Cold Conspiracy

by Cindi Myers

  Right, Jamie thought as she kissed her sister, then switched out the light. Sometime tomorrow she’d have to find time to stop by the grocery store and check out Henry. He was probably harmless, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.

  She walked across the hall to her room and exchanged her uniform for yoga pants and an oversize sweatshirt. Taking off the heavy utility belt and body armor was the definite signal that she was off duty. Time to relax. Except she was too restless to settle. She went downstairs and wandered through the familiar rooms—the kitchen, with its white-painted cabinets and blue Formica countertops; the formal dining room she had turned into a home office; and the wood-paneled living room with its comfortable tweed-covered sofa and chairs and heavy wood tables. The house was out of style but comfortable and familiar.

  She and Donna had grown up in this house and had lived here together until Jamie had gone off to college. She hadn’t gone far—only across the mountains to Boulder, and the University of Colorado. She had studied business, thinking she would look for a job in Junction, so that she could be close to Donna and her parents. Then, her parents had been killed in a car accident, plowed into by a tourist who was texting while driving. The tourist had walked away with only a few bruises, while her parents had both been pronounced dead at the scene.

  So much for a business career in Junction. Jamie needed to be in Eagle Mountain, with Donna. She might have sold the family home and moved with her sister to Junction or Denver or somewhere else, but the thought made her heart ache. Eagle Mountain was home. And Donna didn’t do well with change. She needed familiar things—her home, the neighbors she knew, her job at the grocery store—to keep her firmly grounded.

  Jamie had moved back to Eagle Mountain for good four years ago. After a series of low-paying clerical jobs, the opportunity at the sheriff’s department had been a welcome relief—a way for Jamie to stay in Eagle Mountain and earn a living that would support her and her sister. But it had also been a lifesaver because it gave Jamie a focus and purpose. She had discovered, somewhat to her surprise, that she loved the work. She liked looking out for her hometown and the people in it, and she liked being part of a team that was trying to protect everyone here.

  Oh, it wasn’t all good feelings and easy times. She had been sworn at by people she stopped for traffic violations, kicked and punched by a shoplifter she had chased down on Main Street, with half a dozen locals and tourists standing around watching the battle and no one lifting a finger to help her. And she had looked on the bodies of those murdered women and felt a mixture of sickness and anger—and a fierce desire to stop the man before he hurt anyone else.

  The loud trill of an old-fashioned phone startled her. She raced to grab her cell phone off the hall table, and frowned at the screen, which showed Unknown Number. A sales call? A scammer? Or maybe one of the bank employees, calling her back because he or she had remembered something. She answered, cautious. “Hello?”

  “It’s Nate. I called to see how you’re doing.”

  The deep voice vibrated through her, making her heart flutter, but she steeled herself against the sensation. The question—coming from him—annoyed her. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Finding a dead woman shakes up most people. It shook me up.”

  She settled onto the sofa, a pillow hugged to her stomach. “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s part of the job. I knew that going in.”

  “From what I saw today, you’re good at your job.”

  Was he flattering her, trying to persuade her to forgive him? She sighed. “Nate, I don’t want to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “I don’t want to pretend we’re friends. We’re not. We can’t be.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know why not.”

  A long pause. She began to wonder if he had hung up on her. Then he said. “So, because we were once lovers—each other’s first lovers—we can’t be friends now? Jamie, that was seven years ago. We were kids.”

  “And now we’re adults, and we don’t have to pretend we’re two old pals.”

  “I don’t know why not,” he said. “There was a time I knew you better than anyone—and you knew me better.”

  “Like you said, that was seven years ago.” A lot had happened since then. She wasn’t the same woman anymore.

  “We’re going to be working together on this case,” he said. “We shouldn’t be enemies.”

  “You’re not my enemy.” Did he really think that? “But we can’t be...close...anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  Because if she let him too close, she knew she would fall for him again. And she couldn’t trust him to not leave her again—at the next promotion, or if someone better came along. He had proved before that he looked out for his own interests and he wasn’t one to stick with a relationship if things got tough. “It would be too complicated,” she said. “I know you don’t like that.” He had said that when he broke up with her before. There’s no sense us staying together. It would be too complicated.

  Was that sound him grinding his teeth together? “You’ve got a lot of wrong ideas about me,” he said.

  “You’re the one who gave them to me.”

  “Fine. Have it your way. We won’t be ‘close’—whatever that means to you. But we can be civil. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Now I’d better go. We’ll have another long day tomorrow. Good night.”

  She didn’t wait for him to answer but hung up. She’d handled that well, she thought. No sense starting something that was bound to end badly. She’d been very mature and matter-of-fact. She ought to be proud of herself.

  She knew a lot about grief now. The pain never went away, but with time, it always got better.

