by Emery Hayes
“Cold, even in summer,” Nicole said.
“We’re not afraid of a few goose bumps,” Jordan said. “And we think you’ll do fine too.”
“Yeah? You talked about that, did you?”
Jordan nodded. “With all the running you’ve been doing, hiking and camping in Banff will be easy-peasy for you.”
“Well, thanks for that vote of encouragement.” She didn’t have to work hard to keep the enthusiasm out of her voice, and both Jordan and MacAulay chuckled. Nicole was fifty-fifty on the camping experience. She loved nature, mostly from afar. She enjoyed her runs along the Latham trail, being outside on blustery days, drinking her coffee on the deck as the sun rose, and kayaking the currents and shallows of lake and river. She did not like waking up, stiff and cold, and rolling out of a sleeping bag into frigid morning temperatures. Outdoor plumbing by flashlight, days without a shower, and freeze-dried food were beyond uncivilized; they were unpleasant inconveniences that bordered on torture. But by her second cup of coffee and all the way into sunset, she was a happy camper.
“We bought you a little something yesterday,” MacAulay said. “It will completely change your mind about sleeping in the great wide open.”
“A blow-up Sealy Beautyrest?”
“Close,” Jordan said, as he tucked into his pancakes. “Better, because it’s lighter to carry and rolls up so you can fit it inside your pack. It’s water-resistant and has thermal crystal technology.” He gazed at her over his forkful. “A guaranteed cozy sleep.”
“Sounds like you read that off the packaging.”
“Has more than eight hundred reviews, four and a half stars.” He was luring her.
“And self-inflates,” MacAulay added, wiggling his eyebrows at her.
Nicole burst out laughing. “Okay,” she said. “You guys win.”
“You’ll go?” Jordan asked.
“At least as far as the backyard.”
“Mom,” Jordan protested. “Dig a little deeper. Adventure awaits.”
“Well, I do have three weeks’ vacation time waiting on the books,” she said. She had been planning a week at Disney, now that Star Wars had opened at the Park. A surprise for Jordan. “I suppose we could spend ten of those days in the wild.”
Jordan whooped, and she caught MacAulay’s gaze over her son’s head. He smiled broadly. And all of this felt good and right.
She rose from the table. It was already six AM. She was meeting Lars at eight and had a mountain of paperwork to get through before that.
“I’ll get you a thermos,” MacAulay said.
“You’re going to drive to the trailhead, then?” she asked.
“Yeah. We’ll stop by your place first, load up Jordan’s things.”
“Be careful out there.”
“Always.”
“Especially now,” she stressed, but it wasn’t necessary. He nodded once, but the ponderous look in his eyes was telling.
She ran her hand over Jordan’s head and said, “Stand up and give your mom a hug good-bye.”
“It’s only one night,” Jordan said, but he complied.
His head came to just below her chin, and his arms and shoulders were starting to fill out. He was steadfastly marching toward his teen years, and time seemed to be escaping her.
“You’re into that growth spurt,” she said. He’d taken longer than his peers to move up the growth chart and had been somewhat preoccupied about it lately.
He pulled back and smiled big. “I know, right?”
When she pulled out of MacAulay’s driveway, she left her two men, happy and safe, behind. The two most important people in her world.
30
Nicole arrived at the office when it was still dark. She checked the clock on the dash. She had ninety minutes to get paperwork done before Lars arrived. It would be like scaling Everest without Os. Crushing. Impossible. She would have to be happy with making a dent in a pile that threatened avalanche. She pulled out her baton before she exited the vehicle, having had enough of surprise meetings in the shadows of night. She had a replacement Glock holstered at her hip. She’d pulled her Colt from the blasted Yukon the night before and took that along with her briefcase and walked across the parking lot.
She let herself in through her private entrance at the back of the station. It opened directly into her office. Usually she would check in with the desk clerk, stop by dispatch for a hello. This morning she sat down, cradling the to-go cup of coffee MacAulay had prepared for her, and made neat stacks of the paperwork she needed to get through. She approved pay first, then set MacAulay’s autopsy reports and Sleeping Bear’s forensic conclusions side by side.
