by B. J Daniels
She couldn’t argue that. But he was here saving Ainsley anyway.
“The sooner I’m finished and on my way home, the better.” He got to his feet. “But I could use your help. I haven’t been able to find Roderick all day. I really could use a look inside his cabin. If what I think is in there, it would speed up the process. Any chance you could get the key?”
Kitzie rose as well, seeing that they were done. If she couldn’t lure Sawyer back in with Harry Lester Brown, then there was no hope.
* * *
SAWYER COULD TELL that Kitzie was disappointed that he hadn’t offered to help with her investigation. He was tempted. Harry Lester Brown? If Kitzie could bring him down, that would be huge. Harry Lester was suspected of fencing some of the largest jewelry heists on record.
But the ache in his leg reminded him that he was still on medical leave. Also, he knew that Kitzie would resent him getting in the middle of it. If she needed him, she’d let him know. As it was, he had no business even being here right now. Not that he wasn’t glad when the sheriff had called. He was even gladder after meeting Ainsley.
His time here, though, was about over. He’d found her stalker. Once he put an end to it—putting Lance Roderick behind bars—he would tell Ainsley what he was really doing here. He suspected that wouldn’t go well. Then he would head home. The chances of his and Ainsley’s paths crossing again were...slim.
Unfortunately, that made him think of last night. He was still trying to understand why it was Ainsley Hamilton who’d brought out such passion and desire in him. A rebound from Kitzie? Or like Ainsley, something to do with him almost dying, when he was shot and fell off the moving train?
He couldn’t have fallen in love with her. Not this quickly.
He pushed the thought away. “I don’t know who that man was I saw following LeRoy last night, but if LeRoy is one of the jewel thieves, then he is the loose cannon. We can’t be the only ones aware of that. His partners might have decided to cut him loose last night.”
Kitzie seemed to think about that for a moment. “If he knows where the loot is, then I have to try to get close to him.”
Sawyer shook his head. “The others would have to be fools to trust him. From what you’ve told me, these burglars are anything but fools. I think you’re wasting your time with LeRoy. Worse, you’re taking a hell of a chance. If I hadn’t come along when I did last night—”
“I can take care of myself,” she said, cutting him off.
He cursed under his breath, aware how much Kitzie and Ainsley were alike in that respect. “We all need help sometimes.”
Her gaze met his. She looked chastened as if reminded that he’d had to save her not that long ago. “LeRoy is the weak link. The others will be harder to get close to, especially if we’re right and Harry Lester is on his way here to buy the goods.”
He couldn’t argue that. “Just be careful.”
She smiled. “So you do care.”
“You know I do.”
Her eyes glistened. “If you’d just given us a chance—”
“Let’s not go there again.”
“Because it’s too late? Because you’ve fallen in love with someone else?” Her eyes widened. “Not Ainsley.” She shook her head. “Men, they never know what’s good for them.”
Sawyer wasn’t about to touch that. He rose from the chair and headed for the door. “Can you get me a key to Roderick’s cabin?” He had to find Lance Roderick, and then his work here was done.
“If you’ll help me distract Murph.”
* * *
ON THE WAY to the main office, Sawyer tried Roderick’s cabin again. Still no answer to his knock.
Kitzie’s cell phone rang. She checked it and said, “I have to take this.” Stepping away, she said, “What did you find out? So one of them is related. Which one?” She laughed. “That explains a lot. Yes, it will be most helpful.” She disconnected and walked back to him smiling.
“A break in the case?”
“Guess who is related to Harry Lester Brown?” she said quietly.
He thought for only a moment. “LeRoy.”
Her smile was sad. “That’s why you and I were made to do this. It also explains why the other three put up with him.”
“Until one of them decided to go after him with a bat?” Sawyer said. “That makes no sense.”
She frowned. “I don’t think the man you saw last night was one of the burglars. They would be fools to hurt him when they are so close to selling the goods.”
He had to agree. “Then who the hell was that?”
“Someone with a grudge?” she suggested. “Or maybe the man with the bat wasn’t after LeRoy, but someone else.”
Sawyer had been so sure that the man with the bat had been following LeRoy, but he realized now that he could have been mistaken. If so, then he’d interfered with Kitzie’s undercover operation. “I’m sorry about last night, then.”
“Knowing what I do now, I will be going in with better intel. You probably did me a favor.”
At the office, he cozied up to Murph, asking questions about the next shoot, if she knew of any other jobs, while Kitzie snatched a key to Roderick’s cabin.
“Lance was scheduled to work today but didn’t check in.” She held up the key on their way to the guard’s cabin. “I suppose he could be in his cabin drunk or passed out asleep. We won’t have much time, but it sounds like you know what you’re looking for.”
“I do.” Obsessed stalkers often kept photos they’d taken of their admired victim or other items they’d collected. The more evidence he had, the better to put Lance Roderick behind bars.
They walked in silence to the cabin. Sawyer stood back and let her open the door. The smell hit him first. He reached for Kitzie’s shoulder and drew her back before she could step in. “You’d better let me.”
