A Date for the Detective: A Fuller Family Novel (Brush Creek Brides Book 10)

by Liz Isaacson

  Kyler watched him until the top of his head disappeared down the swell in the land, only then taking a truly deep breath. His phone rang, and he nearly fell over. He darted back inside the cabin, closed and locked the door, and answered the call from Milt.

  “So you’re still alive?” His brother didn’t sound like he was kidding, but Kyler felt like a fool.

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t have hurt me,” he said, though he absolutely wasn’t sure of that. He stepped over to the window and stared out of it, almost expecting Jose to return with a gang of similarly dirty men—his camping buddies—and burn the cabin to the ground. “He said his name was Jose Garces and that he was camping with his buddies at the bluffs.”

  “And he wanted what?”

  “He needed to use my phone.”

  “Who did he call?”

  “I didn’t ask him.”

  “Look at the number.”

  Why Milton was so interested, Kyler wasn’t sure. And what would he do? Call the same number? Kyler really didn’t think that was a good idea. But he said, “All right, hold on,” and put his brother on speaker so he could navigate to his call history.

  He repeated the number to Milt and scanned the front of the cabin again. No movement. No one. He still felt too exposed out here, and he decided to leave earlier than planned.

  “I’m talking to Tate about it,” Milt said. “He doesn’t want you to worry, but I think you should come down to town.”

  “He went off in the wrong direction,” Kyler said, his voice in a monotone.

  “What?”

  “The man. Jose. Whoever. He said he was camping with his buddies at the bluffs, but when he left, he went straight down the road. The bluffs are to the west.” He looked in the direction Jose should’ve gone, but nothing seemed out of place.

  “And he asked me if we come up here and use this cabin much.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said we were up here all the time.” Kyler turned away from the window and went back into the kitchen. He turned off the stove where the oil he’d been heating was probably now scorched. “I’m cleaning up and coming back,” he said. “It’ll probably take me a couple of hours to get everything done here and back to Brush Creek.”

  “Keep me updated,” Milt said. “I want to know when you leave, anything you see or hear.”

  Kyler nodded and said, “Okay,” when he remembered his brother couldn’t see him. He hung up and launched himself into full clean-up mode, desperation driving him to get out of the canyon as soon as possible.

  Ninety minutes later, he had everything scrubbed and put away in the cabin, his backpack packed and lying next to the front door, and BB secure in his kennel that strapped to the back of Kyler’s bike. He’d closed all the blinds and made sure the back door leading to the mudroom was tightly locked and then the chain hooked into place. They had had some break-ins in the past, but nothing nefarious. Stranded hikers or campers in a bad storm, like Dahlia had been.

  For some reason, Kyler hadn’t called or texted her about the incident with Jose. She hadn’t answered any of his questions about what she’d been doing or investigating on Friday night, and Milt had assured him that Tate was learning what he could.

  It probably wasn’t anything. A guy who needed to make a phone call. That wasn’t a crime, and neither was walking around in dirty jeans and a torn shirt.

  Leaving now, he typed out, almost smashing his thumb against the send button in his over-anxious state.

  He picked up his pack and swung it onto his back, pulling open the door with one hand while digging in his jeans pocket for the keys with the other. His father had always warned him to lock the cabin tight, and Kyler didn’t think there was a more crucial time to follow those directions.

  With the lock in place, and the deadbolt too, Kyler reached for the helmet he’d left on the long, wide railing that fenced in the porch. Tires popped over gravel, and his heart started shooting around in his chest like a ball of fireworks.

  A police car came into view, but it was unlike the one Dahlia had climbed into yesterday morning. This one belonged to McDermott Boyd, and the man himself climbed out of the front seat, taking several seconds to drink in the scenery before him.

  “McDermott?” Kyler asked, hurrying toward the steps. “What’s going on?”

  “Stop!” McDermott held up his hand, and Kyler froze. His best friend strode forward, his eyes tense and anxious. “Have you been down the steps yet?”

  “No.”

