rain still fell from the darkened sky, they determined it safe to venture away from the boulder. Cole led the horses toward the lake, tied them to a lodgepole pine near the grove’s edge, and joined the others beside the corpse.
He glanced at his watch. It was after six, and they were losing light fast. The noise of the falls pounding the rocks drowned out all other sound. He scanned the area next to the cascade and thought he could spot the faint trail Mattie had used.
“I’m going up to find Mattie while you process the scene,” he told Brody, and turned to leave before anyone could protest.
Rain continued to beat on the hood of his slicker and drip from the foliage beside the trail. Cole started to climb, discovering immediately that his slick-soled riding boots provided little traction on the slippery path. Grabbing on to bushes where he could to help keep his balance, he edged upward.
At the top, he found a whole different world than the last time he’d been up here. The entire drainage basin was on the move, water streaming down to pool at the bottom in a lake the size of the one below the falls. It had devoured trees as it spread, some of them still standing, others leaning at crazy tilted angles.
Floodwaters dragged some of the felled trees downward in a relentless liquid march. Even as he stood on the ledge beside the falls, a pine slipped over the spillway about ten feet away and crashed against the rocks as it rode the watery chute into the pool below.
“Good grief,” he muttered under his breath. He headed toward the narrow stand of evergreens near the basin wall. He’d not gone more than twenty feet when he spotted two people emerge from the trees and head his way. A dog that could only be Robo trotted jauntily beside the lead person, someone too tall to be Mattie.
As they drew near, he could see Mattie in back, and a weight fell from his shoulders. He raised his hand in a wave, which she returned, telling him she’d spotted him too. Neither Mattie nor the guy in the lead wore a raincoat, and they both looked soaked. He could tell that the guy wore cuffs by the way he walked with his hands close together in front.
So Mattie found her peeping tom. With a huge sense of relief, Cole waited at the top of Hanging Falls for the woman he loved and her prisoner.
SEVEN
The rain slackened to a chilling drizzle, but the damage had already been done. Mattie kept one eye on the edge of the lake as it inched up closer to the corpse. In the past half hour, the width of the waterfall had tripled, closing off the trail beside it. Tons of water poured over the ledge.
The recovery team had finished scouting out the lay of the land and taking the photographs they would need. They’d also enclosed the remains in a body bag, getting it ready to strap onto Mountaineer’s packsaddle.
Though it was midsummer, the heavy cloud ceiling obscured any sunlight that might still be available, making Mattie shiver. Nightfall would come early. She kept one eye on Tracy Lee Brown, who sat cuffed under Robo’s watch a short distance away while she huddled with the others to make plans.
Brody eyed the lowering clouds. “This sky isn’t going to clear anytime soon. We won’t have time to get down before it’s too dark to see.”
“We’ll just have to use flashlights, because we can’t stay here,” Stella said.
“That trail was rough before,” Glenna said. “With this much rainfall, no telling how much more of it has been washed out.”
“I think we can make it,” Cole said. “I’ll lead the way.”
Mattie felt torn. She was wet, she was cold, and a large part of her wanted to return home. Ever since they’d found the body, her mind had been focused on her duty as a law enforcement officer. But since she’d returned to this spot by the lake, she’d been thinking of her sister and grandmother. She was scheduled to leave town in the morning to go to California, and yet … there were so many things she and Robo should do to assist the investigation. Perhaps she should delay her departure for a day or two.
“This guy,” she said, tipping her head in Tracy Lee’s direction, “says he’s got a campsite near here, and I think we should search it. He’s the closest thing we have to a suspect, and I think we need to go to his camp sooner rather than later. Maybe we could shelter there overnight.”
“There are six of us,” Stella said. “What kind of tent does he have? I doubt if it could provide shelter for all of us.”
Mattie conceded that this would be true. She started to speak, but Brody cut her off.
“Don’t even think about splitting up, Cobb. We stick together. If this guy isn’t our killer, then there’s someone on the loose who could still be up here.”
“I believe that body was buried up above and came down the falls,” Mattie said, thinking out loud. “But it was too flooded for me to go in there to search. Robo and I still need to do that.”
“Tomorrow’s another day,” Brody said.
“But you leave on vacation tomorrow,” Stella said to Mattie.
Brody raised a brow as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “Well … we’ll have to make do. But right now, time’s a-wasting.” He looked at Cole. “Let’s get the remains strapped to that packhorse and get off this mountain.”
