Blood on Copperhead Trail

by Paula Graves

  A raging storm and a ticking clock could mean the difference between life and death in this Bitterwood P.D. book from Paula Graves

  Bitterwood’s new department chief, Doyle Massey, had a lot to prove to investigator Laney Harvey. Her take-no-prisoners attitude and his devil-may-care personality were destined to clash. Yet when three girls go missing in the Smokies, including Laney’s sister, their priorities have to change. With lives in the balance, the two suddenly find themselves on the same side against a ticking clock.

  Their biggest obstacles? The weather and one snow-covered mountain. Not to mention an attraction that’s proving difficult to ignore. It isn’t the time for creating any kind of lasting relationship. But with danger lurking around every jagged turn, taking such a chance might be a case of now or never.

  “We’ve been trekking through snow for almost five hours, and last I looked, it wasn’t letting up.”

  “I’d say it’ll be over before dark falls.”

  “And then we go back down the mountain?”

  She shot him an apologetic look. “Not after dark. Way too treacherous. We’ve got enough wood to keep us warm. We can stay here until daylight.”

  Looking around the room, he spotted one narrow bed. “And sleep where?”

  She looked at the bed and back at him. “You were saying something about body heat?”

  His heart flipped a couple of times.

  BLOOD ON

  COPPERHEAD

  TRAIL

  Paula Graves

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Alabama native Paula Graves wrote her first book, a mystery starring herself and her neighborhood friends, at the age of six. A voracious reader, Paula loves books that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. When she’s not reading or writing, she works as a creative director for a Birmingham advertising agency and spends time with her family and friends. She is a member of Southern Magic Romance Writers, Heart of Dixie Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America.

  Paula invites readers to visit her website, www.paulagraves.com.

  Books by Paula Graves

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  926—FORBIDDEN TERRITORY

  998—FORBIDDEN TEMPTATION

  1046—FORBIDDEN TOUCH

  1088—COWBOY ALIBI

  1183—CASE FILE: CANYON CREEK, WYOMING*

  1189—CHICKASAW COUNTY CAPTIVE*

  1224—ONE TOUGH MARINE*

  1230—BACHELOR SHERIFF*

  1272—HITCHED AND HUNTED**

  1278—THE MAN FROM GOSSAMER RIDGE**

  1285—COOPER VENGEANCE**

  1305—MAJOR NANNY

  1337—SECRET IDENTITYΔ

  1342—SECRET HIDEOUTΔ

  1348—SECRET AGENDAΔ

  1366—SECRET ASSIGNMENTΔ

  1372—SECRET KEEPERΔ

  1378—SECRET INTENTIONSΔ

  1428—MURDER IN THE SMOKIES‡‡

  1432—THE SMOKY MOUNTAIN MIST‡‡

  1438—SMOKY RIDGE CURSE‡‡

  1473—BLOOD ON COPPERHEAD TRAIL‡‡

  *Cooper Justice

  **Cooper Justice: Cold Case Investigation

  ΔCooper Security

  ‡‡Bitterwood P.D.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Laney Hanvey—The Ridge County public integrity officer has been assigned to look into corruption in the Bitterwood Police Department, including scrutinizing the new chief of police. But when her sister is seriously injured in a deadly attack, the mercurial head cop may turn out to be a valuable ally in her quest for answers.

  Doyle Massey—The new Bitterwood P.D. chief may be a flatlander and an outsider, but people in the mountain hamlet underestimate him at their own peril, for his laid-back style hides a dogged investigator with a strong thirst for justice.

  Janelle Hanvey—Injured by a bullet meant to kill her, Janelle’s spotty memory may hold the key to what happened on Copperhead Trail, but only if she can stay alive long enough to remember.

  Joy Adderly—The missing girl witnessed her sister’s murder and the attempt on her friend Janelle’s life. But is she still alive to tell the tell? And if she is, who has her?

  Dave Adderly—Joy’s father seems antagonistic toward the chief of police, and reluctant to help in the investigation. Is he keeping a secret that could help the police find his daughter? And if so, why?

  Craig Bolen—Doyle’s chief of detectives is a close friend of the Adderly family and is taking their tragedy personally. What is he willing to do to find the missing girl?

  Ray—The mystery man Janelle and the Adderly girls ran into on Copperhead Trail may know something about what happened to them. But who is he? And where can they find him?

  For the day job gang, Lisa, Amanda and Jessica,

  for putting up with my distraction and all that

  writing and editing I do during my lunch hour.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  The trail shelter wasn’t built for cold weather, but the three girls occupying the small wooden shed were young, healthy and warmly tucked inside their cold-weather sleeping bags. Overnight, the mercury had dropped into the mid-thirties, which might have tempted less-determined hikers off the trail and into their warm homes in the valley below. But youth and risk were longtime bedfellows.

  He depended on it ever to be so.

  Overhead, the moon played hide-and-seek behind scudding clouds, casting deep blue shadows through the spindly bare limbs of the birch, maple and hickory trees that grew on Copperhead Ridge. The air was damp with the promise of snow.

  But not yet.

