“Don’t need to. You’ve met him already.”
Before Everly could ask what in the world the sheriff meant, he said. “Wyatt Thornton—he’s the man who almost knocked you ass-over-teakettle at the door.”
Not bothering with a goodbye, Everly rose to her feet and rushed into the corridor. She knew it was probably a bad idea to blow off the sheriff like this, but she refused to miss a chance at finding Wyatt Thornton and learning everything he knew.
But where had he gone?
She pushed out the front door and stood in the bitter cold. Luckily, Wyatt Thornton was tall, and therefore easy to find. He stood on the opposite side of the square with a large tank of propane in each hand. He began to cross the street and she rushed after him.
“Mr. Thornton,” she called. “Mr. Thornton, can I speak to you for a minute!”
His pace increased.
She ran after him, her lungs burning with the thin mountain air.
He stopped next to a blue pickup truck and set the tanks in the rear bed, before strapping them in place. He removed a set of keys from his pocket.
“Mr. Thornton,” she said as she advanced, her breath ragged. “That is you, right? I need your help.”
Without a word, he opened the door. “I thought you said you didn’t want my assistance.”
So that’s how he was going to act? Childish? Everly swallowed down the sharpest edges of her anger. “Look, I’m sorry if I was rude before. But I need to speak to you. It’s important, Mr. Thornton.”
“Wyatt,” he said.
“What?”
“Call me Wyatt.”
“Okay, Wyatt, I just need a few minutes of your time.”
He didn’t ask what she needed, but neither did he walk away, so Everly continued. “The sheriff told me that you found my brother’s body yesterday. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Nothing.
Repeating what she’d told the sheriff, she said, “My brother was a wildlife photographer. If he was out in the middle of the night, it was for a reason—likely some assignment or other. Did you find his camera?”
Shaking his head, Wyatt said, “I didn’t, but I didn’t know to look for one, either.”
It was the same thing the sheriff had told her. “If I could just get your permission and some directions, I could take a look. I won’t be a bother, I promise.”
“Sorry, but no.”
“No?” she asked, her voice reedy. “Why not?”
“I told the sheriff everything. The investigation’s up to him.”
“I just want to see where you found his body. It might help me understand what happened. He was my brother, my only family.” She paused, hating that she had shared more than she intended—hating even more that she was about to beg. “I really need answers. Please.”
For a long moment, Wyatt said nothing. Everly could sense the war raging in his mind, see the furrows between his brow, his jaw flex.
“Please,” she whispered again.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I can’t get involved, and letting you come out to my place won’t bring your brother back.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
Wyatt looked at the ground as he scraped his toe on the cracked sidewalk. “The medical examiner’s report will be in later today or tomorrow. After that, you’ll have the answers you need.”
Another thought came to Everly—Wyatt Thornton was hiding something. To hell with being polite—she was done. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“The mountains are a hard place to survive, even with training. Accidents happen. The death of your brother is a monumental life event and you want it to have a greater meaning than just...he simply ran into bad luck.” He met her gaze. “But sometimes that’s all you have—a lousy destiny. I hope the autopsy gives you the answers you need.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Go home, anyway. There’s nothing here for you,” he said, not without sympathy.
With that, Wyatt Thornton got behind the wheel. She remained rooted to the spot as he started the engine and backed up. She watched as he drove down the main road and out of town.
He wanted her to go home—give up was more like it. Well, if he thought that she was going to be that easy to get rid of, Wyatt Thornton had better think again.
Chapter 2
Everly parked in front of the Pleasant Pines Inn, a sprawling late 19th century building of stone and timber that overlooked the town. It was the only hotel for miles and while it wasn’t a five-star property on Michigan Avenue, it had loads of charm and would suit her needs nicely.
Trailing her suitcase behind her, she approached the front desk. A tall and muscular woman, with her blond hair pulled into a tight bun, greeted Everly with a smile. “May I help you?”
“I need a room,” said Everly, stating the obvious.
“Reservations?” the woman asked.
In her haste to get out of Chicago, Everly hadn’t bothered with the online registration. “No,” Everly said. “I hope you have something available.” If not, she’d have to make the three hour commute from Cheyenne.
The desk clerk tapped on a computer keyboard. “You’re in luck. We have one room available, second floor. There’s also a pub on-site along with a restaurant that serves dinner and breakfast. Both open today at five o’clock.” She pointed in the direction of the establishments as she spoke. “What brings you to Pleasant Pines?”
Without question, the clerk was the most helpful person she’d met in Pleasant Pines. Everly read her name tag. “Darcy, can you tell me if Axl Baker had a room here?”
The desk clerk looked over her shoulder before answering in a low voice. “He did...but Mr. Baker’s room is off-limits by the order of Sheriff Haak.”
At least Everly knew for certain that her brother had been at this hotel. The question was, how could she get the sheriff to let her search her brother’s room? Or rather, she knew that answer—he wouldn’t. What she needed was a way, legal or not, to get inside the room.
She didn’t have much time to plan, so her strategy was simple. Yet, it might just work.
Coughing, Everly touched her throat. “Any chance I can get a bottle of water?”
