Case File: Canyon Creek, Wyoming

by Graves, Paula

  He was nearby. She felt him, like a chill in the air around her. She struggled to open her eyes, certain that if she looked in the side mirror, she’d see him lurking behind them, waiting to make his move.

  She tried to warn Riley, but her voice came out in a soft, voiceless cry. Her arms and legs felt paralyzed, and a growing hum filled her ears.

  He was closer. She could smell him, the fetid stench of hate and malice, stronger than the sting of pepper spray that still seemed to linger in her nose. Was he right outside her window? If she opened her eyes, would she find him staring back at her, from a face she had struggled for two days to picture? Or would she see nothing but those hard, cruel hands, reaching for her, determined to finish what he’d started two days ago?

  Hard hands grabbed her from behind and squeezed her throat, trapping her breath in her chest. Her head started pounding, and the world around her swirled into a spiral of darkness.

  Oh, my God he’s here, he’s in the car, I’m going to die—

  “Hannah!”

  The fingers lost their grip. Air rushed into her lungs, and she lurched forward, her paralysis gone. Her surroundings swam into focus. The dashboard in front of her. Fast breathing beside her.

  She had to get out.

  Fumbling with the seat-belt buckle, she managed to free herself just as someone grabbed her arm. She jerked away, plucking at the door handle, a soft keening sob escaping her lungs as she missed on the first try. On the second attempt, the door opened and she flung herself out of the car into the driving rain, scrambling over the rocky shoulder.

  “Hannah!”

  She kept moving, though her sluggish brain tried to process how the killer knew her name. And what was he doing in the car?

  She heard swift footsteps on the ground behind her, and her heart rate soared. Hands caught at her, missing at first but finally trapping her in their hard grip. She struggled to get away, but strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight against a warm, solid body.

  “Hannah, it’s Riley. Stop fighting me.”

  She fought a few seconds longer until his words seeped into her sleep-addled brain. She twisted around to look at him, needing to see his face, to be sure.

  Rain dripped off the brim of his hat, falling against her cheek. Beneath the brim, his anxious blue eyes bored into hers. “Are you okay?” His voice shook.

  Relief flooded her body, knocking her off balance. She grasped his arms, her fingers digging in just to keep herself from sliding to the ground.

  He caught her up against him. “You were trying to scream in the car,” he said, his voice rough.

  “I thought he was here.” Her voice came out in a croak. “I thought he was trying to kill me.”

  Riley’s eyes closed as he took a couple of quick, deep breaths. “I didn’t know if you were having some sort of seizure or something. I pulled over and then you just went wild.”

  He had parked the Ford off the side of the road, she saw, on a narrow shoulder not far from the exit to the rest area where they’d eaten lunch and played that silly game of popsmack. She must have slept longer than she realized; they’d been back on the road for almost an hour and a half.

  “It felt real,” she said, tears stinging her eyes. She’d felt the man’s anger. His hate.

  “Nobody’s out there,” he assured her, pushing her wet hair out of her face. His hand lingered against her cheek, his touch warm and firm, full of strength tempered by gentle concern. Her breath hitched, catching somewhere in the middle of her chest. She gazed up into his shadowed eyes, where something glittered, fierce and white hot, stealing the air from her lungs. His fingers tangled in the hair at her temples, trapping her.

  He was going to kiss her. And she was going to let him.

  As she rose to meet him, his mouth descended, hard and hungry against hers.

  Chapter Nine

  Though a cold wind whipped around them, and the rain drenched them to the skin, all Hannah could feel was Riley’s mouth over hers, hard and relentless, drawing out of her a feverish passion she thought she’d buried somewhere so deep inside it could never be found again. She dug her fingers into the muscles of his arms, holding on tightly as he dragged her closer to him, until her breasts pressed flat against the hard wall of his chest, until she could feel his heartbeat galloping wildly alongside her own.

