by Laura Scott
“I don’t know where he lives,” Slade said. “But at this point being surrounded by other rangers might not be so bad. At least they have law enforcement training and weapons.”
She’d noticed Colt went back to keeping watch over their captured assailant. She shivered, remembering the feel of his hands grasping at her, his hot breath on her face.
Maybe getting out of here was the best option. Why wait until darkness when the threats had been nonstop?
The two park rangers arrived a few minutes later. Duncan carefully checked the door before letting them inside.
“The man who assaulted Chelsey is in the spare bedroom. We have reason to believe he’s part of the team who tried to shoot us in the mountains.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “US Marshal Colt Nelson is watching over him now.”
“Okay,” Eric said with a nod. “We’ll lock your guy up first, then we’ll relocate all of you to Davidson’s place. He’s the only one who has a home here. The rest of us use the apartment building on the other end of town.”
“I want you both to know how much I appreciate what you’re doing for me,” Chelsey said. “This is above and beyond the call of duty.”
Paul Davidson shrugged off her gratitude. “Not at all, it’s our job. I don’t like men shooting at civilians in my park.”
The process took longer than Chelsey had imagined, but ninety minutes later, they were ready to leave. As before, Duncan and Slade shielded Chelsey with their bodies as they left the cabin, Slade disabling the alarm so they could tuck her safely in the back seat of the SUV. She was secretly glad when Duncan slid in beside her, leaving Slade and Colt up front.
Duncan took her hand, his fingers warmly curling around hers. She clung to him, hating knowing their time together would end soon.
“Hey, check out that van up ahead,” Slade said from the front seat.
Chelsey craned her neck to see. Her jaw dropped when she realized the van was familiar, all white with tan lettering along the side, three capital letter Cs, then in smaller lettering, the words Coyote Creek Construction.
“Let’s follow it,” Colt suggested.
“It might be better to grab the driver and question him,” Duncan pointed out. “See how slow it’s moving? He might be out here looking for the guy who we just hauled off to jail for attacking Chelsey.”
“There’s only one road, so it’s not like I have any other option than to stay behind him,” Slade pointed out.
“He’s slowing down,” Colt said, a hint of anticipation in his voice. “Maybe we should grab him.”
“He could just be a construction worker for the company,” Chelsey felt the need to point out.
“What’s he doing in Moose?” Duncan asked. “I highly doubt there’s any new construction going on here. This town is unincorporated, there isn’t much to draw people to living here, unless they’re working for the park service, the hotel or the restaurant.”
She had to admit Duncan was right. But she also didn’t like the idea of hassling an innocent man.
“He’s turning into the gas station,” Colt said. “Grabbing him while he’s filling his tank is our best option.”
“Let’s do it,” Slade agreed.
Chelsey tightened her grip on Duncan’s hand, hoping he wouldn’t volunteer. She could tell he wanted to but remained at her side.
Slade pulled in behind the van, then the two marshals waited until the driver was pumping gas before getting out of the SUV and surrounding him.
There were no raised voices, but from the body language, it was clear the van driver was protesting his innocence. Duncan slid his window down a bit so they could hear.
“I don’t know anything about Wesley Strand,” the driver said. “Or about any plan to kill anyone.”
“That’s not your buddy’s story,” Slade said. “He’s singing like a bird.”
The driver flinched and tried to jump into the van, but the marshals had him surrounded. This time it was Colt who used his handcuffs while Slade came back to the SUV.
“Colt is going to take this guy to the rangers’ jail, too,” he informed them.
“But—he hasn’t committed a crime, has he?” Chelsey asked.
“He’s armed and has no driver’s license on him and is refusing to give us his name,” Slade said. “They can hold him for driving without a license until we can identify him but may also charge him with conspiracy to commit murder. From there, local law enforcement can take over.”
She let out a frustrated sigh. “You mean the ones we don’t trust.”
Slade shrugged. “It gets him off the streets for a while, maybe even long enough for us to get you transferred safely out of Wyoming.”
Out of Wyoming. A hard lump formed in her throat. She forced a nod, then sat back to watch as Colt pushed the handcuffed man into the Coyote Creek Construction van and finish filling the tank. Colt took the van, while Slade climbed into the SUV. Ranger Davidson was waiting for them in front of his house.
“It’s nothing fancy,” Paul said, opening the front door. “But it should be safe enough until nightfall. Oh, and I have these for you.” He gestured to several dark vests hanging over the backs of his kitchen chairs.
“Bullet-resistant vests?” Duncan moved over to lift one up. “Nice, but I’m surprised the park rangers have them.”
“They’re several years old. We got them for an incident a while back when a group of poachers began shooting at us.” Paul scowled. “Shot a friend of mine. He survived but can’t work as a ranger anymore.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Chelsey murmured. “I had no idea being a park ranger could be so dangerous.”
“Normally it’s not that bad, but there are always times like this when things heat up.” Paul reached out to pick up a vest. “This is the smallest one we have, so I thought it would be good for you, Chelsey.”
