Bounty (Walk the Right Road)

by Eckhart, Lorhainne

  “I hope so. God, I hope so,” Diane said. “They’ve been through so much. Marcie just did something none of us had the guts to do. Her mistake was keeping it from Sam.”

  “I know you’re talking about me over there, Diane, so stop it,” Sam snapped from across the aisle. “Marcie’s made her bed; let her lie in it.”

  “Hey, Sam, don’t get all bent out of shape. You’ve got some problems at home to take care of, but leaving your woman, pregnant and falling apart as she was, and then taking off out of town isn’t solving anything,” Zac said, squeezing Diane’s hand.

  Diane didn’t miss the way Sam’s eyes narrowed when he noticed Zac holding her hand. Then he gazed forward. “It’s not your business either, Zac.”

  “You’re right. It’s not. But how are you going to be any good helping Diane with this investigation with your problems weighing you down?” Zac was sharp, and she was figuring him out more and more. The more she got to know him, the more she wanted to be around him. Diane was realizing that this man had many complex sides to him, and she wanted to know every single one.

  “I’m a cop and a damn good one, and I’m not about to let Diane down. She’s getting all of me, and not once have I ever screwed up an investigation because my head wasn’t in the game,” Sam snapped.

  “You know what, you two? Let’s stop this right now. Sam, Zac is right. The only thing he didn’t say is that I wanted to kick your ass after how badly you hurt Marcie. What you may not have noticed when she told you what she did, going to see Lance, was that she did it for Richard and Maggie. She made their problems go away, Sam. In case you don’t remember, you told me you thought she had feelings for Dan, and you thought that was what she was holding back. That wasn’t the case at all, and the reason she said no when you asked her to marry you was that she didn’t believe you were being sincere, as you only asked her after she told you she was pregnant.” Diane watched Sam as he turned away and gazed out the window as if gathering his thoughts.

  “Leave it alone, Diane,” he said, glancing over at her with blue eyes that were filled with the same hurt she’d seen in Marcie’s. “I have a lot to sort out.”

  The plane jolted and started its descent. A few minutes later, the plane was taxiing down the runway. Sam, Zac, and Diane grabbed their bags from the pilot, who had pulled them from the outside compartment of the plane. Zac walked beside Diane, Sam flanking her other side, into the small terminal. He went to the counter and filled out the paperwork, grabbing a set of keys for the rental vehicle, a midsized black SUV. Diane didn’t even try to take the keys as Zac opened the passenger door for her, and she didn’t miss Sam’s interest when he paused and looked. He climbed into the backseat and leaned forward as Zac walked around the front of the vehicle.

  “Is there something going on between you and Army boy?” Sam asked.

  Diane’s throat jammed shut, and she couldn’t say a word as she watched Zac, all six feet of him, walking around the vehicle: black leather jacket, blue jeans, short dark hair, strong jaw. Even the scars on the side of his face completed him. To her, he looked like a god, and all of him did something to her that sucked her breath away, tossing all her logic into the wind.

  The door opened, and all she could do was shrug and look back at Sam as Zac climbed in and started the vehicle. Sam frowned as he leaned back, the leather rustling as he crossed his arms. Well, what was she supposed to say to him? Really, she didn’t have a clue what this was with Zac. She’d met him yesterday, she’d shot him, he’d made her dinner and kissed her, and she wanted to spend every minute she could with him. If she told Sam, he’d not only think she was nuts but would most likely have her committed to the first institution he could find.

  They’d been driving for about half an hour when Diane asked Zac, “So, where to first?” She realized, asking in this way, that she was actually leaning on him. She never leaned on men. She consulted Sam, was friends with Richard, and talked to the other cops, but with Zac it was something different. For some reason, as she leaned on him, it unsettled her.

  “First things first, Diane. We’ll stop in and see the chief,” Zac said.

  Diane heard Sam snort. “First I’ve ever heard of a coroner leading an investigation. Who’s calling the shots here, Diane?”

