by D'Ann Lindun
Jamie moved back toward her truck. “Shall we go then? I don’t see much point hanging around here when we have such a long day ahead.”
As they drove away, Jamie glanced in her rearview mirror at the lonely car. Something about it gave her the creeps, but she couldn’t put her finger on just why. Her dad’s shooting, four missing girls and Kate’s death was making her imagination run wild. She glanced at Austin and he met her eyes with a troubled look of his own. “That car bothers me.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I don’t want people to panic, but they need to be careful until we get this thing sorted out. Taking a hike in this environment isn’t smart.”
“Maybe it’s a guy,” Jamie said. “Who figures he’s too tough to get attacked.”
“Even so, not the brightest move.”
“No.” They lapsed into silence for several minutes until Jamie voiced her thoughts. “I wonder if any of the rest of the team learned anything. None of them called me with any news, so I’m guessing not.”
“I don’t think there’s anything new to learn from any of the families.” He glanced out the side window. “I think they’d do anything to get their loved ones back.”
His words made Jamie’s heart crunch up like the fall leaves under her boots. So many hurting people. Broken hearts and broken spirits. A town on the verge of hysteria.
Before she could dwell on it, Kate’s land and the spot where her body had been discovered appeared.
Jamie pulled the truck to the side of the road and killed the engine. She reached for her coat when Austin placed his big hand over hers. Startled, she looked into his silvery gray eyes filled with concern.
“Be super alert, Jamie. I imagine this guy is long gone, but you can’t be too careful.”
“I will,” Jamie promised. He removed his hand and a strange disappointment filled her. At the same time full confidence Austin would have her back reassured her. She opened the door and stepped out. A cold wind blew little dust devils raced across the cedar and juniper covered landscape. Fall had arrived.
Together, Jamie and Austin unloaded the horses, packed their lunches in the saddlebags and loaded their rifles in the scabbards. Each tied a slicker on their saddle. By the looks of the clouds, they were in for a downpour of epic proportions. Hopefully the trail didn’t completely wash out before they figured out where the alleged killer had gone.
Jamie shrugged into her heavy jean coat and stuffed her leather gloves into the pocket. As she untied the horses, Austin searched the ground near where Kate’s body had lain. Hammer sniffed the ground around there, too, and peed on a bush. Probably where the sheepherder’s dogs had marked them.
Austin stopped and stared at the ground. “Here are the tracks I noticed. Except these aren’t those tracks because these have been made since the rain.” Jamie led the two horses to where he stood as he pointed out the trail. “See? One horse. Coming and going out the exact same way. The sheepherder went that way.” Today there was no sign of the herder or his flock.
Jamie handed over Sunshine’s reins. “Let’s find out where our mystery rider went.”
~*~
As they headed across the juniper and cedar covered desert, the wind picked up enough that Jamie tucked her chin into her chest and fought to keep her eyes open in the swirling dust. Sunshine kept fighting to turn his tail to the storm, but Jamie insisted the gelding move forward, following the trail. Hammer ran ahead, his nose to the ground tracking the alleged killer.
Before they reached the edge of the White Forest, the rain came swift and hard. Jamie reined in and dismounted. She untied her slicker from behind her saddle and struggled into it. Austin did the same.
Jamie shouted to be heard over the wind. “The rider’s left the trail here and gone into the woods. I can still see faint hoof prints, though.”
“Let’s keep going,” Austin yelled back.
With a nod, Jamie remounted the palomino and turned him back into the face of the storm, Austin falling in behind her. Jamie again found the faint set of lone horse tracks leading toward the whipping aspens and followed them.
By the time they hit the tree line, rain came in buckets of freezing ice water. Inside her coat, gloves and slicker, Jamie was warm enough, but the faint trail she’d been following vanished in the downpour. Even Hammer seemed to have lost the scent. He looked forlorn with his soaked fur and sad eyes.
