by Robin Perini
A squirrel skittered to a spot beneath a pine. The little animal paused, raised his head, sniffed the air, and darted off.
Thayne relaxed his grip slightly. He took a step toward his sister.
Riley placed her hand on his shoulder. “Let me take care of the victim, Thayne. She’s why I’m here.”
He struggled to process her words, but her tone was as gentle and coaxing as her hand stroking down his back.
He stilled and sucked in a long, deep breath, blinking to stop the burning tears at the back of his eyes. He couldn’t look away from the bloody, crumpled body. Part of him didn’t want to be certain, to deny the truth facing him, even though over the last twelve hours his certainty that they’d find Cheyenne had dwindled. His faith had taken quite a few hits, and hope seemed like a fool’s journey leading to disappointment.
“I’m doing a perimeter search first,” he said, clinging to procedure. Secure the scene. Always. He surveyed the area. Shep had propped his boss against a tree, but the tremors had returned. “With his condition, we can’t afford a surprise.”
Riley nodded and unholstered her weapon while Thayne took one last look over at Brett. The guy looked as if he might keel over right there. Any last doubt Thayne had that Brett knew what had happened to Cheyenne had vanished. Not that he’d really believed Brett was behind her disappearance. He trusted his instincts. They’d kept him alive for more than a decade.
His instincts hadn’t helped Cheyenne, though. God, what was he going to tell his father? His grandparents? His brothers?
“Don’t move until I come back,” he said to Riley. “Keep watch.”
With silent steps, Thayne methodically checked the perimeter. On a heading due west, he paused. The ground cover had been disturbed.
Someone had come this way and attempted to camouflage their tracks. Thayne squatted next to the area.
They knew the woods—and how to track. He slipped his pen from his pocket and shifted a layer of vines to the right. The edges of a footprint became visible. Perhaps a hiking boot. Not a large size. Maybe a ten? And a thin guy, maybe 150 or so.
Thayne noted the location but didn’t disturb it any further. He completed the surveillance and returned to the clearing. “The area’s clear,” he reported.
Riley lowered her weapon, as did Shep.
“I may have a partial footprint. I think it belongs to whoever did this.” He let his gaze return to the remains. He still couldn’t bear to think of the crumpled form as Cheyenne.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He gritted his teeth and nodded.
On the way across the clearing, Riley snapped on her gloves.
Thayne bowed his head. God, please let us be wrong. Please. He didn’t pray all that often, less than he was brought up to, that’s for sure, but sometimes prayer was all a man had to hold on to.
Riley held his gaze for a moment before giving him a last sympathetic glance. She stiffened her back and knelt beside the body. He could see the reality in her face. She hadn’t wanted the search for Cheyenne to end this way, either, but had suspected it would all along. He could read it in Riley’s eyes.
She rocked on her heels, then pulled out a measuring tape from her satchel. “Cheyenne’s five nine, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Weight about one thirty?”
He nodded.
Riley looked up at him. “This isn’t Cheyenne,” she said. “This girl is only five six and extremely thin. No muscle tone to her legs. She was almost wasting away.”
“Not Cheyenne.” Not Cheyenne. Thayne had to keep repeating the words to himself. They still had a chance to find his sister alive. Thayne blinked against the sudden burn in his eyes.
At the same time, Brett dropped his head in his hands. When he looked up, tears welled in his eyes. “Not her?” His head tilted back, and he looked up at the sky. “Not her.” He seemed to be mouthing something and sagged back in utter relief.
“But it’s her dress,” Thayne said.
Riley tugged at the dress’s collar. “Probably. But the size is all wrong for this girl. And this is a Dior. That doesn’t fit with the closet I examined at her house. She didn’t spend a lot of money on her wardrobe.”
“She hated shopping.” Thayne couldn’t imagine Cheyenne having the patience to try on designer anything. Let alone spend the bucks to purchase it.
