David Wolf series Box Set 2

by Jeff Carson

  Her eyes narrowed for a second and then she looked away, and Wolf knew at that moment there was no “group of his friends.”

  “Take the tire into Mitch’s tire place. You know it?”

  She nodded.

  “Tell him I sent you. Or tell him your dad sent you, I guess. He knows your dad too. But get it taken care of. You don’t want to get another flat tire and be stranded in the middle of nowhere with no way out.”

  She nodded and stared up at him, and then her lip started quivering again.

  “That would suck,” he said with a smile.

  She burst into her own smile. “Yeah, it would.”

  He saw a perfect moment of escape so he backed away. “Okay. See you around. Drive careful. Drive slow.”

  “I will. Thanks, Mr. Wolf.”

  She wiped her nose and climbed in the car, started it, and drove away back toward town.

  He watched her trail of dust disappear around the bend, and then sat behind the wheel with a sigh.

  “What the hell …” he murmured to himself as he fired up the engine.

  He drove at a steady clip up the meandering Chautauqua River toward his house, seeing little of the road ahead of him. It was times like these that he missed Sarah the most. Not that he thought she would know what to do in this situation. In fact, he could picture Sarah’s eyes darkening with a distant gaze, and her jaw screwing shut at the news that her son may have just spent the night with a girl.

  He smiled at the thought as he drove up the hill to the headgate of his ranch. He missed having a partner, a teammate, to work these things through with. But she was gone. The problem was all his to bear now.

  Nate Watson was at his house already, parked in front and standing on the circle drive next to the tall lanky figure of Jack. Jet, a retired German shepherd police dog that Jack had adopted six months ago, wandered next to the barn with his nose on the ground.

  Wolf came to a stop behind Nate’s full-sized pickup truck, which was branded with a Watson Geological Services Inc. decal that included a professional-looking logo.

  “There he is,” Nate said with a smile.

  Jet lifted a leg against the barn and stared into the woods, and Jack waved and kicked at a weed.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Wolf said, closing his door. “I had to help a motorist with a flat tire. Hey, Jack. You’re home early.”

  Jack nodded, offering no further explanation.

  “I thought you weren’t coming back from the trip until tomorrow morning. Heck, you made a big enough deal about it.”

  Jack shrugged, still averting his gaze. “Mitch Henderson drove, remember? His mom called and wanted him home for some emergency.”

  “Really? What emergency?”

  “Psh, I don’t know.”

  “I hope it’s not serious.”

  His son shrugged and pointed into the distance. “Nate says you guys are cutting trees because there’s a fire up north?”

  Wolf nodded.

  Jack squirmed under his gaze and took a theatric breath. “Well, all right. I’m going to go inside.”

  Wolf nodded.

  Jack loped away on his stick legs toward the house, picking up his camping gear on the way and dumping it by the kitchen door.

  Nate Watson stepped forward and clamped his hand on Wolf’s.

  With each pump of his friend’s hand, Wolf was reeled out of his dark mood. “Hey.”

  “What was that about?” Nate asked in a low voice.

  Nate was a thick stump of a man. Standing at five foot seven, he was at least two hundred pounds, with a thick chest and an inverted delta-shaped torso, like the men Wolf had served with as an army ranger.

  Nate’s blond hair was shaved to the scalp nowadays, hidden under a sweated-out Colorado School of Mines hat—both ways of coping with the growing bald spot on the top of his head.

  The two men had grown up playing football together. The field was where they had bonded, with Wolf at quarterback and Nate at running back, with Nate always there to block for Wolf, always there to throw a bail-out pass to when there were no other options.

  Through the years, despite the occasional missed blocks and footballs that had hit him in the back of the helmet, Nate had always been the most reliable man Wolf had ever known. And true to undying form, Nate was here now.

  “I just saw his girlfriend. She blew a tire down the road down and I helped her change it. He was camping with her, not his friends.”