  Diane sensed the instant Zac was about to lose it. Every part of him tightened, and he jammed the brakes so hard the tires squealed, cars honked, and Diane’s hand flew to the dashboard. Before she had a chance to fully understand, Zac was out of the vehicle, yanking open the back door, and reaching in to haul Sam out.

  “Shit!” Diane yelled as she scrambled for her own door and hopped out onto the shoulder where the SUV was parked. The vehicle was still running, and Sam and Zac’s nostrils were flaring, fists bunched, Zac holding himself back just a bit but also ready to charge. Even Sam was circling as if determined to take him down.

  “What the hell, Zac, Sam? You two, knock it off!” she yelled again and hurried in between them, but Zac put his hands on her and had her behind him, pressed against the vehicle.

  “Get your hands off her,” Sam barked and threw a punch that Zac blocked with his forearm. He lunged at Sam, his shoulder in his gut, taking him down to the gravel. Cars honked, and Diane yelled again, “Knock it off, both of you!” She set her hands on Sam’s back just as he rolled on top of Zac to grab him and pull him off, but he threw his arm back, and she went flying onto her back. Then Zac was on him, pinning him down, and he landed two blows to Sam’s face before Diane dived in again.

  She scrambled to her knees. “Zac!” she shouted.

  A gunshot sounded and a siren wailed. “Break it up!” a deep man’s voice boomed.

  Diane sat back on her butt. Her hand immediately went to her sidearm.

  “Don’t.” The sheriff pointed his pistol straight at Diane.

  She froze and slowly lifted her hands in the air, feeling ice water race through her veins as she stared down the barrel of the steel pistol aimed right at her. She didn’t realize that both Zac and Sam had stopped.

  “We’re with the Sequim detachment.” It was Sam who had spoken.

  “Diane, show your badge,” Zac said in a way that pulled her from her stupor.

  “Down on the ground, all of you,” the sheriff snapped. “Face in the dirt, hands behind your backs.”

  Shit, this wasn’t good. The aging, gray-haired sheriff wore a ratty black cowboy hat and had heavy lines on his face, with an expression that said he meant business and had no intention of hearing one word of what they were saying.

  Diane went down on her stomach, cheek pressed into the gravel, Zac beside her. Blood dripped from his lip and from a cut below his eye. She felt the pinch of cuffs on her wrists and listened to the snap of the same plastic cuffs on Zac and Sam.

  “I don’t really care who you are. Nobody comes into my county acting like a bunch of rowdy hicks beating the crap out of each other on the side of the road. There’re families here, good folks, and I don’t much appreciate what y’all are doing.” The sheriff was behind them, talking over them, and for the first time Diane felt like a lowlife criminal. Right about now, she wanted to plant her own foot in both Zac and Sam.

  “Sheriff, my name is Diane Larsen, with the Sequim detachment. My lieutenant, Green, would have called you and let you know we were coming. My badge is in my right back pocket,” Diane said as the dust and grit and whatever else was on the ground got in her mouth. She spit and stared at Zac, who was watching her now as if he’d had the biggest wakeup call ever. Sam was on the ground on the other side of him, saying not one word.

  A thick hand poked her butt and pulled out the leather wallet that held her badge. She couldn’t see what he was doing but could hear his sigh of frustration and could feel him standing right behind her.

  “Detective Diane Larsen, just what do you think you’re doing, bringing in a bunch of cowboys to tear up my county?” She listened to him slap her wallet closed. “Wally, load them up.”

  She
felt a hand grip her arm and wrench her up to her feet. “Do you mind taking off the cuffs?” she asked as she stared at the sheriff, who had a large bulbous nose, ruddy cheeks, and tiny hard eyes that held not an ounce of compassion for her. She had the worst feeling come over her as he gripped her arm in a hard, unforgiving way and dragged her to the back door of the cop car. It was then that she saw the deputy, a tall guy wearing dark glasses and a tan shirt. Diane was shoved into the backseat, and Zac and Sam were shoved in beside her. She glanced at Sam’s busted lip and his eye, which was just beginning to swell. “You assholes!” she shouted at both of them. “Now how the hell are we going to get out of this?”

