Cold Sweat

by J. S. Marlo

“Would you—” Gil’s invitation to take a seat was cut short by the sheriff’s arrival. “Sheriff? Eve has a new lead we’d like to follow, and you have a visitor.”

  “Go ahead with the lead.” Morgan hung his cap on a hook near the door. “What’s the Army doing here?”

  The military woman spun around. The astounded look on her face matched Morgan’s. “Richmond?”

  Up to this morning, Gil had never seen anything or anyone rattle the sheriff’s composure or shake his boots. The visitor’s mere presence had managed both.

  As entertaining and enlightening as it might be, staying to watch the encounter didn’t strike Gil as a good or safe idea. “Eve and I are leaving. We’ll keep you posted.”

  Chapter Four

  Amelia had a knack for emptying rooms, but never with so few words. The speed at which Thompson and the pretty redhead with an unmistakable front bump exited the office had to be a new record.

  “Hello, Amelia.” Richmond raked his fingers through short blond hair streaked with rich caramel lowlights. Age had chiseled his face, accentuating his piercing blue-grey eyes. “What brings you here?”

  She hadn’t seen him in eighteen years, and the last she’d heard, he worked for the FBI. His reputation as a cold and calculating agent, the best in the field, preceded him. That he didn’t conceal his surprise at seeing her was nothing short of stunning.

  “You’re Sheriff Morgan?” Had she known he was the sheriff, she might have hesitated—for a second. Unless he’d lost his touch, Richmond Morgan was still her daughter’s best hope. “Is that a promotion or demotion from Special Agent?”

  “Promotion.” He tossed his coat on a chair. The outerwear slid from the backrest, heaping on the seat, but he didn’t seem to care. “No commute, no bureaucrat, and no politics. Only fresh air, friendly folks, and two dedicated deputies.”

  “You look great, Richmond.” It appeared the decades had washed away his aristocratic attitude, leaving behind a quiet contentment. “Your promotion agrees with you.”

  “You’re not doing too bad yourself.” The ghost of a smile fleeted across his lips. “Colonel at thirty-eight. I’m impressed.”

  “Thirty-nine to be exact, but I’m not here on Army business.” Goldman’s phone call had interrupted a late night meeting. She hadn’t bothered changing into civilian clothes before jumping in the first plane out of Boston. “My daughter is missing, Richmond. I need your help to find her.”

  “Daughter?” He sat on the corner of an unoccupied desk near the coffee cart. “I’m listening.”

  “Her name is Hope Craig a.k.a. Quest.” Amelia retrieved her daughter’s biography from her purse—to save time she’d printed it from the team’s website—and handed it to him. It contained a close-up picture of Hope taken in August.

  “She’s as pretty as her mother.” For a moment, his gaze seemed to lose its focus. “Where’s her father?”

  “He was a U.S. Air Force pilot. We met in Europe after I graduated. He died that August in a training accident.” Her voice faltered. “He never knew about Hope.”

  “I see...” As he focused his attention on the sheet of paper, an invisible veil dropped over his head, blanking his expression. “Biathlon athlete...Trains at Snowy Tip...Seventeen...Lt. Norm H. Craig...” With a few random words, he’d summarized Hope’s life story. “When did she go missing?”

  “Hope went on a lone training run at dawn yesterday morning.” If only her disappearance had raised suspicion earlier on. “It was the last time she was seen.”

  “Your daughter disappeared more than twenty-four hours ago, and you just notified me?”

  Richmond didn’t move or raise his voice, but he might as well as yelled. The verbal blow struck her the same.

  “I didn’t learn about her disappearance until late last night. I flew...” Tears she refused to shed in front of him stung her eyes. Despite her military training, keeping her emotions at bay was becoming increasingly difficult. “Her coach got a message but it wasn’t from Hope.”

  “Hold on here.” Abandoning his stoic pose on the desk, he closed the distance between them and captured her right hand. “For your daughter’s sake, let’s just start at the beginning, okay? You said she was alone in the mountains?”

