Lost in Cottonwood Canyon & How to Train a Cowboy--Lost in Cottonwood Canyon

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Because your heart isn’t in law school the same way it was set on becoming a doctor.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “No?”

  She sighed. “Well, maybe it’s a little true. My heart might not want to be in law school but my head knows I don’t have any choice. I’ve learned through hard experience that it’s better to pay attention to my head.”

  Was that a warning for him? Wyatt wondered.

  He didn’t need it. Not really. He might tease her about that heated kiss they had shared but he knew damn well repeating it would be disastrous all the way around.

  “Smart policy,” he murmured. “Sounds like maybe you do have a little lawyer in you after all.”

  She sent him a swift, unreadable look but said nothing, and a moment later he reached their destination.

  He pulled into the driveway of the modest house in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Sugarhouse, behind a couple of bikes and a big four-wheel-drive pickup.

  Mike Thurman met them at the door. The cop was stocky but solid, in his early forties with wavy dark hair and dark sideburns. He had a veteran cop’s confident, bring-it-on stance.

  “You McKinnon’s brother?” he asked.

  He and Gage had spent so much of their lives on entirely different tracks, it seemed odd to be lumped together into such a neat package.

  “Yes,” he answered. “I’m Wyatt McKinnon and this is Taylor Bradshaw.”

  “Detective Bradshaw’s sister. I know. I saw you at the trial. I’m sorry things went down the way they did, ma’am.”

  “Thank you. I am too.”

  “I never believed he did it. Your brother is a good man and a good cop. The kind I’d want watching my back.”

  Tears bloomed in her eyes before she blinked them away and gave the man a radiant smile. “Thank you.”

  “Same goes for yours.” Thurman turned back to Wyatt. “I was part of the task force earlier in the summer that was trying to arrest that A-hole Juber when he gunned his truck and went after your brother. If I’d have been another foot or two to the left, I would have been crushed right alongside your brother.”

  “Your brother was crushed?” Taylor asked, her eyes wide with concern. “Is he all right?”

  “He was in rough shape for a while,” Wyatt answered. “The accident broke both of his legs, but he was lucky none of his internal organs were damaged.”

  “He’s getting around better now,” Thurman said. “When he dropped by the other day, I was surprised to see him moving around on crutches. A hit like that, I figured he’d be in a wheelchair for the better part of a year.”

  “Gage can be a stubborn cuss,” Wyatt answered. “He lost the chair as soon as possible. Before he probably should have.”

  Thurman seemed to remember his manners. “Sorry to leave you standing out here. Come in.” He opened the door wide. “We’ve got the place to ourselves. The wife and the kids went to a movie. They should be gone for a couple hours at least.”

  He led them into a comfortable, lived-in looking family room. School backpacks cluttered a table near the door and toys were jumbled in one corner, as if somebody had done a quick pickup job.

  It all seemed so normal, like his family’s house always looked when he was growing up, before Charley’s kidnapping. Their house in Liberty had been small and cramped, filled to the brim with Gage’s remote-control cars, Wyatt’s books, Charley’s stuffed animals.

  When they moved to Las Vegas so Sam McKinnon could open his own cabinetry shop, their house had seemed huge and comfortable, with an entire playroom for their stuff. That summer, he remembered, the room had always been cluttered. There was always a card table set up with some project or other on it—an erector set creation, a jigsaw puzzle, a model airplane waiting for glue.

  Like everything else, Charlotte’s kidnapping had changed that too. After she was taken, the playroom stayed immaculate, virtually unused for that year before Lynn and Sam had separated.

  Neither he nor Gage ever seemed to want to spend much time in there. He remembered they had tried a few times but it had been too empty without a curly-haired girl coloring on the floor in front of the TV or begging for attention.

  “Thank you for seeing us,” Taylor said into the sudden awkward silence, and Wyatt realized he had let his mind slide too easily along familiar grim channels.

  “Gage said you had some information about the Ferrin murders,” he said as an opener.

  The cop suddenly looked wary. “Maybe. But if I talk to you, this all has to be off-the-record. I’m three years away from my pension. I can’t be too careful.”

  “Of course,” Wyatt said, intrigued by the man’s words and by his sudden nervousness. “Whatever you tell us stays here. If I need anything for the book, I’ll find a corroborating source.”

  Thurman still looked reluctant to talk and Wyatt wondered if this trip had been in vain.

  “Please.” Taylor sat forward, her eyes pleading, though her voice was quiet. “If you know something that might help clear my brother, please tell us.”

  After a moment, Thurman nodded slowly. “I have to trust you’ll do right by me,” he said, looking at Wyatt. “Your brother is a stand-up guy, so I have to hope you’re the same.”

  Wyatt decided he liked being lumped together with Gage, at least in this instance.

  “I knew Dru Ferrin pretty well,” Thurman announced.

  Wyatt and Taylor exchanged glances and he could see the same question forming in her blue eyes. Was this the married man she’d been having an affair with?

  Something of their suspicion must have shown, because Thurman rose to his feet quickly. “Not like that! If either of you knew my wife, the thought that I would ever dare cheat on her would never enter your mind. No, this was different.”

