Wild Montana

by Danica Winters

  “It’s important that you remember.” He glanced around, looking for some type of security cameras, but there were none in sight. “Do you have any cameras, anything we could look at, anything that could jog your memory?”

  Lex stepped closer to the counter and motioned toward the picture on his phone. “What kind of thing would you have sold for that amount?”

  The guy looked around the store. “With this cold weather we’ve been selling a lot of sweatshirts.” His face brightened. “Actually, there was a lady who came in that day. Bought a sweatshirt and a Coke. With tax, that puts us right around that amount.” He zoomed in on the time.

  A woman? Was it possible the green bag hadn’t belonged to the man they’d found disarticulated in the timber?

  “Let me check my sales.” He turned to his computer and tapped away at the keys.

  Casper nodded appreciatively at Lex. Of course the man behind the counter wouldn’t think in terms of people. Rather, he’d think in terms of the merchandise that had moved.

  “Yeah,” the man said with a nod. “Here it is.” He tilted the screen so they could see his copy of the transaction. “She paid with cash. American. Wasn’t very talkative.” He pointed toward a rack of blue sweatshirts. “She bought a plain blue sweatshirt, just a small logo of the park on the breast.”

  “Can you describe the woman?”

  The man looked up and squinted, like he could pull the woman’s image from thin air. “I don’t remember much about her. She was in her midthirties. Had darkish hair?” His tone didn’t incite a tremendous amount of confidence.

  “You remember what she was wearing?”

  The guy nodded. “Oh yeah, that was the weird thing. She was wearing a leather vest thing. Had some patches.”

  “You mean the woman was part of a motorcycle club?” Lex asked, excited.

  The man looked at Lex and shrugged. “I guess. I think she was driving a motorcycle or something. Oh, and she didn’t want a plastic bag—which is just fine if you ask me. It might only save me a few cents, but it adds up, you know.”

  “Why didn’t she want a bag?” Casper asked.

  “If I remember right, she put the sweatshirt on. And she stuck the Coke in her backpack.”

  Casper twitched. “By chance, do you remember what her backpack looked like?”

  “It was green. Kind of a military-style one.”

  “Did you get a good look at her leather vest?” Lex asked.

  The man tapped on the counter. “I didn’t get a real good look. But I think there was a set of green wings and there was a badge thingy that read “Property.” He motioned toward the place on his chest, right above his right pec where it would have been.

  “A top rocker. Did it have any kind of name underneath?”

  “Couldn’t tell ya.” The guy shrugged.

  “Is there anything else you can tell us? Anything at all?” Lex pressed.

  “I’m sorry...” The guy shook his head. “But if you have any more questions, you can come around anytime.”

  They may not have found the identity of their victim, but with the man’s help, they’d found their break, a lead that could help Casper save face. And maybe it could keep him from losing another job—or at least let him keep it for a little longer.

  Heck, if things went right, he could stick around. If he did, maybe he could give falling in love another shot. Then again, love was far more dangerous than the people he chased.

  Chapter Six

  The wind blew cold against Lex’s skin as she walked out of the shop. Casper’s face was pulled tight into a worried expression, one she had come to know so well at the hospital. His grin was much more handsome, but even serious he was so good-looking that he made her uncomfortable.

  She sucked in a breath as the icy-fingered breeze brushed over her skin and made goose bumps rise on her arms.

  He glanced over at her, and his face grew impossibly tighter. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down? Damn it. I knew I shouldn’t have brought you up here.”

  Her chill was quickly replaced by annoyance. “First, I’m fine, just cold—you don’t need to get worked up over me. I’m a big girl. If I didn’t think I should be out here I wouldn’t be. I know my limits.” She held up her fingers. “And second, do you think this is just your investigation? In every way this is my jurisdiction. Your boss called in a favor in asking to include you on the body’s recovery and subsequent investigation.”

  Casper’s face fell. “You talked to Randall?”

  “He explained that the CBP wanted to be included on this as it involved a potential illegal incident that may blow back on your post.”

  His cheeks paled. “I didn’t let this guy through. Anything suspicious and I’m on top of it.”

  “You better hope that’s the case.” She felt sorry for him as she watched what little color was left in his face drain away. “Your boss sounded none too pleased that you had let an undocumented through—I can only imagine what he’s thinking if he heard about the drugs.”

  “I never saw a guy carrying a military-style bag come through—I would have noticed,” he said, an edge of panic and fear in his voice. “There’s no way I’m responsible for what is happening here—heck, he might not have ever crossed the border, or he may have slipped it. Thousands of people just walk over the border near my post. I can’t investigate every sensor that goes off—in fact, Randall wouldn’t even allow me to investigate ten percent of them. The only reason he let me this time is in case the press got ahold of this...”

  “Don’t worry, Casper, we’ll figure this out. In fact, we’re going to do such a good job buttoning this up that you or I may be the next employee of the month.” She tried to take the edge off, but she couldn’t manage the inflection needed in her voice to sell it, and the joke fell flat.

