by Elle James
“It’s nothing.” She tried once more to turn away, but he put his hand on her shoulder and took her chin in his other hand. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I promise I don’t faint at the sight of blood.”
The teasing quality of the words almost made her smile. If anyone had seen her at her worst, it had been this guy. She had no idea what she’d looked like when the PJs had hauled her onto that helicopter, but the doctors had told her the shrapnel from the IED had torn through the side of her face, narrowly missing her eye. As much as she hated the scar, it was nothing compared to how she might have ended up.
She let him lift her chin and study the side of her face.
“It’s just a little cut, pretty shallow. When we get back to the truck I’ll get a bandage for it.”
“Thanks.” She turned away and combed her hair down to cover the side of her face again.
“Get Marco to help you with recon,” Graham said. “I’ll notify the park rangers that the backcountry is closed indefinitely. No more permits, and they’ll need to round up anyone out with a permit now. Over.”
“You mean just the backcountry within the park, right?” Abby asked.
“I mean all the park, the recreation area and Gunnison Gorge. If these people have a sniper looking after their interests, they have some real money and muscle behind it. Until we know the scope of their operation, we can’t risk the safety of the public.”
“You can’t expect to keep people out of an area that large,” she said.
“We can’t prevent all unauthorized access, but we can stop issuing permits and close all the roads leading into the area. I’m sorry, but that means you won’t be able to continue your research in the area.”
His tone of command left little room for argument. He looked past her to Michael. “Take her back to headquarters, then meet up with Simon and the others. Ms. Stewart, we may have more questions for you later.”
She doubted she’d have any useful answers, but she only nodded and turned to follow Michael back to the Cruiser. By the time they reached the vehicle, she was fuming.
“Sorry about your research,” Michael said as he started the truck. “Maybe you can come back and finish up next summer. Hopefully, things will have calmed down by then.”
“I don’t have next summer,” she said. “My grant is for this summer. Next summer I’ll have to find a job and start paying off my student loans.”
“Is there someplace else you can research—another park, or another part of the state?”
“My grant is to explore this area. Shifting my focus requires a new grant application. Your commander is overreacting. He doesn’t have to close off all one hundred and thirty thousand acres of public land. That’s ridiculous.”
“Can you blame him? He’s already under the gun from politicians who think this task force is a waste of money—can you imagine the fallout if some tourist gets taken out by a sniper? We’ve already got one murder on our hands. Your plants will still be there when this investigation is over.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not patronizing. I’m just trying to get you to calm down.”
His words only made her more furious. She did not need to calm down. She’d just been shot at and forced to lie on her stomach on the ground for over an hour, and suffered the humiliation of almost flaking out in front of a bunch of strangers—if she didn’t give vent to the tornado of emotions inside of her she might explode. “Shut up,” she said. “Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.”
He glared at her for a long moment, then turned his attention to the road. The truck rocketed forward, bouncing over the rough two-track so that she had to grip the handle mounted at the top of the door to steady herself. Dust boiled up behind them, and rocks pinged against the undercarriage like BBs. She clenched her jaw to keep from shouting at him to slow down and not be so reckless. But that was what he wanted from her—another reaction. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
She’d already let him affect her emotions too much, his combination of brashness and consideration, strength and tenderness, touching vulnerable places inside her she hadn’t let anyone see. She never talked about the war with anyone, and yet she’d confided in him. She didn’t willingly let others see her scars, but she’d turned her face up to him with only a moment’s hesitation. She didn’t like how open and undefended he made her feel, with all his talk of fate and meaning behind what had to be only coincidence.
After a few miles, he slowed down enough that she could relax back in the seat. She hugged her arms across her chest and stared out at the landscape. Most people probably thought the land was ugly, with its scraggly vegetation and covering of rock and thin dirt. The real treasure lay beneath eye level, in the startlingly deep, narrow canyon that cut a jagged swatch through the high desert, its walls painted in shades of red and orange and gray. People long ago had dubbed it the Black Canyon, since sunlight seldom reached its depths. The silvery ribbon of the Gunnison River rushed through the bottom of the canyon, nurturing lush growth along its rocky banks, creating a world of color and moisture far below the parched landscape above.
But that stark desert held as much interest for Abby as the canyon below. She’d enjoyed discovering the secrets of the twisted piñons and miniature wildflowers, learning about the deer, rabbits, foxes and other wildlife that thrived there. She thought of herself like them—someone who had learned to survive amid bareness, to find the beauty in hardship.
They pulled up in front of headquarters. Her car was the only one in the lot now. She unsnapped her seat belt and her hand was on the door when Michael spoke. “Look. It isn’t safe for you to go into the backcountry by yourself, but what if I went with you? You can look for your plants while I patrol. I can square it with Graham.”
She could only imagine the pushback he’d get from his supervisor when he made that suggestion. Captain Graham Ellison struck her as a man who wasn’t into bending the rules. “Why would you do that?”