Mattie thought Cole looked relieved as he turned away to help.
* * *
The trip down to the trailhead was grueling, and by the end, Mattie’s legs were trembling, from both cold and fatigue. She and Robo had led the way, lighting the hazardous trail with a flashlight. Cole had followed her, leading Mountaineer with his grisly burden. Brody had insisted that Glenna use his mount, and he’d hiked at the end of the line behind Tracy Lee Brown, who’d remained sullen and silent.
By midnight they’d slipped down the last hundred yards of the muddy trail into the parking lot at the base. Mattie had never been so relieved to reach level ground.
Brody had used the satellite phone to stay in contact with Sheriff McCoy. The sheriff’s Jeep, Deputy Garcia’s cruiser, and the coroner’s van were waiting at the parking lot when they arrived, their headlights creating a dazzling sparkle in the mist. McCoy stepped out of his vehicle and came forward to greet them.
Deputy Garcia exited his cruiser to join the sheriff, moving forward to take custody of Tracy Lee. McCoy had decided to keep him on a forty-eight-hour hold at the jail for questioning. During that time, the head ranger with the Forest Service could determine what charges would be brought against him for the possession of an illegal substance on federal land. Garcia left, taking the bedraggled Tracy Lee Brown with him.
Cole dismounted and led Mountaineer behind the van, where a grim-faced Dr. McGinnis opened the doors. As coroner of Timber Creek County, the local family physician would take charge of the body and have it transported to the medical examiner in the neighboring county, since Timber Creek was too small to retain those services.
Brody and Cole worked together to move the body bag from the packsaddle onto a stretcher and then up into the van, while Mattie, with Robo at her side, stood back with Stella and the sheriff. She huddled beneath the slicker Cole had given her and struggled to keep her teeth from chattering.
“Deputy Brody has kept me apprised of the situation, so we don’t need to meet at the station tonight. You two are free to go home,” McCoy said to Stella and Mattie. “Detective, let’s meet at seven o’clock sharp in the morning.”
Mattie unclenched her jaw, which resulted in a quiver as she spoke. “I’ll be there too. I plan to delay my trip for a couple days. Or as long as it takes for Robo and me to do what we need to.”
McCoy studied her with an unwavering gaze. “I won’t pretend we don’t need you. But I won’t ask you to postpone your vacation.”
“Y-you don’t have to.” Mattie tried to control her shivers.
McCoy shrugged off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Then go home now and get warmed up.”
Before she could say anything, he turned away to go talk to Dr.
McGinnis.
“Are you sure you want to play it this way, Mattie?” Stella asked as she moved closer. “I know how much this trip means to you.”
“I’ll still go. But the first forty-eight hours are the most important to the case, so I’ll stay and do what I can. Keep your fingers crossed that the rain stops so Robo and I can get back up to the falls.”
“Do you have some whiskey at home?”
“No.” The only alcohol Mattie kept at her house was the rubbing kind, aside from a stash of beer she kept handy for Stella. Having been raised by an alcoholic and knowing that liquor and she didn’t mix, Mattie never kept the hard stuff around.
“Do you want me to bring some over? I think a hot toddy before bed would do you some good.”
“I’ll stick to hot chocolate, but thanks anyway.”
Glenna called to her from across the parking lot, where she stood beside her pickup. “Do you want a ride home, Mattie?”
She and Robo had caught a ride with Glenna and Moose that morning, so her own unit was still parked in front of her house. Before she could answer, Cole called back to Glenna, “I’ll take Mattie home.”
“Hmm … looks like there’ll be no need for that hot toddy after all,” Stella said, her grin apparent in the glow of the surrounding headlights. “See you in the morning, Mattie.”
Stella chuckled as she walked away to join the sheriff. The detective often teased Mattie about her growing relationship with Cole, and by now Mattie had grown used to it.
Cole came up, leading Duke and Mountaineer. “I’ll load the horses, and then we can go. Here are the keys to the truck. Go ahead and get it started so it’ll warm up.”
Leading the other two horses, Brody joined Cole at the back of the horse trailer while Mattie unlocked the truck, loaded Robo into the back of the cab, and climbed into the driver’s side. She perched on the edge of the seat while she fired up the engine, then ran around the front to the passenger’s side.
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