Bear Claw Conspiracy

by Jessica Andersen

  Her eyes narrowed. “News flash. You’re supposed to be my partner, not my bodyguard.”

  “I’m the one with the gun.” He patted his hip, wishing he had his damn shotgun instead. And wishing that the Sig didn’t feel like such an old friend.

  She rolled her eyes. “Hello? Sharpshooter here. My ACP is in my locker and I’m licensed to carry concealed.”

  “Hell.” This just got better and better.

  “If I could interject?” Alyssa said drily.

  “Only if you’re going to tell her not to go out without backup.”

  Gigi’s expression went smug. “She’s seen me shoot. The only time I hit the granny cutout was when I meant to. And I called it first.”

  “Which isn’t the same thing as taking down another human being. Especially one that’s shooting back and aiming to kill.”

  She didn’t have a comeback for that one, just scowled at him.

  “He’s right,” Alyssa said, “and what’s more, you know it. Or you would if you took a breath and chilled for a second.” Gigi transferred her glare, but Alyssa just blinked unperturbed, and continued, “Regardless of whether or not Tanya’s attack and the arson were committed by al-Jihad’s people, the cases are clearly connected to each other.”

  Tucker stepped in. “Gigi’s attacker wanted to destroy something. Maybe there’s a drug connection? There’s been some buzz lately about a new product on the streets, and there have been a couple of really weird ODs.” He paused. “And let’s not forget about all those break-ins up at the upper-level ranger stations over the past few months. They could fit in somehow, too.”

  “Huh,” Matt said. He hadn’t gone there, but Tucker was right. It played.

  “Whoever these guys are, and whatever they’re after,” Tucker continued, “the one Gigi saw has got to be seriously stressed.”

  Gigi scowled. “Having Alyssa do a detailed sketch of the back of his head isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

  “He doesn’t know that’s all you saw, and the fire made it on the news, so they probably know that you survived. Are you willing to bet they’re not going to come after you to finish the job?”

  “We could use me to lure—”

  “Like hell,” Matt growled over Tucker’s calmer “Let’s hold off on that.”

  Gigi drew breath to argue, but Alyssa lurched to her feet, getting their attention in a hurry. To Gigi, she said, “I want you to promise me you’ll let the P.D. protect you. No sneaking off, and no ditching your backup. If you don’t want to work with Matt, I’m sure Jack will trade.”

  “Hold on a minute—” Matt began.

  “No, you hold on.” To his surprise, Alyssa rounded on him, eyes stormy. “I don’t care what you and Tucker cooked up. Gigi is my analyst, and she’s right, I’ve seen her shoot. She’s good. Better than good. In fact, she’s good at just about everything she tries. She’s also one of the most intuitive analysts I’ve ever worked with. Which means she doesn’t need a babysitter—she needs someone who’ll give her room to do her job. If you can’t do that, whether because of your history, or because of what is or isn’t going on between the two of you, then you need to step aside. I will not run the risk of someone getting hurt because you’re wrangling when you should be watching out for each other.”

  Gigi’s wince was almost comical. Almost.

  Matt gritted his teeth, but Alyssa was right, he was riding on adrenaline and emotion, and that wasn’t going to do any of them any good. He needed to get a freaking grip, and he needed to do it now. Because handing Gigi off to Williams might make sense, but he couldn’t do it.

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” he said, flinching when he heard the words come out in his crisis-mode voice: calm and level, a total lie that covered up the other stuff inside. “Your call, Greta Grace.”

  He saw Alyssa mouth, Greta Grace? but kept his eyes locked on Gigi.

  She made a face. “You call me that again, and I’ll ‘Captain Blackthorn’ you so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  “Noted.” But something inside him uncoiled a notch. “So we’re good? Partners?” He thought about holding out a hand to shake, but stuck his thumbs in his belt loops instead.

  “I don’t know if I’d call us ‘good,’” she said, voice going wry, “but yeah, partners. Largely because I need a bird expert, and I’d probably have to ask you for an intro anyway. You being a ranger and all.”

