by JoAnn Ross
Hazard had garnered a bit of fame back during the early seventies, after the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had come out. According to legend, Butch and Sundance had enjoyed the pleasures of the working girls at The Shady Lady, one of several Hazard brothels in the booming red-light district.
The outlaws had long gone, as had the gold prospectors and mountain men, but the cowboys and the Indians—the majority of whom lived on the joint-use Shoshone/Arapaho Wind River Reservation—had stayed.
Hazard was surrounded by mountains: the stunningly beautiful Tetons, soaring a mile high of the town; the Wind River Range, which presented some of the most rugged territory in the state; Heartbreak Ridge, curving around the southeast edge of the valley; and towering over everything, its lofty peak often sheathed in clouds, White Owl Mountain, named for the mythical Arapaho bird of winter.
Growing up here, Will had taken the mountains for granted. In fact, there’d been a time he’d thought of them as a prison. Coming home, after years in the Low- country, he could appreciate their wonder.
Back when he’d been as young and stupid as Josh, he couldn’t wait to escape what he saw as a world of grinding boredom broken up by periods of backbreaking- hard ranch work. Which was why, when that judge had worked out the deal with his father to allow him to avoid going off to juvie, he’d joined the marines.
The irony was that the Corps, in their wisdom, had, for some reason he’d never be able to figure out, decided to make him an MP.
Surprisingly, he’d been good at his job. Good enough to get promoted into criminal investigations as soon as he reached the required age of twenty-one. Although he enjoyed the work, he’d chafed under the rigid military rules and regulations and hadn’t reenlisted.
But his talent for chasing down bad guys had gotten him hired by the Savannah police department, where he quickly discovered civilian law enforcement agencies had their own set-in-stone rules and bureaucratic bullshit. After things went south, and Josh landed in his lap, Will had believed that after all these years, and having achieved a small measure of respectability, it wouldn’t be that difficult returning to his hometown.
He’d been wrong.
From the moment he’d accepted the job as sheriff, he could feel the weight of the town’s expectations, like giant boulders pressing down on his shoulders. He doubted many of the people who’d known him back in the bad old days would’ve ever expected him to grow up to be the guy in charge of Hazard’s laws. He had, after all, been the wild kid, the rebel without a clue who’d gotten drunk, stolen cars, and brawled on Saturday nights.
But never had he landed in any trouble anywhere near like the mess his son might be in.
His son.
Even now the idea seemed almost beyond belief. Weird enough he’d ended up being a cop. But a father?
A father was supposed to be the grown-up, the guy in charge, the dad who always knew best and who protected his children against all those dangers lurking outside the safety of their home.
The road to hell was definitely paved with good intentions. Will’s reasons for having come back to Hazard were complex, but the bottom line was that Josh’s unexpected arrival in Savannah had changed both their lives. He hoped for the better, but unfortunately, that remained to be seen.
If he’d stayed in Savannah, his son wouldn’t have met Erin Gallagher. And the lad sure as hell wouldn’t have landed himself in the middle of a murder investigation.
Will’s fingers tightened on the leather-padded steering wheel. He flexed them. Drew in a deep breath. Let it out again. Drew in another. Inhale. Exhale. Find the center.
Yeah. Right. Like meditation was going to solve this problem.
Josh admittedly had some issues. The kid was angry, confused, and every bit as rebellious as Will himself had once been. And although from what he’d been able to glean from the lawyer, Whitney sounded as if she’d been about as far from June Cleaver as a mom could get, and although Josh refused to discuss it, Will suspected Josh was also grieving for his dead mother. The mother who’d not only neglected to inform Will she’d gotten pregnant, but had, for sixteen years of his life, lied to their son about his real father’s identity.
Any kid would have to be majorly pissed. Will sure as hell would’ve been. But even with all he had going against him, there was no way Josh could harm anyone.