She went with the more pleasant of the two. Arthur Sleeping Bear had been busy. There were detailed entries on the evidence he’d already shared with her when she’d stopped by his lab. Those she skimmed for any developments. She stopped when she hit the report on Green’s handgun. Arthur had pulled a single strand of hair that had been tangled in the sight. Seven and a quarter inches long, cuticle intact. He was able to cull DNA. In a prelim test, he had used hair taken from Agent Baker, along with skin samples, and determined it was a match. The hair in Green’s gun had come from Agent Baker. Further, the measurements, indentations—“cratering,” as Sleeping Bear noted—indicated that the gun had been the one used to strike Agent Baker in the head. Margin for error on analysis was less than 2 percent. Green had killed Melody Baker.
He’s in the wind. The thought taunted her. He’d probably left late last night. Been one of the shooters in the trees and then, cutting his loses, made directly for the border. It made sense. With all the movement along the drug and money pipeline, certainly Green had enough to live happily ever after, so why wait around for more? Why risk losing life and liberty?
Sleeping Bear hadn’t gotten to the sound recorders—they hadn’t been recovered until after midnight.
There was a knock at her door then, and Nicole closed the folders in front of her, stacking one on top of the other, before calling for him to enter. It was Lars. He looked somewhat refreshed. At least, he had on a clean shirt and had taken time to shave.
“You got some sleep,” she said.
“You too.” He sat down across her desk, grinning suddenly, which softened his face. “But not at your place. I stopped by last night after finishing up at Luke Franks’ place.”
“Did you?” she said. She tried not to squirm. She would not be a worm dangling at the end of his hook.
Recognizing her discomfort, he burst out laughing. “I’m going to let this go, I promise.”
“But not anytime soon.”
“In another minute or two.”
Nicole felt her skin warm but refused to pull at the collar of her uniform to let in a little cool air.
“You see, I had this thought. Wasn’t sure if I was at the heels of our killers or barking up a tree. Wanted to run it past you before I lost it.”
“So try me.”
“I called your cell phone. Did you get my message?”
“No.” She reached for her cell, but he stopped her.
“I didn’t leave it on voice mail. I gave it to the ME.”
That stunned Nicole.
“Don’t worry,” Lars said. “Your secret is safe with me. Just wanted you to know that I know.” And then he smiled again, and it was packed with satisfaction and guile. “Really,” he said, but it wasn’t reassuring. “I’m going to get some mileage out of this. But nothing too over-the-top.”
“Well, gee, thanks for that,” she said. “MacAulay didn’t give me the message.”
Lars nodded. “He was half-asleep, thought he was answering his own phone. I confused him. Told him I’d see you in the morning.”
And then Lars sat back and stared at her with a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Thirty seconds,” she said. “That’s how long you have to get comfortable with this and never bring it up again.”
“Oh, I’m comfortable with it.”
“Really? Why? We work together, MacAulay, me, and you. You don’t think there’ll be some awkward moments?”
“Oh, I’m hoping there’ll be some. In the beginning, anyway.” He tried to keep his tone even, but she heard the anticipation in it. And then he gave it up and laughed aloud. “I think we have a week or two before this becomes old news between the three of us.”
“And work will be as it always has been?”
“Of course. I figure you and Doc have been at it for a while. You’re comfortable with each other at work, never even tiptoed across the professional line that I’ve noticed. Why would you start now?”
“We wouldn’t,” she said, then raised her eyebrows in question. “Your theory?” she prompted.
“Yeah.” He leaned forward, and Nicole could feel the energy behind his idea radiate off of him in waves. “If Ty was still with us, Green would use him to steal the drugs out of our evidence locker and then they’d all hustle up over the border, probably at Shoe Horn.”
“Why there?”