Brett cleared his throat. “That’s Cheyenne’s dress. I bought it for her in Las Vegas.”
Thayne hunkered down beside Riley. “Why is this girl wearing Cheyenne’s clothes? What does she have to do with her disappearance?”
“I have no idea,” Riley said. “Her condition doesn’t align at all with my theory that they kidnapped Cheyenne because she’s a doctor and they needed medical care. The girl has sallow skin. There are marks on her wrists and ankles. She was restrained before she died . . .”
Riley didn’t speak for a moment. “Bastard,” she whispered under her breath and lifted the woman’s hand.
Thayne had seen his share of missing limbs as a result of IEDs, but nothing quite like this. Her fingertips had been cut off, not from an explosive, but one by one.
With a gentle touch, Riley pushed aside the victim’s hair and opened her mouth, wincing before sitting back on her heels. “Her killer pulled her teeth. She’ll be very difficult to identify without fingerprints or dental records and with all the bruising on her face, unless her DNA is on file.”
The poor girl’s final moments must have been horrific.
“Who are you?” Riley asked quietly, staring unblinking at the body.
Riley’s dedication to her job blew Thayne away. She confronted this kind of brutality all the time. He didn’t know how she kept going case after case. Thayne had found a way to live with the violence of war by focusing on saving his teammates and those who were in danger from the enemy, but what Riley did every day meant she faced death at the hands of psychopaths. Yet here she was, treating this stranger, this victim, with the gentleness and caring of a dear friend, while her sharp eyes analyzed every detail with the detachment of a scientist.
She truly amazed him.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take you home. And I’ll find who hurt . . . you . . .” Riley turned the woman’s head ever so gently. “Thayne.” She motioned him over and pointed to the back of the victim’s ear. Blood had caked in her hair, and Riley probed a wound. “It’s a small round hole. This woman was killed with the same type of weapon as the man we found yesterday at the swimming hole.”
Thayne bent over to get a closer look. “Whoever killed Brett’s employee killed her, too. Brett’s connected to Cheyenne’s disappearance, just not in the way we first thought.”
Riley nodded. “He’s now killed twice.”
And would, no doubt, kill again.
Unless they found him first.
Fifteen Years Ago
Screams echoed from all directions in and around the swimming pool. The sun reflected off the concrete and beat down hard. Madison had never seen the pool quite so crowded. Everyone was there.
“Maddy, look at me!”
She spun around, her gaze flying to the pool’s edge. Riley laughed and jumped toward Madison, tucking her legs and letting the cannonball fly.
A wave of water splashed over her head. She grinned and waited for Riley’s head to break the surface.
“That’s your biggest yet, Ri-Ri.”
Her sister shoved her hair out of her eyes and beamed with a smile so wide, Madison thought Riley’s cheeks might split.
She hugged Madison. “Thanks for helping me with my room. And thanks for making Mom bring me,” she said in an undertone.
Madison glanced over at their mother, covered head to toe with sunscreen, a huge floppy hat hiding her face from the light.
“Mom’s having fun.”
Riley sputtered with giggles. “She hates the pool. I’m not sure how long she’ll put up with being out in the heat. Wanna play Marco Polo before she
makes us go home?”
“Too many people.” Madison’s gaze swept the crowd. No one recognized her. That made it easier to relax.
“Ah, come on,” Riley whined. “We played every time we came to the pool last summer.”
“Oh, OK.” Secretly, Madison loved the game. But like her mother said, when you grow up, sometimes you have to leave the little-girl games behind.
Not today, though.
Madison closed her eyes. “Marco.”
“Polo,” Riley shouted from a ways away.
Madison didn’t delay turning toward the voice. If she waited too long, Riley would move . . . or the rest of the chatter would confuse the direction. Madison turned toward the voice. She bumped into someone. He let out a curse and swiped her legs under the water. Madison kicked at him. “Jerk,” she said, then shouted, “Marco.”
“Polo!”
