by B. J Daniels
Shoving that thought down, she climbed out and started up the steps. Halfway up, she felt a shiver as if someone had just walked over her grave.
“I made a fire,” Shade said, thinking she was cold. “The temperature seems to be dropping fast. Come on inside.” He stepped aside and she entered, immediately feeling the warmth of the blaze, hearing it popping and crackling in the huge rock fireplace.
The living room looked too cozy. She could imagine Shade’s long legs stretched out in one of the leather chairs, his feet up on the large square wooden coffee table, a beer in his hand. Too easily, she could see herself joining him there in the glow of the fire.
“Where are these photos?” she asked, determined to keep this all business.
Shade grinned as if he could see what she was doing and why. “Right back here.” He led the way toward the back of the lodge. The doors opened into the dance hall complete with a bandstand. Tables had been set up along one side of the room. On them were photographs, yearbooks and other memorabilia.
“I only picked up one photograph from the floor when I first came in.” He pointed to where he’d set it down on a table. “It was on the floor along with the others.”
She stared down at the torn photo of Shade and Ariel. Half of Ariel’s face was missing. “Did you see the other half of this photo?”
“No, but when I came in, your deputy had a photo in his hand.”
“Do you know which one it was?”
“It was one of you. But later, I didn’t see it again. He wouldn’t have taken it, would he?”
Ace. She swore silently. “He appeared to be going through the photos?”
Shade nodded. “I was surprised.”
“What else had he touched?” she wondered aloud.
“I have no idea. I was waiting for you. From what I’ve seen, though, I’d say whoever broke in was looking for something in particular.”
“Why would you say that?” she asked. She pulled on disposable gloves and withdrew an evidence bag from her kit before carefully slipping the torn photograph inside.
“It’s clear that the person was going through them. I’d say they were looking for an incriminating photo.”
She smiled over at him. “Maybe with him or her holding a length of rope?”
He returned her smile with obvious patience. “Maybe with a clue as to why that person killed Ariel.”
“A clue?” She studied the mess on the table. Unfortunately, she had no idea what Ace had touched. Anger rose like heat until she could feel her cheeks burn. She wanted to fire him. To send him packing. No doubt he was butting into this case. She promised herself that she would keep him as far from it as she could from now on.
“And the one that was torn on the floor?” she asked. “What clue should we get from a photo of Ariel with her head severed down the middle?”
“Someone didn’t like her?” he suggested with a grin.
Even though he was teasing, she was curious about his take on the break-in. After all, he’d gone to school with these same people. And as much as she resisted his being involved, he was. She said as much to him.
“Say you’re looking for one photo that might incriminate you,” he said. “You’re going through them and you keep seeing Ariel’s smiling face and it sets you off. You rip off half her face—something you wanted to do in real life but didn’t have the stomach for. Until maybe the night you killed her.”
Lizzy agreed that there appeared to be a lot of anger in the person who’d gone through the photographs—and a frenzy, an urgency. But she didn’t believe that whoever had done this was the killer. There was still too much uncontrolled rage here. The person who’d murdered Ariel had been more careful since he or she had gotten away with it for ten years. Also, why rip the woman’s face in half in a photo after you got to watch her drown?
The reunion would start soon, and this had been the person’s last chance to find what they’d been looking for—if Shade’s take on the break-in was right. Unfortunately, she had no idea what the person had been looking for or why it was so important. Like he’d said, something incriminating no doubt.
She stooped to retrieve another torn photo from the floor and put it into a separate evidence bag along with others spread around the table before loading the rest into a box. As she put the ones in the evidence bag on top, she stopped to look up at him. “Thanks.”
He grinned and shrugged. “I haven’t done anything yet.”
Suddenly the huge room seemed to shrink. The air between them felt alive with electricity that began to spark. That old chemistry from high school hadn’t diminished in the least in the past ten years. If anything, it was stronger than ever and she knew that Shade felt it, too.
She thought about the fact that it was just the two of them up here on the side of the mountain, alone in a guest ranch with a dozen beds. Not that she thought they would ever make it to a bed if they let loose.
As she finished collecting the fallen photos, she got to her feet. She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. She had a job to do and she had to stay focused. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t over—whatever it was. It wouldn’t be over until the killer was caught.
“Hopefully your intruder didn’t wear gloves and I’ll be able to lift a print off the destroyed photos,” she said, all business, still not looking at him. “At least we’ll know then who broke in and hopefully will be able to find out why. I’m going to take these and go through them.”
When he didn’t answer, she was forced to look at him. She realized at once all he’d wanted was for her to acknowledge the feelings whirling between them. She gave him a small nod, feeling close to tears. She wanted this, too. Her body wanted this. She felt it vibrate with need for him. But not now.
She met his gaze and silently pleaded, Let me do my job. Please.
“I’ll walk you to your rig,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse with emotion as he took the box she’d put the photos in and he carried it out to her vehicle. He shoved the box into the back seat and turned to her. “Have you had dinner? I could make us—”
“Gertie made my favorite, shepherd’s pie.”