Duncan reached over to take the vest. “Let me help you get this on.”
The vest was black and heavier than she imagined. It was difficult to comprehend how she’d gone from being a bride at her wedding to hiding out from bad guys wearing a bulletproof vest in the span of two days.
It felt like a lifetime.
Duncan pulled his vest on, then turned toward Paul. “US Marshal Colt Nelson is taking the driver of the Coyote Creek Construction van to sit in your jail. We believe he’s the assailant’s partner.”
“Two men down, then,” Slade mused. “And how many more out there?”
Chelsey shivered, not really wanting to know.
Duncan fingered his vest for a moment, then turned toward Slade. “I have an idea. Maybe I can pretend to be one of them enough to draw others out of hiding.”
“No way.” Chelsey couldn’t help her instinctive response. “That’s a dangerous idea. Besides, why would they mistake you for one of them?”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Duncan asked. “I can dress in black from head to toe, like they did, and keep my head down, maybe wear a bandanna around my neck. They wouldn’t know the difference until they got close enough.”
“And then what?” Twines of panic reached up to circle her throat. “They kill you?”
“I can hold my own,” Duncan said.
Slade cleared his throat. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Duncan. Let’s keep our heads down for now, and work on a plan to get inside the Teton Valley Hotel.” He looked at her. “I’ve changed my mind about you coming along. I think we’ll need your help with the hotel layout, Chelsey. We need to know the best way to sneak in and out of the place.”
Duncan didn’t give up his idea so easily. “Don’t you think getting rid of anyone else out there watching for Chelsey is our best way of getting to the hotel without being followed?”
Slade narrowed his gaze in frustration. “No, I don’t think you risking your life is our best chance. I’m
sure whoever is behind this already has men lined up to replace the two we’ve taken out of commission.”
“Okay, fine. Chelsey, have a seat.” Duncan guided her to the closest chair. “We’ll work on a plan for getting Brett’s folder, if it’s still there.”
“It will be,” Chelsey said, striving to remain positive.
“Paul, we need paper and pencil to draw a map of the hotel,” Slade said.
The ranger brought over the supplies. Chelsey thought about the hotel and began to draw a basic outline of the building.
“The main entrances are here, here and here.” She drew squares to indicate the areas. “But we bring our supplies in through the loading dock which is located here.” She indicated a spot in the back of the building. “And the employee entrance is back there, too, next to the area where the trucks pull up to unload.” She drew a smaller door a short distance from the loading dock.
“All the employees go in that way?” Duncan asked.
“Not all, but the kitchen crew and the cleaning staff do. The restaurant servers and front desk staff come in through the main entrance. But going in through the loading dock makes it easy to get to my office located down the hall to the right.”
“There must be other ways inside that guests might use,” Slade said, gesturing to her rudimentary drawing.
“Yes, accessed with their room key cards.” She quickly marked them, then glanced up. “But I hardly think anyone from Coyote Creek Construction would have a guest key.”
“They would if they booked a room for the wedding.” Duncan’s tone was grim.
She nodded slowly. “I guess you’re right about that. But Trish, my assistant manager, would make sure to deactivate those keys once they’ve checked out.”
“If they’ve checked out.” Duncan sighed. “I’m getting the feeling that sneaking into the building will be more difficult than I anticipated. After all, hotels are open 24/7 to their guests. We can try to sneak in, but who’s to say others won’t be wandering around as well?”
Her heart squeezed in her chest. The plan that had sounded so simple now took on a whole new level of complexity.
But she wasn’t about to let that deter her from going along. If Brett’s honeymoon folder was there, she wanted to see for herself what he might have as evidence.
Before the marshals whisked her away to start a new life under a new name in a place where she’d be surrounded by strangers.
THIRTEEN
While waiting for darkness to fall, Duncan continued using Slade’s computer in an attempt to investigate the murder that started all of this.
The killing of Roland Perry.
Duncan had tried to find something on Roland Perry before but had come up empty-handed. Now he tried again, using the Wyoming DMV access provided by Ranger Paul Davidson.
There. He finally got a match. Roland Perry had a Wyoming driver’s license with an address listed in Cheyenne.
Excited to have a lead, he searched for the address. Then frowned at the screen when the building that popped up was an old abandoned store.
“What’s wrong?” Chelsey asked.
“I found a guy named Roland Perry, but the address in Cheyenne is an old abandoned building.” He turned the screen to show her the small and less than flattering DMV photo. According to the license, Roland Perry was five feet ten inches tall, weighed 175 pounds, had brown eyes and light brown hair. His date of birth was listed November 12 and he was thirty-six years old. “I don’t suppose he looks familiar?”
Chelsey scooted her chair closer for a better look. She stared at the image for a long moment. “Maybe,” she finally admitted. “I just can’t remember where.”
A spurt of adrenaline hit. “Was it possible he was in the hotel dining room with the rich guy, too?”
She grimaced. “No, I don’t think so. I seem to remember him wearing dusty jeans, T-shirt and steel-toed boots, as if he was one of the construction workers.”
