Secret Mountain Hideout. Terri Reed
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red tie. His dark hair brushed the edges of his collar.
There was something about the man’s gruff demeanor that had rankled Chase from the second they’d met. He chalked it up to city vs. small town. One of the many reasons Chase left the Chicago PD after only a year. He hadn’t wanted to become jaded like so many of his fellow officers.
Chase believed in good over evil, that the right side of the law would win in the end. And justice wasn’t prejudiced or affected by social status. Maybe that made him naive as some had said. He didn’t care. He had faith that he was doing what God wanted for his life.
Detective Peters’s dark eyes glittered with triumph. “There you are.” He opened the rear passenger door. “Get in. We have a plane to catch.”
Jane clutched Chase’s arm. She made no move to comply.
“Hold on a minute,” Chase told the detective. “We need to do this the right way. We go to the sheriff’s station so we can make a proper transfer to your custody.”
Peters shook his head. “No way. She’s coming with me now. I have a warrant that gives me the right to take her into custody on sight.”
Chase didn’t recall any mention of a warrant. “The sheriff will want to talk with her.”
“There’s no time for that.” Peters stepped forward and grabbed Jane by the arm, yanking her from Chase’s grasp. He pushed her inside the back passenger side of the SUV.
“You can’t just take her away,” Chase argued. “There’s protocol to follow.”
Peters got in Chase’s face. “Back off. If you have an issue, then call the brass. I’ve got my orders.”
“Chase?”
Jane’s anxiety curled through Chase. “I’m going with you. I’ll get my own plane ticket. Even if I have to fly on a different airline.” He stepped forward to slide into the back seat with Jane when Peters slammed the door shut, blocking Chase from following her into the vehicle.
Peters shoved Chase back a step and glared. “This is my collar, not yours. I’m not letting some Podunk deputy interfere with my investigation.”
Taken aback by the man’s hostility, Chase put his hand on the butt of his weapon. Drawing on a fellow officer wasn’t something he wanted to do, but if the man continued with his aggressive behavior, Chase would have little choice. “She’s a witness, not a suspect.”
“That’s for others with a higher pay grade to decide. She’s coming with me.” Peters jumped into the vehicle.
Chase grabbed the back door handle but it was locked. He banged on the driver’s side window. “You can’t just take her like this.”
The SUV’s engine revved. Peters hit the gas and the SUV peeled away, forcing Chase to jump aside to avoid being hit.
This wasn’t right. There was a proper way of doing things. Chase ran to the sheriff’s station. At the front desk, he asked Carole if she could get the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department on the line for the sheriff. Then he moved into the inner sanctuary of the station. His voice shook with anger as he told the sheriff and the other deputies about Jane and what had just transpired.
“I’ve got the Burbank Police Department on the line,” Carole called from her desk. “Should I send the call to your desk, Sheriff?”
“No, send it to Chase’s,” Sheriff Ryder replied.
Stunned, Chase stared. “Sir?”
“You’re running point on this one,” the sheriff replied.
Not about to question his boss, Chase sat at his desk and punched the blinking light. A second later a man’s deep voice came on the line. “Chief Macintosh, how can I help you?”
Chase hurriedly explained the situation, giving his protest at the detective’s manhandling of their citizen.
There was a long pause before Chief Macintosh replied, “You say this man had Detective William Peters’s identification?”
A strange question. An unsettled apprehension curled through Chase. “He did.”
“The man’s an imposter,” Macintosh said. “Detective William Peters is dead. Murdered during an undercover operation.”
The air swooshed out of Chase’s lungs. If he hadn’t been sitting, he’d have fallen to the floor. His mind raced and his blood pounded. The man posing as Detective William Peters was a fake. The real detective was dead.
Jane was in danger.
Kidnapped. And Chase had let it happen.
Guilt reached up to throttle his windpipe. He’d made a horrible mistake by not stopping the fake detective. Now Jane would pay the price.
“Whoever this woman is, she could be a potential witness to the real Detective Peters’s murder,” Chief Macintosh continued.
Chase’s stomach sank. “She claims she can ID a killer.”
Excitement buzzed in the chief’s voice. “Did she give a name?”
“No, sir.” She’d been too afraid. He could only imagine how terrified she was now. She’d tried to warn him not to trust anyone. Chase had lost control of the situation. A rookie mistake. He wasn’t a rookie anymore. Self-anger burned in his gut.
“You need to find this phony detective before he kills her,” Chief Macintosh said, his tone grim.
“I will.” Chase hung up with knots in his stomach.
The man said they had a plane to catch, which meant they were headed to Denver. He needed the state patrol’s help. He jerked to his feet. “Carole, can you get the state patrol on the line?”
“Chase?” Deputy Kaitlyn Lanz rose from her desk. “What’s wrong?”
“The real Peters is dead. The man posing as him most likely is an assassin sent to silence Jane. We have to find them.”
Eyes wide with a mix of worry and surprise, Kaitlyn said, “Yes, of course.”
Carole hurried from her desk. “Sheriff, the phones are blowing up again. A speeding black SUV nearly ran down Brady Gallo. Others are reporting the vehicle heading up Bishop Summit.”
Chase was familiar with the forestry road on the backside of Eagle Crest Mountain, which led to the ski resort at the top. It was a dangerous, twisty climb with lots of cliffs on one side. The assassin wasn’t taking Jane to Denver but to a remote area to kill her.
“Also, Lucca Chinn is here, wanting to know what’s going on,” Carole said.
Groaning aloud, Chase jerked his gaze to the sheriff. The last thing they needed was The Bristle Township Gazette’s publisher, reporter and custodian—the man was a one-person operation—sticking his nose into the situation. Even a small town had someone who insisted the public needed to be kept informed, and Lucca Chinn had appointed himself the resident news source.
“I’ll take care of Chinn,” the sheriff stated. “You go.”
Galvanized into action, Chase ran out the door with deputies Daniel Rawlings and Kaitlyn Lanz on his heels.
“I’ll be right behind you.” Kaitlyn peeled away and ran toward her own vehicle.
Chase didn’t stop to question why she needed to drive her own truck pulling a horse trailer as he slid into the driver’s seat of one of the department-issued vehicles while Daniel hopped into the passenger seat. Chase lifted a prayer that he would get to Jane before it was too late.