Darcy held up one finger. “Just a second, I can grab you one from the back.”
Heart racing, Everly waited until the other woman disappeared through a doorway. On tiptoe, she looked over the edge of the counter. Papers. Pens. A computer keyboard. She lifted a pile of papers and it fell out. It was the size and shape of a credit card with two stylized pine trees intertwined with the words Pleasant Pines in gilt script. Written in marker were four other words, the ones she needed to see: Front desk. Total access.
She’d found a passkey. Score.
She didn’t hesitate and slipped the keycard into the palm of her hand. She put the papers on the desk and stepped back just as Darcy returned.
“Here you go,” she said, holding out the water.
Everly took the bottle awkwardly with her left hand. “Thanks,” she said, slipping her right hand into her pocket, where she deposited the stolen card.
Reaching for the handle of her suitcase, she turned from the front desk. How many rooms did this inn have and, more important, how would she find out which one had been her brother’s?
“Ms. Baker?” Darcy called.
Everly increased her pace, as if she could outrun the awful truth that she had stolen a key to every door in the hotel.
“Ms. Baker? Ms. Baker?”
Damn, she’d been caught. Everly tried to think of an excuse. Nothing came to mind. Her mouth went dry. She stopped and turned around. “Yes?”
“You forgot your key.” Darcy held up a keycard, a twin to the one she had in her pocket, save for the note in marker. “Room two twenty-three. Second floor. The elevator
is at the end of the hallway.”
Everly swayed as her knees went weak. She was determined to find out what really happened to her brother, a few rules be damned. And yet, she was hardly used to a life of crime. What she was used to—and quite good at—was public relations, which meant knowing her customer. If her read on Darcy was right, the other woman was likely to be helpful and sympathetic.
“Thanks,” she said again. Then she asked, “Do you happen to remember Axl Baker? He’s my brother. He was my brother.” Everly’s voice cracked on the last word.
Darcy lowered her eyes. “I heard what happened. I’m so sorry, hon.” She lifted her gaze to Everly’s. “I wasn’t at work when he checked in, but he did come through the lobby on his way to and from the pub.”
The pub. Had Axl decided to have a beer? Or more? It wouldn’t have been the first time he thought that he could handle a little alcohol and been wrong. Hadn’t she worried that eventually out-of-control drinking would be the death of him? More than that, the sheriff had all but predicted that drinking was involved in the accidental death.
That was, if Axl’s death was an accident. “Any idea what he was doing?”
“I’m not sure,” said Darcy with a shake of her head. “He wasn’t there long—thirty minutes or so.” She paused and bit her bottom lip. “The bartender comes in at four o’clock—she might remember something.”
Everly checked her phone for the time. 12:04 p.m. What might Everly discover in the next three and a half hours?
Did it really matter in light of the fact that Axl was gone? Was what Wyatt Thornton had said been true? Did Everly want a monumental explanation for a simple set of facts? No. She owed her brother the truth and she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t find out what happened.
“Oh, if you could talk to the bartender and see what she remembers I would so appreciate it,” said Everly with a small smile. “You’d be the first person actually trying to help me around here.”
Turning, she wheeled her luggage down the main corridor. There were a dozen rooms on the first floor, and she guessed there were twice as many on the second. A deep green runner stretched the entire length of the hallway, with identical doors on each side. Brass numbers were affixed to each door, along with a keycard entry.
Since she had no idea which room had belonged to her brother, Everly decided a room-by-room search was in order. She also decided to start on the second floor, when something caught her eye. A paper tag had been placed over one of the locks. Do Not Disturb had been preprinted on the label. But it was the printed memo from the Pleasant Pines sheriff’s office on the door that caught her attention:
No entry by order of the Sheriff’s Department.
Bingo.
Everly didn’t want to wait another minute to get into her brother’s room. Looking over her shoulder, she found that the corridor was empty. After fishing the passkey from her pocket, she opened the door. Even before she stepped into the room, she knew she’d found the right place. It smelled like Axl. It was a combination of grass and dirt. No matter the occasion, Axl always smelled like the outdoors. Yet, to smell it now was both cruel and beautiful. She bit the inside of her lip hard enough to staunch a new flood of tears.
To Everly, it looked like the sheriff’s deputies had already gone through the place. All the clothes had been taken from the suitcase and were piled haphazardly on one of the beds—something Axl wouldn’t do. Likewise, the closet doors were open, his jackets thrown next to the pile.
A fine gray powder covered the dresser. The nightstand. Even the TV remote. It must be fingerprint powder.
For a moment, she wondered about all the crime shows she’d ever watched on TV. Was she contaminating the room, with her fingerprints or hair, just by being here? Then again what she needed were facts about what happened if she wanted to get the sheriff to look into Axl’s death.
Setting aside her suitcase, she left the door slightly ajar. The curtains had been drawn and only a sliver of light shone through the place where the seams did not meet. In the dim light, she scanned the nondescript hotel room. A bureau with a TV stood against one wall. A mirror hung just to the left. A desk was next to the bureau. A chair and small table took up a corner.