  His breath spreading a pale cloud of condensation in front of his eyes, he pulled the digital camera from his pack. A whimsical image filled his mind. Himself as a mighty, fierce dragon, huffing smoke as he stalked his winsome prey.

  The camera made a soft whirring sound as it autofocused on the sleeping beauties. He held his breath, waiting to see if the sound was enough to awaken the girls. A part of him wished it would wake them, though he’d have to move now, rather than later, cutting short his plans. But the challenge these young, fit women posed excited him to the point that his carefully laid plans seemed more an impediment than a means to increase his anticipation.

  Slow and steady wins the race, he thought. The experience would be better for having waited.

  He snapped off a series of shots from different angles, relishing each composition, imagining them in their finished state. Despite the quick flashes of light from his camera, the princesses slept on, oblivious.

  He stepped away from the shelter, punching buttons to print the shots he’d just snapped. They came out remarkably clear, he saw with surprise. He hadn’t been sure they would.

  Or maybe he’d been hoping he’d have to sneak over to the shelter again.

  A clear acrylic box, cloudy with scuff marks from exposure to the elements
, stood on a rickety wooden pedestal outside the shelter. It housed a worn trail logbook similar to those found farther east on the Appalachian Trail. The latest entry was dated that day. The girls had recorded their arrival and their plans for the next day’s hike home.

  He slipped the snapshots into the journal, marking the latest entry.

  A snuffling sound from within the open-faced shelter froze him in place. He couldn’t see the girls from where he stood, so he waited, still and silent, for a repeat of the noise.

  But the only sound he heard was the cold mountain breeze shaking the trees overhead, the leafless limbs rattling like bones.

  After a few more minutes of quiet, he slipped away, a dark shape in the darker woods, where he would bide his time until daybreak.

  And the girls slept on.

  * * *

  “I’M NOT THE ENEMY.” Though Laney Hanvey was using her best “soothe the witness” voice, she couldn’t tell her efforts at calm reassurance were having any effect on the dark-eyed detective across the tearoom table from her.

  “Never said you were.” Ivy Hawkins arched one dark eyebrow, as if to say she saw right through Laney’s efforts at handling her. “I’m just saying I don’t know whether anyone besides Glen Rayburn was on Wayne Cortland’s payroll, and the D.A. sending a nanny down here to spank our bottoms and teach us how to behave ain’t gonna change that.”

  Laney didn’t know whether to laugh at Ivy’s description of her job or be offended. “The captain of detectives killed himself rather than face indictment. The chief of police resigned, an admission that he wasn’t in control of his department. Surely you understand why the district attorney felt the need to send a public integrity officer down here to ask a few questions.”

  “We have an internal affairs bureau of our own.”

  “And I know how well police officers admire their internal affairs brethren.”

  Ivy’s lips quirked, a tacit concession. “Why did you single me out?”

  “Who says I did?”

  Ivy looked around the airy tearoom of Sequoyah House, then back at Laney. “You’re telling me you bring all the cops to the fanciest restaurant in town for pretty little cucumber sandwiches and weak, tepid dishwater?”

  Laney looked down at the cups of Earl Grey in front of them and smiled. “You’re laying on the redneck a little thick, aren’t you?”

  Ivy’s eyes met hers again. “I’m not the one putting on airs, Charlane.”

  Touché, Laney thought.

  Ivy’s expression softened. “You’ve gotten better at your poker face. I almost didn’t see you flinch. You’ve come a long way from Smoky Ridge.”

  “I didn’t bring you here to talk about old times.”

  Ivy leaned across the table toward her. “Are you sure? Maybe you thought invoking a little Smoky Ridge sisterhood might soften me up? Make me spill all my deep, dark secrets?”

  “I don’t suspect you of anything, Ivy. I just want to pick your brain about whom you might suspect of being Glen Rayburn’s accomplice.”

  “And I told you, I don’t suspect anyone in particular.” Ivy’s mouth clamped closed at the end of the sentence, but it was too late.

  “So you do think there may be others who were on Cortland’s payroll.”

  “I think the possibility exists,” Ivy said carefully. “But I don’t know if I’m right, and I sure don’t intend to toss you a sacrificial lamb to get you off my back.”

  “Fair enough.” Laney sat back and sipped the warm tea, trying not to think of Ivy’s description of it. But the image was already in her mind. She set the teacup on the saucer and forced down the swallow.

  “The cucumber sandwiches weren’t too bad,” Ivy said with a crooked smile. “But I’m going to have to grab something from Ledbetter’s on my way back to the cop shop, because I’m still hungry. Want to join me?”

  An image of Maisey Ledbetter’s chicken-fried steak with milk gravy flooded Laney’s brain. “You’re an enabler,” she grumbled.

  Ivy grinned. “I’m doing you a favor. You’re way too skinny for these parts, Charlane. People will start trying to feed you everywhere you go.”

  “Laney, Ivy. Not Charlane. Even my mama calls me Laney these days.” Laney motioned for the check and waved off Ivy’s offer to pay. “I can expense it.”

  They reconvened outside, where Ivy’s department-issue Ford Focus looked a bit dusty and dinged next to Laney’s sleek black Mustang.

