Mountain Peril

by Sandra Robbins

  Danielle’s fingers curled around the cold metal, and she swallowed. “Thanks, Betty.”

  No other words came to mind, so she hurried from the room. All she could think about was Tricia lying on a mountain path. The people who she thought would have been most concerned with her death only had money on their minds. The idea sickened her.

  Pushing the door to her office open, Danielle stopped in surprise at the sight of Flynn Carter sitting in a chair. His body was slumped forward, and his head rested on his crossed arms on her desk. His shoulders shook from the sobs that filled the air. She rushed forward and touched his arm. “Flynn, are you all right?”

  He looked up at her, and Danielle had never seen such anguish in anyone’s eyes. With a cry, he turned to her. “Why, Dr. Tyler? Why would anyone do such a thing?”

  She knelt beside him and put her arm around his shoulder. “I don’t know, Flynn. It’s a question I’ve asked myself for ten years about Jennifer McCaslin’s death. Now you’re going to have to live with the same questions I have.”

  He doubled his fists in his lap and gritted his teeth. “But I didn’t send that text message.”

  Danielle frowned. “What text message? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The police told me there was a message on Tricia’s phone asking her to meet me at Laurel Falls. It was sent from my phone, but I don’t know anything about it. I lost my phone yesterday. Remember? I told you about it.”

  Danielle nodded. “Yes, you called me from your roommate’s phone.”

  Flynn grabbed her hands, and fresh tears ran down his face as he stared up at her. “Please, Dr. Tyler. Tell the police I wouldn’t lie about something like that, and I wouldn’t hurt Tricia. I loved her.”

  Danielle squeezed his hands and smiled. “I know you loved her, Flynn. I’ve seen the two of you together ever since you were freshmen. I don’t believe you would hurt her.”

  Tears continued to run down his face. “But it’s my fault. I talked her into doing that Web site, and it got her killed.”

  She thought carefully before she responded. “Tricia should have thought about how dangerous it was before she got involved.”

  A voice sounded behind them. “That’s a good point, Dr. Tyler.”

  She looked over her shoulder at Jack standing in the open door. She stood up. “Detective Denton, come in.”

  Flynn rose to stand beside her. He wiped his hands across his cheeks. “Do you know anything?”

  Jack shook his head. “Not yet. It’s too early in the investigation, but we’ll find Tricia’s killer.”

  Anger flashed across Flynn’s face. “When you catch him, I wish I could have a few minutes with him. Make him pay for what he did to Tricia.”

  Jack walked forward and stared at Flynn. “You’re feeling guilty, and I can’t do anything to take that off your shoulders. When we find the killer, you can’t transfer what you feel to him. I’m afraid you’re going to have to live with your part in this mess.”

  Flynn nodded. “You’re right. It’s all my fault. I’ll have to live with that thought.”

  Flynn bit down on his quivering lip and headed for the door. Before he stepped into the hall, he stopped and turned toward them. He glared at Jack and pointed a shaking finger at him. “I don’t care what you believe, I didn’t send that text message to Tricia. And you can’t prove I did.”

  Danielle watched him go before she turned to Jack. “I feel so sorry for him.”

  “I do, too. I don’t have any proof, but I tend to believe him about the cell phone, too. I just hope no other students turn up dead because of his Web site.”

  “So do I.” She tilted her head and studied him. “When I first met you, I thought you seemed distant and indifferent, but I think I’m changing my mind. There’s a lot more to you than the uncaring policeman you want everyone to believe you are.”

  His face flushed, and he glanced away from her. “I think we’d better…” He stopped and stared at the rose on her desk. “Where did that come from?”

  The uneasy feeling of earlier returned. “It was there when I came in this morning.”

  “Who sent it?”

  Danielle shrugged and walked to the desk. Picking up the card, she handed it to him. “I don’t know. This note was with it.”

  He held the note up and looked at it. When he’d finished, he handed it back to her. “Those are mighty fancy words.”

  She nodded. “I can’t figure out who would have left this for me.”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Maybe he’s shy and thinks you wouldn’t like him. Or maybe it’s some old boyfriend who wants to get back with you.”

  The cold tone of his voice sent shivers down Danielle’s spine. The aloof man she’d first met was back, and she wondered where the Jack she’d laughed with at the Mountain Mug had gone. She frowned. “There’s no old boyfriend.”

  He pointed toward the door. “I came to search Tricia’s room. Want to come with me?”

  “Yes.” Thankful to change the subject, she reached for the key. “Security locked her room last night.”

  She walked past him into the hall, and he followed. As they headed across campus to Tricia’s dorm, she couldn’t help studying Jack out of the corner of her eye. When she’d first met him, he’d seemed like a hard-hearted man. Last night and this morning he’d given her a glimpse into the private places of his soul, and she liked what she saw. She’d thought the ice inside him was beginning to melt, but now she wasn’t so sure. There seemed to be too many layers to him, and she doubted if she would ever dig through to find the real Jack Denton. Maybe it would be best if she didn’t even try.

