by Cassie Miles
"Hunters," she said in a tone that made it sound like a dirty word.
'They shouldn't be here. This area is off-limits, and hunting season is September."
"How do you know that date?"
"I hunt."
"Yuck."
After her kick-ass displays of karate, he didn't expect her to be squeamish. "What? Are you a vegetarian?"
"I eat meat," she said. "But it comes neatly packaged in the grocery store. Which is the way God intended."
He exited the car and slammed the door. The huge elk had fallen across a narrow spot in the road. On one side, the trunks of ponderosa pine came all the way up to the shoulder. The other side was a steep cliff. If they pushed the rear haunches aside, he could squeeze by on the rocky side.
Liz went to the head of the animal and looked down into the wide-opened eyes. "How could anyone take pleasure from killing such a beautiful creature?"
"For the meat." But this animal had been left behind with no attempt to harvest the venison. Not even the impressive rack of antlers had been taken. Ben couldn't imagine that the animal had fallen in the middle of the road. This carcass had been placed here. As an obstacle. For him?
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He sensed that someone was near, someone was watching. This was a trap.
"Get back in the car, Liz."
Fists on hips, she confronted him. "You're going to need my help to move him. He probably weighs a ton."
No time to argue. He started toward her.
The thud of a bullet hit the road near his feet. There was no sound of a gun being fired. Must be using a silencer.
He dived toward Liz and shoved her behind the car. He couldn't hear the shots but sensed them. A bullet shattered the dry bark on a tree trunk. Another tore through an overhanging bough. Close. Too close. Ben heard another whiz past his ear.
Liz's moaning about poor dead Bambi ended. She ducked behind the car beside him. Her attitude was all action. "An ambush," she whispered.
"The shooter has to be up on the hill. It's a good vantage point."
She glanced over her shoulder into the forested hillside that sloped downhill. "How far are we from the house? Can we make a run for it?"
Not a chance. Running through the trees, they'd be easy targets for a sniper with a nightscope. He'd already missed three times. A fourth was too much to hope for. "We're better off in the car."
"Can you go back the way we came?"
"Going in reverse down hairpin turns?" He shook his head. "We'd have to go too slow. We'd be an easy target."
'Then we have to go forward. How can you get around the elk?"
"I'll have to drive over the back haunches on the side nearest the cliff."
She gave a nod. "Let's do it."
"Once you get in the car, stay down."
Moving fast, he climbed through the passenger side and into the driver's seat. If he'd taken the SUV with the higher undercarriage, getting past the carcass wouldn't have been a difficult obstacle. With the Mustang, he had to count on the power of eight-cylinder acceleration. He'd make it. His engine had the juice.
He cranked the ignition and took off. With a sickening bump, the tires went over the back legs. Momentarily out of control, the Mustang skidded toward the rocky cliff. Ben flipped the steering wheel to straighten the nose.
Speed was his forte. Whether in a plane or boat or car, he knew how to go fast. Maneuvering on sheer instinct, he whipped along the winding road.
He heard no shots and felt no impact. None of the windows shattered. They were home-free.
Liz peered up over the dashboard. "Are you okay?"
"Fine. You?"
"I'm good."
Adrenaline poured through him, and his pulse raced. The thrill of making a good escape from a dangerous situation lifted his spirits. They were damned lucky to have gotten away from the sniper without a scratch.
And there was another positive aspect to this incident. Having the murderer come after him ought to alter the suspicions of the CBI investigators.
On the down side...somebody wanted him dead.
Danger. Liz had written the word on her legal pad when making her decision about coming back to the Crawford estate. A murderer was, by definition, a dangerous person. But she hadn't expected an ambush, a sniper on the hillside and a dead elk. Someone had tried to kill Ben. Or her. Or both of them.
A hint of fear nibbled at her consciousness, but she wasn't really scared as they swiveled around hairpin turns on the narrow mountain road. Ben handled the Mustang like a Grand Prix professional. "You're a good driver," she said.