He looked disappointed. “Maybe stay for a drink in front of the fire?”
She thought of the warm, inviting living room and shook her head, knowing as he must that they would end up on that one long leather couch naked. Thrusting the mental picture away, she said, “Thank you, but I need to get these to the lab and start going through the other ones.”
“If you’re sure. I have cold beer in the fridge. Also it’s pitch-black out there. I hate for you to have to drive off this mountain in the dark.”
“You’re the devil and you know it.”
He grinned. “I don’t deny it. But being up here alone with you...” He didn’t have to finish. She felt the same way.
It was so tempting. “I would love nothing more. The thought of putting my feet up in front of the fire in one of the leather chairs is definitely...”
“Alluring?”
She laughed, glad they were teasing again. Earlier had been too serious, too intimate, too easy to take to the next step—even with him being a suspect and her being sheriff. “Tempting. Very temping to have a beer and stare into the fire after the day I’ve had.” Even more tempting was the cowboy who she’d had a crush on for years. What would it hurt to soak up the warmth of that fire before going back out? But it was the other part, sleeping with a suspect, that she couldn’t let herself do.
Shade was right. The night was darker than usual, clouds hung low over the tops of the pines. The days were so short this time of year and she still had so much to do before this day was over.
Lizzy shifted her gaze back to Shade. “Thanks for the offer, but I can’t.”
“Right, got to find the killer so there will be nothing stopping you from going out with me.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “Exactly. So I best get on it.”
He’d been leaning against her patrol SUV but now stepped away. She saw the change in him. As if he heard something on the breeze. Or saw something lurking in the dark shadows of the pines.
“Lizzy,” he said, his voice rough again, only this time with fear rather than desire. “Please be careful.” Something in his tone made her stop to look at him with concern. What had he seen, felt, sensed? “Sorry, I just had this strange feeling.” His blue gaze locked with hers. “Whoever killed Ariel is dangerous.”
“Most murderers are,” she said even as his words sent a shiver through her.
“I guess I’ve just assumed that it was someone who hated her so much that in a fit of passion, they killed her,” Shade said. “A one-time thing. They wouldn’t kill anyone else. But just now, I felt...evil and had this sensation that was so strong... Lizzy, this person could kill again.”
“If you’re trying to scare me—”
He shook his head as if to shake off the feeling. “It’s probably just all these years of living in the same house as Dorothea. Her and her intuition about bad vibes.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “When I looked at you, I felt such a wave of alarm. It’s probably nothing,” he said quickly. “Besides, you’re the law officer. I’m just a cattle rancher.”
She studied him. Shade Sterling was much more than just a cattle rancher. “I’ll be careful. Are you staying up here alone?”
He glanced around and shook his head. “I’d thought about it, but no. Everything is ready for the reunion. There is no reason to come back until Friday afternoon.”
As she started to open her SUV, he grabbed her hand. She felt the chemical reaction rocket through her as if he’d zapped her with a Taser.
“Promise me that when this is all over...” he began, giving her hand in his large warm one a squeeze before letting go.
She smiled, but as she looked at him, she felt that ominous sensation that had spooked him. “You take care, Shade Sterling,” she said.
“You, too, Sheriff.”
* * *
BACK AT HIS APARTMENT, Deputy Ace Turner studied the photograph he’d pocketed of little Lizzy Conners when she was in high school. Her dark hair had been longer back then and she’d worn it down like a shimmering ebony wave around her slim shoulders.
But it was those dark eyes that captivated him. Sometimes they were a burnt umber but other times there was a fire in them that warmed them to cinnamon. She was a looker, there was no doubt about that. All that, he realized, had probably contributed to her winning the sheriff election.
Too bad the voters hadn’t seen Lizzy back in high school with none of that cocky, so-sure-of-herself, so-positive-she-could-do-anything attitude she had now. If they had, he knew she would have lost. This girl looked...vulnerable. This girl hadn’t wanted to be a sheriff back then, even though he’d heard that she’d lived next door to Sid from the time she was a baby. No, this teenager in the photograph looked...broken.
So what had happened to her to make her like that back then? Something. A boy who dumped her? Friends who betrayed her? Or something worse?
Ace frowned. What had happened to her parents that she came to live with her aunt as a baby? He thought he’d heard that they were dead. Conners. It shouldn’t take much to track down what had happened to them, right?
He fingered the photograph, trying to get inside Lizzy’s head. She looked so young. She was still young, twenty-eight and sheriff. There was no justice in the world. He, on the other hand, would be forty-five this year. She was a babe in the woods compared to a man of his maturity. That is unless you talked to his mother or his ex-girlfriend.
Ace pushed those thoughts away. What did they know anyway? What was important here was the high-profile case. Ariel Matheson’s murder. Already, the news was bringing up her politician father who was still doing time in the state pen. Solving a case like this would get anyone noticed, but especially some young, green, female sheriff.
If he could just find a way to take over the case, he thought. He looked down into Lizzy’s dark eyes in the photo. As he took a straight pin from his desk drawer, he thought that he would do whatever he had to if he got a chance to take over this case.
