Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Cindi Myers

  “To prescription painkillers,” Hud said. “Not heroin. And she’s been clean for years.” Painkiller addicts did sometimes turn to heroin for a cheaper fix, but Audra showed none of the signs of addiction.

  “Has she been to her father’s house since we searched it?” Dance asked. “She probably has a key.”

  “I don’t think so, but I’ll ask her.” He wanted to protest that Audra didn’t have anything to do with this, but he bit back the words. Dance’s question wasn’t unreasonable. They needed to rule out Audra’s involvement if they were going to find the real culprit.

  “Have you discovered anything useful in Roy Holliday’s records?” Commander Sanderlin asked.

  “I’ve created a time line of his last days, and a list of everyone he noted speaking to,” Hud said. “Though he usually identified people only by their initials. I haven’t figured out all the names yet.”

  “Share what you have, and let’s see what we come up with,” Sanderlin said. “And talk to Audra Trask. Maybe she can shed light on that heroin and where it might have come from.”

  * * *

  “HEROIN?” AUDRA STARED at Hud, trying to make sense of this latest development. She’d been pleased when he met her at her home after work, anticipating a pleasant evening together that was sure to take her mind off her troubles, at least for a few hours. Then he’d shattered that happy fantasy with the news that someone had broken into her father’s home. “Dad didn’t do drugs,” she said. “Ever. He would never have had heroin in his home. Someone else must have put it there after he was gone.”

  “I have to ask, just to make sure I’m covering every base.” Hud looked as upset as she felt. “Have you been in your father’s house since he disappeared?”

  Did he think she had put heroin in her father’s house? That she had anything to do with heroin? The words hurt more than she would have thought possible. “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I never thought it was you,” he said. “But I had to ask.”

  Maybe that was true, but the knowledge didn’t lessen the sting of his words. As a DEA agent, would he always think of her as a former addict—someone who might relapse at any moment? She forced her mind back to the break-in. “Was anything stolen?” she asked. “My dad had some really nice electronics, and guns and stuff that I think were valuable.”

  “It doesn’t look like they took anything,” Hud said. “But I think they were looking for something.” The pained expression returned. “They really trashed the place. They slashed cushions and emptied out cabinets. I can give you some names of companies who will go in and deal with the mess after the police release the scene. It’s not something you’ll want to tackle yourself.”

  She tried to picture the scene he described, but couldn’t. Her father was an orderly man who shelved his books by topic and arranged his furniture at ninety-degree angles. The idea of someone destroying that order hurt. “What were they looking for?” she asked.

  “I was hoping you’d have an idea,” he said. “What would your father want to hide? Did he keep money in the house, or important documents?”

  “He has a safe in the bedroom closet for that sort of thing.”

  “The safe wasn’t disturbed.”

  “Then I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “He must have run into veterans in the Welcome Home Warriors group who struggled with addiction,” Hud said.

  “Yes. And he always tried to help them.” The way he had helped her.

  “What if they wouldn’t accept help?”

  “I think he kicked people out a couple of times, if they were disruptive. But no one recently. At least not that I knew about.”

  He pulled her close, and she didn’t resist. “I hate to always be the bearer of bad news,” he said.

  “Better you than someone I don’t know.” She pulled back enough to meet his gaze. “I know you have to ask hard questions sometimes,” she said. “But I want you to trust me.”

  “I trust you,” he said. “And I don’t say that lightly.”

  She nodded and moved out of his embrace. “All right, then. You can help me cook supper, then we’ll watch a movie. We both need a break from this case.” She needed to step back from worry and stress for a while and focus on being young and navigating a relationship with a man who could be both lover and accuser.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY, Hud focused on reviewing Roy Holliday’s files yet again. He couldn’t shake the feeling there was something in them that was vital to this case. Was MR Mitch Ruffino, TDC’s vice president in charge of the Montrose facility? If so, then the reporter had contacted him, most likely in relation to research Holliday was doing on Dane Trask. Had his questions led Ruffino to believe Holliday knew something damaging to TDC or Ruffino himself? But what was that information?

  Holliday’s body had been dumped in the same area where construction debris had been illegally deposited. Though the Rangers had investigated TDC as the possible culprit, they had found nothing to link the company with the debris. But why had Holliday’s body been left there?

  He looked again at the list of evidence they had collected from the dump site. The one item that stood out to him was the children’s drawing, signed “Max.” Hud pulled up the scan of the drawing of a boxy, broad-shouldered figure scrawled in red crayon, with an oversize head and a wild tangle of black hair. He had seen no connection to the Dane Trask case or TDC when the drawing had been discovered at the dump site, but now it seemed so clear. A small child had made this drawing. TDC was constructing a new elementary school, which would also be the site of Audra’s new day care and preschool. Was Audra the link between TDC and the dump site? And even Roy Holliday’s murder?

  He printed a copy of the scan, then checked in with the commander. “I’m going to show this to Audra Trask,” he said. “It’s possible it was made by one of her students.”

