Rocky Mountain Mystery

by Cassie Miles

  Darkness fell over Blair like a smothering blanket

  This blackout hadn't been caused by a power failure. The impending danger had caught up with her. Outlined against the walls, she saw a shadow. He was here with her....

  Watching. Waiting.

  "Who's there?" she whispered. "Who are you?" Her trembling voice echoed off the tiles, bouncing back at her in desperate mockery of her fear.

  She heard the sound of shuffling feet. Where was he? How close? Blair looked up and saw a crouching form, hunched over.

  He didn't even took human.

  "What do you want?" Blair asked.

  One word. A guttural growl.

  "You."

  Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

  As we ring in a new year, we have another great month of mystery and suspense coupled with steamy passion.

  Here are some juicy highlights from our six-book lineup:

  • Julie Miller launches a new series. THE PRECINCT, beginning with Partner-Protector. These books revolve around the rugged Fourth Precinct lawmen of Kansas City whom you first fell in love with in the TAYLOR CLAN series!

  • Rocky Mountain Mystery marks the beginning of Cassie Miles's riveting new trilogy, COLORADO CRIME CONSULTANTS, about a network of private citizens who volunteer their expertise in solving criminal investigations.

  • Those popular TOP SECRET BABIES return to our lineup for the next four months!

  • Gothic-inspired tales continue in our spine-tingling ECLIPSE promotion.

  And don't forget to look for Debra Webb's special Signature Spotlight title this month: Dying To Play.

  Hopefully we've whetted your appetite for January's thrilling lineup. And be sure to check back every month to satisfy your craving for outstanding suspense reading.

  Enjoy!

  Denise O'Sullivan

  Senior Editor

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thank you, Patience and Denise for believing in this series. And, as always, to Rick.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Cassie Miles lives in Denver in a high-rise, not unlike the apartment described in this book. She also shares the heroine's fondness for luxurious, high-end chocolate. This is a story close to her heart, and she wouldn't mind at all if a dashing hero joined her on the balcony to count the stars.

  When she's not writing, Cassie is a movie buff who regularly attends the annual Denver Film Festival where she can overdose on three or four movies a day and ponder the true meaning of Scandinavian subtitled films.

  Books by Cassie Miles

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  122—HIDE AND SEEK

  150—HANDLE WITH CARE

  237—HEARTBREAK HOTEL

  269—ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT?

  285—DON'T BE CRUEL

  320—MYSTERIOUS VOWS

  332—THE SUSPECT GROOM

  363—THE IMPOSTOR

  381—RULE BREAKER

  391—GUARDED MOMENTS

  402—A NEW YEAR'S CONVICTION

  443—A REAL ANGEL

  449—FORGET ME NOT

  521—FATHER, LOVER, BODYGUARD

  529—THE SAFE HOSTAGE

  584—UNDERCOVER PROTECTOR

  645—STATE OF EMERGENCY†

  649—WEDDING CAPTIVES†

  670—NOT ON HIS WATCH

  694—THE SECRET SHE KEEPS

  769—RESTLESS SPIRIT

  787—PROTECTING THE INNOCENT

  820—ROCKY MOUNTAIN MYSTERY*

  †Colorado Search and Rescue

  *Colorado Crime Consultants

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  David Crawford—Haunted by the murder of his sister, he became an investigative journalist, focusing on serial killers.

  Dr. Blair Weston—Injuries from a devastating car accident caused her to retire from her position as a medical examiner in the coroner's office.

  Eddy Adderly—Convicted of the Fisherman serial murders and on death row, he is dying from liver cancer.

  Jake Zitti—A newspaper photographer and ladies' man, he was driving the car when Blair was injured.

  Ted Hurtado—A newspaper columnist who received the threat notes from the Fisherman.

  Adam Briggs—Head of Colorado Crime Consultants.

  Molly Griffith—Secretary at Colorado Crime Consultants.

  Colorado Crime Consultants (CCC)—A nonprofit organization of private citizens with special skills who are called upon to help solve crimes in the past, present and future.

  Chapter One

  David Crawford had been on airplanes since noon— seven hours ago—with nothing to eat but a bag of peanuts. He was tired and hungry. Worse than that, the person who picked him up at the airport was a guy instead of a warm, welcoming, beautiful woman. Even worse, the May weather was rainy, and David couldn't see the rugged outline of the Rocky Mountains west of town.

  But he wasn't complaining. He settled back in the passenger seat of his friend's sporty Miata and allowed a wave of nostalgia to wash over him. Home again. Here in Denver, he went to high school, kissed his first girlfriend, bought his first car, got his first job. It was here, in a well-groomed cemetery, that his sister was buried. The Miata swerved in the rain on the airport road, dodging around an SUV, and David braced his arm against the dashboard. "Slow down, Jake."

  "Don't want to be late for my date tonight."

  "You've already got a new woman lined up?"

  "Already?" Jake scoffed. "It's been ten days since what's-her-face kicked me out."

  Jake Zitti, a news photographer for The Denver Post, never wasted time regretting relationships gone bad. Each time he was thrown, he dusted himself off and got right back on the horse, so to speak. "I don't know how you do it," David said.