"I know."
"Any idea who wants to kill you?"
"Not a clue."
When he cruised through the security gates, she noticed a difference in the cedar-and-stone house with cantilevered decks. Though illuminated by moonlight, the shadows dominated. Most of the windows were dark. The house reminded her of a bleak empty shell.
Jerod was gone.
Charlene was dead.
The only people in residence were Patrice, Monte and the staff. It seemed they had all gone to bed and pulled the covers over their ears.
After Ben parked the Mustang near the front door, he reached over and rested his hand on her shoulder. His touch was electric, sparking a sense of tension and exhilaration. "Liz, are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm not afraid," she said honestly. "Maybe a little startled. For a few minutes, things got kind of hairy."
"If you don't want to be a part of this, I'll understand." Sincerity resonated in his baritone voice. "We can arrange for you to ride back into Denver with one of the cops."
"I'm not leaving." She rested her hand on top of his. "Not now. The situation is starting to get interesting."
When he smiled, his blue eyes flashed with excitement, and she recognized a kindred spirit—a man who, like her, never backed away from a threat.
She and Ben came from opposite ends of the social scale. He was an arrogant CEO. She scraped by as a struggling law student and part-time private eye. He drove a Mustang as his second car. She bounced along in an aging Toyota. Their differences were myriad. And yet, at their core, they meshed perfectly. Both of them welcomed challenge. Stubborn and kick-ass, they made quite a pair.
Plucking his hand from her shoulder, she reached for the door handle on the Mustang. "Let's concentrate on finding the killer."
"I'll call the CBI."
"And we need to check on the people in the house. To make sure none of them are moonlighting as a sniper."
Inside the house, they turned on lights and made plenty of noise. She trailed Ben into the study, where he found the phone number of the CBI agents working the case and made his call.
Rachel Frakes, wrapped in a navy flannel bathrobe patterned with white moose, poked her head through the door. Her usually slicked-back hair fell softly around her cheeks, but her eyes were hard and cold as she stared at Liz. "What on earth are you two doing?"
Ben answered, "Somebody shot at us on the road. I want you to check on the chef, gardener and chauffeur. Make sure everyone is accounted for."
"Yes, sir."
She fired another glare at Liz before turning on her heel and stalking from the room. For such a big woman, she was incredibly light on her feet.
While Ben barked into the phone, Liz moved toward the hallway, thinking that she'd peek into Patrice's room. Though it was hard to imagine that chic, black-clad shrew perched on a hillside with a sniper rifle, her husband might be capable of opening fire on Ben. According to Annette, Monte was an Olympic marksman.
"Wait," Ben said. "Where are you going?"
Over her shoulder, she said, "I thought I'd see what Patrice and Monte are up to."
"Give me a minute. I'll go with you."
While he returned to his phone call, she loitered in the doorway, half in the study and half out. At the far end of the hall, she glimpsed a ghostly form. Who was it? What was it?
Liz rushed down the ha
ll and encountered Annette. With her long, heavy brown hair pulled back in a braid and a flower-sprigged flannel nightgown that fell all the way to the floor, she resembled a Gothic heroine from days gone by.
"What are you doing here?" Annette asked. "I thought you quit."
"Changed my mind."
"Fickle."
Now was as good a time as any to start acting like a real homicide detective. Liz had a lot of questions for this sweet young woman who claimed to have seen Ben carrying Charlene's lifeless body toward its final resting place.
Liz offered an encouraging smile. "How are you doing, Annette? It's been a traumatic couple of days for you."
"As if you give a damn."
Her lower lip pushed out in a frown. Somehow, Liz needed to gain her trust. Empathy usually worked. "It must have been terrifying to see that monster."
"Yes, it was." Still scowling, she folded her arms below her breasts. This hostility was puzzling. Annette had no reason to hate her.
"You were out on the deck. All alone," Liz said. "Why didn't you call for help?"
"How could I know Charlene was dead? I thought they might be playing games. You know, sex games."