Driving the sharp end of the pin into her heart, he tacked her up on his bulletin board next to the photo he’d also pocketed of Ariel Matheson.
Tomorrow at work, he’d find out everything he could about Elizabeth “Lizzy” Conners.
* * *
LIZZY DROVE THROUGH the darkness down the mountain, pines on each side of the narrow road. Using her hands-free device, she phoned Ariel’s mother. “Hello, Mrs. Matheson—I’m sorry, Mrs. Warner.” She slowed her patrol SUV to a crawl on the narrow, tree-lined dirt road.
“Please, call me Catherine,” the woman said. “After as many hours as you used to spend in this house, Lizzy... But I should call you Sheriff, shouldn’t I? If I didn’t mention it earlier when you came by, congratulations on winning the election.”
“Thank you.”
“Is there anything new in the investigation? Have you caught the person who killed my daughter?”
“Not yet. But I’m working on it. The case is ongoing, Catherine. That’s why I’m calling. I need the name of Ariel’s doctor.”
“Her doctor?” Catherine’s voice broke.
Lizzy knew before she asked what the woman would say. “Catherine, was Ariel pregnant?” Lizzy heard what sounded like a sob. “Who was the father of the baby?”
“She wouldn’t tell me who—”
From off to her right, headlights suddenly blinded her as a vehicle roared out of the pines from a logging road. She felt the jarring crash against her SUV, heard the blaring crunch of metal against metal, an instant before she was slammed against her side window and the airbags deployed. She hit her brakes as the impact of the other vehicle sent her SUV skidding across the narrow road to crash into the pines. Her vision narrowed before blinking out.
Lizzy came to, probably only seconds later. For a moment, she didn’t know what had happened. It had been so fast. She turned and felt a pain in her head, in her neck, in her battered body. Stars danced before her eyes and she thought for a moment that she was going to black out.
Turning her head even though it was excruciating, she could see the vehicle that had hit her. The driver had backed up and left the engine idling only yards away, the headlights still streaming into the patrol SUV blinding her. Had the person backed up to hit her again?
She was fumbling for her radio to call for help when the passenger-side door in the back was flung open. She expected the driver to ask if she was all right. Instead, she realized with shock that the driver was trying to climb into the back seat where the box of photographs was. In the side mirror, she saw gloved hands holding what looked like a length of yellow ski rope as had been used on Ariel.
Unhooking her seat belt, Lizzy fumbled out her gun and tried to turn.
The person must have seen her going for her weapon. The door slammed. She watched the figure dressed in a large black coat with a hood. She couldn’t tell by the size whether it was a man or a woman. With the glare of the headlights blinding her, she couldn’t make out a face as the person got behind the wheel again. She heard the engine rev.
The driver was going to ram her again. Lizzy braced herself for the impact. But the headlights swung away, and what appeared to be an old sedan left in a cloud of exhaust. She squinted as she tried to read the license plate, but it was too dark.
The person was getting away, she realized, her head foggy. She grabbed her radio and called for help as she watched the sedan roar away. She saw only taillights as the car disappeared over a rise in the road.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHADE COULDN’T SHAKE his earlier premonition. After watching Lizzy drive away, he felt helpless to do any
thing about it though. The hiker had scared away the person going through the photos. Had the person found what he or she was looking for? By now they could have destroyed any incriminating photo.
Lizzy had taken the rest of them and planned to go through them. He wished she had let him help. She kept holding him at arm’s length in this investigation—as well as personally. He worried that if Ariel’s killer wasn’t found, he and Lizzy would stay star-crossed lovers forever.
After locking up the lodge as best he could given the broken window, he drove toward the valley ranch. He hadn’t gone far when he noticed he had a message on his phone. Before he could check it, he came over the rise and saw Lizzy’s wrecked patrol SUV in his headlights.
He slammed on his brakes, getting his pickup stopped just in time. His heart leaped to his throat, his mouth going dry as dust as he threw his truck into Park and jumped out.
As he rushed to her, he could see Lizzy, head back, eyes closed, and felt all the air rush from him. He pounded on the roof of the SUV, terrified that she was dead.
Her eyes flew open and he let himself breathe again, relief washing over him. He tried the passenger-side door but it was smashed in and wouldn’t budge. He opened the back seat door. It groaned, but he was able to push the box of photographs aside to reach her. He leaned over the seat and put a hand on her shoulder.
He didn’t see any blood, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have internal injuries. “Are you hurt bad?”
She shook her head and winced.
“Have you called for—” Even as he started to say it, he heard the sound of sirens. “What happened?”
She wet her lips but didn’t try to speak as the first EMT vehicle came roaring up. A man and woman in uniform leaped out and rushed to them.
Feeling useless, he slid out of the SUV and let the medics do their job. What had happened? Had she lost control of the SUV and hit not just the trees along one side of the road, but the other, as well? He stared at the smashed-in side of the vehicle in the headlights of his pickup. He saw where a darker brown paint had been left on the patrol SUV and realized what it would take to dent the side of the rig like this.