  Slowly, he ran his hand over her jaw, down the curve of her neck, his thumb settling on the hollow of her throat. His mouth softened, coaxing her to relax against him. His tongue slid lightly over her bottom lip, seducing her until she opened up to him, letting him deepen the kiss.

  Their tongues met briefly, a gentle thrust and parry, and a low moan escaped her throat.

  The sound seemed to catch him off guard. He went still, his mouth resting briefly against hers, then letting go. His hand dropped from her neck and away from her body altogether.

  Released from his hold, she had to struggle to keep her feet, her breath coming in short, raspy pants.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice tight.

  She didn’t know what to say. Was he sorry for kissing her in the first place? Sorry for pulling away and leaving her breathless and stunned?

  “You scared me,” he added, immediately wincing as if he knew it was the wrong thing to say.

  The sudden tension between them was almost painful. She pressed the heel of her hand against her suddenly aching forehead. “Let’s get back in the car, okay? We’re soaked.”

  He gave a brisk nod and guided her back to the car. He opened the door for her, letting her settle in before he shut it and went around to the driver’s side. He cranked the engine and turned up the heat, pulling back out on to the highway.

  The next hour passed in near silence, the beat of the windshield wipers and the patter of rain taking up the slack.

  They reached Canyon Creek near nightfall, stopping at the used-car lot to switch vehicles. On the short drive back to Riley’s place, he broke the silence only to make a phone call to the office. “He’s not in? Do you know where he went?”

  After listening a moment longer, he rang off, gazing ahead at the road with his brow furrowed.

  “What is it?” Hannah asked.

  “Joe left the office about four hours ago, headed for the Grand Teton National Park. He didn’t leave any message for me.”

  “Maybe it’s not related to my case?”

  He shook his head. “Grand Teton is way out of our jurisdiction. Why would he be going there?”

  Hannah had a sinking feeling they’d find out sooner rather than later.

  JACK’S TRUCK WAS NOWHERE in sight when Riley pulled the Silverado up the gravel-packed drive to his house. He frowned, wondering where his brother-in-law was off to in this storm.

  As Hannah started to get out of the truck, he put his hand out to hold her in place. “Let me go get an umbrella for you.”

  She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I’m already drenched to the bone. I’m not going to melt.” She slid out of the car into the rain.

  He hurried to catch up with her, unlocking the door and guiding her to the narrow mudroom just off the kitchen. He took her jacket and shook off the water, hanging it to finish drying on a hook on the wall. He did the same with his own jacket, trying to ignore the tense silence that had fallen between them.

  What the hell had gotten into him, grabbing her up like that, kissing her with all the finesse of a cowboy hitting town after weeks on the trail? Jack, for God’s sake, would have handled her with a more gentleness, and he was a damned bull rider and an unrepentant player.

  Hannah crossed the kitchen to stand near the wood stove. Inside the chamber, the embers were dying, but it still gave off a soft stream of heat. Riley joined her there, holding his hands out to warm them from the damp chill.

  “Hannah, I wanted to say—”

  “Do you think Joe might have left a message on your answering machine?” she interrupted, looking up at him with anxious eyes.

&nb
sp; That should have been the first thing he thought about, he realized with some chagrin. He went down the hall to his bedroom to check, acutely aware of Hannah’s soft footsteps moving down the hallway behind him.

  There was nothing on his answering machine, and when he tried calling Joe’s cell phone, he got no answer.

  “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Hannah’s voice was right behind him. He turned to find her standing quietly, her eyes dark with worry.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, touching her arm, needing that contact to ground him, somehow.

  She laid her hand on his chest, right over his heart, her touch gentle and questioning. He put his own hand over hers, pulling her into a gentle, undemanding embrace.

  They stood there a long time, wrapped in each other’s arms, her head resting against his shoulder. Outside the house, darkness fell, painting the bedroom with shadows. The only light came from the glowing embers of the wood stove in the corner, yet Riley couldn’t seem to rouse himself to release Hannah and go turn on the overhead light.

  “I’m sure he’s okay,” she murmured against his shirt.