Liz glanced over her shoulder toward the study and lowered her voice. "Does Ben do that kind of thing?"
"Well," she huffed, "you ought to know."
"Me?"
"I saw what was going on between the two of you. Sneaking off together. Giving each other little winks and nudges." She waggled a finger. "Mark my words. Ben won't fall for the likes of you. Ben has class."
When she spoke his name, she exhaled a wistful little sigh. Apparently, Annette was a bit infatuated with the lord of the manor. Even if she thought he was a murderer.
Liz said, "There's nothing between me and—"
"Don't lie. You seduced him. That's why you're really back here, isn't it? To be his mistress."
Liz couldn't believe anyone would think of her that way. The only males who ever had crushes on her were the eight-year-old boys in the karate class she taught at Dragon Lou's.
Ben's mistress, huh? Was that the opinion of the staff? That she was sleeping with the boss, that she had employed her dubious feminine wiles to bag herself a millionaire? Hah! Her mother would have been so proud.
"Annette, I'm not having sex with Ben."
"Why else would he be interested in you? You're not especially pretty, you know."
'Thanks." This innocent little maid had a decidedly witchy streak.
"I'm not trying to be mean. But look at your hair. You're a mess."
"I don't bother much with my appearance," Liz said. "And I don't sleep with men I've only known for a few hours. Do you?"
"Never."
Her small face puckered, deepening the fine lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Though she acted like a third-grader, she might be older than Liz had supposed. She asked, "How long have you been a maid?"
"I've been with the Crawfords for almost a year. This is my first maid job."
"Do you like it?"
"Sometimes. I used to work at a hospital. Dr. Mancini said I should go back to school and get trained as a nurse."
"You'd make a good nurse." Liz slathered on the compliments; she wanted Annette to confide in her. "I've seen you at work. You're very precise. And clean."
Annette's mouth twitched as if she couldn't decide whether to sneer or smile. "Are you sure you're not sleeping with Ben?"
"Not that I recall, and I'd remember. He's a good-looking man, isn't he?"
"Oh, yes." She sighed.
Trying to wheedle her way into Annette's confidence, Liz offered more information. "Somebody's after him. While we were driving up here, a sniper set up an ambush."
"No!" She gasped. "You have to tell me everything."
At that moment, Ben stepped into the hallway. "Agent Lattimer is on his way with a forensic team." He nodded to Annette. "Did we wake you?"
"I was already up."
"You seem to do a lot of wandering around at night."
"I have insomnia." Her hands moved nervously across the flannel of her gown. Feverish color appeared in her cheeks. "Liz said that someone tried to shoot you."
"Yes."
His tone was curt. His attitude, dismissive. Liz couldn't fault him for being cold toward Annette. Her weird testimony about seeing him with Charlene's body had gone a long way toward making Ben a suspect.
To Liz, he said, "I'm going to rouse Patrice and Monte. I want them both present when the CBI is here."
She nodded. "And I'll need to give a statement."
Annette whispered, "Should I stay up?"
Without even looking at her, Ben said, "I don't care."
Obviously, he didn't appreciate the intensity of her infatuation with him. Annette was panting to be noticed. Taking pity on the wistful little maid, Liz caught hold of her arm. "Let's go upstairs together. I need to drop off my stuff."
On the third floor, Liz opened the door and tossed her gym bag into her garret-sized bedroom. Annette paused outside the room next door with her hand on the round brass knob. "Ben is angry with me, isn't he?"
Witnessing this unrequited affection pained Liz. She was fairly sure that Ben didn't care enough about Annette to be angry, sad, pleased or anything else. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Yes," she said emphatically. "And you can tell me about the sniper."
She pushed open the door and invited Liz into her room. Spotlessly clean, the tiny bedroom sparkled with star-shaped ornaments hung from the rafters by invisible wires. The pine surface of the dresser held a crowd of cut glass figurines, several of which were fairy princesses. A framed poster from Beauty and the Beast dominated one wall.