  “I got wind that you’d met a man up here,” he said, stopping a good distance back. “We’re interested in collecting evidence if we can find it. We need you to stay right where you are.”

  Another car rolled up, this one a cruiser from the Beaverton Police Department.

  “Evidence?” Kyler repeated. “Evidence of what?”

  McDermott studied the ground. “Footprints. Dust, hair, fibers, anything.”

  “Who was that guy?” Kyler asked.

  “We don’t know.” McDermott took another step; he was almost to the motorcycle.

  “He touched that,” Kyler blurted out. McDermott’s head popped up, his eyes wide. “The bike,” Kyler continued. “He touched it. Ran his finger along the seat. Stood right next to it. Walked from here to there, and then back. He had his hands all over my phone too.”

  Kyler took it out of his pocket, sure he’d erased the evidence the police needed. “It’s been in and out of my pocket, and I’ve touched it a lot too.”

  “Set it on the railing there,” he said. “The helmet too.” McDermott nodded when Kyler followed his directions. “Step to the side, Kyler. The detectives will be here to question you in a few minutes.” He smiled, and it was the same kind, brotherly smile Kyler had always seen on McDermott’s face.

  “Am I in trouble?” he called to his friend as he turned to the pair of Beaverton cops that had joined him.

  “No, Kyler,” McDermott assured him. “You’ll be fine.”

  Fine wasn’t the same as not in trouble, but Kyler stepped to the side and set his heavy backpack on the porch. And when that same car pulled up and Gray and Dahlia got out, they both looked grim, fierce, and absolutely like he was in seriously big trouble.

  Chapter Eight

  Dahlia had been praying for a solid hour by the time she pulled up to Kyler’s cabin. Just for good measure she sent another prayer heavenward. Please let him be innocent.

  He was the first man who’d got her pulse doing more than a gentle lope in years. Why did he have to be involved with the coyote?

  “I’ll start,” Gray murmured, his mirrored shades barely turning her direction. Why he was telling her, she didn’t know. Gray always started with their witnesses. Dahlia was the observer, and she could peg lies and omissions nine-and-a-half times out of ten.

  They paused at the handlebars of the bike to check in with McDermott Boyd, the state trooper in this county. He alone out of the other police forces in the Brush Creek area knew of the coyote. “He’s a friend of yours, right?” Gray asked.

  “From childhood,” McDermott said, glancing toward Kyler. “He said the coyote touched his motorcycle. I’ve got a crime scene team coming from Vernal. They’re thirty minutes out.”

  “What else?” Dahlia surveyed the scene, but there was too much going on for her to take in specific details.

  “His phone, which he set on the railing there. He said the coyote walked to the door, knocked twice, down the steps, touched the bike, and back.”

  Dahlia couldn’t look away from Kyler, but she kept her ear solidly on the conversation. “He looks scared.”

  “He is,” McDermott said. “But I don’t think he’s involved in any way. A chance encounter.”

  “Our biggest witness yet, though,” Gray said. “The coyote hasn’t ever approached houses before.”

  “Must’ve been desperate,” Dahlia said, finally tearing her eyes from Kyler’s. They called to her, even across this distance, and she kept
her fists clenched in her pockets so she wouldn’t disturb the crime scene by running to him.

  “Can we get him down from there?” she asked. “Maybe he can go over the side.”

  “That’s a twelve-foot drop,” Gray said, nodding to the porch. “Eight steps up.”

  “Kyler’s athletic,” she said.

  “The coyote could’ve tried the back door, gone around the side, been anywhere,” McDermott said. “How crucial is it that you speak to him?”

  “Beyond dire,” Gray said, and Dahlia agreed. “He saw the coyote only two hours ago. He can’t have gotten that far, and we need to know where he went.” He stepped to the west, clearly intending to give the most crucial crime scene areas a wide berth.

  Dahlia followed him around the tree where the yellow tape had been wrapped and they walked along the edge of the lawn where it turned into wild grasses.

  “Is there another way down?” Gray called to Kyler. “Without going back into the house, or going down the steps there.”

  “No, sir,” he said.