  * * *

  NATE SCANNED THE sheltered meadow at the base of Mount Wilson with his binoculars, counting the number of elk in the small herd gathered there. Most of them still looked to be in good shape, but this would be a good place to put one of the feeding stations the Department of Wildlife had decided to set up starting this weekend. Local ranchers and hunters had volunteered to help distribute the hay and pellets to the three main feeding sites in the area. The supplies were being delivered by helicopter, which meant the project wouldn’t be hampered by the still-closed highway.

  He entered the information about the herd into a database on his phone, then snowshoed back to the trailhead where he had left his truck. Once inside the cab, with the heater turned up high, he headed down the road, his speed at a crawl, alert for signs of anything unusual. As he passed the turnout toward a closed campground, he caught a flash of color through the trees and stopped. The binoculars came out and he zeroed in on a dark gray SUV parked up against an icy expanse of exposed rock. He scanned the area and focused in on two climbers halfway up the ice.

  He followed the SUV’s tracks in the snow and parked behind the vehicle. By the time he got out of his truck, the two climbers were headed down. He walked over and met them when their feet hit the snow. No helmets, he noted, and no ropes or harnesses or other safety gear. Maybe they thought they didn’t need it, that their spiked shoes and ice axes were enough.

  The first man, about six feet tall, with a slight build and sandy hair cut short, eyed Nate suspiciously. “You need something?” he asked.

  “You and your friend climb here often?” Nate asked as the other young man, who was a couple of inches taller than his companion and had a head of brown curls, joined them. Something about these two was familiar, but he couldn’t place them. Maybe he had seen them around town somewhere.

  “Sometimes,” the first man said. “There’s no law against it.” He ran his thumb along the edge of the ice ax he hefted. It wasn’t a threatening gesture, but it made Nate aware of the ax as a weapon.

  “No, there’s not.” He addressed the second yo
ung man, who also had an ice ax, which he held down by his side. “Were the two of you around here yesterday?”

  “Not yesterday,” the dark-haired man said. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I’m looking for anyone who might have seen a blonde woman in this area, alone, yesterday morning,” Nate said. “What are your names?”

  “I’m Lex.” The blond offered his hand, and gave a firm shake. “This is Ty.”

  “Did the two of you see a woman around here yesterday morning—blond hair, walking alongside the road?”

  The barest flicker of a glance passed between the two climbers. “We weren’t here yesterday,” Lex said.

  “Right,” Nate said. “What about the other times you’ve been out here? Have you ever seen a woman like that in this area?”

  A longer exchange of glances, then Ty shook his head. “No. We’ve run into women climbing at the park in town but not out here.”

  “I wouldn’t think any woman would risk walking along the road by herself around here,” Lex said. “Not with that serial killer going around offing women.” His expression became more animated. “Somebody at the restaurant last night said something about another woman being killed yesterday. Was this blonde the Ice Cold Killer’s latest victim?”

  “No,” Nate said. “The sheriff would just like to talk to her.”

  “This guy’s sure making the sheriff look like an idiot,” Lex said. “Killing all these women practically under his nose.”

  “I heard one of the victims was even done in on the sheriff’s family ranch,” Ty said. “That’s got to have him furious.”

  “The sheriff definitely isn’t an idiot,” Nate said. “Have you seen anyone else in the area—fishermen, hikers, other climbers? It’s possible one of them was here yesterday and saw this woman.”

  “We see people all the time,” Ty said. “But most of them we never know their names.”

  “You’re kind of grasping at straws, aren’t you?” Lex asked. “Questioning random people in the woods isn’t going to help you find this killer.”

  Three years on the job had given Nate plenty of experience dealing with the public. He’d gotten into the habit of identifying them as particular types. He’d learned to deal with each type a different way. Nate cataloged these two as civilian know-it-alls, always happy to tell him how to do his job. “Do either of you know a guy named Al?” he asked.

  Lex laughed. “There was a guy named Al in my organic chemistry class last semester. Do you think he’s your killer?”

  “Have you met anyone named Al in Eagle Mountain?” Nate asked.

  “Nope,” Ty said. “But then, we don’t know many people here.”

  “So you’re students?”

  “Graduated,” Lex said.

  “What do you do now?” Nate asked.

  “Right now, we’re going to try another route up this ice.” He turned back toward the rock face. “Good luck with your search.”

  Not waiting for Nate to say anything else, Lex stepped up onto a small protrusion in the ice, swung his ax over his head and buried the tip with a heavy thud. Ty moved ten feet farther down the face and began to climb also. Nate might not even have been there, for all they were concerned.

  Their disdain grated, but Nate knew he was better off ignoring them the same way they ignored him. They didn’t have anything to tell him. But he made note of the license tag on their SUV as he walked back to his truck. When he had a better cell signal, he’d call it in.

  From there, he drove past the spot where they had found Michaela in her car. Crime scene tape still festooned the area, and someone had left a bouquet of flowers in the snow on the shoulder of the road, the blossoms of what might have been daisies and carnations wilting and turning brown in the cold.