Jamie gestured toward a cove of pines. Austin nodded and she headed that way. Once among the evergreens, she said, “I’ve lost the trail. Let’s hole up and let this thing blow over. Maybe we can find some tracks again after it clears off.”
“I seriously doubt it after two rainstorms.” Austin dismounted and led Nugget under the branches of an enormous scotch pine. “This downpour will wipe out anything there.”
Jamie joined him with Sunshine. Even Hammer wiggled in, planting himself next to Jamie’s feet.
The five bodies crowded together, warming all.
Or maybe it was just Austin pressed against her that heated Jamie. Chest to chest, hip to hip. His solid body felt like a wall of granite. Jamie’s nipples hardened in a way that had nothing to do with the chill in the air.
She fought her attraction.
It could go nowhere.
“I’m doubtful we can pick up the trail again,” she said.
“Maybe we should just scout around and see if we can find anything,” Austin replied.
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “A piece of fabric caught on a tree, a dropped flashlight. Anything.”
“He’d have to be pretty careless,” Jamie said.
“It’s happened before.” Raindrops fell from the brim of his hat. “Is there a cabin or mineshaft around here?”
“Kate’s line shack is the only one I know of, and it’s back about five miles where the trail forked left.”
He stared at her with disapproval in his ice-gray eyes. “You didn’t think to mention this then?”
“No,” she said slowly. “I didn’t think it was important. The tracks kept going…”
“A remote cabin is an excellent place for a criminal to hole up.”
“You don’t think he’s running the other direction as fast as he can? We’ve been on his trail until the rain knocked it out.” An icy trickle found its way down her back. “Unless those weren’t the killer’s tracks at all.”
“Probably were, but if he knows about this cabin, it’s a place he might have ducked into to wait out the storm.”
“I can take us there now.” She moved to the palomino’s side. Instantly she felt colder, being away from Austin. “There’s also the sheepherder’s camp, but its way down low. Not far from where we found Kate’s body.”
“We better check there, too.”
Anger at her own incompetence filled Jamie. How could she be so foolish as not to consider Kate’s line shack as a possible hiding place for her killer? She was a rank amateur at police work. Maybe she ought to step down and let somebody more experienced take over. Big Jim’s boots were just too big to fill.
“Knock that off,” Austin said.
Her head jerked up. “What?”
“Second guessing yourself. We’ll look on the way back.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He stepped close enough she could see the black spots in his gray irises. “I mean it. Just move forward. We don’t have time to be worrying about what we did or didn’t do.”
“Okay.” She turned toward the palomino and tightened his cinch. “I think the rain’s letting up.”
It wasn’t, but she wanted, no needed, to get away. Before she did something even dumber and let her hormones get out of control. She swung aboard the gelding and gasped when her rear hit the soaked saddle.
“You okay?” Austin asked.
“Just wet.”
Her words hung between them for a half second.
“Let’s ride,” he said gruffly.
Jamie stifled a nervous giggle. She hadn’t mean
t to be suggestive, and she’d bet Austin hadn’t either, but their exchange left her tingling. Hopefully Austin hadn’t noticed the way her face flamed. She lifted her reins and tapped Sunshine’s sides with her heels.
Leaving the security of the pines, she ducked her chin into her slicker and zig-zagged across the meadow, searching for anything that would put her back on the trail. It seemed impossible. The tracks washed out, leaving no trace.
Reining in, she lifted her head.
Below her by several yards, Austin had his gaze on the ground. She watched him for a moment, then turned away. Nothing would get accomplished by sitting and staring at a good looking man.
The downpour had caused the creek to rise and it thundered across boulders with a raging fury. The loud crashing drew Jamie’s attention. From her vantage point she considered crossing. Ordinarily, the stream would be at least a foot lower, easily stepped across by a human. The other side opened into a wide spot that looked like a good place to pitch a tent.
In fact, the more she looked, the more it became obvious someone had done just that. A flat spot in the grass showed where a small, probably two-man tent had been placed. For the grass to still be down, the tent had to have been there fairly recently.
