Colton's Lethal Reunion. Tara Taylor Quinn
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weren’t doing anything wrong. The land was open to the public. They hadn’t even veered far from where they’d pulled the Jeep off the track.
“No one hanging around…no vehicles that visit frequently? Anything that might be big enough to haul guns in and out? Repeat visitors who only stay a minute or two each time they come?”
“Nothin’,” Alvin said, dropping his arms to take a step closer to them. “There’s nothin’. And now the two of yous need to be getting on down the hill,” he said. “It’s getting late, gonna be dark soon, and there’s all kind of wild animals out here at night. I sure don’t want to be having to come back up and git you down,” he said. And then, with a sour look added, “And them thousand-dollar leather shoes sure ain’t gonna keep that one from sliding off a cliff.” He practically spat the last four words.
Before either of them could respond, the man turned and then walked off.
Kerry could have called him back, but she was just as glad to see him go.
“What the hell was that?” she breathed, staring at Rafe. “Did he just threaten you?”
“Seemed that way.” Eyes narrowed, Rafe was staring after Alvin, who’d apparently come upon them on foot. There was no other vehicle in the immediate vicinity, which would explain why they didn’t know he’d been approaching.
“How’d he know we were up here?”
“I’m guessing he heard the Jeep. Came to check us out.”
Which would be his job. Still… “He seemed kind of paranoid, though. What’s it to him if I look into a cold case?”
“I’m not sure.” Rafe didn’t say much, but one look at his face told Kerry that he wasn’t blowing off the incident. He was going to find out more.
Because he had the clout to do so.
And for the first time in a very, very long time, she was glad that she knew Rafe Colton.
He knew exactly who to call. Chafing to get down off the mountain and into the privacy of his truck, Rafe thought about the woman he’d known briefly, but intimately, almost a decade ago. Colton Oil had mistakenly been excavating on government land. As the newly appointed CFO and eager to prove himself, Rafe had quickly and personally presented a financial offer to the government’s attorney, Shelly Marston, to allow the company to continue drilling with more than fair remuneration to the government. He’d spared CO the cost of pulling out, applying for permission to drill and moving back in, and the government received more than usual compensation for the use of the land. And Shelly… She’d reminded him of Kerry. Same auburn hair. Same strength and sass. One night with her had told him that he couldn’t go back. And that it was grossly unfair to another woman to use her as a stand-in.
Which was just as well. The next morning, when Shelly told him at breakfast that she’d appreciate it if, as part of their deal, he’d keep their night together just between the two of them, he’d noticed the wedding ring that had not been on her hand the day before.
She’d said that she and her husband were separated, going through some growing pains with careers that took them to different parts of the country, but that her night with Rafe had shown her how much she loved her family.
They’d used each other. Which had formed an odd bond between them. A completely nonsexual, noncommunicative bond. They’d go years without talking. But when either of them needed some professional advice in the area of the other’s expertise, they picked up the phone trusting that it would be answered…
He saw a flash—a reflection off silver—a second before Kerry rounded the bend. Suddenly, they were forced cliffside, inches from going over.
His shoulder hit the door. He felt Kerry swerve again, felt the propulsion forward as his chest slammed into the seat belt, sensed a tightening within that braced for the unknown. And was aware of the thud as the Jeep came to a stop nose to nose with the mountain on the opposite side of the road. It took him a second to realize that flash of silver had been another vehicle.
By the time they’d stilled, his mind had caught up, was giving him instant replay in rapid staccato. And Kerry was saying, “Stay down,” and was out of the vehicle, gun drawn, crouching with her door as a shield on one side and the mountain at her back.
Keeping his head below the windshield, Rafe slid across the seat, digging his thigh with the gearshift, and slid out her open door to crouch beside her.
“That was deliberate,” she said. “He was waiting in this alcove for us to come around the corner.”
“The ranger?” He’d eventually caught up to the situation. Knew that she’d had the wherewithal to swerve on the wrong side of the oncoming vehicle that had been clearly gunning to run them off the narrow road into the valley below.
She shrugged. “Who else?” The tension in her voice stung him. Alerting him anew to the danger of their situation.
“Something about us up there, looking into Tyler’s death, sure had him paranoid,” he said aloud, looking behind him, up what he could see of the part of the winding road they’d just descended. “We need to go,” he said urgently, but softly, as though he could be overheard. “He’s going to be coming back down.”
She nodded. Did a three-sixty with her gun pointed out in front of her. And stopped.
“What’s that?” she said, pointing with her gun to a space in front of her opened car door. With the falling dusk, he didn’t immediately see what she was pointing at.
And then he did.
A boot. One that hadn’t been there long enough even to get dusty or look unused. To have white bird droppings or chewed holes.
A boot that matched those the ranger had been wearing.
“Why would he leave without his boot?” Kerry asked. “If he was sitting there in his vehicle waiting for us, he wouldn’t have been taking off his boots.”
He knew she was right. Didn’t want to worry about it at the moment. “Maybe he had an itch,” he said, inanely, and then, “Come on, Kerry, we need to get down off this mountain before he comes back.”
She nodded. “I know.” And pushed the door forward enough that she could scoot around it, scraping against the mountain as she went, and then toward the boot.
Rafe followed her. He wasn’t leaving her out there in the growing night alone.
“Look,” she said, pointing toward tamped down underbrush. “Someone dragged something heavy…”
“Like a carton of ammunition.”
She’d moved forward again, toward another drop-off on that side of the road. He’d grown up in those mountains, knew that they were filled with gullies and valleys, with steep slopes and dangerous, unforeseen drops. He knew how easy it would be for someone to fall and get hurt, if she missed just one step out there…
“Kerry, please,” he said, heart pounding as he followed her.
“Or like a body,” she said, her voice changed, shaking, and it took him a second to realize that she was responding to his comment about a carton of ammunition—or something else heavy having been dragged.
The land was mostly in shadows, but the setting sun still shone clearly in parts, highlighting the twisted body lying at an obviously lethal angle thirty feet below.
“Come on, we have to go,” she said, swinging her gun from side to side, watching as they hurried back to the Jeep.
“That was the ranger.” What the hell had they gotten themselves into? Not much point now in the phone call he’d been going to make—requesting a transfer for Grant Alvin. The ranger