Annette flounced into the center of the baby-blue comforter on her single bed and beamed like a teenager at a slumber party. Had she cast Ben in the role of Prince Charming? Had she named him as the "monster" in a desperate attempt to get his attention?
"Okay," she said. "Tell me what happened."
While Liz described the elk in the road and the sniper, Annette added her own embellishments, various descriptions that made Ben sound like a superhero.
"He's very courageous," Annette said. "And he's always been nice to me. Not like Patrice."
Amen to that. "That's why it's hard for me to believe he had anything to do with Charlene's murder. Are you positively sure you saw Ben carrying her body?"
Annette's gaze flickered around the room, resting for a long moment on the figurines before she said, "Charlene was a terrible person. Ben hated her."
"You didn't answer my question."
"I told the detectives that I thought it was Ben, but I might have been mistaken."
A cleverly ambiguous statement. She'd given enough of a hint to point suspicion toward Ben while allowing herself deniability. Was Annette that savvy? It occurred to Liz that someone else might have told her what to say.
Liz stood. "I should go downstairs and give my statement to the CBI. Thanks for talking to me."
Annette played with her long braid. "You're not as bad as I thought you were."
"Back at you."
On her way out, Liz studied the figurines on the dresser. Hiding among them was a flower petal brooch that sparkled with unusual fire. Real diamonds? Real rubies? She picked it up. "This is pretty. It almost looks—"
Annette flew across the room and snatched the shimmering piece of jewelry. "Get out. Now."
Chapter Twelve
Standing in the kitchen with a mug of decaf coffee that Rachel had brewed, Ben apprised Patrice and Monte of the current threat situation. His voice stayed calm. His account was as simple and direct as possible. Carefully, he analyzed Patrice's reactions, hoping that his sister wasn't responsible for the dead elk and the sniper, hoping that she wasn't trying to kill him.
"The road isn't technically our property," she said. "It's maintained by the county. So we really can't prosecute for poaching."
"Damn the elk," he said. "Thi
s was attempted murder."
"Oh, Ben. Don't be so dramatic."
She raised the coffee mug to her lips. In her black pajamas, she resembled a high-fashion ninja. With her hair still damp from the shower, she didn't look like she'd been running through the forest.
On the other hand, Monte had on black jeans and a cashmere sweater. Ben didn't really think there was time for him to race back to the house. But he could be wrong.
"Someone tried to kill me," Ben said.
"Are you quite certain?" Her eyebrows raised. "Is your Mustang riddled with bullets?"
"'Why would I make this up?"
"It's so very obvious." She exchanged a glance with Monte, who sat at the kitchen table and reached for the plate of cookies that Rachel had laid out. In his other hand, he held a cell phone, which he was using to send text messages.
"Why so obvious?"
"You're trying to divert suspicion from yourself. You probably want to make it look like somebody else killed Charlene."
"I don't need a diversion." He struggled to maintain control. His sister had always been able to poke at his last nerve. "I'm innocent."
Liz joined them in the kitchen, carrying her yellow legal pad. As she poured herself a cup of coffee, she said, "I was in the car with Ben. I witnessed the assault."
"Oh?" Patrice's mouth formed a tight little circle. "And why should I believe Ben's new girlfriend?"
"I'm not his girlfriend."
"Then why are you here? You're totally incompetent as a maid."
"Personal assistant," she said. "I'm here to help Ben handle all the details of running the Crawford family business. And, maybe, to help him solve the murder."
'That's right," he said. "She's working for me."
It had never been his intention to use Liz as his assistant. He hadn't gone to her apartment and begged her to return because he thought she'd make a good employee. On the other hand, she was smart, steady and believed in his innocence. With her as a personal assistant, he might pull out of this mess without being charged for murder.
"Quite the promotion," Patrice snapped. "I hope he's paying you well."
*'He is." Liz snapped back. "And I'm worth it."
"Perhaps you two geniuses will enlighten me about this supposed sniper. Why would anyone want to kill Ben?"