She waved at Austin and he joined her.
“There’s been a tent there not too long ago,” she told him and pointed out the location.
“I see it.” He urged Nugget to cross the roaring creek.
Sunshine followed with a huge leap. Unease danced up and down Jamie’s spine as they approached the campsite. Her mood transferred to the horse because he snorted and danced. She placed a hand on his wet neck. “Steady, boy.”
“Anything look funny to you?” Austin asked as he dismounted.
Jamie slid from Sunshine’s back and stared at the ground around where the tent had been. “There wasn’t a fire, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could have used a propane stove. I don’t see any tracks, but again, with this rain I wouldn’t.”
They circled the perimeter of the campsite, but found nothing of use. Whoever had used the site went above and beyond to follow the pack-it-in-pack-it-out law of wilderness camping. There wasn’t an iota of evidence to be found.
The rain began to stop, slowing to a drizzle.
Jamie moved to her horse and opened her saddlebags. She withdrew a thermos. “I need to warm up a little. I can’t think when I’m this cold.”
After pouring a cup of coffee, Jamie sipped the hot brew. It slid down her throat, into her stomach, warming her all the way to her numb toes. Hot steam rose in the chilly air as Austin opened his own thermos and drank from the lid.
“I wonder if this camp belonged to whoever was driving that blue car we saw at the trailhead?” Jamie mused out loud. “I’d bet the storm cut their trip short.”
Austin shrugged. “Makes sense.”
“Odd we didn’t pass on the trail,” Jamie said. “Although there are a few places where they could have branched off.”
“Before the rain washed them out, did you see human tracks?” Austin tasted his coffee again.
Jamie furrowed her brow. “No. Just that one set of hoofprints.”
“That means the people came first,” Austin said.
A shiver ran up and down Jamie’s spine that had nothing to do with the weather. Her eyes met Austin’s troubled gaze. In the gray depths she saw the same worry she had—what if the campers ran into the same creep who killed Kate?
She finished her coffee and stuffed her thermos back in the saddlebags.
Hammer, who had been sniffing around, began barking at the edge of the trees.
“Quiet,” Jamie commanded.
The well-trained mutt stopped for a minute then began barking again. His hair stood up on the back of his neck and he growled low in his throat.
“What is it, buddy?” Jamie took a step that way and Austin grabbed her wrist.
“Wait.”
Surprised, she glanced at him. “Why?”
“There might be someone hiding over there.” His voice was low and harsh.
“It’s probably just an animal.” The hair on the back of Jamie’s neck stood up and she unsnapped her holster and withdrew her gun.
Austin grabbed his pistol, too, and cocked it.
Together, they slipped toward the frantic dog.
Jamie bumped into Austin’s back when he came to an abrupt halt. “What is it?”
“A body.” He replaced his gun in his holster.
“What?” Jamie stood on her tiptoes to look over his shoulder. A man, half hidden under an oak brush, lay on his back. She took a couple steps closer. Although the branches concealed the man’s upper torso, she could see dried blood covered his jeans. His hands were flung out beside him, palms up. Her stomach churned.
“Oh, God.”
Austin stepped closer, knelt and carefully parted the branches. A gaping wound had been slashed across the man’s throat. His mouth was twisted in a horrific grimace and blood painted the front of his jacket. “Damn.”
“Should we move him?”
“Did you bring the camera?” he asked.
“In my saddlebags.” Jamie ran and grabbed it. When she returned, she spotted something across the meadow. “Do you see something odd?”
“Other than a dead man in the wilderness?”
She touched his shoulder and when he glanced at her, she pointed. “Look over there.”
His gaze followed the line of her finger to a crumpled bright blue and yellow piece of material stuffed under a pile of bushes. “I see it.”
“A tent?”
“That didn’t get there on its own,” Austin said.