  "Nothing hard about dating, pal. You ought to give it a try."

  "I date," David said. "I'm more selective than you are." A fruit fly was more selective than Jake.

  "You'd do well playing the field. The ladies like your type. You're practically one of the Baldwin brothers with your blue eyes and black hair, which looks to me like it's getting a little gray around the edges."

  "At least I've got hair." David stared pointedly at his friend's clean-shaved skull. "This new woman of yours. Is it serious?"

  "Why do you care?" Jake asked.

  "I want to know when you're moving your sorry butt out of my guest bedroom."

  "You love it when I'm staying at your town house," Jake said. "I'm a fun guy."

  David cringed as the Miata plunged forward, throwing up a backwash that splashed as high as the windows. "Yeah, real fun."

  "So, David, how long are you in town this time?"

  "It depends."

  David's job took him all over the country. As an investigative crime reporter, he flew to wherever the breaking news was. It wasn't a career path he'd consciously planned.

  Five years ago, when he was a sports reporter at The Denver Post, the closest he got to criminal activity was reporting on scandals with the local high school football team. Those were the good old days. Lots of skiing. Beer drinking. Hanging out with friends like Jake. Then David's world turned upside down.

  His kid sister, Danielle, became the fourth victim of a serial k
iller who drowned his victims and left their bodies near water with their feet tied together like a mermaid's tail. He was nicknamed the Fisherman, and he killed twice more after Danielle.

  David hadn't coped well with the tragedy. Even after the Fisherman was apprehended and convicted, David couldn't assuage the pain of losing his sister. Instead of following the sports news, he wrote impassioned editorials and columns on victims' rights and the court system. He was obsessed.

  When another serial killer struck in Nevada, he took a leave of absence from his job at The Post and went there. His interviews with witnesses, suspects and cops resulted in a series of articles which he sold to a national magazine. They liked his work and paid his way to the next crime scene in Florida. His reporting on serial killers, mass murderers and unsolved crimes turned into a regular feature,' and he developed a reputation, even appearing on television news shows as an expert.

  His reporting was respected. He was well paid and highly visible. But not satisfied. Racing from one brutal crime scene to the next, he never found the answers that would ease his own uncompromising grief and rage. How could such violence happen? Why? And why to Danielle?

  To Jake he said, "Actually, I'm planning to stay in Denver for a while."

  "Yeah? Is this a story I ought to know about?"

  "Old news. The Fisherman."

  Jake frowned. "Why rake up the past?"

  "Because he's dying." The convicted murderer of David's sister had liver cancer. He was dying in prison where he waited for the process of appeals on his death sentence. "And I need to know the truth. What if it wasn't him?"

  "He confessed," Jake said. "His DNA was found on the last victim."

  "But not on my sister."

  "You're wasting your time. The cops are never going to reopen that investigation."

  "I'm not going through the police." A week ago David had contacted Colorado Crime Consultants, a nonprofit network of private citizens who used their skills to investigate crime. CCC's experts included entomologists, doctors, lawyers, chemists and psychologists who volunteered their time to find the truth. They'd agreed to look into the Fisherman serial murders.

  Jake's cell phone played the opening notes to "You've Lost that Loving Feeling," and he answered. As he engaged in a loud, one-sided conversation, the Miata careered wildly along I-70, and David couldn't help remembering that Jake already had one near-death driving accident.

  David snapped, "Watch the road."

  "The road's not going anywhere." The Miata swooped toward the exit ramp. "That call was from the city desk. I need to make a stop to take some photos. Do you mind?"

  "Hell, yes. I'm starving."

  "Too bad. There is a crime scene at City Park and we happen to be five minutes away." If anyone else had been driving, they'd have been fifteen minutes away. "It's a woman. Her body's near the lake."

  Found near water. Like the victims of the Fisherman. David's hunger pangs tightened into a hard knot in his gut.

  Inside City Park, the Miata squealed to a stop. Jake leaped from the car and grabbed his camera equipment from the trunk.

  Stepping out into the fading drizzle, David turned up his collar. A sense of foreboding weighted his stride through the wet grass. Though he'd been to dozens of crime scenes, he'd never gotten accustomed to the horror. In every victim, he saw his sister.

  Halogen police lights illuminated the area near the lake, turning dusk into harsh daylight. Yellow crime-scene tape draped over leafy shrubs. The hum of tense conversation mingled with static from police radios.

  David slipped around the edge of the police cordon where uniforms and other forensic investigators converged on the body. He caught a glimpse of her delicate white feet, tied with cord at the ankles.

  Impotent rage crashed against his forehead with the impact of a jackhammer. This couldn't be happening again. His muscles clenched. Please, God, not again.

  Swimming laps was a form of therapeutic exercise for Blair Weston. In the accident, she'd shattered her wrist. Her right leg had been broken in four places, including a compound fracture of the right tibia and fibula. For a long time, the only place she'd been able to move without pain was in the pool.