He shrugged. “I kind of feel responsible for you.”
Wrong answer. She didn’t want anyone—she especially didn’t want this man—to be responsible for her. She was responsible for herself. She climbed out of the truck and turned to face him. “I get that you saved my life,” she said. “And I’m grateful for that. But that doesn’t give you any kind of special claim on me.”
He held up both hands. “I’m not making any claim on you. I’m just trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help. Thanks anyway.” She turned and stalked away, though she could feel his gaze burning into her all the way to her car.
Chapter Five
“We got nothing.” Simon slapped a thin file folder onto the conference room table and sank into a chair, a look of disgust on his face.
Graham, seated at the head of the table, frowned and reached for the folder. “What do you mean, you’ve got nothing?” he said. “We’ve got a dead body. We’ve got shell casings from a gun—tire tracks. All of that must lead to something.” He leveled his stern gaze on the others around the table. Michael unwrapped another Life Saver and popped it into his mouth. Already, this meeting was off to a bad start. Twenty-four hours in and they had no more to go on than they had when Abby had walked into their office yesterday afternoon.
“It leads nowhere,” Simon said. “The man had no ID. His fingerprints aren’t in any database. We sent in DNA, but I doubt it will come up with anything—he’s obviously an illegal. We’re not even sure where he’s from. Could be Mexico, Central America, South America...” He shook his head.
“Where he’s from may not be important,” Graham said, tapping the file, which he hadn’t bothered to open. “I want to know why he was shot in the middle of nowhere like that, and who shot him.”
“Somebody wanted to shut him up.”
Al
l heads turned toward Marco, who had spoken. “Shut him up why?” Graham asked.
“I think he was trying to escape and they silenced him,” Marco said.
“Why not bring him back?” Randall asked. “If our theory is these illegals are brought here to work in some drug operation, why lose a good worker?”
“A man who wants to get away badly enough to take off across the wilderness on foot isn’t a good worker,” Marco said.
“With this level of security, I’d say we’re definitely looking at a drug operation,” Simon said. “So why can’t we find it?”
“If it’s meth, it could be in a little trailer camouflaged on the back of beyond,” Michael said. “Even if it’s a grow op, they can hide acres of the stuff in remote canyons.”
“Our aerial patrols haven’t spotted anything suspicious.” Graham’s chair creaked as he leaned back in it. “Did Lotte pick up any scent?”
The Belgian Malinois raised her head, alert. Randall dropped his hand to idly stroke her head. “She worked for a couple of hours yesterday, but none of the trails she picked up led to anything.”
“What about Abby Stewart?”
Michael realized Graham had addressed him. “What about her?” he asked.
“She’s the one who found the body, and she was with us when the sniper fired,” Graham said. “What’s her link to all this?”
“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Michael said. “No link.”
“What do we know about her?” Simon asked. “Is she really who she says she is?”
“She’s who I say she is.” Michael tried to suppress his annoyance and failed. “I knew her in Afghanistan. She was wounded over there, came home to recuperate and now she’s a student at University of Colorado, earning her master’s in biology.”
“Her story checks out,” Carmen said. “She came to the park five days ago and requested a backcountry permit. The park rangers told me she goes out every morning and comes back in the evening with her notebooks, pack and specimens she’s collected.”
“She could be meeting with anyone in that time,” Simon said.
“You checked her out?” Michael’s stomach churned, as if he’d been the subject of their snooping.
“We check everyone out,” Graham said. “How was she when she left you yesterday?”
She’d been furious with him. If looks could kill, he’d be seriously wounded right now. “She was upset about not being able to continue her research,” he said. “She has a grant that runs out at the end of the summer.”
“What’s she researching anyway?” Randall asked.
“Plants that grow in this area that have medicinal purposes,” Michael said. “She says stuff that grows out there could be used to treat or cure cancer and other diseases.”
“Sounds like a good excuse to spend time in the backcountry,” Simon said. “Maybe the plant she’s really interested in is marijuana.”
“There are a lot of plants that have medicinal uses,” Carmen said. “My people have known that for centuries. You palefaces are just now figuring it out.”
Simon ignored the dig and leaned across the table toward Michael. “Even if she’s not involved with our killers, that sniper saw her with us yesterday. He’ll report that to his handlers.”
“If they think she witnessed something out there, they’ll want to shut her up, too,” Marco said.
Michael felt as if he’d swallowed ice. “She could be in danger.”
“It’s a possibility,” Graham said. “We’ll need to keep an eye on her.”
“I offered to take her out on patrol with me,” Michael said. “That way, she could collect her plants and I could make sure she didn’t wander into anything dangerous.”
“Not a bad idea,” Graham said. “What did she think?”
“She was still pretty shaken up by the sniper thing.” No sense admitting he’d blown it by coming on too strong. “She had some bad experiences in the war.”
“You said she almost died?” Carmen asked.