  “Didn’t Beck check the roster of her school for a student named Max?” Commander Sanderlin asked.

  “Yes, but maybe this is a student’s sibling,” he said. “Or maybe Max isn’t the student’s name, but the name of the person in the drawing.”

  “Better check it out,” Sanderlin said.

  He found Audra in her office, frowning at her computer screen. The frown didn’t fade when she turned to greet him. “Another student was withdrawn from the school this afternoon,” she said. “The mother said it was because she had made other arrangements for care, but I worry it’s the influence of the news stories.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Hud said. “Let’s hope the media finds something else to latch on to soon.”

  “I hope so. In the meantime, what can I do for you?”

  He pulled a chair up to her desk and sat, then handed her the copy of the child’s drawing. “What do you make of that?” he asked.

  “Um, it’s a copy of a kid’s drawing?” She squinted at the name in the corner. “We don’t have a Max here at the school. Where did you get it?”

  “It was found at an illegal dump site on public land. I’d like to show it to your teachers. Maybe one of them will recognize it as their student’s work.”

  “All right.” She studied the paper again. “Some of the three-year-olds and most of the four-year-olds can write their names,” she said. “We’ll start with the fours.”

  “That’s Jana Keplar’s class, isn’t it?” he asked, following her from the office and into the hallway.”

  “Yes. The threes are with Trina Guidry.”

  Jana was reading a story to the assembled children when Audra and Hud entered and took a seat at the back of the room, Hud perched awkwardly on a tiny blue plastic chair. Every child swiveled to stare at him, and though Jana continued to read for several minutes, she finally gave up and closed the book. “Addison, you and Mia get the modeling clay, and we’ll work on shapes and numbers as
soon as I’m done talking with our visitors.”

  She joined Audra and Hud near the door. “It’s very disrupting, barging into my classroom this way,” she said.

  “This will only take a few seconds,” Hud said. He passed over the drawing. “Do you recognize this?”

  She glanced at the drawing and handed it back. “No. I’ve never seen it. What’s this about?”

  “I’m just trying to figure out who drew this,” he said.

  “Why?” Jana turned to Audra. “Are you involved in another crime? What is wrong with you?”

  Audra gripped Hud’s arm and dragged him from the classroom. She all but vibrated with anger, her face flushed, her eyes blazing. He was glad he wasn’t the object of her ire. “I’m going to advertise for a new teacher starting today,” she said as she headed down the hallway once more. “I don’t care how much her parents and students love her, I can’t work with that woman one day longer than necessary.”

  She stopped outside a door painted bright orange, with a large 3 on the front. “This is Trina Guidry’s classroom,” Audra said. “I think you’ll like her.”

  The young African-American woman who looked up when they entered wore a colorful scarf around her long dreadlocks and a dress printed with sunflowers. She and a group of children were gathered around a wire cage against the wall. “Come on in,” she said. “The children and I were just feeding the guinea pigs.”

  “Their names are Gilda and George,” a little girl said.

  “Officer Hudson just needs a few seconds of your time,” Audra said. “The children can tell me about George and Gilda while you’re talking.”

  “George is the boy!” said a child with a great many freckles.

  Trina followed Hud to the door. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I’m just hoping you know who did this drawing.” He handed her the paper.

  She smiled. “Oh, I think that’s one of Mason’s drawings,” she said.

  “Mason?” He squinted at the scrawled letters at the bottom of the page. “This looks like it says Max.”

  “Yes. Some days he likes to be called Max. Would you like to meet him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mason, come say hello to Officer Hudson.”

  The boy with the freckles hurried to join them. Hud squatted down until he was eye-level with the child. “Do you remember drawing this?” he asked.

  Mason/Max pushed out his bottom lip as he studied the drawing. “I remember,” he said. “It’s a man who is singing and playing the guitar. And the people who are listening really like the song.”

  Hud nodded. Questioning a three-year-old was more challenging than interrogating a thirty-year-old. “Do you remember when you drew it?”

  Mason shook his head.

  “Do you remember where you drew it?”

  Mason’s quizzical look clearly communicated that he thought this was a dumb question. “No.”

  Hud looked up at Trina. “Do you know?”

  “I really don’t know. We draw almost every day. It’s one of the children’s favorite things to do.”

  “Are we going to draw now?” Max asked.

  “In a little bit,” Trina said.

  Max handed the drawing back to Hud. “You can keep this,” he said, then ran to rejoin his classmates around the guinea pigs.

  “What do you think?” Hud asked Audra when they had left the classroom.

  “I can’t imagine how that drawing got from here—if it was done here—to that dump site,” she said.

  “Who are Mason’s parents?” he asked. “What do they do?”

  “His father is a soldier, currently stationed in Afghanistan. He’s been there for six months now, I think. His mother is a stay-at-home mom with three other children, all a little older than Max.”

  “I’ll have to dig a little deeper.”