  “It’s unusual for him not to answer his phone.”

  “Maybe it’s out of cell-tower range or something.”

  That was certainly possible. There were plenty of places in the Wyoming hills and valleys where cell-phone towers didn’t reach. And had Joe left Riley a message, telling him he might be out of pocket for the afternoon, he probably wouldn’t give it a second thought.

  “Should I call Jane and see if she knows where he is?”

  “No,” Hannah said quickly, pulling her head back to look at him. “You’d just worry her without really knowing anything. Give Joe time to get home and try him again later.” She let go of him, backing out of the embrace, though this time she didn’t seem uncomfortable to be around him. “Let’s get out of these wet clothes and then see what we can rustle up for dinner. I bet you’ll hear from Joe by the time we’re finished.”

  She was almost right. Riley had just walked into the kitchen, dressed in a dry pair of jeans and a warm sweatshirt when a knock sounded on the back door. A second later, Joe stuck his head through the door. “Riley?”

  “Come on in,” he answered, turning as Hannah came into the kitchen from the hallway. She’d dressed in a loose-fitting pair of yoga pants and an oversized T-shirt, and still he found himself wanting to pin her up against the kitchen wall and finish what he’d started out on that rain-washed highway.

  He dragged his gaze away as Joe let himself into the kitchen, rain dripping from his Stetson to the floor of the entryway. He gave them both an odd look as he ducked into the mudroom briefly to hang up his wet coat, then returned to the kitchen where they waited.

  “I heard you went to Grand Teton,” Riley said, trying not to sound impatient.

  Joe nodded. “I got a call from Jim Tanner. A hiker found a body up there.”

  Next to Riley, Hannah moved sideways, dropping into one of the nearby kitchen chairs. Riley slanted a look at her to make sure she was okay. She looked a little pale, but her gaze was steady as she waited for Joe to elaborate.

  “They found pepper spray on her skin. She was wrapped in a plastic sheet and dumped in a creek just inside the park east of Moran. She’s been dead less than a day. Maybe as little as a couple of hours. M.E. thinks the hikers found her within minutes of her being dumped.”

  Riley shook his head. “Our guy’s not that sloppy.”

  “Who else could it be?” Hannah asked. “It can’t be a copycat, since none of that stuff is common knowledge, right?”

  Riley looked at her, then back at Joe, not yet sure what to think. Their guy wasn’t the sloppy type, so if this was him, something in his MO had changed.

  “He could be escalating, beyond his normal control,” Joe suggested. “Maybe he couldn’t handle the failure of letting Hannah slip through his fingers not once but twice in the last two days.”

  It was possible, Riley supposed, but something about that theory just didn’t feel right. The guy had been able not only to escape capture for the last three years but escape detection as well. Riley had been the first law-enforcement officer in Wyoming to connect the dots, and even he’d had doubts at first. Was a guy as wily as that really going to lose control and start getting sloppy because one of his targets got away?

  “Maybe it’s not escalation,” Hannah said. Riley looked at her and found her gazing back at him, her green eyes dark with horror. “Maybe it was a message. To me. What he’d have done to me if I hadn’t gotten away.”

  Riley pulled out the chair beside Hannah and sat down, reaching across to close his hand over hers where it lay on the table. “Don’t you start blaming yourself for this.”

  Joe sat across from them. “Riley’s right. Whatever this bastard does, it’s his own doing. You haven’t done a damned thing wrong.”

  Riley squeezed her hand. “What were you supposed to have done differently—let him kill you?”

  “No, of course not,” she said, releasing a deep sigh. “I just think he’s trying to tell us we can’t stop him. I mean—he killed her and dumped her in a national park where hikers found her probably within minutes. That’s bold.”

  “And risky, too,” Joe pointed out. “If he starts thinking he’s invincible, that’s good for us. He’ll start making mistakes, and we’ll have him.”

  “Are we going to be in the loop on this investigation?” Riley asked Joe. “I need to see the reports.”