  He paused, then sat down again. “I was working with Dru on a story. I was a confidential informant, I guess you could say, kind of like what we’re doing now.”

  Wyatt sat forward. “What kind of story was she working on?”

  “A huge one. She said she thought it would be the biggest of her career. Her big break. I think it might have been the reason someone killed her, because she knew too much.”

  “About what?” Taylor sat forward eagerly in anticipation.

  “Corruption in the police department. Corruption so deep it makes the Grand Canyon look like an irrigation ditch.”

  “What kind of corruption?” Wyatt asked.

  “You name it. Payoffs, extortion. Evidence that goes unreported or even evidence that gets manufactured. I’m not saying it’s endemic or widespread, only that a few select people in positions of power have created their own little kingdoms.”

  “Dru was working on a story about this?” Wyatt asked.

  “She wanted to blow the lid off,” the cop answered. “I think she saw it as a personal crusade.”

  Taylor thought of the case Hunter had been involved in. It had happened during the time he dated Dru—maybe she had learned about it and decided to investigate further.

  “You were her source?” she asked.

  “Not the only one but probably the main one.”

  “Why did you talk to Dru?”

  “I’ve been with this department half my life,” Thurman answered. “I love the men and women I work with, love the badge. And I hate seeing a few of my so-called superiors crap all over that badge.”

  Hunter had been just as angry about the corruption he had witnessed, she remembered. He had loved being a cop; like Thurman he’d loved the badge. He considered being a cop both an honor and a privilege.

  “I talked to Dru at least a half-dozen times in the few months before her death. Last I talked to her, she said she was putting the finishing touches on her story.”

  “Do you think someone killed her to shut her up?” Taylor asked, excitement growing within her. This was it, she thought. This was the smoking gun, the missing link.

  “I can believe that theory a hell of a lot more easil
y than I believe Hunter Bradshaw could kill two women in cold blood. Besides, did you see anybody else do a story on police corruption after her death? No. The whole thing died along with her.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone else?” Wyatt asked.

  “Would you? I told Dru and she ended up dead, along with her mother. I haven’t dared tell anyone else. For all I know, just telling you could put your lives in danger.”

  Taylor thought of the threatening note sent to her and ice crept along her nerve endings.

  “Seems to me, if you had these kind of suspicions, you should have gone to Internal Affairs. Especially after two women were killed.”

  The skepticism in Wyatt’s voice drew Taylor’s gaze and she realized he didn’t appear nearly as convinced as she was that the news of police corruption was significant.

  “I don’t know how deep it goes. For all I knew, I would be next for going public. Look what happened to Hunter—and all he did was step forward about one isolated incident. I got a wife and kids to think about.”

  “Why do you think Dru was killed over this particular story?” Wyatt asked.

  “I don’t. But a day or so before she died, she called me, scared about a death threat she received. Said whoever called sounded serious. She didn’t know if it was related to the corruption story but she didn’t know what else it would have been about. She warned me to watch my back.” Regret darkened his eyes. “I only wish I’d been able to do more to watch hers.”

  “You suspected someone involved in the corruption story to be responsible for her death. And yet you let Hunter Bradshaw go to death row for it.”

  “It’s been eating me up inside since his conviction. But look at it from my perspective. I had no proof of anything, just suspicions. Who could I tell? The detectives on the case reported directly to their superiors—the same superiors who had their hand in a lot of very illegal pies.”

  “What about outside the department? The FBI or the department of public safety.”

  “I lost my nerve after Dru’s death and decided to just wait out my last few years before retirement.”

  “So why talk to us now?”

  “I can’t live with myself anymore. Every day I wonder if an innocent man is on death row. When Gage brought up the case with me and said you were writing a book, I knew I had to find the stones to step forward.”

  * * *

  “Do you believe him?” Taylor asked after they finished their interview and were once more in Wyatt’s Tahoe heading toward her house.

  Wyatt was quiet for several moments as they drove down the wide city streets. “I believe him,” he said finally. “He has no real reason to tell us, and if he’s right about how deep it goes, he has every reason to keep quiet, except to get the truth out.”

  “I hear a disclaimer in there,” she said quietly.

  “I don’t believe anything he said could be a basis for appeal unless you had proof that whoever threatened Dru was connected to the police corruption—and that whoever it was followed up his threats with murder.”

  She had reached the same conclusion. “So we’re back where we started.”

  At her glum tone, Wyatt reached across the seat until his fingers found hers. She knew it was likely foolish but she found enormous comfort in his touch.

  “We’re just getting started. Every piece of information we find is another piece of the puzzle. We just have to figure out where it fits—or if it belongs to a completely different picture.”

  She sighed, grateful for his perspective even as she found the truth of his words frustrating. She wasn’t about to complain, though. In just a week of working with Wyatt, she knew more now than she had discovered alone in eighteen months.

  Clearing her brother’s name no longer seemed like some unreachable goal. Difficult, maybe. But difficult was much better than impossible.

  “Thurman’s right, though,” Wyatt said, his tone suddenly grave. “If someone killed Dru to keep her from reporting about police corruption, they likely won’t stop with her. We could be in danger.”