  He stroked the bare skin at the edge of her glove. In his touch, Amelia found the strength she’d sought all night.

  “Hope was born deaf. As a child, she was equipped with a Cochlear implant, but it’s not a perfect fit. Sometimes the white noise becomes too much to bear. She needs her daily dose of silence. Early every morning, Coach Goldman allows her to train solo without her transmitter.”

  That special treatment had been the main reason why Amelia had resisted Hope’s decision to train at Snowy Tip, but her daughter was as stubborn as her father. In the end, Amelia had yielded.

  Without releasing her hand, Richmond forced her to sit on a chair. “The transmitter is the external part that connects to the ear allowing her to hear, right?”

  Surprised by his knowledge of her daughter’s condition, Amelia responded with a short nod.

  “Can she hear at all on her own? Or would she have been oblivious to any threatening sounds?”

  “Oblivious, but she’s learned to rely on her other senses to compensate for the lack of hearing.”

  “I understand.” His gaze bore into her soul, unleashing memories too painful to revisit. “Please continue.”

  “Yesterday morning, Coach Goldman received a text message he believed to be from Hope. The message said she was taking the rest of the day off to deal with personal issues. Goldman assumed Hope had returned from her practice run and was either too upset or too tired to show up at the shooting range. He didn’t push for an explanation and didn’t worry until last night when she missed the curfew. That’s when he called me. I took the first flight west and went directly to Snowy Tip.

  “Hope’s cell phone and her tablet were in her room. She didn’t use any of them to send that message. I checked.” A lump formed in her throat, and panic surged once more inside her chest. “She’s my only child, Richmond. I need her back.”

  He squeezed her hand. “No falling apart now, Colonel. Your daughter is counting on you. Did they mount a search of the mountains?”

  “Wayne River, the chief of maintenance and operations, is organizing a search as we speak, but he didn’t show much optimism. People skied all day yesterday. No one reported anything amiss.”

  If Hope had left any clues in the trail, they would be long gone by now.

  “We’ll start where Hope was last seen and work from there.” His voice exuded confidence—confidence she immensely needed. “How does that sound?”

  Amelia liked the pronoun we. Despite pulling his hand away to reach for his coat, Richmond wasn’t shutting her down.

  ***

  A young brunette with bright pink glasses manned the post office. To Eve’s bemusement, she ogled Gil from head to toes then worked her way up again.

  “Inspection is over, Missy.” Her partner was a nice guy, but he wasn’t a stud muffin by any stretch of the imagination—not like her Nathan. “We’re here for a postal box, not an appraisal.”

  “I’ve never seen a man in uniform up close.” The employee fluttered dark, long eyelashes at Gil, totally ignoring Eve. “What’s the name again?”

  “Box 8888. Sly Serpent.” Had Eve known showing up with a male in uniform was as good as presenting a warrant, she wouldn’t have wasted time asking for one. “Do I need to spell it, Missy?”

  “No, ma’am. Give me a sec.”

  Behind the girl, parcels were stacked against the wall. The one at the bottom was being compressed under the weight of the others. Whoever receives it won’t be happy.

  The employee pulled a 4x6 card from a plastic box. “Sly Serpent. He rented the box on November 21st. A three-month lease. Paid cash.”

  Serpent had rented the box three weeks ago. Then on December 5th, he’d organized the calendar shoot.

&nbs
p; The bad vibrations from the case rocked Eve’s baby. That’s premeditation. “Do you have an address?”

  “It’s in Missoula.”

  “Write it down.” It would have been too simple had it been in Anaconda. “Does it list the pieces of identification he used to rent the box?”

  The girl’s eyes, which had darted back and forth as she copied the address on a post-note, paused on the card. Her young face lit up. “My initials are at the bottom. He showed me a Montana driver’s license.”

  Impossible. The suspect’s name didn’t show up on the Montana DMV, or the neighboring states. Eve had extended the search outward, but it hadn’t yielded any results by the time she left with Gil. “I’ll also need the number of that driver license.”