The Shoe Horn was a well-worn path through an outcropping of rocks east of Lake Maria and above the Astum River Trail. It wouldn’t be the quickest route to the border and probably not even the safest. It was a steep climb that opened on the Canadian side above a deep canyon and swiftly moving river. Neither an easy pass.
“It would be hard to follow them,” Lars said.
“They’d be counting on that,” she agreed. “If they could get down the canyon wall, they’d have the river to float them.”
“Only as far as the nest. Then they’d take to foot. But with the ground cover—” Lars shrugged. “Maybe they’d have a chance.” The nest was a small satellite station of specially trained Canadian Mounted Police. They were a handful of rock climbers and river divers who knew the terrain, who could read it like the blind could read Braille.
“Or think they would.”
“With that much money in hand, they’d risk it,” Lars said.
“But Ty is dead, so how will they get the drugs?”
“I thought they might try to take the station, like in the Wild West. Charge through with guns blazing. But then we took out half their crew last night. So what does that leave them with? A burning greed but not enough manpower to make things happen.”
“So what then?”
“So they wait for the transport,” Lars said. “That’s been their MO all along—steal it in transport.”
“Hell yes.” Nicole shifted through her pile of folders, located the one she was looking for, and flipped it open. “Ten thirty AM,” she said. “The drugs are due to leave our evidence locker and transport to Billings in three hours.”
That didn’t give them a lot of time.
“Ty wouldn’t have known the drugs were scheduled to go today,” she said. MacAulay hadn’t even discovered them until after Ty was dead. And Monte hadn’t turned over the stash from the party boat until hours ago. “But he would have known there was a transport scheduled.”
“And there’s one more thing,” Lars said.
“The USB,” she said. She’d known Lars had listened to it by now. “Was it as good as Monte said?”
Lars nodded. “It’s enough to lock Green away for life. And a few other agents too.”
She heard hesitancy in his voice. “But?”
“There’s someone else. Someone as big as Green, maybe bigger.”
“And we don’t know who?”
“They never mention him by name. Well, a nickname that’s less than flattering. Cupcake.”
“It’s a woman?”
Lars shook his head and said, “They refer to him with the masculine pronoun.”
* * *
The transport vehicle was an armored van, had puncture-resistant tires, and was usually driven by a single deputy who pulled roster duty. Nicole made a few changes, using Sisk to drive while she and Lars tucked themselves in back with an empty cargo bin. Not willing to risk the contamination of evidence, they had never moved it from the station. Jane Casper had buried herself behind digital doors in the back conference room, and Nicole had given her a heads-up before they pulled out. There was a possibility that Green and company had caught wind of the switch and, as Lars had suggested, would try to rush the station for the now forty million in fentanyl. Casper had made her way to weapons and checked out a Colt she promised to keep at hand in addition to her service revolver. Nicole had prepped the desk clerk and called in an additional deputy before leaving.
“You get ahold of Franks?” Lars asked, interrupting her thoughts.
Nicole nodded. They sat on the cargo floor with their backs against the sideboard, Commandos across their laps, Colts and Sigs and Glocks strapped to various body parts. Forty million. The big heist. Worth hanging around for. Worth the trouble, the danger, and the possible arrest in trying to get it back. People had died for less.
Greed was a powerful motivator.
She liked lining her nest, just not as much as some. She liked what money could do for her—let her keep a comfortable home, spend time with Jordan, go adventuring, pay for a dress and a DJ. The thought of marrying MacAulay no longer left her breathless. Now that she’d decided, she hoped he wouldn’t take his time asking. She’d fallen in love with a man who needed tradition. A man who was slow and methodical, which certainly had its benefits, but it also pulled at the threads of her patience.
“Luke Franks thinks you’re right,” Nicole said. “That Green won’t leave without the fentanyl.”
“And our greatest vulnerability?”
“It could go either way,” she said. “Either they’ll think we’re transporting it, with a cargo of deputies, or they’ll think we’re the decoy.”
“They’ll have to pick their battle.”