“She did die.” Michael didn’t have to close his eyes to see her lying on that stretcher, pale as the sheets. “She coded in the helicopter on the way to the hospital. We brought her back, but she was pretty messed up.”
“She was hit in the face?” Carmen stroked the side of her own face.
“She was hit all over, but the head wound was the worst.”
“And you saved her life,” Carmen said.
He looked away. “I did my job.”
“Then you have a connection with her, whether she acknowledges that or not,” Graham said. “Go talk to her. Tell her we want to offer her protection, in exchange for her help.”
“What kind of help?” The idea surprised him.
“I have a sense she knows something she’s not telling us,” Graham said. He opened the file. “Now let’s see if there’s anything else in here we can go after.”
* * *
“I’M DOING FINE, DAD. The research is going well.” Abby held the phone tightly to her ear and paced the length of the travel trailer she’d rented for the summer. Four steps toward the bedroom at one end, turn and four steps back to the dinette at the other end, passing the galley kitchen in between. The research had been going well, until Michael Dance and his friends had thrown a wrench in her plans.
“Have you thought any more about coming home when you’ve wrapped things up there?” Her dad’s voice, the velvety, well-modulated bass that was familiar to sports fans and channel-four viewers all over Milwaukee, seemed to fill up the trailer. “I’ve been talking to some people I know at the station. We’ve got a vacancy for a weekend anchor job. They’d love to give you a tryout.”
Abby squeezed her eyes shut and suppressed a groan. “That wouldn’t be a good idea, Dad.” Any tryout they gave her would be because her dad—Brian Stewart, the voice of Milwaukee sports—had called in favors. Or worse, because they were playing the wounded-vet card. She wanted no part of it.
“Nonsense! You were always a natural in front of the camera. And if you’re worried about your scar—it really isn’t that bad. Stage makeup can cover a lot, you know, and you could have more plastic surgery.”
How many times had he said the same thing? Did he not hear her when she talked? “No more surgery,” she said. “And no makeup. This is who I am.”
“At least think about it. You know it would mean a lot to me.”
And of course, this is all about you. She didn’t say the words out loud. She wasn’t that cruel. Practically since she could talk, her father had built the dream of her following in his footsteps. All the beauty pageants, the voice lessons and drama camps, had been part of his plan to turn her into an even bigger celebrity than he was.
“Are you sure you’re okay, honey?” he asked. “You sound tired.”
Maybe because she’d hardly slept last night, kept awake by memories of the day’s events, mingled with flashbacks to the war. In the dark hours of the early morning, it had been hard to differentiate between the two. But she mentioned none of this to her father. He’d freak out and it would only prove what he had been saying for months now—that she was crazy to throw her life away on plants. Not when she had so much talent.
But did she really have talent? She had spent so many years getting by on her good looks. When you were blessed with beauty, people never looked any deeper or expected anything more. Their impression of you stayed on the surface. At least now when she made a discovery, she knew it was because she’d used her brain. “I’ll be fine, Dad. It was good talking to you. I’d better go now. I have work to do.”
“Goodbye, sweetheart. I love you. Your mom sends her love, too.”
“I love you, too, Dad. Talk to you soon.” She clicked off the phone and slid it into her pocket, then stared out the window at the di
stant mountains, the peaks still capped with snow. Maybe when she won the Nobel Prize for her work with medicinal plants, her father would give up his dream of making her a star, though she doubted it.
Knocking on the door of the little trailer startled her. She glanced at the gun, in its holster on the counter by the door, within easy reach if she needed it, then peeled back a corner of the blinds in the window beside the door.
Michael Dance stood on the ground below the steps, eyes shaded by dark sunglasses. He rocked back on his heels and glanced around the campsite, then leaned forward to knock again. She pulled open the door. “Good afternoon,” she said.
“Good afternoon to you, too.” His smile dazzled. It hit her like a spotlight, or maybe more like a laser beam, warmth blossoming in her chest.
“Come on in.” She stepped back to let him pass her.
He stood in the middle of the trailer’s one room and looked around—at the compact dinette with the padded bench seats all around that she used as a desk, at the half-size refrigerator and compact stove, microwave and sink, and back to the closed door of the bathroom and the queen-size bed. He nodded in approval. “This is nice. Cozy.”
“It serves its purpose.” She slid past him, the narrow space forcing them to brush together, the brief contact sending another wash of heat through her. She sat at the dinette, shoved her laptop to one side and motioned to the seat across from her. “Make yourself at home.”
He eased his big frame onto the bench. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work,” he said, nodding to the laptop.
“I was just compiling the notes I’ve made so far. And cataloging my specimens, since I don’t know when I’ll be able to collect more.”
“Listen, about yesterday—” he began.
“I’m sorry I went off on you like that,” she said. “I was still upset about the sniper and finding that dead man and...and everything. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
She was touched by how relieved he looked. “I understand,” he said. “It was a lot to take in. Most people would be overwhelmed.”