He knew before he entered the cabin what he was going to find. What he hadn’t expected was the brutality with which Roderick had been killed. The man’s face was battered to the point that he was barely recognizable.
“Call the sheriff,” Sawyer said over his shoulder to Kitzie. “Tell them a man is dead. Murdered.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
AS KITZIE MADE the call outside, Sawyer took a few minutes to search the cabin. He’d pulled off the bandana from around his neck that the assistant director had insisted on for the shoot earlier, and did a quick look around, leaving no prints behind.
If his knowledge of stalkers were correct, Roderick would have something of Ainsley in this cabin. At the very least, he would have photos, which were too easy to snap on a cell phone—even from a distance.
He found a photo of Ainsley hidden in the corner of a shelf in the bedroom. It had been taken near the barn. She was squinting at something. She’d taken off her hat and had a look on her face that he’d come to recognize. She wasn’t happy. The photo had been cropped so he didn’t know who she’d been talking to, but he was betting it was Devon Gunderson, the director. He’d seen her butting heads with him before.
The other photos had fallen to the floor, he realized. Picking them up, he saw that Roderick had taken some of everyone staying up here, including the teenagers from the kitchen and even the delivery guy. What the hell?
He found nothing else of interest, which surprised him even more than the man’s death. If Lance Roderick had been tailing Ainsley for months and was obsessed with her, he would have printed up more than one photo. But maybe that was all he kept here in the cabin. And the other photos? How did Sawyer explain those?
There had to be more. Roderick, if he was the stalker, wouldn’t have been able to help himself. He would have taken more photos of her. Sawyer was betting that there were more on Roderick’s cell phone. Unfortunately, it seemed to be the only thing missing.
But why would someone take it? Unless Roderick had snapped photos of something that had gotten him killed. He thought again of the cell phone photos the man was taking from his car at the café. He had been shooting Ainsley sitting inside the café, hadn’t he?
“His cell phone is gone,” Sawyer said as he quickly stepped over the body and back out into fresh air. “But his wallet is still in his pocket with a couple hundred in cash.”
Kitzie raised one finely shaped brow. “So it wasn’t a robbery. Are you sure he had a cell phone?”
“I saw him taking photos with it last night outside the café.” He frowned. “I just assumed he was shooting Ainsley sitting inside. But maybe he saw something else of interest and that got him killed.”
“You’re sure this wasn’t Ainsley’s doing?” Kitzie asked.
He shot her a look. “You seriously think she took a baseball bat to Roderick?”
She shrugged. “You know what they say about still water.”
He shook his head, wondering if she was serious or if this was more about him and her. “I saw the killer. He was following LeRoy last night, but now I’m wondering if he realized he had the wrong man when I stopped LeRoy to talk to him and save your neck.”
“You better hope your stalker doesn’t blow my cover and my entire case.” She glared at him. “This could end up with us both in hot water—if not fired.”
At the sound of sirens, they both looked toward the road. It wouldn’t be long, and everyone out here would know about the murder. Which meant hours of interviews by local law enforcement.
Kitzie must have been thinking the same thing. “I was so close to wrapping up this case,” she said angrily as a sheriff’s department vehicle pulled up followed by a coroner’s van.
Sawyer thought that both of their covers would be blown shortly. “They’ll know the moment they run you through the system. Me, as well.” He was mentally kicking himself for not being honest with Ainsley. This was not the way he wanted her to find out.
“I only need another day,” Kitzie was saying. “With all these suspects, it is going to take them a while. My burglars will have to move fast now. Sawyer?”
He nodded. “Go on, I won’t involve you in finding the body. That will keep you out of it—at least for a while.”
Just until Murph mentioned that it had been him and Kitzie who had been in her office, he thought, as Kitzie ducked out of sight and the first batch of cops made their way toward him.
* * *
THE FORK CLATTERED to the tabletop, making both women jump.
“What is going on, Nettie?” Kate French demanded. The mother of three had managed to get away to meet her friend at the café she owned in Beartooth. “I’ve never seen you this nervous.”
Nettie picked up her fork but had lost interest in the cinnamon roll they’d been sharing. She put it down and sighed. “It’s this upcoming election.”
“Are you worried that Buck won’t win? Or that he will?”
Nettie met Kate’s gaze. She felt so fortunate to have her for a friend, especially given the difference in their ages. While Nettie was in her sixties, Kate was only in her thirties. Also, they’d gotten off to a rough start when Kate had first come to town.
“I don’t care who wins,” she said in a hushed whisper as she looked around the café. Most everyone in these parts was rooting for Buck to win. According to the polls, he would.
“It’s about election night. You may have heard, Buck is planning to give his acceptance speech—if he wins—at the Beartooth Fairgrounds. Frank is beside himself trying to come up with a security plan.”
“No wonder you’re stressed, but the sheriff can’t really believe anyone would...” Her words faltered as if she’d seen the answer in Nettie’s face. “He thinks Buck might be in danger?” she whispered.