“And it’ll be transport. They won’t risk the drugs getting away from them.” She agreed with Franks. She expected trouble, and she didn’t like being pinned inside a tin can, no matter how thick the skin. “Left at the station, they can go back for it, make an attempt there later. If they have a later.”
They had reinforcements. Nicole had ordered a charge of four deputies, coming in from a variety of geographical points and at intervals of time. None too close. Green and his small army of agents were trained in surveillance. Nicole had ordered a wide window—maybe too wide?—at six minutes.
“So maybe they’re lying in wait along the route, with just one scout following from town,” Lars said.
“My thought too.” One man to make sure the transport was in motion. So far, Sisk hadn’t noticed even a distant tail. “Does Ellie still worry about you?”
Lars raised an eyebrow. She watched as the corner of his mouth twitched, and then to hide it, he pursed his lips in a pretense of consideration. But the struggle was real. His eyes gleamed with a wicked humor.
“Forget I asked,” she said.
“No. It was a good question.”
“Shut up.”
He laughed. It was low, amused, and blessedly short. “Yeah, she worries. We don’t talk about it a lot.” He shifted. Sisk turned a corner, and they both swayed with the movement. “The Esparza case a few months ago, with the murdered girl. That got to her.” Because the victim had been very close in age to their daughter, Amber. “When the bodies started piling up, I could tell she was struggling with it.”
“And what do you do about that?”
He shrugged. “Make sure I’m home for dinner more than not. The kids are old enough now they head straight into their rooms after we eat, and then Ellie and I sit on the deck and talk. Not always about the job. Almost never about that. Sometimes about how we met, the early days, where we’ll go on our next vacation. We’ll start a fire, drink some coffee, wrap up in blankets.”
“She likes to snuggle.”
“She’s not the only one.”
Nicole let her gaze fall on him, full of skepticism.
“Hey, from a guy’s perspective, what’s not to love about holding a soft woman and making plans about
the future?”
Nicole noted that his tone was a shade defensive and decided to believe him.
“It’s just that you’re so”—she scrambled for a word— “reserved, I guess.”
“We’re different away from the job,” he said.
Nicole was just beginning to realize this.
“Are you worried about MacAulay’s reaction to the danger of your job? If that’s the case, he already knows all about it. Doesn’t mean it won’t make him uncomfortable from time to time,” Lars warned.
“Yeah.” She changed the subject, but since they were talking about worries, it seemed to fit right in. “I called the Scout leader,” Nicole admitted. “I thought maybe canceling the trip altogether would be a good idea.”
“Hmm,” Lars said. The van slowed and bumped across a cattle guard. They bounced off each other’s shoulders, but she heard the tone in his voice.
“I don’t think it was unreasonable.”
“We have no tangible basis for the request,” Lars said.
“It wasn’t a request. I just suggested maybe next week was a better time.”
“Based on a hunch. We might end things here and now. Or Green and company might skirt the lake and cut into the trees there. It’s the usual route.”
“It’s a hunch,” she agreed. “But a good one.”
“With nothing to back it up.”
“Yeah. That.”
“What did the Scout leader say?”
Nicole grimaced. “That he appreciated my call but there’s nothing to worry about. The Scouts aren’t heading for the Shoe Horn. They’re only covering sixteen miles of trail, round trip. How sure am I? he wanted to know.”
“He treated you like a worried mom?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, we don’t know what to expect. If the wind shifts, we can call the Scouts in then.”
Nicole nodded, but she didn’t feel good about it. She’d emailed an advisory to the local news outlets about the possibility of increased traffic over the border, about the need for caution in the burled stretch of Toole County’s highest points north.
The sudden lurching of the vehicle broke through her thoughts. There was a screeching of metal, the burn of rubber. The back of the van lifted and shuddered. The sway bars, the heavy armor, kept the van on the road, but barely. Nicole and Lars were thrown across the cargo area. Caught off guard, Lars let his Commando skitter toward the back doors, and he crabbed after it.