  Nate nodded and gazed into the distance. “Yeah, I know. I was here when she dropped him off.”

  Wolf narrowed his eyes.

  “I was going to tell you.”

  Like the other people Wolf chose to surround himself with, Nate was a reliable man, but he was also a man that liked to sugarcoat things. He also had the habit of omitting information if he deemed it would cause someone unneeded stress.

  Wolf shook his head. “No, you weren’t.”

  Nate ignored him and turned to the north. “So, you’re freaked about this new fire, huh? I thought you and Jack already had a hundred feet of defensible space cleared around this joint.”

  A horrific smell swirled around them for a few seconds and then dispersed on the wind.

  Nate wrinkled his nose. “What the hell is that?”

  Jet sat a few yards away with a leather glove in his mouth. He dropped it and backed up, looking proud of his find.

  Wolf bent over and picked it up. “I lost that glove months ago. Good job, boy.”

  Jet’s tail swished and thumped on the crispy grass.

  “That’s cool that he finds things,” Nate said, “but what’s wrong with his ass?”

  “Let me guess,” Wolf raised his voice toward Jack, who was back outside, picking up his tent, “you forgot to give him the medicine before you went camping.”

  Jack stared at the sky in thought.

  “Why don’t you go get it?” Wolf said.

  Jack looked at him.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know where it is.”

  “Maybe Cassidy can give you a ride to refill the prescription today.”

  Jack nodded and disappeared back inside.

  Six months ago, Wolf had gotten a call from a friend in the Vail Police Department asking whether he was interested in adopting a retired German shepherd police dog named Jet. Wolf had looked at the implications of taking in the dog, and knew he wouldn’t have time to take care of it with his job, so he’d said no.

  Overhearing Wolf talk about it the next day, Jack had told him categorically that he wanted it.

  With Jack losing his mother almost a year ago, and the depression, anxiety, and anger that followed finally showing signs of lifting, there was no way Wolf was going to say no to his son. So he called his friend back and said yes.

  When they’d driven up to meet the dog, Wolf had been impressed. Jet was massive, which had concerned him at first because, like other German shepherd police dogs, Jet had been taught various commands such as Fass!, which was German for attack. But the dog’s demeanor had been calm and stoic, like a wise old man who’d seen plenty of battle and saw little that surprised him now.

  During the visit, they’d learned of Jet’s nine-year career with the Vail County Police Department as a tracking dog, busting countless smugglers and criminals along the I-70 corridor over the years. In the end, they’d been charmed by the dog and brought him home.

  On many occasions since, Wolf had seen the animal’s intelligence, and his bursts of impressive speed and strength. But Jet was quick to tire and getting on in age, there was no doubting that.

  Along with fatigue and a passion for finding things that his human master might find useful or illegal, Jet had developed a bacterial overgrowth in his small intestine, common with German shepherds, and now, unless Jet kept up with a regimen of pills from the veterinarian, he tended to live up to his name—jetting hot air from his backside

  Nate cleared his throat and slapped Wolf on the shoulder. “The fire?”<
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  “Yeah. Have you heard about it?”

  “The brush fire north of Cave Creek? I heard about it from you this morning.”

  “Right. Well, I had Jeff Adkins up here the other day and he was saying I should clear those trees on the southwest corner.”

  Jeff Adkins was the local fire chief and he had been doing house calls, making sure everyone was ready if and when a fire hit.

  Nate put his hands on his hips and looked to the southwest. “They haven’t been touched by the beetles.”

  “They haven’t, but everything else out there has.”

  The forest to the south howled as a hot blast of wind blew through the trees.

  It had been one of the driest summers on record, and after a hundred years of fire suppression coupled with the widespread pine-beetle infestation of the Rocky Mountains and Mountain West, huge tracts of forest that had once been green and thriving were now rust-colored, dead, and hollowed out by the voracious bugs.

  At least half of the trees visible to the south and west of Wolf’s property had been hit.