“It looks like someone tried to hide it, but didn’t do much of a job of it.” Jamie shivered as a sudden gust of wind lifted one corner of the bright nylon and rattled it. “I wonder if this is our hiker? The one who left the blue car at the trailhead?”
“Pretty likely, I’d say.” He parted the branches again. “Take a lot of pictures.”
She snapped several dozen from every angle she could manage without disturbing the body. Or the area directly around it.
He stood. “Let’s check for evidence.”
Together, they scoured the area, but didn’t find anything significant. The rain hadn’t helped, washing away any tracks. They examined the tent. Inside were two sleeping bags, two backpacks—one with a woman’s clothing, the other with a man’s—and assorted camping gear, including jerky and trail mix.
“There’s two people,” Jamie commented. “I wonder where the other one is.”
“Maybe our killer,” Austin suggested. He looked through the backpacks, but found no I.D.s, only spare clothing.
“We need to get Doc Baines to pronounce our body, but my work phone has no reception out here.” Jamie stared at the body. “And neither does my walkie. The antennae doesn’t sit in the right spot for reception.”
Austin glanced around as a gust of wind rattled the trees. “We better go after the coroner and rescue team. The sooner we get this body out of here, the sooner we can get some answers.” He glanced toward the whipping trees. “This guy is escalating now. Two deaths so close together is a sign he’s losing control. I should keep looking—”
“You don’t know these woods,” Jamie protested. “You might get lost or hurt. Not to mention the rain has washed away all the tracks.”
“I have my guns.” He tapped his hidden sidearm. “And I’m pretty savvy about mountain tracking. Growing up in the hollers of Kentucky made me pretty smart that way.”
She couldn’t deny he knew his way around the mountains. But he would be alone and so would she. “I hate to split up.”
He searched her face. “You worried about your safety? I believe this guy is on the run right now. I won’t leave you if you’re afraid he might circle around.”
“No.” She stiffened her spine, just like Big Jim would. “I’m not scared.”
“Good girl.” His praise sent a tingle of plea
sure zinging through her, but she hid it with a frown.
“How long until the rescue team gets back in here?”
“Not long. Depends on how much time it takes to get down the mountain, get them rounded up.” She did a quick mental calculation. “About eight hours total. It’s what, noon, now?”
“Yeah. A little after.”
“Morning, then.” A little shiver tap danced down her spine before she shook it off. “I don’t want to bring them back up this trail in the dark.”
He moved toward the horses and opened his saddlebags. Removing the sack lunch, he split it and handed half to her. “We better eat, then ride.”
She glanced at the body and her stomach churned. “Not real hungry right now.”
Without comment, he shoved the food back into the saddlebags. He grabbed the golden horse’s reins. “You ready to ride, then?”
Jamie caught her own horse and swung aboard. She glanced around and made mental notes of the landmarks which would lead her back to this horrible place. With a lift of the reins, she urged the palomino to hit the trail.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The wind whistling through the trees made an eerie sound, one that made the hair on the back of Jamie’s neck stand up and her skin prickle. Probably because she’d never found a murdered camper before. In all of Big Jim’s career, he’d maybe dealt with three murders. And that was over a course of thirty-plus years. In her short term, she’d already seen two bodies; one of them a friend. Were the missing women also dead? A shudder that had nothing to do with cold ran down her back.
A rifle shot cracked like thunder.
Austin yelled something unintelligible.
Before Jamie could turn around to see if he was all right, bark exploded against the tree closest to Sunshine. The startled gelding spun sideways, sliding in the thick, pastern-deep mud. A second shot sent him plunging over the edge of the trail. Tree branches ripped at Jamie’s face and hands. She struggled to control the panicked horse and grab her pistol from her shoulder holster. A branch hit her knuckles and she dropped the gun onto the forest floor.
The rocky, steep embankment was not a place to stand upright and Sunshine fought to keep his footing. The incline was too steep and his legs went out from under him. He landed like a ton of golden bricks on Jamie’s right leg. Pain rocketed through her ankle. “God damn.”