by Cindi Myers
“I thought snowmobiles weren’t allowed on the ski trails,” Stacy said.
“They’re not. But he deliberately tried to kill us. When he missed the first time, he turned around and headed for us again.”
“Sheesh, woman! What is with you and guys trying to run you down?” She touched Darcy’s arm. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be insensitive. Are you okay?”
Darcy nodded. “I was terrified at the time. But Ryder pulled his gun and shot at the guy and he raced off. Ryder tried to follow, but he got away.”
“Do you have any idea who it was?”
“No. He was wearing a full helmet with a visor. There was no way to know.”
The bells on the front door announced the arrival of their first afternoon patient. A dog’s insistent bark confirmed this. “That will be Judy Ericson and Tippy,” Stacy said. She squeezed Darcy’s arm. “I’m so glad you’re okay. And I hope they find out who it was.”
“One of Ryder’s bullets hit the windshield of the snowmobile,” Darcy said. “He’s hoping that will help him find the guy.”
“Ryder should talk to Bud O’Brien—he rents snowmobiles out of his garage,” Stacy said. “If this maniac was a tourist who’s stuck here, he might not have his own snowmobile. He’d have to rent one.”
“That’s a great idea. I’ll pass it on.”
Stacy headed to the door, but stopped before she opened it and turned to face Darcy again. “I think I agree with Ken on this one—you shouldn’t be out at your place by yourself. You’re welcome to stay with me and Bill.”
“I’ll be fine,” Darcy said. “I promise.”
Stacy nodded. “At least you have one thing going for you,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“You’ve got Ryder on your side. That’s worth a lot.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Now that the highway is open, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is sending in its own team to investigate the murders,” Ryder told Travis when they met at the sheriff’s department Monday morning.
“So I hear,” Travis said. “Good luck to them. So far we don’t have a lot to go on.”
“When I spoke with my boss this morning, he told me to deliver the physical evidence to the state lab in Junction as soon as possible,” Ryder said. “I had to tell him we didn’t have any physical evidence—no blood, no hair or fibers, no prints.”
“I checked with Ed Nichols about his whereabouts yesterday afternoon,” Travis said. “He says he was home with his wife, watching television.”
“That’s a hard alibi to disprove if his wife backs him up,” Ryder said. “What about the snowmobile?”
“It wasn’t there,” Travis said. “He said it’s at O’Brien’s Garage, waiting on a part.”
“A new windscreen?”
“I don’t know. O’Brien’s was closed when I went by there, and the phone goes to an answering machine. Bud didn’t answer his home phone, either.”
“I’ll go by his house,” Ryder said. “He’ll want as much as anyone to get to the bottom of this. But first, I want to interview Tim and Alex again. I want to see what they were up to yesterday afternoon.”
“There was only one man on that snowmobile,” Travis said.
“Maybe it was one of them—maybe it wasn’t,” Ryder said.
“The problem I have is with motive,” Travis said. “Why go after Darcy?”
Gage joined them. “I heard about what happened yesterday,” Gage said. “Is Darcy okay?”
“She’s holding up,” Ryder said. He turned to Travis once more. “She tried again to think of someone who might have a grudge against her and came up with nothing.” He hesitated. He wanted to honor the trust Darcy had placed in him by revealing her past, but he couldn’t keep information pertaining to the case from Travis. “She does have an ex-boyfriend who went to jail after kidnapping and raping her,” he said. “It happened six years ago, and he was released from prison two months ago, after serving time for another crime. I received a report about him yesterday—no current address. But Darcy is sure she hasn’t seen him here in town.”
“He could have avoided her,” Travis said. “He wouldn’t want her to know he was behind the attacks.”
“Right. His name is Jay Leverett,” Ryder said. “I gave his description to the other officers, and it’s on your desk.”
“We’ll be on the lookout for him,” Travis said. He turned to Gage. “I need you to contact Bud O’Brien,” he said. “Find out why Ed Nichols’s snowmobile is at his garage, how long it’s been there and if it has a damaged windscreen.”
“Will do,” Gage said.
Travis turned back to Ryder. “I’ll go with you to interview Tim and Alex.”
“We should try to get Darcy into a safe house,” Travis said when he and Ryder were in Travis’s cruiser. “I can make some calls...”
“She’ll never go for that,” Ryder said. “And she has a business to run here in town.”
“I can try to run extra patrols out her way, but I don’t really have the personnel,” Travis said.
“It’s okay. I talked her into moving in with me.”
Travis glanced at him, one eyebrow quirked, but all he said was, “All right, then.”
No vehicles were parked in the driveway at the cabin where Alex and Tim were staying, and no one answered Travis’s knock. “Maybe they left town already,” Ryder said. He scanned the snow-covered yard. A black plastic trash can on rollers sat against the house, next to a half cord of firewood. No snowmobile.
Travis walked along the narrow front porch and peered into a window. “If they did, they left behind most of their stuff,” he said.
Ryder cupped his hands against the windowpane and studied the clothing, shoes, beer cans, half-empty bags of chips and video game controllers scattered across the sofa and coffee table. “Yeah, it doesn’t look like they went back to Denver yet,” he agreed.