  Chapter 15

  Sitting in an eight-by-ten cell with a hard bench and small cot in Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, wasn’t exactly how she had envisioned visiting the local law enforcement in this county. The stale air and lingering odor of urine, dirty concrete floor, and metal bars said loud and clear that they’d pissed off the one person they hadn’t wanted to.

  Coming into another county, another jurisdiction, and getting on the wrong side of the local cops was a good way to get bounced across the county line on their asses. How to solve the problem? Well, that had been the whole reason for making sure Green called ahead and talked to the sheriff, filling him in on their visit and why they were coming. Without the sheriff’s help and blessing, they were basically going to run up against a big brick wall, because their credentials meant squat here. They had no authority and couldn’t interrogate, interview, or talk to anyone unless the sheriff said it was okay.

  Diane stared through the steel bars at the concrete wall. Zac was standing, his back pressed against the wall, his arms crossed. He too hadn’t said one word before, during, or after they were dumped in this boxlike cell. She wondered, as she sat on that hard bench, whether the sheriff had called Green and given him an earful. Sam was lying on the grungy cot, his hand pressed against his forehead.

  Someone gagged from the cell next door and retched. The stench didn’t take long to waft into their cell. A guy moaned.

  “Hey, you okay in there?” Diane yelled. The steel door opened, and she heard footsteps on the concrete floor.

  “Bert, you made one stinking mess in there.” The sheriff appeared in front of their cell. He was big and bulky, still wearing that cowboy hat as he narrowed his eyes. He didn’t open the cell door; instead, he leaned his arms through the cell bars, tsked, then pointed his finger at Zac and then Sam, who was now sitting up with crusty blood over his brow and a black eye. “Can’t remember ever disrespecting another county’s law by pulling off a cowboy stunt like you two boys did, pounding away at each other on the side of the road. Drunks and thugs, that’s all we’ve got here today. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t toss your butts back over the county line.”

  “Sheriff, I’m sorry for what happened. The last thing I want to do is irritate a fellow officer of the law. I’m just trying to solve a murder, is all. A young girl was found strangled on the highway, and we’re trying to find out who she belongs to,” Diane said, fighting the urge to stand by keeping her butt planted on the hard bench. She curled her fingers under the seat and wondered what she was touching. She wiped her hands on her jeans and gazed up, unsure of her footing around this old sheriff. He either liked or disliked women cops—she was definitely on the fence there. He was a tough old bird to read.

  “Mm-hmm,” mumbled the sheriff. “So what brings you here? Don’t remember seeing the girl’s photo, or is that something you also overlooked? Were you planning on coming to my county and running your own investigation without even talking to me, stepping on my toes?” The sheriff was so mad he was spitting.

  “I sent the girl’s photo. I sent it to every sheriff’s department and law enforcement agency in the area,” Diane snapped as she stood up and stalked toward the sheriff.

  “Diane,” said Zac in a tone that warned her to tread carefully.

  “She emailed the photos. You may want to check again.” This time it was Sam who muttered from the cot.

  Apparently the sheriff didn’t like Sam or Zac, as his face filled with disgust and his expression was one Diane had seen a hundred times, one that let her know he was about to shut down on them for good.

  “Maybe you could check again, Sheriff. I know some servers can take a while downloading photos, or maybe it landed in your junk file,” Diane said.

  “Wally, you get any emails with photos about some dead girl?” the sheriff shouted over his shoulder.

  “Haven’t checked. When was it supposed to come?” a voice shouted back.

  “This morning,” Diane yelled.

  The sheriff stepped back, crossing his arms, staring at her again, hard and unforgiving. “Anything from this morning, Wally?” the sheriff yelled over his shoulder, not taking his narrowed eyes off Diane.

  Footsteps scraped the floor, and the tall, light-haired deputy appeared beside the sheriff and whispered something. The sheriff grunted and kept his eyes on Diane.

  “Oh, come on,” Sam barked.

  Diane wanted to kick him. “Sam, shut up,” she said. When she glanced over her shoulder, Zac was watching her with heavy eyes and an expression she couldn’t figure out.