  SIX

  Danielle turned the key in the lock and pushed the door to Tricia’s dorm room open. She stood on the threshold and thought about the talented girl who’d lived here only yesterday but would enter no more. Danielle blinked back the moisture about to spill down her face.

  “Are you all right?” Jack asked. The impassive expression on his face held none of the concern for her she’d seen last night.

  She straightened her shoulders and pointed down the hallway. “Jennifer and I lived in the second room on the left. I haven’t been in this dorm since I’ve been back at Webster. Just couldn’t make myself enter.”

  “If you’d rather not do this, go back to your office.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’ll be okay. I want to do anything I can to help.”

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the room and flipped the light switch. The cluttered room looked like the living space of a college student. Books lay in stacks on the desk next to a laptop, and the twisted blankets on the bed looked as if Tricia might have jumped from bed and rushed off to class. A bicycle leaned against the wall where a small corkboard hung with pictures displayed of life on the Webster campus.

  Jack followed her into the room and stood in the center of the floor looking around. “So this is where she lived.”

  Danielle nodded. “Where do you want to start?”

  He looked toward the desk. “I think I’ll go through the desk first.” His blue eyes studied her for a moment. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. My partner’s coming to help.”

  Danielle spied the sheets of music piled to the side of the desk and pointed to it. “Tricia was a piano major. I suppose that’s the music she was working on. It belongs to the music library. Do you need to take it, or is it all right for me to return it?”

  He picked up the stack and glanced at each of the pieces. With a grin he glanced at her. “I don’t know much about classical music.”

  Danielle pointed to the piece on top. “Chopin’s Nocturne in B Major. I remember Tricia telling me she was performing this for her senior recital in the spring. I loved to hear her play. She had such a gift for showing the emotion of a piece.”

  Jack took the music and put it back on the desk. “For the daughter of rock stars, you seem to know a lot about classical music.”
<
br />   She shrugged. “My parents might have been rock musicians, but they were classically trained. We had all types of music in our home.”

  “They sound like the kind of parents anybody would be lucky to have.”

  “They’re wonderful. Maybe you’ll have the chance to meet them someday.”

  Jack chuckled. “Me meeting Kenny and Mary Tyler. I would never have thought it when I was locked up in my room listening to the radio and pretending to play the guitar along with them.”

  She grinned. “They’re just normal people like everybody else. They live a simple life now on the outskirts of Atlanta.”

  “I guess they don’t seem different to you, but there’s nothing normal about them to me. I think of them as rock legends.”

  Danielle had dealt with opinions about her parents all her life. She only wished the public could know them like she did. “If you’d kept up with them, you might have discovered that a lot of their time is spent working with inner-city kids and telling them about Jesus.”

  His eyebrows arched. “After all they went through, now they’re Christians?”

  “Yes. Dad spent some time in rehab, but he kicked his drug habit. He came out with a strong faith, and he and my mother have never looked back. They want young people to know how drugs and alcohol will rob them of their lives. They’re the best people I’ve ever known.”

  Jack smiled. “I’m happy things turned out so well.” He took a deep breath and glanced around the room. “We’re not getting anything done standing around talking. I’d better get to work.”

  Danielle nodded and picked up a book that lay on Tricia’s desk. “It’s very hard being here and seeing it like she just stepped out for a moment. I hope you find the person who killed her and he pays for what he’s done.”

  Jack shrugged. “No telling when that will be. It’s been ten years since Jennifer’s death. I hope we don’t have a repeat of that.”

  She’d never considered the fact that Tricia’s death would be unsolved like Jennifer’s. “You can’t let that happen, Jack. You have to find out who did this.”

  The veil closed over his eyes just as it had done when she first met him, and it chilled her. “I’m going to devote every minute to tracking this guy down.”

  She took a step back to escape the chill radiating from his body. He didn’t have to tell her what he was thinking. She could read it in the muscle that flexed in his jaw. He was letting her know he was backing away before they became any closer. “I hope you find him.”

  He glanced around the room. “In fact if I want to get this search over, I should probably be here alone. I’m wasting too much time talking.”

  She flinched at the abrupt dismissal. “All right. If that’s the way you want it. Goodbye, Jack.”

  “Goodbye.” He picked up Tricia’s notebook from the desk and began flipping through it.

  Danielle waited to see if he was going to say anything else. When he didn’t, she ran into the hallway but stopped at the sound of a door opening. Two students exited the room where she and Jennifer had lived. Their giggles drifted toward her as they walked in the opposite direction.

  She shook her head to keep from thinking how she and Jennifer had been just like that, friends who shared every secret. She wiped at her eyes and strode toward the exit.

  As she reached the door, it opened, and a man with several boxes in his hands stood there. “Good morning. I’m Will Bryson, Detective Jack Denton’s partner. I was supposed to meet him here.”

  “I’m Danielle Tyler, Dean of Students at Webster.”

  Will Bryson’s freckled face beamed at her, and Danielle knew this man was nothing like Jack Denton. From his red hair to the boyish grin, he was an exact opposite of the moody, sullen man she’d just left. Will set the boxes down, propped his arm against the wall and cocked an eyebrow at her. His gaze raked over her.