Will knew that. Unfortunately, people tended to believe the worst. Which meant he had to find Erin Gallagher’s murderer fast. Before runaway rumors put a scarlet bull’s-eye on his kid’s back.
Recalling all too well a time when he’d been perceived as Hazard’s bad boy, he vowed not to let that happen.
15
“Well? Will you come?"
Staring into the orange and red flames blazing away in the fireplace, the man raised by wolves could see the scene so clearly, it was like watching a movie. One in which he’d played the starring role.
The girl standing in front of him smelled like a tropical garden. Not that he’d ever been to the tropics, but he had not a single doubt that Hawaii would smell exactly like nine-year-old Mandy Longworth.
“Does your mother know you’re inviting me?”
“Of course.” Her cheeks, already a deep pink from the bite of the Rocky Mountain winter wind, blushed even deeper. “She said I could ask whoever I wanted.”
He’d never been invited to a birthday party. Partly because he’d never fit in with the kind of popular kids who went in for that sort of thing. But mostly because he knew that no parents would want a boy from Muddy Hole—a ramshackle neighborhood of rusting trailers on the wrong side of the tracks, guarded by residents’ snarling junkyard dogs—inside their magazine-perfect homes.
“Bet you invited everyone.”
“I always invite the entire class.”
“Back in Texas.” Her father, a big shot at Odessa Oil, had transferred his family here from Dallas. “Where you went to some fancy private school.”
She tossed her blond head. “If you’re calling me a snob, you’re just stupid and you don’t have to come to my party if you don’t want to.”
“I didn’t say that.” He wasn’t used to girls talking back to him. He wasn’t used to girls talking to him, period.
“Then you’ll come?” She held out the invitation again. When she touched his sleeve with a fluffy white mitten that matched the trim on her hood, he felt a fist gripping inside his chest.
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Unless something comes up.”
The dimple in her cheek flashed and her cornflower blue eyes brightened, as if someone had turned a light-bulb on inside her. “That’s great.”
A woman across the parking lot began calling her name. Shit. If he’d had his stepfather’s pistol, he would have shot the bitch.
“That’s my mama.” She waved. The woman waved back, her smile a twin of her daughter’s. “I’d better go. I have a ballet lesson this afternoon.” Halfway to the black Suburban, she turned back. “You don’t have to bring a present. Like Mama always says, having a birthday at Christmas just means I get too many gifts all at once, anyway. It’s the company that’s important.”
“If I come, I’m going to bring a damn present.”
Her eyes widened a bit at the cuss word. But she didn’t argue. “Whatever you want.” She flashed him another smile, then raced off toward the car.
He’d filched a charm bracelet from the Mountain Mercantile. Her mother’s blond brows had lifted suspiciously at the gift, which she’d probably figured he hadn’t been able to afford. And she’d been right. But he was glad he’d taken the risk because everyone else had brought birthday presents.
She’d thanked him and held out her thin, white arm, like a princess inviting a serf to put it on her wrist. But the minute his fingers had brushed against that silky, white flesh, they’d turned as thick and useless as sausage. While the other kids laughed as he fumbled with the clasp, he’d imagined pouring gasoline on them, setting them on fire, imagined their flesh bu
rning and those stuck-up expressions melting off their faces.
Their scorn infuriated. But not as badly as the pity on Mandy Longworth’s face.
Don’t think about that! He drew in a deep breath. Let it out. Closed his eyes and focused on a more appealing memory of the day.
Desire stirred deep in his groin as he recalled Mandy’s joy when her parents handed her a fluffy, white kitten. Its slanted eyes had been bright blue, its button nose pink, and it was wearing a silver bell on a red ribbon around its neck. The cat, which she named Snowball, spent the rest of the party curled up in Mandy’s lap, blissfully purring like a small motor.
It hadn’t been purring two weeks later, when he’d taken a razor and shaved off its soft white fur.
Or when he’d pelted it with a steaming-hot shower.
