Murder in Black Canyon

by Cindi Myers

  He glanced up and down the hallway, which was empty and silent. Kayla wouldn’t have carelessly dropped her phone. And she wouldn’t have left without having a last word with him. Something had happened to force her to leave in a rush—without her phone.

  He tucked the device into his pocket and called the front desk from his own cell phone. “This is Lieutenant Holt,” he said. “Did a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair, about five-six, dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt, come through the lobby within the last five minutes?”

  “No, sir,” the clerk said. “No one has been in the lobby since your officers came through here.”

  “Thanks.” He hung up the phone and returned to the hall. If Kayla hadn’t passed through the lobby, she must have taken the stairs. He spotted the exit sign at the end of the hallway and sprinted toward it.

  When he pushed open the door he caught the faint floral scent that lingered in the air—Kayla. Adrenaline pumping, he pounded down the steps. Below, he heard the sound of a door opening and closing.

  He sped up, propelling himself down the stairs, bracing both hands on the railing and vaulting toward the ground floor. If he was wrong, he was going to look pretty foolish, barreling after her like this, but after a decade as a cop, he didn’t think he was jumping to the wrong conclusion. Kayla was in trouble, and he couldn’t afford to waste a minute. The ground-floor exit opened onto a concrete pad that faced a parking lot. A row of Dumpsters sat at the edge of the lot.

  He spotted his quarry right away—two men dressed in denim pants and shirts, carrying Kayla between them. He started toward them just as one of them—the one carrying Kayla’s feet—raised a gun and fired. The bullet pinged off metal and Dylan dived for cover behind the nearest Dumpster, the smell of old garbage washing over him in a foul blanket.

  He drew his weapon and peered out from between two garbage receptacles. Kayla’s kidnappers had positioned her in front of them now, using her as a shield. He couldn’t risk a shot. He drew out his phone and dialed 911. “Two men have kidnapped a woman from the hotel by the airport,” he said. “There’s a state patrol officer there but he needs help.” Then he hung up and immediately hit the button for his office. “I’m at the Mesa Inn in Montrose. Two men have kidnapped Kayla Larimer. Send everybody you can spare.”

  Only half a dozen cars were parked in this back lot. The kidnappers angled toward a dun-colored van, the kind that might have been used by a plumber. A few more yards and they would have Kayla in that van. He couldn’t let them get away.

  Ignoring the questions from the admin on the other end of the line, he stuffed the phone in his pocket and took aim at the van. The shot was painfully loud, echoing off the metal Dumpsters, but satisfaction surged through him as he watched the windshield of the vehicle explode into a million shards of glass.

  The two men with Kayla froze. They shouted curses, though whether at Dylan or at each other, he didn’t care. Kayla took advantage of their inattention to kick and flail. The larger of the two, who had hold of her shoulders, punched her savagely in the face. Dylan forced himself to look away, and fired another shot at the van, aiming for the front grille, hoping to hit the engine and disable the vehicle.

  His ears were still ringing from the gunfire when the wail of a fast-approaching siren reached him. This brought a renewed wave of curses from the two men. The one holding Kayla’s feet had dropped her and was firing at Dylan from behind a parked car, while the first man struggled to hold on to the woman.

  Dylan squeezed off a barrage of shots that sent the shooter diving behind the car’s bumper. Seeing his chance, he rushed forward and took cover behind another vehicle. He had the shooter in his sights now, and took careful aim.

  The shooter’s scream when he was hit sent his partner into a panic. The man shoved Kayla away from him, sending her sprawling on the pavement. Then he dived into the van. As a trio of police cars sped into the lot, he took off, tires screeching, heading in the opposite direction.

  One of the black-and-whites took off after the van, while the other two skidded to a halt near Kayla and the downed man. Dylan pulled out his badge and stood, holding his gun at his side and his badge up. “I’m Lieutenant Dylan Holt with Colorado State Patrol,” he called.

  “What happened, Lieutenant Holt?” A trim, graying man who identified himself as Sergeant Connor moved toward Dylan while a second officer helped Kayla to sit. Two other officers knelt beside the shooter, who lay still on the pavement.

  Dylan ignored his questioner and knelt beside Kayla. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She was bleeding from her lip, and a purpling bruise was swelling on the side of her face, but she nodded. “I’m okay.” She touched a finger to the corner of her mouth and winced. “Or I will be.”

  “What happened?” Sergeant Connor asked again.

  “I was waiting for Dylan—Lieutenant Holt—in the hotel hallway and those two men grabbed me from behind and dragged me down the stairs and out here.” Kayla looked at Dylan intently. “Who were they?” she asked. “What did they want with me?”

  He shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  Her gaze shifted to the man on the pavement. “Is he...?”

  “He’s dead,” Sergeant Connor said, and took a step to one side to block Kayla’s view of the body.

  A Ranger Brigade Cruiser joined the other vehicles in the lot. Graham Ellison climbed out as Ethan Reynolds came running from the lobby. They silently assessed the situation, then strode over to join the others. “Graham Ellison. I’m the captain of the public lands task force.” He offered his hand to Sergeant Connor.