  “This dump site—is that where Roy Holliday’s body was found?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Then do you think this drawing ties someone here at the school to his murder?”

  “No. The drawing was found long before Roy died.”

  She put a hand to her chest. “You don’t know how relieved I am to hear that. I hate anyone thinking I or anyone else here had anything to do with that poor man’s death.”

  “I’m going to go back out to the site and look around more,” he said. “It’s officially a crime scene, now that Roy’s body was found there, so that halted the cleanup efforts.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  Her request startled him. “I want to see it,” she said.

  “Why do you want to see it?”

  She pressed her lips together, then said, “I guess I want to see if I have any sense that my father has been there.”

  “It’s not a part of the park he’s been spotted in. It’s not even in the national park, but on public land just outside the park.”

  She looked away. “I’m being silly, I guess. I just—I know he’s out there and I wish I could reach out to him, some way.”

  “I don’t think he’s there,” Hud said. “But you can go with me. Maybe you’ll see something I haven’t.” And maybe it would help her to deal with everything she was going through right now. If he could do that for her, it would be something.

  * * *

  BY THE TIME Hud’s Ranger Brigade SUV bumped down miles of rocky dirt road and pulled over in the shade of a large rock formation, Audra felt as if she’d been transported to another planet. She stepped out of the vehicle into an alien landscape of gravel, sagebrush and red-and-gray rock monoliths casting long shadows over the mostly barren ground. The sun beat down with a blinding brilliance, and heat radiated off the rock, alleviated only a little by a hot wind that tugged at her clothes and whipped her hair back.

  “This is certainly remote enough,” she said. “How far are we from the highway?”

  “Only about two miles,” he said. “But yeah, it’s remote. That’s why whoever did this was able to get away with it for so long.”

  “This” was mountains of trash dumped haphazardly across the landscape in front of her—broken concrete, pieces of lumber, rocks, sections of drywall and sheets of plastic, tipped out like sand from a child’s bucket onto the beach. “It must have taken months to haul all of this out here,” she said, following him along a path marked by yellow flags into the debris field. He had warned her in the car to only walk where he walked and to avoid touching anything.

  “It wouldn’t have taken that long,” he said. “A few big dump trucks could have probably deposited all of this in only a few days.”

  She put up a hand to shield her eyes and stared toward an area cordoned off with yellow-and-black plastic tape. “Is that where they found Roy Holliday?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She tried to recall Holliday’s face, but her encounter with him had been so brief she had no recollection of him. “Where did you find Mason’s drawing?” she asked.

  “Over there. There’s still a flag marking the spot.” She stared in the direction he was pointing and was able to make out a bit of blue plastic on the end of a wire stuck in the ground. “It was mixed in with some rock and broken concrete.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense that one of my students’ drawings ended up out here.” She shook her head.

  “I haven’t figured that out yet, either,” Hud said. “But I’m working on it. But what about this place—do you think this is someplace your father would come?”

  She turned slowly, until her back was to the garbage, and she had a view of barren hills, piles of rocks and the blue, blue sky. “Dad liked places like this,” she said. “Wild places. Open places where he said he had room to think.”

  “My dad used to take me camping, too,” he said, moving up beside her. “Well
, my mom, too. I sometimes think she liked camping and the outdoors even more than he did. But we always camped in the woods, near water. We fished and canoed and hiked. It was fun, but I was always glad to get home to my room and my stuff and my friends.”

  “Oh, yeah, that was me, too,” she said. She squatted and sifted the gravelly soil through her fingers. “When I was little, Dad would take me camping, and he would always tell me to stop and look around my feet. He’d ask me to describe what I saw. No matter how many times he had me do that, I was always amazed at everything that was going on down at ground level.” She studied a small beetle who carried a piece of leaf across the ground in front of the toe of her right shoe. “That was Dad—looking at the little details. Seeing what other people ignored.” She looked up at Hud. “I’m afraid that’s what got him in trouble. He noticed something TDC, or someone else, didn’t want him to notice, and he had to run for his life.”

  Hud held out his hand. She took it; his fingers were warm and strong as he pulled her to her feet. “I’m worried about Dad,” she said, continuing to scan their surroundings, as if she expected her father to step out from behind one of the piles of debris. “Even though I always thought he could do anything, I’m not so sure. Maybe he can survive in the wilderness, but what else is he up against? Is it TDC or someone else?” She turned and put her hands on Hud’s shoulders. “I want you to meet Dad. I think you’ll like him.”

  “But will he like me?”

  “I’d make him like you.”

  He kissed her, and she closed her eyes and surrendered to the kiss. It didn’t quell the nervousness that made her insides feel as if she’d swallowed broken pottery, but it helped. It made her feel a little safer and a lot less alone.

  Then Hud shoved her violently to the ground. Pain shot through her as her knees slammed against the rocks, and her eyes blurred with tears. Then she heard the explosive sound of gunfire. Hud eased off her and pushed her toward a boulder. “Get behind that rock,” he ordered.