  Now, five years later, she was mostly recuperated, but she still swam a hundred laps a day in the seventy-five-foot-long pool in the garden level of her high-rise condo building. The pale-turquoise water—a color that someone once told Blair matched her greenish-blue eyes— felt like a cool liquid caress, gently embracing her body as she stroked back and forth. An excellent morning workout. The exertion got her blood circulating and her heart pumping. Not unlike sex.

  What a pleasant idea! Sex! Blair could hardly remember the last time she'd been to bed with a man. Was five years ago long enough to recertify her as a virgin at age thirty-four? Rather a depressing thought.

  At the deep end, she rolled under the water and pushed away from the edge, gliding half the length of the pool underwater. Silence surrounded her. Through her goggles, she gazed at the flowing pattern of light and shadow in soothing ripples. When she broke the surface and caught a breath, she heard her name being called.

  "Hey, Blair!"

  Her first instinct was to dive, to ignore the intrusion. She preferred to keep swimming in lithe contemplation. But she paddled to the shallow end and looked up at the two men who awaited her. One was Adam Briggs, the head of Colorado Crime Consultants. Good! Adam was probably bringing her a project—something more to occupy her mind than contemplation of her status as a reborn virgin.

  Before the accident, Dr. Blair Weston had been a medical examiner in the Denver Coroner's Office. She still wasn't able to go back to full-time work—didn't have the stamina to stand for a long time without moving. Also, her head injuries caused uncontrollable dizzy spells. And her wrist, though healed, was still too shaky for detail work. Doing part-time consultation on medical forensics for CCC was all she could handle in spite of an ever-increasing need to bring in more income than she received from insurance disability.

  When she glanced toward the other man, she felt a pleasant spark of recognition. She peeled off her goggles and grinned. "David."

  The last time she'd seen David Crawford was over a year ago when they'd bumped into each other in the grocery store. They'd exchanged phone numbers. He'd never called, and she'd assumed there was nothing more to talk about.

  He squatted at the edge of the pool. "How're you doing, Blair?"

  "I'm fine." If he really cared, he would have telephoned her the last time they met. Therefore she assumed David was here for another reason. "What can I do for you?"

  "You look great," he said.

  Pushing away from the edge of the pool, she ducked her head under the water so her bangs would plaster over her forehead, covering the scar near her hairline. She assumed that David would revise his opinion of how "great" she looked if he could see the Frankenstein scars on her right leg.

  "You're the one who's looking good," she said. He'd aged well. The hint of silver in his thick, black hair added a touch of mature elegance. Though he was smiling, his grin was incomplete—lifting only on the left side in a way that made his face seem asymmetrical and interesting. She wondered if he had ever truly smiled after the death of his sister. "I saw you on TV. Some program about serial murders in Texas."

  Her voice echoed in the tiled pool room, giving this meeting a surreal, dreamlike quality—as if she were imagining these two men at the edge of the pool.

  Adam didn't stoop to talk to her. Though he'd left the military years ago, he maintained a rigid posture. He said, "Blair, I have a project for you."

  "Go ahead."

  "It's about the Fisherman."

  She bobbed under the water again. I don't want to hear this! Five years ago before her life came undone, the Fisherman serial murders had been her case. She'd autopsied all six of the victims. "I really don't think I want to—"

  "Get out of the damn pool," Adam said. "We can't have a sensible conversation while you're
splashing around like a dolphin."

  She looked away from Adam, turning her attention toward David. If she left the sheltering waters, he'd see her poor, battered leg. He'd notice her clumsy stride; he was a reporter and noticed everything.

  "Blair." Adam repeated her name as if she should snap to attention. "This consultation has important ramifications."

  "Like what?"

  "There was a murder last night in City Park. Some of the particulars resemble the Fisherman crimes."

  She shuddered. Though she'd heard a news flash on the radio, she had no idea about the connection. "But it can't be the Fisherman. He's in jail."

  "Maybe not," David said. "What if the wrong guy was convicted?"

  "No way." She couldn't accept that possibility; it was too scary. During the earlier investigation, there had been threats aimed directly at her. The Fisherman knew who she was, knew her preferences and habits. "Eddy Adderly was convicted. After he was put in jail, there were no more murders."

  "Until now," David said.

  "That doesn't fit any kind of psychological profile. Serial killers don't take five years off before striking again."

  "Out of the pool," Adam ordered. He held her towel. "Come on, Blair."

  "What's the big rush?"

  "I've arranged for you to observe the autopsy on this victim. This afternoon at 1530."

  "What time is that in civilian terms?"

  Adam rolled his eyes. "Three-thirty this afternoon. At the Coroner's Office."

  An autopsy? At her old office? A bevy of emotions charged through her brain: excitement at once again being part of a complex forensic investigation; satisfaction at the idea that she might be able to help; fear of plunging back into the fray.

  "Let's go," Adam snapped.

  Here came another emotion. She felt intensely self-conscious about climbing out of the pool. Don't be silly! She wasn't a giddy teenager who fretted about her body image. Blair was a grown woman, an adult. It shouldn't matter to her what David thought.

  Her thigh muscles flexed, and she stood up in the shallow water. A veil of droplets slid off her electric-blue, one-piece swimsuit with the French-cut legs that always seemed too high. She strode through the water and hoisted herself onto the concrete ledge.