With a quick dive toward the voice, Madison reached out blindly. She went under, then jumped up, sucking in a deep breath.
“You playing baby games now?”
Madison’s eyes snapped open. The blonde hair was a giveaway, the disgusted look way too familiar. Madison straightened and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Of course not.”
“Polo!” Riley shouted. “Polo, Maddy!”
Madison ignored the call.
“I was thinking about coming to your slumber party,” Ella, the most popular girl in junior high, said, her nose crinkling. “But I bet your baby sister will crash the party. Are you planning on playing Candy Land?”
“My sister isn’t invited,” Madison snapped. “But you wouldn’t want to come. Truth or Dare might reveal too much about what you let Craig Gentry do to you in the closet at Olivia’s birthday party.”
“Don’t try to sit at our table on Monday, Mad-deee.”
“It’s Madison,” she said as the girl swam away, her blonde curls still dry and falling out of a topknot.
Madison turned around and faced a crestfallen Riley.
“I can’t come? But you promised. After we finished the room, you said I could come.” Riley’s eyes gleamed.
It was probably the chlorine.
“Girls, we’re leaving.” Their mother stood, her eye makeup running down reddened cheeks.
Riley crossed her arms and glared at Madison. “You lied to me.”
Madison rolled her eyes. “Look, we had some fun, but I’m grown up and you’re still a kid, Riley. Maybe when you get into junior high, we can hang out together again.”
Riley splashed Madison in her face and swam to the side of the pool. Her sister glared at her even as tears flowed down her cheeks.
“I don’t need a sister like you, Madison. Why don’t you disappear? I’d be happy again.”
“I just might.”
Neither sister would ever forget those words . . . or how true they would become.
The beautiful clearing where Brett and Cheyenne had loved each other had become a crime scene. One more destroyed memory Riley couldn’t stop from happening.
A loud zipper sounded across the clearing, closing the black body bag. The preliminary photos had been taken, and now the coroner’s team was removing the body. Riley had gathered all the data she could, but she had more questions than answers.
Another victim. Nameless until they identified her.
Brett stood on the perimeter, swaying on his feet, his jaw drawn tight. Shep braced his boss with a thin shoulder. “Mr. Riverton. Please let me take you home. You need rest.”
“All right.” Brett gave Shep a tired nod but turned to Thayne. “How else can I help?”
“Give us access to your private investigators?” Thayne said without hesitation. “And we need any information you have on the man we found buried at the swimming hole.”
Brett nodded. “Done.”
Thayne stretched out his hand, and Brett shook it. “Go home. You look like hell.”
“Call me the minute you find something.” He swallowed. “Either way.”
“Of course.” Thayne looked down at Brett’s left hand. “Cheyenne deserves your faith, Brett. She always did. Once we find her, don’t screw it up again. Deputy Ironcloud will take you back to your place. Then put your PIs in touch with him.”
“Do you think Brett will be OK?” Riley asked, watching him walk slowly away.
“Shep said he is improving.” Thayne rubbed his temple. “But if we don’t find Cheyenne, I’m not sure he’ll want to get well.”
Riley went quiet. What if something were to happen to Thayne? Would she want to go on? Could she?
“Where do we go from here, Riley?”
She’d been considering the question since the moment she realized the murdered woman was wearing Cheyenne’s clothes.
“I think we start over. Your sister loves fiercely, doesn’t she?”
Thayne crouched down to tie his shoe and looked at her strangely. “Of course. The whole family does. Sometimes to a fault.”
“I can see that about you all.” Riley paused for a moment, struggling to explain her theory. “Thayne, if Cheyenne discovered why Brett pushed her away, if she realized he was ill—”
“She’d do everything in her power to help him.” Thayne rose to his feet.
“She might have stumbled onto something out here she wasn’t meant to see.”
Thayne grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her soundly on the lips. “You’re brilliant. Have I ever told you that? I know the place to start. We’re going west.”