  “Maybe we could talk from here.” They stood about fifteen feet back from the porch, way over on the side. Gray looked at Dahlia, and she shook her head. No, this wouldn’t work. She couldn’t see Kyler’s hands, his feet, what they did or didn’t do.

  “Can you come over the side, Kyler?” she asked, her chest tightening as she said his name. Why had this happened to him? She hoped her emotions and soft feelings for him wouldn’t color her ability to do her job.

  “I can try.” He tested his weight on his hands, like he didn’t believe the wide porch railing would hold him. Of course it did, and he vaulted over it, twisting to grab onto it with his hands as he dangled himself over the side.

  “It’s just about five more feet,” Gray said. “Just drop straight down.”

  He did, landing with a soft grunt before turning and dusting his hands off. Walking toward them, his dark blue eyes stormed with emotion and he couldn’t seem to look away from Dahlia.

  Gray cleared his throat, obviously noticing. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything about the electricity between Kyler and Dahlia. “Let’s talk near the cruiser,” he said. He went first, and Dahlia indicated that Kyler should follow Gray and she’d take up the rear.

  Kyler’s hand brushed hers as he passed, and Dahlia’s heart tippity-tapped in her chest.

  Back at the car, Gray leaned his weight against the trunk and folded his arms and ankles like he was waiting for a bus. “Tell us what happened, if you will, please.” He hitched his glasses down so his bright blue eyes could be seen. “Everything, Mister Fuller. Even if you think it’s not an important detail.”

  Kyler’s fingers went round and round each other. He was nervous. He cleared his throat and cut a glance at Dahlia. “So I was making breakfast when someone knocked on the door.”

  “What kind of knock?” Gray asked.

  “Kind of knock?” Confusion ran across Kyler’s face.

  “Yeah, were they pounding? How many times did they knock? Did it sound urgent? Just a knock? What kind of knock?”

  “Oh, uh, just a knock,” Kyler said, cutting a look at Dahlia. “When Dahlia showed up on Friday night, that was a like a frantic pounding, and I knew she was in trouble. Or whoever it was. I obviously didn’t know it was her.”

  Dahlia wanted to smile at him, soothe him, remind him that he wasn’t in any trouble. At least not yet. She simply continued to look at him, hoping he’d take some of her calm energy and use it.

  “So just a knock,” Gray said, his attention singular on Kyler.

  “Right. So I answered the door. There was a man standing there.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  Kyler described the work boots, the blue flannel shirt, how it was ripped on the hem and along the back. “Like he’d crawled through barbed wire,” he said. “And his jeans were dirty, frayed along the bottom. His boots had the red dust on them from the bluff. He told me he had gotten separated from his friends while they were camping. He asked to use my phone.”

  “And you let him?”

  “Yes, sir. He gave me the creeps, what with that scar on his neck, and those eyes….” He shivered. “I texted my brother that some guy had shown up and that I needed him to call me in a few minutes.”

  Dahlia knew the type of eyes Kyler was describing. Soulless. Endless. Seemingly omniscient. “Tell us about the scar,” she said. The sketch they’d been using had been well, sketchy, in that area, as the witness who’d worked with the artist hadn’t gotten a good look at that side of the coyote’s body.

  “It was on his right side,” Kyler said. “It looked old, like something he’d had for a while. He was several inches shorter than me, so I was looking down on him, and the scar ran out from behind his ear, like this.” He lifted his finger to his neck and drew in a diagonal line down toward his throat.

  “Was it thick? Thin?” Dahlia asked.

  “Thick near his ear, and it tapered out,” Kyler said. “Went about halfway down. I remember that it was what scared me, made me feel unsafe.”

  Gray asked more questions, and Kyler relaxed, telling the tale of his brief yet so significant altercation with their coyote. It had definitely been him—Jose Garces as he’d told Kyler. She’d have Stace run the name, but she wasn’t hopeful they’d get anything back.

  The crime scene unit showed up, and they began swabbing the motorcycle for fingerprints, taking pictures of footprints, sweeping for fibers, hair, debris, or prints from the gravel driveway all the way to the front door. One of them picked up Kyler’s phone with gloved hands and dropped it into a plastic evidence bag.