  He quirked an eyebrow as he looked at her. “Somehow I find you getting employee of the month hard to believe. You... You are too independent. Does your boss even know where you are?”

  Was he really going to pick a fight? With Travis she normally would have stepped right up to the plate, taken a swing and let the fight commence, but with Casper it was different. He wasn’t picking a fight out of a need for control; it felt as if it was more out of the need to protect.

  As a former FBI agent it made sense that he would have the intrinsic need to safeguard those around him. Yet that still didn’t answer why he’d been sent to the nowhere border. And as badly as she wanted to get the real answer, with them halfway to a fight it didn’t seem like the right time to try and pry it out of him.

  She sighed in an attempt to compose herself. “I think you’re confusing independent with determined. And right now, Casper, I think determination is going to be the only thing that is going to solve this case. Then I can check in with my boss.”

  As she spoke, her phone stirred to life and belted the song “Born to be Wild.” Heat rushed to her cheeks as she thought of how much it paralleled the conversation they were having, and she turned away in order to avoid any sort of self-righteous smirk that was probably playing across Casper’s lips.

  “Alexis?” She was met with her boss Head Ranger Denver Dragger’s voice. “Where are you?”

  Speak of the devil.

  She caught a glimpse of Casper in the window, complete with that damned smirk.

  “Uh...what?” She tried to force herself to concentrate on her boss’s voice, but she couldn’t stop looking at Casper’s wide-set jaw and the stubble that riddled his cheeks. He needed a shave, but something about the scruffy look made a part of her stir to life.

  The head ranger coughed. “Alexis, are you listening?”

  “Yeah. I’m here. We’re just tracking down a lead on the dead hiker case—I think we’re close to getting an ID on him, and maybe we can figure out where th
e drugs were coming from and where he was taking them.”

  She could almost hear Dragger shake his head. “Lex, I’m calling because I wanted to check on you after your little accident, but if I’d known you were going to use your day off to go traipsing around the world...” He paused. “There’s work that needs to be done. As it is, if you’re feeling better, I need you to come to work in the morning. I want someone else on this. I need you at the Sperry Chalet. It needs to be buttoned up for the season.”

  The Sperry Chalet was a primitive cabin only accessible by horse or hike. Normally she liked to help with the winterization process, but this time it didn’t call to her like the investigation. She certainly couldn’t hand it over to someone else now, when they were so close to finding some kind of answers. “Sir, I’m afraid I’m—”

  “If you’re not in your bed right now, then I fully expect to see you at the station in the morning.” He hung up without waiting for her response.

  Normally she and Dragger saw eye to eye on most things and they treated each other with a sort of mutual respect. In fact, he’d once made a point of telling her that she shouldn’t look at him like a boss, rather as a comrade in arms. They had always been friends—at least up to now.

  Maybe she had simply misunderstood the man. Or perhaps it was that things were winding down for the season and he was just stressing about everything that needed to be checked off the list. God knew there was a boatload of things that needed to be done; cabins that needed to be winterized, chalets that needed to be locked down and prepared for the onslaught of snow that they would undoubtedly receive, and there were the ongoing needs of the thousands of guests that ventured through their park via roads and trails. Truth be told, they were sorely understaffed and underfunded, but that hadn’t ever caused a rift in their friendship before. She just couldn’t understand why it would suddenly drive a wedge between them—and she certainly didn’t understand why he would want her to hand off the investigation.

  This was hardly her first investigation into a death in the park. Every summer a few more people found their ends there. Last summer she and Travis had handled an investigation into a woman who had fallen into McDonald Creek and drowned. After they’d concluded their investigation, Dragger had made a point of commending them.

  He liked her work, so why was he pulling her?

  She wasn’t going to change his mind. Not Dragger’s.

  She dropped the phone back into her pocket. She’d only have a few more hours until tomorrow morning, and then this case would fall into someone else’s hands.

  “What’s going on?”

  She looked up at Casper and their eyes locked. “It looks like I called it down on myself, and my independence just bit me in the ass.” Her heart sank as she looked at him. “I’m supposed to go to work on the seasonal projects tomorrow, and this investigation will be taken over by another ranger. You’re right, I don’t think I’ll be getting employee of the month after all.”

  “If that’s the case, we’re going to need to work fast. Who’s Sherlock without his Watson?”

  “You are really calling yourself Sherlock?” Her spirits picked up.

  He nodded, straightening his back and pretending to hold a pipe.

  At least the man knew how to make her smile. “I should be Sherlock,” she said with a laugh. “Regardless, where would you like to begin, my dear man?” she asked in her worst British accent.

  His laugh rippled through the air and spread through the quiet street.

  A man sitting alone on a park bench turned and looked at them and gave them an appreciative nod.

  “Shhh...” She reached over and touched Casper’s arm as she giggled. His skin was hot and penetrating on her cold fingers and she drew them back.