The kitten’s mewling cries had been like electric wires running beneath his skin, creating a surge of energy like nothing he’d ever before experienced.
With power singing in his blood, he’d taken the wet and blistered animal out into the woods behind Muddy Hole, where he’d tied it to a tree with brown twine.
Although hunting season was over, there was always a chance some cross-country skier or poacher might hear the animal’s shrieks, so he’d stuffed a sock down its throat. Then taken his stepfather’s bow from its black leather case.
He hadn’t been a very good archer, but the fifth shot had proven the charm.
All it took was the memory of that feather-tipped arrow pinning the cat’s body to the trunk of the towering Douglas fir tree to make him hard.
He unzipped his jeans. Took out his cock and began stroking himself as he remembered pretty little Mandy Longworth’s red-rimmed eyes when she’d come to school after finding the kitten’s skeleton strewn over her backyard. They’d known it was Snowball because of the filthy red ribbon and bell still tied around its neck.
Coyotes had been the general consensus.
Packs of wild dogs another popular choice.
But from the way Mrs. Longworth had stared hard at him the next time she’d picked up Mandy at school, he’d had the feeling the rich bitch suspected the truth.
But suspecting wasn’t knowing. And knowing wasn’t proving.
Still, it wasn’t long after that holiday birthday party that the Longworths’ house was put back up for sale and the family moved back to Texas.
Mandy Longworth’s Christmas kitten was the first life he’d taken. A great many animals and humans had died by his hand since that memorable day. The lovely young skater, who’d reminded him in so many ways of Mandy, was only the most recent.
But not the last. As he ejaculated on a surge of hot pleasure, the man who was once the boy raised by wolves was already imagining his next kill.
16
Although he’d been in what deputy Trace Honeycutt insisted on calling The Box countless times, watching Sam question his son turned out to be the worst experience of Will’s life. Even worse than getting shot.
And it damn well hadn’t been easy on Josh.
It was nearly four in the morning by the time they left the station. The ashen green had faded from Josh’s face, leaving his complexion as white as bone. His eyes were swollen and red-rimmed and he stank of fear, sweat, vomit, and beer.
At any other time, Will would want to know where in town two underage kids had gotten their hands on booze. But right now, that was the least of his concerns.
If Josh was to be believed, and Will did, Erin Gallagher had been at the mini-mart when he’d stopped to get gas around nine thirty. She’d invited him back to her apartment, and like any other sixteen-year-old boy on the planet would’ve done, Josh had accepted. They’d had sex, ordered out for pizza, watched a video, drunk some beer. Had another round of sex. After which, Josh had proven himself to be a typical male by falling asleep.
When he’d awakened, she’d already left the apartment for the lake.
“You doing all right?” Will asked as they drove the darkened road leading out of town to the ranch he’d grown up on.
“Oh, yeah. I’m just fuckin’ fantastic.”
Will decided this wasn’t the time for a lecture about language. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah. Shit happens, right?”
“Sometimes clichés are true.” Hadn’t he told himself that time and time again after the shooting?
“Well, that one’s fucking goddamn original. Maybe you oughtta put it on a bumper sticker. You’d probably sell millions. Maybe even enough to buy a house somewhere in California, or Hawaii. Get out of this shithole.”
“Sarcasm’s good. At least it’s better than wallowing in guilt.”
Josh folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Actually, I don’t want to talk about it, either. Since we’re in a really weird father/son/law-enforcement place. I’m not sure of the legalities, having never been in this situation before, but if you were to tell me something that might help me solve Erin Gallagher’s murder, even if it might complicate our relationship, I wouldn’t be able to ignore it.”
Josh was staring out the passenger window, at the mountains looming over the valley. “Like we have any relationship."
“Sure we do."
That drew a sharp look.
“It may be a fucked-up, shitty one. But you gotta admit it’s a helluva lot more of a father-son relationship than we had this time last year.”
“You didn’t even know I existed this time last year.”