  Her hand tightened in his. How could she have forgotten that note, that terrible crime scene picture, even for a moment?

  Someone in the police department would have access to official crime scene photos, she thought. They could easily lift it from the file and figure out a way to send it to her. Was it a coincidence that she received it in the mail right after Gage McKinnon arranged for them to talk to Mike Thurman?

  “What’s wrong?” Wyatt asked, seeming to notice her sudden tension.

  She pulled her hand free as she debated telling him. How would he react? What if it made him leery of proceeding with the investigation?

  No, she had to tell him. She had dragged him into this—it was unfair to withhold such significant information.

  “Can you pull over?” she asked.

  In the blue glow from the dashboard, she could see the odd look he sent her.

  “Are you okay? You’re not going to be sick, are you?”

  “No.” She clenched the strap of the leather bag that held her laptop, her notes from the interview and that terrible letter. “I need to show you something and I can’t do it while we’re driving.”

  “Yeah. Just let me find a good spot.” A moment later he pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store. As he set the brake, she pulled the envelope from her bag.

  “You asked me earlier why I was distracted. I did have a reason. A pretty good one. I’ve been worrying about this—”

  She handed it to him, then waited nervously as he slid the picture out of the envelope. In the garish light from the convenience store, she saw a variety of emotions flit across his features—confusion, then surprise, then a raw, dangerous fury.

  That look should have made her more nervous. There was no reason on earth she should have found solace in it, but she did.

  “What is this?”

  “I received it two days ago in the mail. No return address, obviously.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it earlier?”

  She should have, she saw that now. She had debated telling him for two days, even during their drive to Mike Thurman’s house. She had a million excuses for not telling him, but she supposed the thing she had worried about most was that knowing about the threats would make him want to back out of helping her.

  She realized now that that worry was unfounded. He might be concerned for her safety, but not his own.

  “Did you go to the police?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. I thought about calling Hunter’s partner, John Randall. He’s still in the department and I’ve always thought of him as a decent, stand-up guy. I thought he could at least give me some direction for how to handle it, but in the end I decided against it. After talking to Sergeant Thurman, I have to think my instincts were right. I don’t know if I can trust anyone in the police department now. Even John.”

  “I’ll show it to Gage. He’ll tell us what we should do from here. Any trace evidence on it has probably been compromised by now from you carrying it around for two days, but he might be able to find something.”

  Their fingers brushed as he handed it back to her and Taylor had to fight the urge to curl her hand around his and hang on tight.

  “Let’s get to your place and I’ll call Gage and see if he can meet with us. He’ll know what to do.”

  “Thank you,” she said, when he had pulled out of the parking lot and headed in the direction of her house. “I’m afraid you didn’t know what you were getting into when I dragged you into this.”

  “Maybe not. But it’s going to make one hell of a story.”

  Right. The book about the case. How could she have forgotten? That was the only reason he was helping her, the sole reason for his concern. She needed to remember that and not fall into the seductive trap of thinking he might care about her.

  The smell of smoke seared her nose when she opened the passenger door of Wyatt’s vehicle after he pulled up in front
of her house. A cold front had blown out of the Wasatch Mountains the night before—the Saunders must have started a fire in their woodstove. It would be just the thing to take the edge off a nippy fall evening.

  The smell intensified as she climbed out of the truck. She frowned. Something was wrong. This was too strong, too acrid, to be woodsmoke from a fireplace.

  She heard Belle give a low, frantic-sounding bark from around the back of the house—and then realization hit her.

  The smoke wasn’t coming from any of her neighbors’ chimneys. It was billowing out of her bedroom window!

  CHAPTER 8

  Wyatt was already reaching for his cell phone and punching in 911. “Anybody inside?” he asked Taylor.

  Her face had lost all color and she stared at him for a moment like she’d forgotten who he was.

  “Taylor?” he prompted urgently.

  She blinked a little and seemed to snap back. “No. No one’s inside. My roommate is in Guatemala for another week.”

  A dog’s frantic barking ripped through the night, and he saw her eyes go wide with horror.

  “Belle! She still in there! I’ve got to get her!”

  She pushed past him toward the front door, and Wyatt nearly had to tackle her to keep her from rushing into the flames he could now see licking through the front of the house.

  “No! You can’t go inside.”

  “I have to get her. Hunter loves her. I can’t let her die. I can’t!” She fought against his restraining arm, but he held tight.

  “Look, you talk to Dispatch. I’ll try to get the dog out. Where do you keep her when you’re not home? What part of the house?”

  “The kitchen. Right inside the back door.”

  He handed her his cell phone, where the dispatcher’s voice still buzzed, trying to get information. “Stay here. Promise me, Tay. Stay here and wait for the fire department.”

  She nodded tightly as the dog’s barking grew more frantic. “Please hurry!”

  Someone else must have reported the fire, he thought as he headed around the back of the house. Sirens wailed in the distance. Common sense told him he should wait for the professionals to come and save the dog, but he didn’t know how long it would take them to reach the scene—or how fast that fire was moving.