  A key scraped the metal and clicked, and the sheriff slid open the door. “Well, ain’t you lucky? The photo came from a Diane Larsen at the Sequim detachment, and I suppose that would be you, wouldn’t it, girlie?”

  Diane couldn’t shake the shiver that went through her. When he looked at her, she wanted to take a step back, but then Zac was right behind her, setting his hand on her shoulder, and the sheriff’s eyes went right to it. Diane stiffened, and Zac dropped his hand. Maybe he knew. Diane stepped out of the cell, and the sheriff slid the door closed, leaving Zac and Sam in there.

  “Hey, what the hell are you doing?” Sam yelled.

  “Sheriff, open this now,” Zac said.

  “No, I think you boys are best cooling your heels without this lady, and that’s Chief Roberts to you, boys, not Sheriff.” He swept his hand toward the door, and Diane stepped through it and followed the chief down a long hallway into a glass-enclosed office, where he shut the door. Diane took one of two wooden chairs across from his desk, and the chief set his heavy frame in a swivel chair, the hinges squeaking. The door opened, and his deputy strode in with a laptop, setting it on the chief’s desk.

  “Give me a moment.” Chief Roberts shoved on a pair of dark-rimmed reading glasses. “What are we looking at here?”

  “Email here, and here is the girl’s photo,” the deputy said, leaning over the computer and gesturing to the screen.

  “Oh, well look at that.” He shook his head and then mouthed the words as he read her email.

  Diane folded her hands over her stomach and wondered how many other jurisdictions also hadn’t bothered to read her email. What the hell was the matter when different counties couldn’t work together?

  The chief shook his head and pulled off his glasses. “Horrible, just horrible for someone so young. So what is it you’re doing in my county? You don’t think the killer is here?”

  “We’re just trying to find out who the girl belongs to. We have no leads as to who killed her and why, so we’re trying to locate the family,” Diane said, wondering how much help this old chief would be.

  The deputy set his hand on his belt and watched her, too. He was young and cute but not amused. They both watched her with an odd expression as if they still viewed her as some troublemaker.

  “So you have leads, something that’s given you reason to come into my county?” The chief gestured with open hands, sounding a little annoyed.

  “She was dressed as a Mormon fundamentalist. We’re starting with all the communities where some are known to reside, and this is the first stop. Didn’t Green call you?” She was at a loss with the way they were watching her. She had the distinct impression they didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. I’m going to kill that prick Green. They were fro
wning at her, and she wondered if they had heard that thought.

  “Oh, your boss, I talked to him, all right, gave him an earful about the shenanigans of those pals you brought along.”

  Well, this wasn’t going well. She wondered whether Green had even called to smooth it over with him first before they stepped into this county. He was a first-class ass, but he still understood how things worked, so who had he talked to when he sat in his office before they left this morning?

  “We’re investigating the murder. Green was supposed talk to you, a courtesy call, and let you know we’d be coming tonight, see if you could lead us to any of the polyg families around here and see if they knew the girl.”

  They were staring at each other with the toughest poker faces she’d ever seen.

  Diane cleared her throat and gestured to the computer. “Maybe I should back up. Do you recognize the girl in the photo?” Diane finally asked, because they weren’t too forthcoming.

  The chief didn’t bother looking at the photo again, simply rested his hands over his large girth as he leaned back. “Sorry, don’t recognize her, but I hate to tell you that I think you’re wasting your time. We don’t have polygamists around here, so you’re barking up the wrong tree. You’d best move on.”

  She didn’t say anything as she watched both men study her with crossed arms. She wanted to shout at them to look at the photo again, make some calls. She ground her teeth and studied two men who either hated her or were lying to her. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out which.

  “So, Chief Roberts, are you telling me there are no polygamist families in this county?” Diane uncrossed her legs and shifted in the hard wooden chair but didn’t take her eyes off the chief.

  “What polygamists? As I said, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I suggest you go back to your own county and sift through your own dirty laundry. Don’t start bringing your trouble here or pointing any fingers at us.” His expression didn’t soften at all, and Diane had the distinct impression he was hiding something.