  “They’re faxing everything they get. As soon as they know something, we’ll know something. I’ll bring by copies when they’re ready.” Joe shot a comforting smile at Hannah. “Don’t let this get to you, Hannah. You just stay safe here with Riley and do what you can to remember more about the attack. That’s all you can do.”

  Riley walked him to the door when he rose to leave. “Do you think she’s right? Is it a message?”

  “I think you and Hannah need to keep working on her memory lapses,” Joe responded. “If she knows anything at all about the attack she hasn’t yet remembered, it could be the break we need. If this guy is willing to kill someone just to let us know he can, nobody’s safe.”

  Riley closed the door behind Joe and looked back at Hannah, who still sat at the table, gazing at him with wide, worried eyes. “Why don’t we rustle up some dinner?” he suggested.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  He sighed. He wasn’t, either, even though lunch had been a long time ago. He wished he knew where Jack was. It had been a real help to have him around for the past day, especially since the horses didn’t just feed themselves every day. He should have asked Joe to take over stable duties that night, but Joe had a very pregnant wife at home, and with a murderous bastard out there killing women—

  “I should call Jack,” he said aloud, reaching into his pocket for his phone. “I’m not sure whether he fed the horses or not.”

  “We could do that, couldn’t we?” Hannah stood, flexing her arms over her head. “I wouldn’t mind the exercise.”

  Or the distraction, he suspected. “You sure? It’s cold and wet out there.”

  “I go fishing in December in the rain all the time,” she said firmly, her square little chin lifting. “I’m not fragile.”

  He didn’t remind her of how she’d damned near fallen apart earlier that afternoon. Post-traumatic stress could fell big, tough, well-trained men. Then again, considering what she’d been through, she was holding up pretty well.

  “Okay,” he agreed. He grabbed their coats from the mudroom and led her out to the truck.

  THE HARD RAIN HADN’T SEEMED to affect the hard-pressed dirt track to the stable, Hannah noticed. Perhaps the ground had been too dry for the rain to have made much impact, or maybe it was mostly rocky soil to begin with. There was a lot about Wyoming that seemed almost as alien to her as a foreign country, from the craggy mountains to the thin, dry air.

  Amazing, then, how familiar Riley seemed to her after such a s
hort time. Though she knew so little about him, beyond the handful of facts she’d gleaned over the past two days, she was more convinced than ever that she’d made the right choice that night in the hospital when she’d made the leap of faith and put herself under his protection.

  He put her to work, showing no signs of trying to coddle her. She was grateful for the show of confidence. After the way she’d acted during their trip west that day, he’d have been justified in thinking she was weak and unreliable.

  She brushed the mud off the chestnut mare’s coat and held her bridle while Riley picked the dirt out of her hooves. “What’s her name?” she asked.

  “This is Bella. She was Emily’s.” Riley stood up and patted the mare’s flank. “The black gelding is Jazz. And those two—” he pointed to the paint gelding and the buckskin mare they’d already settled for the night “—are Lucky and Lady. Joe bought them last year after he and Jane married. He doesn’t have a stable on his land, so we share feed costs and vet bills, and he pays me for boarding them. He and Jane used to come daily to ride, too, before Jane got pregnant.”

  “I mentioned we’ve been thinking about building a stable on our land back home, to offer trail riding up the mountain as part of our services, didn’t I?” Hannah put the brush back on the tack table and turned to look at Riley. “We all know how to ride well, and I think my brother Luke might consider coming back home to run the stable if we ever got around to doing it. He’s the best horseman among us.”

  “I thought all your family was together back home in Alabama.” Riley put Bella in her stall and added food to her feed bowl.

  “We mostly are. Sam and his little girl Maddy live in the Washington, D.C. area—he’s a prosecutor—but he’s been talking about moving back to Alabama so Maddy can grow up around her grandparents and her cousins. If he comes back, the only one missing will be Luke. He retired from the Marines last year, but so far, he’s still hanging around San Diego.” She couldn’t hide a little frown.