There were also two beds. Both were made, but one had an opened suitcase and a shaving kit piled on it, but no camera. She riffled through the suitcase and patted down the pile of his clothes. In the pocket of a fleece jacket, she found Axl’s cell phone.
Alarm bells began ringing in her mind. Like the camera, Axl was never without his phone. Everly picked it up and pressed the home button. At one time her thumbprint had been programmed into the phone. But was it still?
Holding her breath, she waited.
The home screen appeared. She scrolled through the texts—all from his work. There were no voice mails. She checked his calendar...and found one entry.
9:00 p.m. March 21. Meet at bar.
So, he had gone to the bar to meet someone. But who? More than that, was the sheriff right? Had her brother been drunk and foolish?
Everly heard the whisper of a sound and turned. As her gaze passed over the mirror, she caught a fleeting glimpse of a shadowy form. Blood froze in her veins and she began to scream. The sound died in her throat as a sharp pain filled her skull. Everly stumbled, her legs no longer able to hold her upright.
And then she pitched forward, falling into a pool of blackness.
* * *
The engine revved as it climbed the hill. The wrought iron gate that led to Wyatt’s property stood open and inviting. In the distance, he saw the wide porch of his refurbished farmhouse. The newly installed solar panels winked in the early afternoon light. Pressing down on the accelerator, he rocketed past the driveway, cursing himself for what he was about to do.
Three years ago, Wyatt walked away from the FBI, after realizing he could no longer trust his instincts. So why was he now returning to the place where Axl Baker’s body had been found? Did he not have any confidence in the sheriff? Had Baker’s sister goaded him into looking for something that may not exist?
Or was it what he feared—that the similarities to his final case proved that he was still stuck in the past after all this time?
Wyatt didn’t like any of the possibilities.
Nothing that happened was really any of Wyatt’s business. Yet, he couldn’t let it go.
It was almost twelve fifteen when the turnoff for the old schoolhouse came into view. Pulling onto the shoulder, Wyatt turned off the ignition. With a final curse, he leaped from the truck. Wind whipped off the mountains and howled as it danced along the plain. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his vest, he walked slowly to the rutted track.
He kneeled next to a sapling. The little tree was hardly higher than ten inches, and yet it had been snapped in half. Wyatt recalled the sheriff clambering out of his large truck, the undercarriage more than a foot off the ground. There was no way that the big truck had broken the little tree.
If not Haak’s vehicle, then what had?
On foot, Wyatt followed the path. It was as if every plant that grew above four inches had been mowed down. Definitely done by the grille of something low—most likely a sedan. Was it a clue to a mystery, or simply an oddity with a reasonable explanation?
Clouds roiled at the peaks of the Rockies, promising to bring cold, wind and more snow. In less than ten minutes, he’d covered the last half of a mile and the little schoolhouse came into view.
The first thing he noticed was that the stench of death was gone—once the body had been taken away, no doubt the structure had been able to air out. Yellow-and-black police tape had been stretched across the door, barring entry. But it was more of a warning than a true obstacle and Wyatt ducked underneath to enter the single room. Without the body, the space seemed bigger and brighter. Less ominous.
Wyatt spent a minute trying to imagine th
e room in a bygone era, with a score of children sitting obediently behind rows of wooden desks. The image never held, and his mind returned to what he had seen yesterday. The body. Stone and wood. Sunlight and shadow.
A gust of wind shook the walls and sent a leaf skittering across the floor. Bit by bit, the natural world was laying claim to the structure. He kneeled and picked up the leaf, twisting it between his fingers. Yesterday the floor had been clean, and now not.
There had to be something that he’d missed.
Thinking back to Everly Baker’s insistence about her brother’s habits, Wyatt stepped back outside, scanning the ground around the cabin for any sign of Axl’s missing camera. The glint of metal. Glass, reflecting the light.
There was nothing.
With his back to the door, Wyatt crossed his arms over his chest and looked across the horizon. The mountains. The plains. The sky. And him alone in the world, just like he wanted.
Still, the mystery of Axl Baker’s death was now, uncomfortably, a part of him, like dirt tattooed into the creases of his knuckles. The unanswered questions lingered, pinging away at him like popcorn in a hot pan. A body with no evident cause of death. No signs that the deceased had struggled, either. The floor, that yesterday was swept clean. Plants, broken on the trail. The missing camera. The sister, desperate for answers.
Each was a piece to a puzzle. But in reality—together, did they create a picture? Or were they even connected in the first place?
Was the broken vegetation a clue? Not really, especially when Wyatt considered that the medical examiner would’ve followed the same path when he came to collect the body. The dirt-free floor was harder to explain but wasn’t impossible.
But what about Everly Baker? He had the power to help her. What had he offered? Nothing but trite advice. Definitely not his finest hour.
He spoke her name out loud. “Everly Baker.” The wind stole the words before he could decide if he liked the way they tasted.
The feeling of their accidental touch lingered on his fingertips. Her skin had been soft, and a sweetly spicy scent surrounded her. It was somehow homey and sexy at the same time. Her eyes, a jade green, had spoken of sadness and strength.
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