Thayne dragged Riley to the footprint he’d found. She squinted in amazement when he moved the ground cover away. “How did you ever see this? It looks the same as everything else around it.”
“Not really. See the twig here, it’s bent away from the others. Someone wandered through. But it’s too high to be a bobcat or even a mountain lion or bear. Whoever made this was walking upright.”
“Couldn’t a bear do that?” she asked, searching with difficulty for the details that Thayne noticed so easily. A lot like what she did at a crime scene. Thayne was a wilderness profiler.
“Bears don’t typically stand on their hind legs unless they’re curious about something,” he said. “I don’t see any claw scratches marking the territory here, either. That’s why I searched for a print.”
“You think whoever killed that girl headed in this direction?”
“No other reason to hide the print.”
“What’s out this way?” she asked.
“Riverton land bumps up against the National Forest within a few miles. Nothing much between here and there but that ghost town and the vestiges of more old mines.”
“Big enough for several people to hide . . . say, for a week?”
“Absolutely.” Thayne nodded.
His satphone rang. “Blackwood.”
“We’ve had another break-in. This time at the hospital.”
Late afternoon sun had dimmed the sky a bit when Thayne’s vehicle screamed to the front of the hospital. He could barely stand not following up on that print, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to leave Riley alone.
At least his brother had agreed to lead the team. Jackson was the best tracker in town. Next to Kade.
“This is a hospital?” Riley asked, taking a full view of the small building.
“A dozen beds. It’s usually not too full.”
Thayne checked his weapon and jumped out of the SUV, meeting Riley around the car. They strode between two sheriff’s vehicles parked across from the entrance. A fire truck, lights flashing, waited in the parking lot.
A group of firefighters pushed through the sliding doors, mumbling, scowls on their faces.
“What’s wrong?” Thayne asked, not wanting to know the answer.
“You’d better catch this son of a bitch, Thayne,” one of the men groused. “Guy doesn’t care who he hurts. Knocked old Nurse Crawly on the side of the head.”
“She’s OK, though?”
The guy shook his head. “Hit her just right. We lost her.”
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Thayne gritted his teeth. He was tired of being one step behind these killers.
“They’re getting more desperate,” Riley said.
“And we’re no closer to identifying them—or finding Cheyenne.”
Deputy Pendergrass met Thayne in the hallway. “Nurse Crawly . . .” The man’s face was pale.
“I heard. Give me the full report.”
Pendergrass didn’t bother looking at his notes, but Thayne trusted his father’s right-hand man as much as anyone on the SEAL team.
“They didn’t come through the front in view of the cameras, so they must have entered through the side door.”
“Those are locked, right?” Thayne said. He had no doubts because he’d assisted his father with the county emergency drill when he’d first arrived in town.
“They had keycard access. The hospital IT guy is looking at any anomalies in the record. They knew what they were doing, Thayne. It was well planned. They went directly to the hospital pharmacy. Nurse Crawly had the key. We think she got in the way.”
“Just like your grandmother at Cheyenne’s place,” Riley commented to Thayne. “I’ll bet the forensics will be just as clean.”
“And this time they decided not to leave any witnesses.” Gram had come so close to losing her life. He turned to Pendergrass. “Did Nurse Crawly say anything before she passed away?”
“She never regained consciousness.”
“Damn it to hell.” Thayne rubbed the back of his neck. “Any idea how many broke in?”
“No way to know.”
“Maybe not for you and me,” Thayne said, arching a brow at Riley.
“I’d like to see the crime scene before you go into any more details,” she ordered.
“You got it.” The deputy led them down the hall and through a set of double doors plastered with crime scene tape. They entered a room labeled PHARMACY. Inside, a body was covered with a sheet.
“Coroner’s on his way,” Pendergrass said.
Jan, his grandmother’s favorite nurse, walked up to them, sniffling. “I just left her alone for a minute, Thayne.” She couldn’t take her gaze away from the sheet. “Maybe if I’d been with her—”