  “And that fire to the north has you spooked, and you want to make sure you’re prepared if some jackass tosses a cigarette butt out the window on Williams Pass,” Nate said.

  “You know me well, my friend.”

  While the acreage to the south and west was thick forest, the trees on the east mountainside behind Wolf’s house had been charred and scarred from an explosion years ago, and now saplings grew where the new gaps had been made. As for the reconstruction of his house, it had been long, and Wolf had lived in a half-shell of a house with no running water through one cold winter. He’d likened the experience to living in a shallow cave and he wanted none of that again.

  “There’re seven to cut,” Wolf said, pointing.

  “Piece of cake.” Nate picked up the plastic case at his feet. “I’ve got my Stihl. Yours probably won’t start, so, you just want me to go ahead?”

  Wolf ignored him and went to the barn to retrieve his own chainsaw, knowing full well that Nate was probably right and it was going to take some doing to get the finicky motor of his much older saw to turn over.

  Jack came back outside staring at his phone, and stumbled at the bottom of the stairs.

  Probably getting a text message from Cassidy explaining that their little jig was up, Wolf mused. Or one of the other million other things he did on that phone every day.

  “Dad.” Jack put the phone to his ear.

  Wolf slowed to a stop at his son’s excited tone.

  “What’s up?”

  “Cassidy?” Jack held up a finger to Wolf. “Why? … okay, okay.” Jack stepped up and thrust the phone at Wolf. “It’s Cassidy. She wants to talk to you.”

  Wolf raised both his hands like Jack had a pistol pointed at his face. “Jack, tell her we’ll talk later. After you and I have a talk.”

  “Dad.” Jack put the phone against his body and covered it with his other hand. “I’ve never heard her so freaked out. Something happened. She said something about how she couldn’t call 911 on her phone.”

  He thrust the cell out again and Wolf took it.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Wolf! My—”

  There was scratching and then silence.

  “Cassidy?”

  No answer.

  Nate and Jack stared in mute curiosity.

  “Cassidy? Can you hear me?” Wolf’s curiosity was piqued. The few words he heard definitely sounded spooked.

  “Mr. Wolf? Can you hear me?”

  “Yes. What is it?”

  “My dad’s been shot. He’s been shot. Can you hear me? I can’t call 911 on my—”

  Silence again.

  “Is he hurt?”

  No answer. Damn it. Damn the cell service. And what a question, Wolf thought. Of course he was hurt. He was shot.

  “Cassidy? Is he okay?”

  “No.”

  The simple answer, the clarity and desperation in her voice, made Wolf’s insides sink.

  “Go to the Sheriff’s Station, Cassidy. Go there now.”

  Chapter 2

  Wolf stood alone in front of the Frost residence next to Ryan Frost’s corpse. The driveway was the size of a baseball infield and about the same dirt consistency. Surrounded by trees and sheltered from the wind, it radiated heat like a skillet, and with the sun blowtorching the back of his neck he felt like a piece of sizzling bacon.

  “DOA,” Wolf said into his cell phone.

  “Shit.” Sheriff MacLean’s voice was crisp in Wolf’s ear.

  A swarm of flies had set in on the body and they bumped against Wolf’s jeans. He ignored them and kept rooted to his spot. “I see two sets of footprints behind the body. No brass on the ground. Shot in the back of the head. Looks like an execution-style murder.”

  “Ah, Christ, that’s all we need right now. That pile-up in Cave Creek, and now a murder? It’s like death came into town …”

  Wolf pulled the phone away from his ear and eyed the ground. Cassidy had left for the station after her call to Wolf, and since he’d gone straight to her home he hadn’t gotten the full story from her. The dirt beneath his feet told him plain enough, though. Small footprints, deck shoes, trailed up to Ryan Frost’s body and skidded to a stop. Wolf imagined Cassidy driving up, wondering what her father was doing as she slowed, the panic as she parked and got out of the car, the disbelief when her father wouldn’t answer her, the realization as she got close enough to see the blood … he shivered and blinked the thought out of his mind.