They were alone in the café except for a couple of ranchers at the front and a couple sitting in a booth along the other side of the room.
All Nettie could do was nod. “It’s complicated.”
“Apparently,” Kate said thoughtfully. Her eyes brightened as an idea came to her. “It’s Sarah, isn’t it?”
Nettie picked up her fork again. She’d been sworn to secrecy about the investigating she and Frank had been doing in regard to the future president’s wife. She couldn’t even tell Kate, though she was dying to unburden herself with the young woman. Kate had a good head on her shoulders. Kate would give her good advice.
“Have you asked...” Kate motioned with her head toward Nettie’s purse.
She quickly shook her head. “I threw it away.” Nettie groaned at the memory. “Then I dug it back out of the garbage. I finally threw it back in the garbage, took the bag and—” she hated to admit what she’d done “—took it out to the burn barrel.”
“Why would you get rid of the pendulum?”
Nettie looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Because it scares me. You wouldn’t even touch it.”
“Maybe it’s good that you got rid of it. No one wants to know what the future holds unless it’s something good.”
“Exactly.”
“And you don’t think it’s good,” Kate said.
Nettie nodded. “I couldn’t bring myself to ask it anything more, especially anything about Frank.”
Kate looked at her watch and moaned. “I have to get back. Jack is great with the kids, but the twins are a handful right now.”
Just the mention of her children and Kate seemed to glow. For not the first time, Nettie was envious of her having the children she’d dreamed of. Childless herself, she often wondered how different her life would have been if she and Frank had married when they were young and had the children they, too, had dreamed of.
But instead, Nettie had married Bob Benton on her mother’s advice and regretted it for too many years to mention. Frank had married Pam Chandler on the rebound, and that had turned out even worse.
She and Frank were together now, she reminded herself, wishing she could forget the past. It bothered her some days, though, when she thought about how much time they would have together before something happened to one of them. They weren’t spring chickens anymore.
“Don’t look so down. You’re worrying about something that probably won’t happen,” Kate said. “I’d almost advise you to get another stupid pendulum just so you can quit worrying.”
“But what if it told me that something happens to Frank election night?”
Kate reached across the table and squeezed Nettie’s free hand. “You have to have faith that the two of you are going to come out of this just fine.”
Nettie nodded, but she couldn’t help having her doubts. Frank was worried. Worse, she sensed something in him that felt like...defeat.
* * *
SAWYER HAD BEEN anxious for more news about the murder, so he was glad when Frank finally called him. After being questioned, he’d gotten Frank on the line to let him know what had happened and asked for his help.
“It’s complicated, but there is another FBI agent here working undercover, so we’re both trying to stay under the radar. So any information you might be able to find out...”
“I’m sorry I got you into this. Also sorry you couldn’t reach me right away. I’ve been working on security for election night. But with the future president’s daughter from here and now out there working on the set, I’m sure the sheriff over there will cooperate.”
That had been earlier today. Now Frank asked, “Are you sure this man’s death doesn’t have something to do with the other FBI agent’s case?”
“I’m not sure of anything. I was sure he was our stalker, but now I’m having my doubts. Have they established a time of death?”
“The coroner estimates somewhere around 10:00 p.m. last night. Apparently the heat was turned to high in the c
abin, so the coroner couldn’t be more accurate than that.”
Sawyer shook his head. The smell inside the cabin had told him that Roderick had been dead for hours. He could have been killed right after he got back from town, and the killer tried to throw off the time by kicking up the heat.
“Do we know any more about him?” he asked.
“He’d been disbarred several years go. I talked to Buck, but he hadn’t ever heard of him, so I doubt Roderick ever had a case involving Ainsley.”
“What about Roderick’s cell phone?” he asked.
“It hasn’t turned up. But they know about at least one call he made. It was at eight.” About the time he would have returned from town? If he had gone right back to his cabin. “He called his mother. According to her, there was a knock at his door during the conversation. His mother heard him let someone in before he said he had to go. She said the visitor had a male voice.”
“Let me guess, Roderick lives with his mother. I’d love to see his room.”
“He does live with his mother. Fits the pattern, huh. The local sheriff already checked out his room in the basement. He had apparently moved everything out before this latest job. She didn’t know if he put it in storage or what.”
“Did his mother say anything that could help?” Sawyer asked, thinking that the move might have signaled that he was ready to come out to Ainsley.
“According to her, he was in high spirits. He said he would be coming into some money soon, so for her not to worry. Apparently, he’d been supporting her until he lost his license to practice law.”
“Money? Was there anything to that?”
The sheriff sighed. “Not that the local law has been able to find out. The sheriff down there thinks he was just trying to reassure his mother. The commercial was about to end and so was his job. He didn’t seem to have any prospects.”
Sawyer thought about the photos Roderick had been taking at the café. Maybe they had been of Ainsley inside the café just as he’d first suspected. Sawyer couldn’t imagine anything else the security guard might have photographed that he could turn into cash.