  “I already gave a buddy over at the university a heads up that we’d be there right after lunch.” At her look, he shrugged. “The feather was in my shirt.” And he’d been planning on working the case with or without a badge. Or a partner.

  “Fine. Ready when you are.” Gigi avoided his eyes as she moved past him to grab a fresh evidence bag and tweeze the feather into it.

  “And you promise not to ditch him?” Alyssa pressed. When Gigi hesitated, she made big, mournful eyes. “You wouldn’t want your oh-so-pregnant friend to spend another sleepless night worrying about you, right?”

  Gigi winced. “No fair.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Okay. I swear. Pinkie swear, even.” She sealed and signed the evidence bag, then slanted a look in Matt’s direction. “Aren’t you going to make him promise?”

  “I’m not worried about him.”

  Maybe you should be, he thought. Not because he would ditch his partner, but because he wasn’t in the zone anymore. And even when he had been, he’d failed, badly. But there was no point in bringing that up now, so he tipped his head toward the door. “Come on, partner. Let’s go see a man about a feather.”

  She hooked the badge on her belt, tucked away the evidence bag, exchanged a few words with Alyssa about other pieces of evidence, and headed for what looked like a break room, calling over her shoulder, “Let me just grab my gun and we can go.”

  He winced, but didn’t argue.

  PARTNERS, GIGI THOUGHT, fighting not to hang on to the door handle as Matt sent his Jeep hurtling through the city like a madman.

  A day ago, she would’ve thought he was driving like he was in the backcountry, heedless of traffic and signs. Now, though, she knew better: he was driving like he had a siren and wig-wag lights going, and he was hustling his team to a crisis call.

  His jaw was set, his knuckles white, his bearing screamed cop…and her stomach was knotted with a mix of nerves and desire.

  This was the guy she had seen last night when he was organizing the search, the one who blew her away, turned her on. Where Ranger Blackthorn had tried to lose himself in isolation, Captain Blackthorn was right there with her. And he was hurting.

  He had fled to the backcountry to escape something that happened while he was on the job, she realized now. More than the scars, this was the unhealed wound.

  “So,” she said when he seemed content with silence. “What made you leave L.A.?”

  He cut her a dark look. “Could we not do this right now?”

  She knew she could run a Google search for it, but she wanted to hear it from him. Not just because it would be coming from the perspective of a team leader—a goal she hadn’t yet even really admitted to herself—but because…well, because. “When, then?”

  “Later.”

  “Which really means never.”

  “It means later. I say what I mean.”

  She thought about it, realized he’d withheld information, but never actually lied to her, at least not that she knew. “Fair enough. I can be patient.”

  He snorted, but the air lightened between them. A few blocks later, he unbent enough to say, “The arson investigators confirmed that they used Molotov cocktails in the bedrooms and kitchen, and gas around the exterior.”

  Her stomach gave a low-grade twinge, but she said only, “I keep trying to figure out what they were trying to get rid of. Whatever it was, either Tanya hid it well, or it wasn’t in her bedroom.”

  “If it was in the station, it’s gone now.” He paused. “Maybe they just wanted to wipe out her connect
ion to Jerry.”

  Which brought them back to the terrorists. “How would they know to look for that sketch? And why now?”

  “No clue. And given that the search hasn’t turned up Tanya’s Jeep, never mind any radio parts, we probably won’t know unless she wakes up.” He took a corner so fast that the outside edge of the Jeep got light. Cursing under his breath, he got the vehicle back in line, and eased off on the gas. “Sorry.”

  Her fingers dug into the door handle, but she kept her voice mild. “Just get us there alive and without collateral damage, and we’ll call it even.”

  She didn’t blame him for being angry, would’ve respected him less if he hadn’t been. And she already respected him far too much.

  He fell silent, but kept the Jeep within ten of the legal limit for the rest of the drive out to the sprawling U.C. Bear Claw campus, where he weaved through interconnecting roads, bumped the vehicle up onto the curb in front of a big stone building and killed the engine in a No Parking zone.