The two men returned to Travis’s cruiser. “What now?” Ryder asked.
“I need to run up to my folks’ ranch,” Travis said. “I’ve got a couple of guests that are supposed to arrive now that the road is open. One of them is the caterer and I want to make sure she has everything she needs.”
“Rainey and Doug Whittington aren’t doing the food for the wedding?”
“They wanted to, but this woman is a friend of Lacy’s. It was important to her to have her do the wedding and I wasn’t going to argue. And Rainey is always complaining about how much work all the wedding guests are for her, so she should appreciate the help.”
Rainey struck Ryder as the type who wouldn’t want to share her kitchen with anyone, but he kept that opinion to himself. “Speaking of the Whittingtons, does Doug have a snowmobile?” he asked.
“He doesn’t own one,” Travis said. “But he certainly has access to several. I’ll check on that while I’m up there.”
Ryder glanced back toward the house. “I’ll swing by here later and try to catch these two—try to find out what their plans are.” He started to mention the lack of a snowmobile but was interrupted by the insistent beeping from his shoulder-mounted radio. “Report to Dixon Pass for one-vehicle accident. Vehicle is blocking the road.”
“Guess that means the pass is closed again,” Travis said. “It’s going to be a long winter.”
Ryder nodded. “It’s already too long for me.”
* * *
DARCY WAVED GOODBYE to Stacy and headed for the Green Monster. As long as she still had the truck, she might as well move the boxes from Kelly’s garage to the office. She told herself she was being practical, tackling the job now, and tried to ignore the voice in the back of her head that said she was only delaying taking her things to Ryder’s house.
Not that she wasn’t looking forward to spending more time with him—she definitely was. And she knew she would be
much safer with what amounted to her own personal bodyguard. But moving in with a man, even temporarily, was a big step. One she wasn’t sure she was ready to take. She certainly wouldn’t be doing this now when they had known each other so little time, if circumstances—or rather, a deranged man who was possibly a killer—hadn’t forced her hand.
She pulled into the driveway of the duplex, relieved to see no sign of Ken or his truck. The house looked even more neglected when she stepped inside, the air stale, the furniture lightly covered with dust. She made her way to the garage and opened the automatic door from the inside, then set about transferring boxes to the back of the truck. Fortunately, none of the cartons was particularly heavy, though by the time she had filled the truck bed, she felt as if she had had a workout. She slammed the tailgate shut and surveyed the full bed. She had managed to get everything in.
Something cold kissed her cheek and she looked up into a flurry of gently falling white flakes. More snow felt like an insult at this point, but she reminded herself this was what winter in the mountains was all about. She needed to get used to it.
She went back inside to shut the garage door, but stopped just inside the doorway. This might be the last time she was ever in this house—a place that held so many memories. She and Kelly had spent countless evenings here, drinking wine and eating pizza, binge-watching television or planning the next steps for the veterinary practice. She could almost see her friend, seated in the corner of the sofa, a bowl of popcorn in her lap, her hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, head thrown back, laughing. The memory made her smile, even as unshed tears pinched at her throat.
From the living room she walked down a short hallway to the master bedroom, the bed unmade as it almost always was, clothes thrown over a chair, shoes discarded just inside the doorway. She bent and picked up a red high heel. Kelly loved shoes, and was always encouraging Darcy to go for prettier, sexier footwear. She understood Darcy had no desire to call attention to herself with provocative clothing, but she tried to do whatever she could to help her friend get over the fear behind those inhibitions.
The two had met only a few months after Darcy’s rape. Kelly had come in late to a class and taken the vacant seat next to Darcy. In the next five minutes she had borrowed a pen, some notepaper, shared half a carrot cake muffin and invited Darcy to have lunch with her. Swept along in what she later thought of as Hurricane Kelly, Darcy had found herself befriended by this vibrant, fearless woman. Though their personalities were so different, they bonded quickly. When Kelly learned about Darcy’s traumatic experience, she had become her biggest cheerleader and defender.
When she had first visited Darcy’s apartment and seen the array of locks on the door—and learned that Darcy left the lights on all night, even though it made it hard to sleep—she had invited Darcy to move in with her. Gradually, Darcy had gained the confidence to sleep without the lights on. Kelly had found a therapist who specialized in helping rape victims, and had accompanied Darcy to the first appointment.
Though Kelly had been nurturing and protective, she had refused to let Darcy become dependent on her. At every turn, Kelly encouraged Darcy to try new things, take new risks and expand her boundaries. She could be overbearing, and the two friends had had their share of disagreements. But in the end Kelly had saved her. It grieved Darcy beyond words that she hadn’t been able to save her friend.
She shook her head, set the shoe on the dresser and left the room. Time to get on with it. As she passed through the kitchen on her way to the garage, she decided to check Kelly’s pantry for more cat food. No sense letting it go to waste. She found an unopened bag of dry food, and half a dozen cans, as well as a brand-new catnip mouse. The cats would appreciate a new toy, and it would help assuage her guilt at abandoning them while she stayed with Ryder.
She was searching for a bag to put the food in, humming to herself, when pain jolted her. The cat food cans tumbled from her arms and rolled across the kitchen floor as blackness overtook her.