  “No one told me I was supposed to record the number.” The brunette stared haplessly at Gil despite the fact he hadn’t uttered a word since they entered the postal outlet. “Here’s his address in Missoula. The phone number is mine...in case you’re interested.”

  When the awestruck employee presented the post-it note to Gil, Eve snatched it. “Any chance you could describe Mr. Serpent?”

  “He was tall...and white...I think.” She returned the box of cards behind the counter. “I don’t remember him much.”

  Eyewitnesses are not what they used to be. “Thanks for your help, Missy.”

  Once they exited the building, Gil burst out laughing. “I’m glad you’re not my big sister, or I wouldn’t be dating.”

  “Trust me, she wasn’t your type.” Eve affectionately patted him on the shoulder. “If you’re desperate, I can introduce you to my sister. She’s a real nutcase.”

  To her dismay, he stole the keys from her hand. “My turn. And while we’re on the dating subject, did I imagine the awkward moment between Morgan and the colonel? You think there might be a history between them?”

  The encounter in the office hadn’t been as awkward as it’d been intense. Pausing by the passenger door, Eve looked at her partner over the roof. “Maybe they collaborated on a case back when he worked for the FBI.”

  “Come on, Eve. Have a bit more imagination. From what we heard, Morgan gave up an outstanding career in the FBI to play sheriff in a quiet little town. Less than a year later, the Army sends the big gun. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  Many rumors had accompanied Morgan’s appointment to Sheriff, but few were proven accurate.

  “We also heard he was arrogant, heartless, and unforgiving. We both know it couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. If we’d stayed instead of rushing out, he may have introduced her to us.” She opened her door. “Come on, let’s go for lunch before we visit Missoula. Baby is starving.”

  Chapter Five

  Yellow tape crisscrossed over the door, symbolically sealing Hope Craig’s room at Snowy Tip. The words ‘By authority of Colonel A. Matheson’ were written in black marker where the two yellow stripes met.

  Impressed that no one had ventured in, Rich ripped the tape and opened the door.

  Amelia followed him inside. “You do realize I searched every inch of her room with a fine-toothed comb and replaced everything as I found it?”

  He wasn’t immune to the pain clouding her blue eyes. Her daughter’s disappearance had taken its emotional toll. Under the circumstances, Rich couldn’t rely on her judgment. Had it been any other woman, he would have insisted she stand on the sidelines in order not to compromise his investigation.

  “I’m hoping you missed something, Amelia.”

  A towel hung from the window shade. Wrappers littered the area around the wastebasket. Gym clothes were scattered over the floor. A pair of boots sat precariously over the heating vent.

  That’s a typical college dorm. Nothing in the untidy room suggested Hope Craig had been victim of foul play. “I see housekeeping isn’t part of her training.”

  “No. Hope had her mind set on going to West Point. That they didn’t accept deaf cadets went right over her head.” The memories warmed Amelia’s voice. “She didn’t give up that dream until I told her she’d have to make her bed with a ruler every morning.”

  Chuckles tickled Rich’s throat. Deaf or not, if the teenager was anything like her mother, she would have made a great cadet.

  He looked around. A hearing aid, a wallet, a blackberry, and a tablet were on the dresser. With his gloves on, he checked the calls and messages on both electronic devices. On the day she disappeared, Hope didn’t send anything to Goldman or anyone else.

  “I requested a copy of her activities from the provider in case someone erased something.” Amelia glanced over his shoulder. For a torturous moment, her breath teased his neck—like she used to do an eternity ago. “I haven’t received it yet.”

  “Good thinking.” Pushing aside the nostalgia that threatened to engulf him again for the second time in less than a week, he handed her the phone and the tablet. “Hang on to them. I want Eve’s husband, our technician, to have another look.”

  He rummaged through the content of the wallet. Sixty dollars. ATM card. VISA card. Driver license. Firearm permit. “During her morning practice, did your daughter carry her rifle?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t loaded. Goldman didn’t realize the weapon was missing until he checked the equipment room this morning.”

  “I see.” For a man responsible for the well-being and safety of underage athletes, the coach showed negligence in his duty.