  His slanted look dared her to comment, but she just climbed out, plenty used to city cops in “get it done” mode. And as they headed up the stone steps of a big, museum-like building, walking shoulder-to-shoulder, she realized she was relating to him better on that level than she had as a ranger.

  Up in the backcountry, he had stared off into the distance as he had watched over her, standing motionless on the ridgeline. Here at the outskirts of the city, he watched the corners and shadows and stayed on the move. His energy was different now—edgy and restless.

  “Tell me about your bird guy,” she said as they passed beneath a sign that read “Absalom Center of Environmental Studies” and went into the building.

  “Ian Scott. He’s a friend.”

  He said it simply, but she had a feeling there weren’t many people he considered friends. Tucker, maybe. “Did you meet him rangering?”

  “In college.” He ignored her sidelong look and turned down a wide, waxed hallway that was weekend-empty, though the building had the faint vibe of life that said it wasn’t totally deserted. “We had some classes together back in the day.”

  “Was he why you picked Bear Claw?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He pushed open a glass door with “Ornithology” stenciled in black. “What matters right now is that he’s our best bet for a quick ID on that feather.”

  It all matters, she thought as she preceded him into an open office space that had a seemingly random assortment of cubicles, bird posters on the walls and the distinctive airlock door that led to a working lab.

  The tall spider of a man who unfolded from behind a cluttered desk surprised Gigi. He wore jeans, rope sandals and a T-shirt with a picture of a big black bird, wings outstretched, that invited her to “hang with a cormorant,” whatever that meant. His mid-brown hair brushed his shoulders and he had an abstract tribal tattoo encircling his throat.

  Gigi liked him at first sight.

  “Blackie!” He came toward them, arms outstretched to first pump Matt’s hand and then enfold him in a back-thumping hug. “It’s about time you came down off that mountain of yours.”

  To her surprise, Matt returned a couple of shoulder slaps before he drew away. “Hey. I like my mountain.”

  “Not enough birds.” As the ornithologist pulled back, he looked past Matt’s shoulder and saw her, and his dark blue eyes lit appreciatively. “But who needs a flock when one will do nicely?” He held out a hand, as much inviting her into their familiar circle of two as he was offering to shake. “Dr. Ian Scott, at your service. But you’ll call me Ian, of course.”

  “Gigi Lynd, CSI.” She took his hand, let his fingers enfold hers and draw her closer.

  “Sit, please.” He scooped a pile of books off a visitor’s chair with one hand, keeping hold of her with the other. “You’re a crime scene analyst? Fascinating. I love the shows, you know.”

  She sat, perversely enjoying Matt’s low growl. “Don’t believe everything you see on TV. Those shows are more fiction than fact sometimes. Given the level of specialization required in the lab these days, lots of analysts are hired for their science backgrounds, not because they’re cops. The TV shows tend to combine real jobs to make things more interesting.”

  “Of course,” he said cheerfully. “Just like movie science. Total crap, but entertaining despite—and sometimes because of—the fact.” Leaving Matt to roll his own chair from behind a computer workstation on the other side of the room, Ian sat back down at his desk opposite her, eyes gleaming. “So. Blackie said you have a feather?”

  “Yes. How much has, um, Blackie told you?”

  Matt put his chair beside hers, sat too close and leaned in to say under his breath, “You sure you want to go there, Greta?”

  Resisting the organic, almost animalistic temptation to lean into him, she made herself straighten away instead. But her blood hummed and her skin prickled, brought alive by his nearness. Which was so not cool.

  Ian answered, “He told me that you needed help IDing some evidence. Because I don’t shut myself up in the middle of nowhere, and therefore have some knowledge of current affairs, I assume it has something to do with the ranger who was attacked, and the subsequent torching of Matt’s station.”

  Despite the quips she saw the underlying concern, the quick shift of his eyes toward Matt and away, as if making sure he was really there, really okay.

  How long had it been since they had last seen each other? Had Matt left behind not just his career in L.A., but his family and friends, as well? How many more layers were there?