  He looked to the place where she had touched him. “This could be simple. The man in the shop told us that it’s a woman and she was wearing a cut. That may mean she is a part of a local motorcycle club. The Hells Keepers are in control of the territory, all the way out to Washington as far as I know.”

  “Could she have just been a leisure rider?” They were up through the park all the time, weekend bikers. Often they could be found at the top of Logan’s Pass, victims of the stalling effects of the elevation.

  “A leisure rider doesn’t wear a cut, especially not one with a property top rocker and a wings patch.”

  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  “Women aren’t welcomed into the motorcycle clubs, or the one-percenters—the outlaws. Their only way in is by being a turnabout, a Mama, or they can be one of the guys’ old ladies.”

  “Old lady?”

  “A woman that’s in a serious relationship with one of the men. They don’t have to do anything like the turnabouts—selling their body or being a thing that is passed around the club—but even old ladies have to do the men’s bidding.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense to me. What kind of woman would want to be used like that? Or worse, to let their man control every aspect of their lives?”

  “I get why you wouldn’t understand, Ms. Independent, but there are a lot of women out there who are nothing like you. They like to have the safety net that an outlaw club provides. Sure, they run outside of the rules of social customs, but that kind of life brings danger. In exchange for protection they respect and trust those in their club—it’s their family.”

  She gave him a confused look.

  “Their strength lies in the power of the brotherhood, and the women who go out of the way to protect them. The ATF, you know the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and other federal agencies are constantly trying to infiltrate their group.”

  “Because of fear of the power they have?”

  Casper took her gently by the hand and helped her back into the car. “They are more powerful than most average citizens realize. These groups, and those like them, are some of the biggest smugglers of drugs and weapons into the United States, and they have well-developed and successful distribution channels.”

  “Haven’t the agencies taken them down? I see the things on TV all the time, where one of you Feds goes undercover and infiltrates their group and brings them to their knees.” She buckled her seat belt as Casper walked around, got in and started the car.

  He took off his hat and slid it onto the seat between them like it was a physical reminder that they needed to be kept apart. “The government has had some big busts in the past, but truth be told, nailing these guys is a bit like playing Whack-a-Mole. You knock one chapter down only to have another one spring up near them and take over the business they left behind. There’s always someone who wants to live outside the norms that society has placed on them—and they use their fringe lifestyle to build a network of those just like them.”

  “A ‘divided they stand’ kind of thing?” she asked.

  “Exactly. Even for the women.”

  In a way she could understand a woman’s desire to want to be loved, to be part of a group, and find acceptance—especially when the world was against her. Heck, she could definitely understand the world being against her. Ever since she was a child and she had been in the foster system and then shuffled from one house to the next, she had known the fear of being alone and the feelings of powerlessness that followed on its heels. Maybe she wasn’t so different from the women after all. Maybe the only difference was in the fact that now she was fighting violence while they were simply fighting the world.

  He drove down the shop-lined road that led to a park on the edge of town near the Prince of Wales Hotel. Passing the palatial expanse of green lawns and rows of white and pink roses that adorned the lawn of the hotel, they entered the forest. Large pines poked their heads up from the crowd, each one struggling for a little more sunlight than the one next to it.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. />
  “The trailhead.” He dipped his chin, motioning down the road. “It may be a long shot, but maybe we can find something there. The woman has to be involved somehow with the guy and his drugs. If they were coming from the store, then this trailhead seems to be the most likely place where our vic would have started his hike.

  “You know what? I bet you money that this guy came through after my checkpoint closed. It makes sense. The time on the receipt was six p.m. From the trailhead it was about a three-hour hike. The guy must have planned this whole thing to avoid getting caught.” As he spoke, his eyes brightened and color rose in his face.

  He turned and the sunshine glistened off his chestnut-colored hair, making it sparkle, and there was a hat ring where his hat hugged his head. He caught her staring and sent her that sexy grin that sometimes drove her crazy, but right now she wouldn’t change it for the world. As he looked at her in that moment, it was as if he was peering down into the very core of her and seeing her for the woman she truly was. The thought made her shift in her seat and she glanced away.

  She didn’t want him to look at her like that. She would hate for him to look into her soul and not like what he saw. She’d already had far too much rejection in her life.

  Everyone had baggage, and though he knew about Travis and the divorce, he didn’t need to know any more about her—or about her past. Some things were just better left unknown.

  The road came to an end, looping around, and it was edged with parking spots. Casper pulled to a stop and got out. He picked up his hat from the seat and shoved it on his head, hiding his beautiful hair.

  The parking lot had a few cars, most with Montana or Alberta plates, but there wasn’t a motorcycle in sight.

  “What do you think we should be looking for exactly?”

  “Most of the time when it comes down to investigating a crime, there’s a few things you generally look for—but in this case, all I can say is that I hope that we’ll know what we’re looking for when we see it,” Casper said.