  He passed the parking area for the snowshoe trail and thought of Jamie, and the anger with which she had confronted him yesterday. He was aware she had been cool to him since his return to Eagle Mountain, but her coldness had surprised him. Her initial agitation over her runaway dogs had morphed into real ire—almost as if she was continuing the last conversation they had had, like it was the next day instead of seven years later. At one time, her reaction might have caused him to respond in anger, also. Now, with time and maturity, the fact that she still had such strong feelings intrigued him.

  Jamie had been his best friend at one time, the one person in the world he knew he could always count on. Things had ended badly between them—and he was willing to take his share of responsibility for that. But life was too short to throw away a friendship like that.

  He was close enough now to a group of private summer cabins that he decided to go a little out of his way and check them out. Though not strictly part of his duties, he liked to do a regular drive-by of the properties, to check for any vandalism, break-ins or maintenance issues. The cabins, a cluster of seven log structures of one or two rooms each, were privately owned, but on Forest Service land. Most of the cabins had been built eighty or a hundred years ago and the owners were allowed to continue to use them after the land was turned over to the Forest Service. They weren’t allowed to enlarge the cabins or use them for any other purpose. Most of them weren’t suitable for year-round living, anyway, being uninsulated and off-grid, and Nate had yet to encounter anyone out here after the first snow.

  He turned onto the road leading up to the cabins and parked in front of the heavy chain that blocked the way. Half a dozen heavy locks hung from the chain. Cabin owners or friends would have combinations or keys that allowed them to open the chain and pass through. Nate studied the obviously fresh tire tracks on either side of the chain. Someone had entered and exited this way in the last day or so—maybe even this morning. Possibly one of the cabin owners had stopped by to check on his property.

  Leaving his truck parked, Nate stepped over the chain and followed a winding track to the first cabin. Old wooden shutters covered the windows of the structure—protection against weather and both four-legged and two-legged animals. A hand-painted sign hung over the door, Lazy Daze burned into the wood.

  Nate followed the tire tracks past four more cabins, all the way back to the most remote in the grouping, set a short distance from the others. No one was at the cabin now, but tracks in the snow showed where a vehicle had parked, and where at least two people had walked around. Like the first cabin, wooden shutters covered the windows and the door was padlocked. Nate studied the door, unable to shake the uneasiness that had his nerves on hyperalert. Something wasn’t right here. He sniffed the air and caught the sharp tang of wood smoke, and shifted his gaze to the chimney of the cabin. No smoke emanated from it now, but someone might have had a fire in there recently.

  He walked around the side of the cabin, hoping to find an uncovered window that would allow him to peek in. He spotted a door that provided access to a covered back porch and headed for it, intending to check if it was locked. But he hadn’t gone far when something clamped onto his ankle, pain lancing through him, stealing his breath. Vision fogged with shock, he stared down at the jagged steel trap clamped around his foot.

  Chapter Six

  “We’ve had a garbled radio transmission from one of our officers.” The woman from Colorado Parks and Wildlife who contacted dispatch spoke with a distinct Texas drawl. “All of the personnel in this area are involved in the supply delivery near County Road Two. I didn’t get a reply when I tried to make contact again, but reception is very bad in that area. Could one of your officers check it out for us?”

  “I can take that,” Jamie said. “I’m headed out now.” She had stopped by the dispatch center to say hello to her friend, Anong, who was on duty that afternoon.

  Anong keyed her microphone. “I have a deputy here who can check out that call for you,” she said. “What is the location?”

  “We think it came from somewhere around Sundance cabins—the summer cabins off For
est Service Road 1410? Wildlife officer Nate Hall.”

  Jamie bit back a groan of annoyance. Was this some twisted way for Nate to make sure he saw her again? But she immediately dismissed that notion, and a tickle of fear replaced her irritation. Was Nate in some kind of trouble? “I’m on my way,” she said.

  “I’ll let the sheriff’s department know what’s up,” Anong said, her wide face soft with concern. “Is Officer Hall a friend of yours?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Nate wasn’t a friend, but he wasn’t her enemy. She had meant that. And even if she had hated his guts, he was a fellow officer who might be in trouble. She was in her cruiser headed out of town when the sheriff called her. “I’m sending Gage out as backup,” he said.

  “Nate’s going to be really embarrassed if this is the radio equivalent of a butt dial,” she said.

  “Better embarrassed than in real trouble,” Travis said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  She punched the accelerator, going as fast as she dared on the icy roads. She resisted the urge to switch on her lights and sirens. That was a sure way to draw a crowd. She wouldn’t mind embarrassing Nate a little but no need to go overboard. And if he was in a dangerous situation, no sense putting other people at risk.

  She spotted his truck parked at the entrance to the enclave of summer cabins. The chain over the road was in place, and nothing looked out of order. She got out of her cruiser and spotted tire tracks leading toward the cabins. Had Nate seen someone and followed them—or was he merely checking the cabins for signs of vandalism or break-ins? It was something they had had trouble with in the past—usually bored teens breaking into a cabin to have a party or mess things up.

  She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Nate!”