  “The ranger who was attacked was clutching the thing when she was found. I know my bird basics, but I didn’t recognize it.” Matt glanced at her. “Did you get anything off it?”

  She reached into the inner pocket of her jacket for the flat carrying case. “There wasn’t any obvious trace or transfer, and so far, all I’ve come up with is that it’s not synthetic, hasn’t been sterilized for commercial use and probably came from a living bird relatively recently. The mites I saw under magnification were still alive, at any rate.” She slid the evidence bag across the table.

  Ian waggled his finger. “Mites are resilient buggers. They can go for weeks, months, even years on just—” He broke off with a strangled noise, face draining of color. Almost hesitantly, he used one finger to pull the bag closer, then leaned in to inspect the strangely striped feather. “Holy. Crap.”

  Gigi’s heart thudded in her chest and she nearly shot to her feet and punched the air. Finally, it looked like they had caught a break!

  “Where was your ranger found?” Ian’s voice was cathedral-hushed.

  Matt had gone very still, his expression wary, as if he didn’t want to get ahead of himself over something that might be nothing. “About an hour northwest of the station house. I take it we’ve got something here?”

  “I’ll say.” Ian tapped the edge of the bag, well away from the feather itself. “This is…wow. Unexpected. It’s from a barred eagle.”

  “They’re rare?” Gigi pressed.

  Ian shook his head and met her eyes, expression lit with wonder. “No, not rare. Completely extinct.”

  Chapter Eight

  Gigi sat back in her chair, stunned. “Extinct?”

  “Well, as it’s technically defined, anyway. There’s no real way to prove that something doesn’t exist, you know. The last known breeding population died out in the sixties. At the time, the naturalists blamed pesticides, but the barred eagles stuck to really barren areas at fairly high altitudes, which weren’t exactly farming hot spots. The current theory is that they suffered from heavy-metal poisoning. The darn things were attracted to ore sites, mines, that sort of thing, which meant they were probably overexposed to the metals.” He paused. “There have been sightings off and on up in the backcountry, but no evidence.” He looked back down at the feather, and said softly, “Until now.”

  “Barred eagles?” Matt muttered. “What is going on? What do they have to do with Tany
a?”

  “Beats me. I’m just following the evidence.” Gigi stared at the bagged feather. How had they gone from terrorists to an extinct species?

  She had the sneaking suspicion that this particular piece of evidence could lead them off on a tangent. And even if it was relevant, how could the information possibly help them? It was one thing for the feather to belong to a rare bird that had only a few nesting grounds, thus narrowing down the search for a primary crime scene. It was another thing entirely to go goose-chasing after an ecological ghost.

  Matt said, “What if the al-Jihad connection is just a coincidence, and this is the real motive?”

  “What, you think Tanya could have crossed paths with someone who wanted to make sure he was the first person to ‘rediscover’ the barred eagle?” She shook her head. “I don’t see the guys who torched your station as ornithologists.”

  But a glance at Ian made her wonder. He seemed lost in exuberant thought, his eyes gleaming as he muttered to himself, “We need to get in there and confirm, see what we can do about conservation.” His hands spasmed, as if he wanted to yank the plume out of the evidence bag, but was holding himself back.

  Matt, too, was watching him. “The whole ‘publish or perish, you have to be number one or you’re nothing’ thing can be a powerful motivator.”

  An inner quiver shook Gigi because that hit close to the bone, but she tried to think it through. Ian had been legitimately shocked at seeing the feather; there was no way he was involved in anything underhanded there. Still, his passion was evident. In another man, it might look a lot like fanaticism…and from there it was often a short fall to violence.

  She shook her head. “I don’t see this as a battle over who gets bragging rights. For one thing, we’re dealing with a whole bunch of guys.” Jack and Tucker estimated that it would’ve taken at least four to lock down the station house so quickly. “And while there have been cases of academic murder…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t feel right. But then again, my job is working the evidence. The story is up to the cops and lawyers.”