  Amelia opened the closet. “Hope’s winter coat is in here, her boots are on the heater, but her yellow training suit isn’t on a hanger. Had she returned from her practice, she would have changed into her blue suit for target practice and hung her yellow suit to dry. And had she gotten hurt, she would have waited on the trail for someone to help her. She knows better than to venture off the path.”

  Neither of them had alluded to the possibility that Hope might have run away, but it had entered Rich’s mind. The teenager wouldn’t have been the first athlete to suffer a breakdown under the constant pressure of extreme training.

  Before running away, one would think she would have changed into civilian clothes—something less conspicuous than a yellow suit—and taken her wallet and phone. It didn’t look like Hope had ever returned to her room after her morning practice. The disappearance of her rifle was another detail that didn’t add up.

  Maybe not everyone was happy to see a deaf girl steal the place of a hearing girl on the biathlon team when she could have qualified for the Paralympics. Athletes were passionate individuals, some prone to excessive behavior. Years ago, a figure skater had hired a man to break a competitor’s legs. Rich couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone from Hope’s entourage had wanted to get rid of her any more than he could rule out a stranger kidnapping her for more obscure reasons.

  “It’s possible someone followed her on the trail and lured her off. To your knowledge, did she have any problems with jealous competitors, obsessive teammates, or possessive boyfriends?”

  “No boyfriend...that I know of.” Amelia stood by the window, hugging the tablet. The glass reflected a blurry image of her weary face. “If Hope had any problems with her teammates or competitors, she never complained to me.”

  Here goes another question to add to my list for Coach Goldman.

  “What about you, Amelia?” In West Point, she’d studied to become a language specialist. She wouldn’t have reached the rank of colonel by performing routine translations. “Is it possible someone took Hope to get back at you professionally or personally?”

  “Army Intelligence is looking into possible connections in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. So far nothing indicates that Hope’s disappearance is related to any covert missions I may—or may not—have accomplished overseas.” Turning around, she faced him with a guarded expression. “This aspect of the investigation is under my jurisdiction, Richmond. If need be, I will apprise you.”

  To his dismay, it seemed cooperation extended only one way. Consi
dering he’d dealt with the Army back in his days as a special agent, it shouldn’t have surprised him. “What about your father? Is he still in active duty?”

  “Retired General. He hasn’t seen any action in ten years. I doubt there’s a connection.” Amelia had retreated behind a wall of professional detachment. “If I’m wrong, Army Intel will find it.”

  It pained Rich that she might have learned the evasive tactic from him. So much had remained unsaid between them, and he could only blame himself.

  Continuing the search in silence, he pulled on the white sheet and tan blanket. He was pleased to notice no discoloration or foreign substance. Turquoise pajamas, rolled into a ball, were stuck between the wall and the mattress. As he disentangled the clothes, a stuffed animal fell onto the bed.

  A gasp breezed through Amelia’s lips. “She wasn’t supposed to bring any personal items. It’s irrelevant to her disappearance.”

  A downy duckling with the letter T embroidered on its belly stared back at him with glossy green eyes, kindling a yearning Rich had spent years to hammer down. Its discovery had rattled Amelia. He’d been right to think she was too emotionally involved, predisposing her to errors and oversights, but he couldn’t relegate her to the sideline, not at the risk of severing what little trust still existed between them.

  “Let’s go meet her coach. I have a few questions for him.”

  ***

  The round clock pinned on the back wall of the maintenance bay indicated one p.m. To Amelia’s distress, the small needle spun around the fat numbers faster than it took Richmond to uncover new leads.

  Briefing Richmond had been a waste of time. He still insisted on checking every detail on his own. As an Army officer, she understood. She wouldn’t have taken anything coming out of a distraught parent’s mouth at face value either. As a mother, this was the hardest task she’d ever encountered. Without her military training, she wouldn’t be able to rein in her frustration or keep her emotions under wrap. As it was, they bubbled on the surface of her skin, ready to explode at the slightest touch. Hope...