  “We need a team out at the bluffs,” Gray said when Kyler had finished. “And Stace on about half a dozen things, from the stores who carry the type of boots he was wearing to the name Jose Garces to this phone number he called.”

  Gray exhaled, and Dahlia knew exactly how he felt. Neither of them were wearing their official uniforms, because it was Sunday. Pretty much the only day they had off, and they’d already worked half of it that morning.

  “What about my phone?” Kyler asked. “That’s just gone, isn’t it?”

  “And the backpack, I’m afraid,” Dahlia said as she watched a crime scene officer pick it up and gently place it in a paper bag.

  “He didn’t touch anything in that,” Kyler said.

  “I’ll buy you a new crossword puzzle book.” She tossed him a weary smile, knowing what she had to do and not wanting to do it. But this case had just been blown wide open—a live sighting of the coyote! Right here. Only hours ago—and she’d be working around the clock.

  “This is locked,” someone called, and Dahlia looked at Kyler.

  “Do you have the keys?”

  He fished them from his pocket and handed them to Gray, who passed them to another officer.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Everything they can to figure out who this guy is,” Gray said. “They’ll go inside and around the entire property outside too.” He watched them for a moment. “They won’t touch anything.”

  “I cleaned up inside,” Kyler said. “Laundry, dishes, bathroom, all of it.” He looked sheepish. “My mother doesn’t like it when the cabin is left a mess.”

  “The coyote didn’t go inside,” Gray said. “I’m sure—”

  “The coyote?” Kyler’s worried gaze flew from Gray to Dahlia. “That’s what you’re calling him? What does he do? Smuggle people through small towns in Utah?”

  Gray winced, realizing his mistake. “We don’t know everything he does,” he said tactfully. “That’s why we’re trying to find him.”

  Kyler cocked his hip, clearly not believing Gray. “Dahlia,” he said, and though his voice didn’t go up in inflection, he was still asking her a question.

  “I can’t talk about it, Kyler,” she said, wishing she could. Maybe she’d be able to sleep better at night. Or go a single afternoon without rushing off to interrogate a witness.

  “The boys
from Beaverton can give you a ride down to town,” McDermott said, stepping over to their conversation. “I’ve got a CSI team going to the bluffs.” He nodded at Dahlia and then Gray before moving away again.

  “I’ll call in what we need Stace to get working on.” Gray stepped away, his phone already on his ear, leaving Dahlia with Kyler.

  She looked up at him, almost falling right over the edge of professional and into the ocean-blue eyes. “This is a major case,” she said softly. “We’ve been working it for six months. I’m sorry, Kyler. I can’t tell you much else.” She wanted to reach out and touch him but not in mixed company.

  Too bad he didn’t seem to care about that. He let his hand feather across hers again, and she sucked in a breath and pocketed her hands. She didn’t want to hurt him. She just had lines that couldn’t be crossed at certain times.

  She leaned in closer, and kept her voice low when she said, “And I’ll need a rain check on dinner tomorrow night. This will keep us hopping for a few days.”

  His face fell, and Dahlia’s heart squeezed. “I’ll call you later.”

  “I don’t have a phone.” He looked away, clearly frustrated and not hiding it well. Kyler didn’t hide much very well, and gratitude flowed through Dahlia at that. Because he was indeed innocent. In the wrong place at the wrong time for a chance encounter with the man she’d been tracking for six months.

  Maybe he’d been in the right place at the right time.

  “How late is too late to stop by?” she asked.

  His gaze flew back to hers, the hope there bright and beautiful. “It’s never too late.”

  “Great, I’ll see you later.” She stepped away, the motion taking every ounce of willpower she had. She wanted to kiss him goodbye so he wouldn’t be too disappointed about her breaking their date, but she couldn’t. Not out here in the open where anyone could see.

  As she joined Gray and asked, “Should one of us go out to the bluffs?” she wondered why she was so embarrassed about her relationship with Kyler.