Chapter Nineteen
The eighteen-wheeler had slid sideways across the highway near the top of Dixon Pass, until the back wheels of the trailer slipped off the edge, while the rest of the truck sprawled across both lanes. The driver had somehow managed to stop, and gravity and one large boulder had prevented the rig from sliding farther. The road was at its narrowest here, with almost no shoulders and no guardrails. The driver, who had bailed out of the cab, now stood in the shelter of a rock overhang, staring through a curtain of falling snow, hands shoved in the pockets of his leather coat, while they waited for a wrecker to come and winch the rig all the way back onto the road.
“The wrecker should be here in about ten minutes,” Ryder told the driver, ending the call from his dispatcher. “What are you hauling?”
“Insulation.” He wiped his hand across his face. “Yesterday I had a load of bottled water. All those heavy bottles probably would have shifted and taken me on over the side.” His hand shook as he returned it to his pocket.
“You got off lucky,” Ryder said.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
Ryder moved away and, shoulders hunched against the falling snow, hit the button to call Darcy. He needed to let her know he was going to be late. She should let herself into the house with the key he had given her and make herself at home. Even though they had both agreed this stay would only be temporary, he wanted her to feel she could treat his place as her own. He let the call ring, then frowned as it went to voice mail. Maybe she was with a late patient and couldn’t be interrupted. He left a message and stowed the phone again as a man in a puffy red coat and a fur hat strode toward him through the falling flakes.
“How much longer is the road going to be closed?” the man asked in the tone of someone who is much too busy to be stalled by petty annoyances.
“Another hour at least,” Ryder said. “Maybe more. It depends on how long it takes to move the truck.”
“You people need to do a better job of keeping the highway open,” the man said. “Isn’t that what we’re paying you for?”
“I’m charged with keeping the public safe,” Ryder said.
“They should keep these big rigs off the road when the weather is like this,” the man said. “They’re always causing trouble.”
Ryder could have pointed out that passenger cars had more accidents than trucks, but decided not to waste his breath. “A wrecker is on the way to deal with this truck,” he said. “If you don’t want to wait, you can turn around.”
“I can’t turn around,” he said. “I have business in Eagle Mountain.”
“Then you’ll need to go back to your vehicle and wait.”
The man wanted to argue, Ryder could tell, but a stern look from Ryder suppressed the urge. He turned and stalked back toward his SUV. Ryder didn’t even give in to the urge to laugh when he slipped on the icy pavement and almost fell.
Ryder’s phone rang and he took the call from Travis. “I checked at the ranch and none of our snow machines are damaged,” Travis said. “And Rainey swears Doug was helping her in the kitchen all yesterday afternoon. I haven’t heard yet from Gage about Ed’s snowmobile.”
“Thanks for checking,” Ryder said. “Did your caterer make it?”
“She called Lacy a little while ago and told her she’s stuck in traffic. Apparently, a wreck has the highway closed again.”
“Yeah. We’re going to get it cleared away in an hour or two.” He looked up at the gently falling snow. “I’m hoping the highway department can keep it open. Looks like we’ve got more snow.”
“I’ll try to get by Alex and Tim’s place tomorrow to talk to them,” Travis said.
“I’ll do it on my way home this afternoon,” Ryder said. “It’s on my way.” He really wanted to talk to those two before they slipped out of town.
Two hours later the wrecker had winched the eighteen-wheeler to safety. The driver, and all
the cars that had piled up behind him, were safely on their way, and a Colorado Department of Transportation plow trailed along behind them, pushing aside the six inches of snow that had accumulated on the roadway. As long as the plows kept running and no avalanche chutes filled and dumped their loads on the highway, things would flow smoothly.
Ryder turned traffic patrol over to a fellow officer and headed back into Eagle Mountain. He tried Darcy’s phone again—still no answer. Maybe she’d forgotten to charge it, or was simply too busy to answer it, he told himself. He resisted the urge to drive straight to his house, hoping to find her there, and stuck with his plan of interviewing Tim and Alex.
But first, he had to stop for gas. He was fueling the Tahoe when a red Jeep pulled in alongside him. “Hello, Ryder,” Stacy said.
“Hi, Stacy,” he said. “You’re getting off work a little late, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I’ve been off hours,” she said, getting out of her car and walking around to the pump. “We closed up early and I went into Junction to do some shopping. I made it back just before the road closed again, but then I had more errands to run here in town.” She indicated the back of the Jeep, which was piled high with bags and boxes. “It’s been a while.”
If she had closed the clinic early, then Darcy probably hadn’t been with a patient when he called earlier. So why wasn’t she answering her phone? “Do you know where Darcy headed after you closed?” he asked.
“She said she had things to do,” Stacy said.
“Did she say what?”
“Easy there, officer. Is something wrong?”
He reined in his anxiety. “I’ve tried to call her a couple of times and she isn’t answering.”
Stacy frowned. “That isn’t like her. She said something earlier about needing to get all the clinic supplies out of Kelly’s duplex. I guess now that the highway is open again, Kelly’s parents want to come and clean it out. Maybe she decided to take care of that.”