“When would you have seen one of the construction workers?” Duncan asked.
Her expression cleared. “I remember now—he was one of the guys Brett brought over when we were discussing the plans for the hotel expansion.” She pulled the drawing over. “See, we were thinking of adding a wing to the north, this way, with high-end suites. I don’t remember this guy going by the name of Roland Perry, though. I think he was introduced to me as Ray.”
Ray as a nickname to Roland? Maybe. “You think he actually worked boots on the ground for Coyote Creek Construction?”
She nodded. “Yes, but I have to say, he seemed to be more interested in the hotel itself, asking me about my parents and how long we owned it. He seemed interested in the fact that our hotel once belonged to my grandparents, and my great-grandparents before that. He also asked a lot of questions about Elroy Lansing’s land.” She frowned. “You really think this is the man who was murdered?”
Duncan didn’t believe in coincidences, and this one was no exception. “According to his driver’s license it appears that way. But I still don’t exactly understand why he’d be viewed as a threat enough to murder him.”
“Maybe Brett was wrong about who he saw that night,” Chelsey said.
There was no denying Brett had lied to them more than once. But the local police had also claimed no one had seen the guy in a few days. And other than a fake address and a driver’s license it seemed the guy didn’t exist anywhere else online, certainly not on social media.
What did it all mean?
It still bothered him that the rich guy, Travis Wolfe, might be involved. He wished there was a way to bring Wesley Strand in for questioning. In his experience, loyalty to a boss went only so far when you were the one faced with doing jail time.
But he wasn’t the cop in charge here. Just a concerned citizen trying to keep an innocent woman safe.
“Find something?” Slade asked, entering the kitchen.
Duncan quickly filled the marshal in on what he’d found about Roland or Ray Perry, including Chelsey’s meeting with him and Brett at the hotel.
“You’re right, it doesn’t make any sense.” Slade sighed. “Let me make more calls, going higher up the chain this time to find more about this guy’s identity,” Slade said. “The last time I checked, we were told the guy didn’t exist, but that’s clearly not the case if you found a driver’s license for the guy. There’s something fishy going on here, and I don’t like it.”
Duncan silently agreed. He thought for a moment about how he’d tried to go undercover, not taking a new identity, but pretending to be someone he wasn’t in an effort to identify who had killed Max Callahan, the Milwaukee chief of police and patriarch of the Callahan family. It wasn’t an easy task, that was for sure.
Could this Ray or Roland Perry have been doing something similar? There was no evidence that he was anything other than a construction worker, except for the fact that Brett claimed he was murdered.
And normal, average, everyday construction guys didn’t get murdered for no good reason.
He really, really wanted to see what, if any, evidence Brett actually had in his honeymoon folder.
Slade was on the phone for a long time, listening without saying much. Duncan sensed that he was being sent higher up the chain and wondered what that meant.
“Duncan?” Chelsey’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.
“What is it?” He leaned forward to take her hand in his. The ache in his chest intensified at the thought of not seeing her again after tomorrow. Even though they’d been reconnected for only a short time—days, really, since the moment Brett had been murdered—he felt as if he would be leaving a piece of his heart behind.
Not that Chelsey had asked for his heart. Or even indicated that she felt the same toward him. Despite having expressed her doubts about marrying Brett, he didn’t think she was interested in jumping into another r
elationship, with anyone.
Including him.
And that had been okay, at first, but now? Despite his efforts he realized his feelings toward Chelsey had become...complicated.
“When we go to the hotel, we should look through Brett’s room, in case I’m wrong about the honeymoon folder.”
“I agree, although it seems to me that hiding the photos in plain sight, so to speak, would be a smart thing to do. How many bad guys would look there for evidence?”
“Do you think they killed Brett because of the evidence?” Her expression was grave. “I’m worried Trish is in danger just by being my assistant hotel manager.”
“I don’t know, Chelsey. At this point, we have to expect the worst, while hoping for the best.”
“While praying for God to watch over us,” she added.
He drew in a deep breath. “My sister, Shayla, and her husband, Mike Callahan, are believers.” He offered a wry smile. “I’ve attended some church services with them, but I wish I had made more of an effort to understand their faith.”
“Many people keep their faith private, but you need to know that leaning on God is the only thing keeping me going.” She tightened her grip on his hand. “Maybe, once you go back home, you’ll attend services, as a way to remember me.”
“Chels,” he whispered her name through a throat thick with emotion. “Of course I’ll do that, but I won’t ever forget you. That’s a promise.”
Her blue eyes glittered with tears, but then she swiped at her face and looked away. “It would be better for you to forget me, Duncan. We’ll both have to find a way to move on when this is over.”
No way. He’d never forget her, ever. For a moment he thought about joining her in WITSEC. Then he thought about his dad, and his sister, Shayla, and her two kids, Brodie and Breena. His heart squeezed painfully.
Give them up? His entire family? Never to see them again?
Yet leaving Chelsey was beginning to ache the same way as when he’d lost Amanda.
“I don’t believe it,” Slade said with frustration.