“My point exactly. And it’s something you might want to keep in mind next time you find yourself getting pissed off at me for not having been around to go to your soccer games.”
“I don’t play soccer.”
“Neither do I. Which, I suppose means, as distasteful as the idea is, that you’ve got something in common with your old man after all.”
Josh didn’t respond. But Will had been a cop long enough to know that his son was thinking about that.
He’d shut his eyes tight, as if trying to block out the sight of Erin Gallagher’s mutilated body.
Unfortunately, Will knew all too well that the horrific images had been scorched onto the teen’s brain and would probably haunt him for the rest of his life, popping up when he’d least expect them, bringing back this night he’d undoubtedly give anything to forget.
“If you’d gone out to the lake earlier, you could’ve been killed as well.”
“Like anyone would give a shit.”
Why didn’t the kid just take Will’s Glock and shoot him through the heart. Christ, hadn’t he changed his entire life for his son? What the hell else could he do to prove he was trying his damnedest to be a good father? “I’d care. So would your grandfather.”
Again, nothing.
“I didn’t kill Erin,” Josh said after they’d gone another quarter mile. “I know I said I did, when I saw her body, but I didn’t mean I’m the one who cut her throat.”
“I never, for a single second, thought you were.”
“You going to catch the bastard who did it?”
Will nodded. Firmly. Resolutely. “You bet.”
It was Josh’s turn to nod. “Good. Then you can shoot him. Beginning with his balls, then working out from there.”
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way,” Will said. “But believe me, son, we’re in perfect agreement about wishing it did.”
17
Going right back on the air, knowing that Erin was zipped into some ugly black police body bag, undoubtedly on her way to Jackson, since Faith guessed Hazard wouldn’t have the forensics necessary for a serious autopsy, had been one of the most difficult things she’d ever done.
Each time she’d dodged a caller’s question, she’d wanted to break down and weep.
If that wasn’t bad enough for her nerves, she kept waiting for Sal to call again. Or worse yet, to show up at the station, armed to the teeth, prepared to shoot anyone who got in his way.
But he did n
either, and the only calls were from listeners wanting to know what had happened out at the lake. Keeping to her agreement with Will, Faith merely revealed that a body had been discovered by two sledders, that the sheriff was conducting an investigation and would be holding a press conference in the morning.
Fortunately, the audience tended to drop off in the last hour of the show, allowing her to mostly play music and watch out the window for headlights.
Which, thank God, never appeared.
Having hated the way she’d allowed Sal to control not just her life, but her emotions, Faith had been determined never to let anyone frighten her again. Nevertheless, she wasn’t about to protest when Mike insisted on following her home, as he had every night since she’d begun working at KWIND.
He waited in front of her rented house while she pulled her Explorer into the garage and unlocked the kitchen door. She was probably the only person in Hazard to bother to lock her doors, but she’d lived too long in cities to be able to just walk out the door and leave her home open to anyone passing by who might decide to wander in and steal her stuff.
Not that she had anything worth stealing. In fact, the only pieces of furniture in the house were a sofa, a bed, a chest of drawers, a kitchen table, and four wooden chairs she’d found at Grannie’s Attic Antiques down on Main Street. But for her they signified a major lifestyle change since they were the first she’d ever owned.
The diesel engine on Mike’s old pickup truck clattered as he continued to idle, giving her time to get inside her house, waiting until the garage door rumbled back down again.
Then, with a little toot of his horn, he was gone.
Normally, when she arrived home from work, she’d make a cup of tea and settle down with a book for an hour or so to unwind before going to sleep.
Unfortunately, the past few hours had been anything but normal. Going from room to room, she closed the draperies and made sure all the windows were locked.
From her early years with her mother, to another two years spent in the revolving door of Texas’s foster care system—which she’d escaped by merely walking away one day when she was fifteen, only to end up living on the streets—Faith had been a gypsy all her life.