  “I’ve heard about you guys. The Ranger Brigade.” Connor shook his hand. “We’ve got an ambulance on the way for the young lady.”

  “I don’t need an ambulance.” Kayla struggled to her feet. Dylan reached out to steady her as she swayed. “I’m just a little banged up,” she protested, but didn’t push him away. “I’ll be fine.”

  “When you’re able, we’ll need you to come in and make a statement,” Connor said.

  “I’ll tell you what little I know,” she said. “But it all happened so fast I can’t provide a lot of details.”

  “Did you recognize either of the men who grabbed you?” Dylan asked.

  “No.”

  Connor’s radio crackled and he turned away from them to answer it. But the rest of them clearly heard the message. “We have the suspect in custody,” a man’s voice said.

  “We’ll want to question him as soon as possible,” Graham said. “He may be connected with a murder we’re investigating.”

  Connor studied Dylan. “Tell me about this investigation,” he said. “How does a crime on public lands connect to an attempted kidnapping in Montrose city limits?”

  “There may be no connection,” Dylan said. “But why would someone try to kidnap Kayla outside a room where the murder victim was staying?”

  “Who was the murder victim?” Connor asked.

  “A federal agent,” Graham said. “Frank Asher. Did you know him?”

  Connor shook his head. “Never heard of him. What was he doing in Montrose?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Graham said. He turned to Kayla. “Let the EMTs check you out, then we’ll get someone to take you home.”

  “I have my car here,” she said. “I can drive myself.”

  “Someone can drop it by your place later,” Graham said. “Until we know more about these men and why they grabbed you, we’re going to keep a close eye on you.”

  She bristled. That was really the only way to describe it. She drew herself up straight and her hair all but stood on end. “I can look after myself.”

  “Nevertheless, we’ll be checking in regularly,” Graham said. “And if you spot anything out of the ordinary, call us.”

  “Or c
all us,” Connor said.

  The ambulance turned into the lot and stopped alongside them. Dylan left Kayla in the care of the EMTs and joined Graham and Ethan as they walked toward the hotel. “What was she doing here?” Graham asked.

  “She followed me,” Dylan said. “She thinks Asher is connected with Andi Matheson and she wanted to find out how.”

  “What did you tell her?” Graham asked.

  “I told her she had no business being here and if she didn’t leave I could have her arrested for interfering in our investigation.”

  “I take it she didn’t leave,” Ethan said.

  “I left her in the hallway while I went back into the room.” No way was he going to reveal he had agreed to have dinner with her. “When I came out, she was gone, but I found her phone where she had dropped it on the floor. I checked the stairs and saw those two dragging her away.”

  “How did they know you and Kayla were here at the hotel?” Graham asked.

  “They could have followed us. Or maybe the desk clerk tipped them off.”

  “Or maybe it was bad timing,” Ethan said. “They showed up to get something from Asher’s room, saw Kayla waiting there and decided they had to get rid of her.”

  “It’s a big risk to take,” Dylan said.

  “Maybe what they were after was that important,” Graham said.

  “We got everything from the room, so if there was something there, we’ll find it,” Dylan said.

  “He wasn’t on a case,” Graham said. “His supervisors said he took two weeks’ vacation, starting three days ago. They swear whatever he was doing down here was his personal business.”

  “Personal business that got him killed,” Ethan said.

  And almost got Kayla killed, Dylan thought. The idea chilled him.

  “Agent Ellison!”

  The trio turned to see Sergeant Connor hurrying toward them. “Something just came in I thought you’d want to know about,” he said when he reached them. “We ran the plates on the vehicle the shooter was driving and it’s registered to Senator Pete Matheson.”

  “Was it stolen?” Dylan asked.

  “That’s what we wondered,” Connor said. “But when we ran a search for stolen vehicle reports, what we came up with instead was a missing person’s report.”

  “Who’s missing?” Graham asked.

  “Senator Matheson. No one has seen or heard from him since Friday.”

  Chapter Seven

  Kayla persuaded the Montrose police deputy who drove her home that she didn’t want or need a bodyguard. She suggested—and the officer’s supervisor agreed—that an occasional drive-by to verify all was peaceful in her neighborhood would be sufficient. She would lock herself in the house and keep both her gun and her phone close at hand.

  When she was alone at last, she tried to do as the EMTs had recommended and rest, but every time she closed her eyes her mind replayed the morning’s events, from the appearance of Agent Asher’s body to Andi’s anguished tears to those moments of terror when her kidnappers had held her and bullets whined past.

  And Dylan—he disturbed her rest, as well. The man intrigued and aggravated her in equal parts. She told herself she wanted to know what he could tell her only so that she could help Andi and the senator, but deep down she knew she wanted to see Dylan again because she wanted the thrill she felt in his presence—a physical craving coupled with the sense that here was a man who might be worth opening up to.