  “Well, now, you’re just as pretty as Jack said.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “I doubt he said that.”

  Will chuckled. “Maybe not, but he should have.”

  Danielle tried to smile. “I just left Detective Denton in Tricia’s room. It’s down this hall on the right. The door’s open. You can’t miss it.”

  He studied her for a moment more before concern furrowed his face. “All kidding aside, Jack told me about you and your connection to the two murdered girls. I’m very sorry.”

  “Thank you, Detective Bryson.”

  He nodded. “If there’s anything I can do to help you get through this, let me know.”

  Danielle glanced down at the floor. “I’ll remember that.”

  Without waiting for his reply, Danielle brushed past the man and hurried outside. Even though she knew his remarks had probably been a line he used on lots of women, it made her feel good to know that she could still attract a man’s attention. She stopped and clenched her fists. The exception seemed to be Jack Denton.

  She shook her head. The last thing she needed to be thinking about was Jack Denton. She had too many other things on her mind. Tricia’s death had brought back the memories she’d tried to forget of what had happened the last time she saw Jennifer. She wondered what people would think if they knew the truth.

  Danielle placed her hands on either side of her head and closed her eyes. She could see Jennifer standing in their room her hands on her hips the afternoon before she died. She’d accused Danielle of being jealous because she was going to win the Webster graduate scholarship. No amount of reasoning had changed her mind, and Danielle had finally given up.

  She still could barely stand to think about the harsh words spoken. If she’d only known that was the last time she would see Jennifer, then she would have kept quiet. Instead Danielle had blasted Jennifer with angry words.

  Danielle pressed her hands tighter on her head. How she hoped no one ever found out about the argument, and how she wished she could blot it from her dreams. No matter how hard she tried, she was sentenced to reliving it over and over.

  Thirty minutes later Jack still couldn’t get Danielle out of his mind. He hadn’t wanted to send her away, but he’d found himself concentrating more on her than what he’d come here to do. When she’d started talking about her parents, he understood their different worlds involved more than just her impressive education.

  Jack thought of his childhood and the stern father who never had a kind word for him or his mother. Years later when Jack had ranted about his wife dying in the car with another man, it had been his mother who pointed out that in his own marriage he became the man he hated most in the world. And she’d been right.

  Shame filled him every time he remembered how soon he’d forgotten the vows he’d spoken on his wedding days. It only took him a few years to transform his wife from a fun-loving and happy woman into an embittered and neglected shell of the girl he’d known.

  With him, it had always been the next Special Forces assignment and the adrenaline rush he got from the danger. He’d isolated himself from her and replaced her with his buddies who understood the emotional tightwire they walked in their jobs. It was no wonder she’d turned to another man.

  In the months after her death he’d slowly realized that he was his father’s son, and his wife had fared no better in her marriage than his mother did.

  Jack sank down in the chair at Tricia’s desk, and his gaze moved over the papers and objects scattered across the top. He’d been through every drawer, and he’d found nothing that seemed to have any connection to the case. With a sigh he pushed back and glanced up at the bookshelf on the wall above. A yearbook for Webster caught his attention, and he reached up and pulled it down.

  “What do you have there?” Will asked.

  Jack glanced over his shoulder at Will who was searching through Tricia’s closet. “It’s the school annual with last year’s date on it. I thought it might yield something.”

  He opened the book, flipped through the first few pages and stopped when Danielle’s picture appeared on the faculty page
. Her hair was shorter then than now, but her smile was the same. He rubbed his thumb across her mouth.

  He thought about the rose he’d seen in her office. His heart constricted at the thought of someone else being interested in Danielle. The words in the note were from a well-educated person, not somebody like him—a cop who barely made it out of college.

  His cell phone rang, and Jack pulled it from the clip on his belt. “Hello.”

  “Jack,” Sheriff Chris Peck said, “how’s it going?”

  “Fine, sir. Will’s here with me, and we’re going through everything in Tricia’s room.”

  “Good. I wanted to give you some news.”

  Jack gripped the phone tighter. “What’s that, sir?”

  “You know we did some checking on all the people who were at Webster at the time of the last murder and this one, too. We found out something interesting about the orchestra teacher, Landon Morse.”

  Jack’s eyebrows arched. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, he was fired from his last job at a small college in Texas for stalking a female student. The girl was in some kind of accident, but they never could link Morse to that. Just the stalking.”

  Jack nodded. “That’s interesting. Will and I will be back at the station in an hour. We haven’t found anything that points to the killer, but we’re bringing a few of her personal items like her calendar, laptop and a notebook.”

  “Good. See you then.”

  Jack flipped the phone closed. “It looks like we may have hit pay dirt today.”

  When he’d finished relating the conversation, Will grinned. “Maybe it won’t take too long to solve this case after all.” He glanced around at all the scattered items they’d decided to take with them. “Let’s get these things boxed up and get on back to the station.”

  Jack nodded and turned back to the desk. His gaze fell on the yearbook, and he remembered Danielle’s picture inside. He picked the book up and placed it in the box with the evidence. He told himself he might need the annual later to look up pictures of students, but in his heart he knew there was only one picture in it that interested him.