  Ivy grinned when Laney started to open the Mustang’s driver’s door. “I knew you still had a little redneck in you, girl. Nice wheels.”

  Laney arched her eyebrows. “Can’t say the same about yours.”

  Ivy didn’t look offended. “Cop car. You should see my tricked-out Jeep.”

  The drive from Sequoyah House to Ledbetter’s Diner wasn’t exactly a familiar route for Laney, who’d grown up poor as a church mouse and twice as shy. Nothing in her life on Smoky Ridge had ever required her to visit this part of town, where Copperhead Ridge overlooked the lush hollow where the wealthier citizens of the small mountain town had built their homes and their very separate lives.

  The Edgewood part of Bitterwood was more suburban than rural, though the mountain itself was nothing but wilderness broken only by hiking trails and the occasional public shelter dotting the trails. People in this part of town usually worked elsewhere, either in nearby Maryville or forty-five minutes away in Knoxville.

  Definitely not the kind of folks she’d grown up with on Smoky Ridge.

  Ivy hadn’t been joking. She pulled her department car into the packed parking lot of Ledbetter’s Diner and got out without waiting to see if Laney followed. After a perfunctory internal debate, Laney found an empty parking slot nearby and hurried to catch up.

  All eyes turned to her when she entered the diner, and for a second, she had a painful flashback to her first day of law school. A combination of academic and hardship scholarships had paid her way into the University of Tennessee, where she’d been just another girl from the mountains, one of many. But law school at Duke University had been so different. Even the buffer of her undergrad work at UT hadn’t prepared her for the culture shock.

  Coming back home to Bitterwood had proved to be culture shock in reverse.

  “You coming?” Ivy waited for her near the entrance.

  Laney tamped down an unexpected return of shyness. “Yes.”

  Ivy waved at Maisey Ledbetter on her way across the crowded diner. Maisey waved back, her freckled face creasing with a big smile. Her eyebrows lifted slightly as she recognized Laney, as well, but her smile remained as warm as the oven-fresh biscuits she baked every morning for the diner’s breakfast crowd.

  “I don’t come back here to Bitterwood as often as I used to,” Laney admitted as she sat across from Ivy in one of the corner booths. “Mom and Janelle have started coming to Barrowville instead. Mom likes to shop at the outlet mall there.”

  “Never underestimate the lure of a brand-name bargain.” Ivy shoved a menu toward Laney.

  Laney shoved it back. “Maisey Ledbetter never changed her menu once in all the time I lived here growing up. I don’t reckon she’s changed it now.”

  “Well, would you listen to that accent,” Ivy said softly, her tone teasing but friendly. “Welcome home, Charlane.”

  The door to the diner opened, admitting a cold draft that wafted all the way to the back where they sat, along with a lanky man in his thirties wearing a leather jacket and jeans. He was about three shades more tanned than anyone else in Bitterwood, pegging him immediately as an outsider and one from warmer climes at that.

  “Is that him?” Laney asked Ivy.

  Ivy followed her gaze. “Well, look-a-there. Surfer boy found his way to Ledbetter’s.”

  Laney stole another glance, trying not to be obvi
ous. Sooner or later, she was going to have to approach Bitterwood’s brand-new chief of police in order to do her job, but it wouldn’t hurt to take his measure first.

  Her second look added a few details to her first impression. Along with the tan, he had sandy-brown hair worn neatly cut but a little long, as if he were compromising between the expectations of his new job title and his inner beach bum. He was handsome, with laugh lines adding character to his tanned face and mossy-green eyes that turned sharply her way.

  She dropped her gaze to the menu that still lay between her and Ivy. “I haven’t been able to set a meeting with Chief Massey yet.”

  “He’s been keeping a low profile at the station,” Ivy murmured. “I get the feeling he wants to get his feet under him a little, scope out the situation before he has a big powwow with the whole department.”

  “He’s pretty young for the job.” Doyle Massey couldn’t be that much older than her or Ivy. “He’s what, thirty?”

  “Thirty-three,” Ivy answered, looking up when Maisey Ledbetter’s youngest daughter, Christie, approached their table with her order book. Ivy ordered barbecue ribs and a sweet tea, but Laney squelched her craving for chicken-fried steak and ordered a turkey sandwich on wheat.

  When she glanced at the door, Chief Massey had moved out of sight. She scanned the room and found him sitting by himself at a booth on the opposite side of the café.

  “Maybe you should go talk to him now,” Ivy suggested. “While he’s a captive audience.”

  Laney’s instinct was to stay right where she was, but she’d learned long ago to overcome her scared-squirrel impulse to freeze in place if she ever wanted to get anywhere in life. “Good idea.”

  She pushed to her feet before she could talk herself out of it.

  He saw her coming halfway across the room, his deceptively somnolent gaze following her as she approached, like an alligator waiting for his dinner to come close enough to snap his powerful jaws. She ignored the fanciful thought and kept walking, right up to the booth where he sat.

  She extended her hand and lifted her chin. “Chief Massey? My name is Laney Hanvey. I’m an investigator with the Ridge County District Attorney’s office. I’ve left you a couple of messages.”