  Unable to sleep, she gave up and went to her computer and once more typed Andi’s and Agent Asher’s names into the search engine. She found plenty of articles about Andi, mostly mentions of her attendance at various society parties or fund-raisers, with and without her father. But the only mention she found of Asher was a talk he once gave to a neighborhood watch group in Denver. The Fed definitely kept a low profile.

  The chime of her doorbell interrupted her thoughts. She started to the door, but froze as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the small table in the foyer. An ugly purple bruise spread across her left cheek and a black half-moon showed beneath her left eye. She put a hand to the bruising and winced. Apparently, she looked even worse than she felt.

  The doorbell rang again. Sighing, she checked the peephole and spotted Dylan Holt rocking back and forth on his heels, staring back at her. She pulled away from the peephole. She didn’t really want to see Dylan right now. Not looking like this. Not with her feelings so confused. What did you say to a man who had saved your life? She really wasn’t good at this sort of thing. Not that it had ever come up before, but still...

  The bell chimed again.

  She undid the locks and pulled open the door. “If you came to check up on me, I’m fine,” she said.

  “I came for dinner.” He pushed past her, a shopping bag in one hand.

  She’d forgotten all about their dinner date, which felt as if it had been made in an alternate reality, before she’d been manhandled, dragged across a parking lot and shot at—or, at least, shot around. “I’ll have to take a rain check,” she said. “I don’t exactly feel like cooking.”

  “You don’t have to cook.” He set the shopping bag on her dining table and began taking out cardboard to-go containers. “I hope you like Chinese.”

  The aroma of sesame chicken made her mouth water, and she realized she was hungry. Starving. She hurried to the cabinet and pulled out plates. Neither of them said anything else until they were seated across from each other at her small kitchen table with full plates. After a few bites of chicken and rice she paused and grinned at him. “Thanks,” she said. “You may have just saved my life. Again.”

  His expression sobered. “I didn’t come here just to feed you.”

  She put down her fork. “Did you find out anything about the men who attacked me?”

  “The truck they were driving was registered to Senator Matheson.”

  “You mean it was stolen?”

  “We don’t know. When was the last time you spoke to Senator Matheson?” he asked.

  “Friday afternoon. I told him I planned to visit the Family’s camp and hoped to speak with Andi.”

  “How did he take the news?”

  “He was pleased. He wanted me to try to persuade her to leave with me and return to his home. I told him all I could do was give her the message, but he seemed optimistic. He told me to call him as soon as I returned from talking with her, to let him know how she’s doing.”

  “Did you call him?”

  “Not yet. So much has been going on I haven’t had time.”

  “Would you mind calling him now?”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Call him and then I’ll tell you.” Dylan softened his expression. “Please.”

  “All right.” She reached into her pocket, then froze. “I can’t find my phone.”

  He pulled the phone from his own pocket. “You must have dropped it when those two thugs grabbed you,” he said.

  “Thanks.” That showed how rattled she had been—she hadn’t even realized her phone was missing. She scrolled through her contacts and found the number for Senator Matheson. The phone buzzed a couple times, then a message came on that informed her the mailbox of the person she was trying to reach was full.

  “That’s odd,” she said after she had ended the call. “He’s usually good about checking his messages. But his mailbox is full.”

  “Is that his office number or a private line?” Dylan asked.

  “It’s his private cell phone, I think. Dylan, what is going on?”

  “The senator’s administrative assistant reported him missing this morning. He left his office Friday afternoon and was scheduled to attend a Senate hearing on finance today. No has seen him since then. You may be the last person who spoke with him. I expect
it will be on the news any minute now.”

  “I haven’t had the TV on. And I was doing research online, so I didn’t notice the headlines. So what’s the connection between the guys who attacked me and Senator Matheson? Did they steal the truck and kidnap him? And then they came to Asher’s hotel to look for something?”

  “To look for what?”

  “I don’t know—something incriminating? Something that linked them to both Asher and the senator?”

  “You’re linked to Asher and the senator. The senator hired you to track down his daughter at the camp and while you were there, Asher’s body was found.”

  “So you think, what—that they followed me to the hotel? Why?”

  “Maybe they think you saw something you shouldn’t have.”

  “I didn’t see anything.”

  “Then why did they kidnap you? Did they say anything to you?”

  “They didn’t say a word.”

  He scowled and bit down hard on a fried wonton. “I can’t know you’re safe until I figure out why those men grabbed you,” he said.

  “You don’t have to worry about me.” His concern unsettled her. “Besides, they’re in custody, aren’t they? I mean, the one who lived is.” She wasn’t likely to forget the sight of the man sprawled on the pavement—the second body she had seen that day. “I don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “He’s in the hospital,” Dylan said. “With a police guard posted at his door. We haven’t had a chance to question him yet. What if the attack wasn’t their idea? What if someone hired them? He could hire someone else.” He looked around the room. “Do you have a security system?”

  “No. I don’t need a security system.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t stay here tonight. At least until we get to the bottom of this.”

  “Lieutenant, I’ll be fine. I have good locks, and a weapon if I need to use it. And I can always dial 911. The police station is only a few blocks away.”