  MacLean’s monologue came from his phone speaker, but he ignored it, opting to concentrate on the weight of the department-issue Glock in his sweating palm. Twisting, though not moving his feet, he scanned the woods again.

  Cassidy had come and gone unharmed, which meant it was likely the culprit was long gone. But the dead body at his feet had his senses on edge. There was no doubt Ryan Frost had been killed in cold blood. Half the man’s face had been deformed by the bullet exiting his cheek. Then there was another blossom of red in the center of his back. Some psycho could have driven away, parked somewhere a couple of miles out and hiked his way back through the forest to see the ensuing police action. It happened all the time in cities—murderers returning to the scene of the crime.

  “Wolf! You there? Damn cell phones.”

  Wolf raised the phone to his ear. “Yeah, I’m here.” At the same moment, he noticed the front door to the house had been left open.

  “Are you listening?”

  “I’ve gotta go.”

  He pocketed the phone without ending the call and ran to the edge of the house. The front door bumped shut, then rebounded open, seeming to be driven by the wind.

  “Sheriff’s Department! Come out with your hands where I can see them!”

  Once again, the house breathed through the front entrance. The door was made of solid wood, adorned with softly glowing frosted glass. Nothing moved behind the windows as far as he could tell.

  Sweat slid down his temple and he wiped it away. He caught movement in the corner of his eye and aimed his gun.

  A chipmunk stared back at him, twitched his tail, and scurried out of sight beneath a downed log.

  He stepped up onto the concrete porch and, ducking low on one knee, he pushed open the door and aimed his pistol.

  The door opened noiselessly all the way in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree swing and bumped against the wall.

  “Sheriff’s Department!”

  The only answer was a soft, pulsing high-hat with a steady bass pattern emanating from somewhere inside.

  With a final scan of the woods, he slid into the house, gun barrel first. He ignored the floor-to-ceiling windows displaying the majestic views of the green-sloped ski resort and town below as he swept through the main floor.

  The kitchen was all stainless steel and shiny rock, with no one inside it. As he entered a home office, he faintly registered the giant boulder in the middle of the carpeted space and the walls
of dark-wood shelves stocked with countless hardback books. He could stand and gawk at the impressive interior of the house later. At the moment, they were distractions that could get him killed. He moved on and through the four bedrooms upstairs. Each had crisply made beds, including Cassidy’s room.

  Making his way back downstairs and down a long hall, he reached a lone closed door and opened it, revealing a darkened garage. He snapped on the light and pointed his gun. No one was inside, but Wolf straightened and leaned back at the sight of what was. Two shiny black Land Rovers, a Mr. and Mrs. pair, were parked on the left, and to the right was a collection of what looked like ancient bones.

  Hundreds of them. There was blue masking tape on the smooth concrete floor separating specimens from other specimens, and within each of the cordoned-off areas were neat arrays of bones, claws, skulls, and tusks. Some were recognizable: a triceratops skull, a mammoth tusk. Others were just lumps of dirty rock to Wolf’s untrained eye.

  He closed his mouth and backed into the house again. Shutting the door, he moved down the hallway, back the way he’d come.

  Toward the music.

  It came from downstairs, he realized, so he walked over rustic wood floors in the main great room to the edge of a wide staircase leading down.

  “Sheriff’s Department!”

  He aimed his gun down the steps and crept closer. A flash-bang grenade as a precursor would have done nicely right about now, he thought. In fact, he was not about to go down without one. His six tours of experience in the army had instilled him with a healthy dose of paranoia.

  The faint sound of an approaching siren floated in through the open front door.

  There. He crouched and stepped back when he saw movement downstairs—a piece of blue fabric that had come into view and then disappeared.

  He backed up another step and crouched to get a better look, but the angle between the ceiling downstairs and the stairway was too small.

  The sirens were louder now.