Cowboy Under Fire

by LENA DIAZ,

  Her eyes grew big and round. “What a horrible woman.”

  He smiled. “Yes and no. I think she was manipulated by her lover more than anything. She regretted it later, apologized. Then again, that might have been because the private investigator that I hired was able to get her and my foreman on a recording talking about their plan and how they were using the fake spousal abuse allegations to get the ranch and get me fired so I’d leave town.”

  “But...you did get fired, or you quit. And you left town.”

  “I quit, yes. Even after being proven innocent of all charges, I had no desire to work with people who’d turned against me and believed the worst. And I didn’t see the point in staying when I wouldn’t be able to do what I wanted, help people. So, even though I won, and the ranch was kept by me in the divorce, I decided it no longer mattered. I didn’t want it. I signed the deed over to my ex and moved here six months ago.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know many people who would have done that. None, actually. You had to have lost a ton of money.”

  “I’m no saint in that deal. Far from it. I deeded it in exchange for an initial lump sum and monthly payments for the next five years. She did get it at a tremendously reduced price. But a ranch that large isn’t something many people want to manage. It’s a ton of work and can lose money in a second if you aren’t on top of things. Selling it would have meant waiting for years for the right buyer to come along. Or, if I got desperate for money, I’d have had to sell off all the livestock and pieced it out in smaller chunks, maybe even to developers. I loved the ranch too much to do that, so it was a compromise.”

  “What about your parents? Were they okay with that?”

  “Surprisingly, yes. I mean, my dad was disappointed at first. But after finding out what had happened, he was soured on the whole thing and was just glad I got out of there and was able to get a fresh start with a good chunk of change in my pocket. He was even happier when I moved here and bought a few hundred acres to start my own legacy. Eventually I’ll start raising horses. I just haven’t had the time yet. For now, I enjoy the beauty of the land, and all that elbow room.”

  “Your father knows you’re a Seeker?”

  “He knows I help people, without really understanding exactly what a Seeker is all about. I prefer to keep it that way. We don’t always follow the letter of the law in getting justice for folks. It’s what gives us an advantage over our law enforcement counterparts. That’s not something everyone can come to terms with, or get behind. I’d rather not burden my dad, or my mom, with that knowledge.”

  She rested her cheek in her palm. “It is hard to understand how a former police officer would make such a switch and would be willing to break the law. And be okay with that.”

  He considered how to respond. “It’s not like any of us are in this to break the law. We respect the law, for the most part. And having been a police officer, I know better than most just how hard it is trying to enforce those laws and keep people safe. To this day, I’m extremely grateful for their service, and that they risk their lives for people they’ve never even met. But their hands are tied when they shouldn’t be, like when they have to call off pursuit of a dangerous suspect because he’s outside their jurisdiction. It’s not right that the guy gets away and then hurts someone else. Being a Seeker means I can do what’s morally right, even if it’s not legally allowed. It’s a risk, since I could get arrested if caught. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  “Wow. That was quite some speech.”

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, I guess you pressed one of my buttons.”

  She surprised him by moving to the couch and lacing her fingers with his across the back of the cushion. “I still don’t understand everything you do. But I get that you help people, no matter what it takes, or the cost to yourself. And I think that’s wonderful.” She pulled their joined hands to her lips and pressed a whisper soft kiss against the back of his hand.

  That innocent touch sent a jolt of heat through his body. He wanted so badly to kiss her lips, to pull her close. But he remembered the doubt in her eyes earlier and didn’t want to pressure her. If the day came that she could look at him without any doubts or secrets remaining between them, he’d kiss her and likely never stop.

  “My turn to ask questions,” he said.

  “Who said you get a turn?”

  He shrugged. “I was hoping.”

  “Okay. You can ask. No promise about whether I’ll answer.”

  “Feisty as always.” He grinned. “One of the things I admire about you.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really? That’s usually what guys like the least about me.”

  “Idiots.”

  She laughed. “What do you want to ask me?”

  “How did you meet Bethany?”

  “Oh. Gosh. Seems like I’ve known her forever, but I guess it was my freshman year. No, we were sophomores.”

  “College?”

  “High school. She’d lost her only family in a car accident and ended up in foster care. I guess I was her lifeline back then, and she became mine off and on when bad things happened in my life. We both went to Tennessee State together too. But I was focused more on studies and she was focused on partying. We grew apart for a while. Never did quite get as close as we once had been. I don’t suppose the whole Chandler thing helped. It made things awkward.”

  “Chandler?”

  “Chandler Harding. Bethany hung out with this close-knit group of three guys and a girl at college. Chandler was one of them. They invited me to some parties and I ended up dating him for a little while. But he got too serious way too fast. I wanted to focus on school, not a relationship. So I broke it off. Later he starting dating Bethany. That’s the awkward part, especially since they ended up getting engaged. My relationship with her wasn’t quite the same after that.”

  “Chandler Harding. Sounds familiar.”

  “I can’t imagine why. He died several years ago, before you moved to Gatlinburg. It was a tragedy, really. He got mixed up in the drug scene. One day he was arrested, and the next I heard he’d been killed on the way to the courthouse. Traffic accident. Bethany took it pretty hard, as you can imagine, especially since she’d lost her parents the same way. But she wanted space to grieve on her own. I eventually landed in Pigeon Forge to start my computer programming career. She moved to Gatlinburg, pursuing her passion for photography by selling pictures to all kinds of businesses around here to promote their wares to tourists. It didn’t pay the bills very well so she freelanced doing investigations on the side, figuring the combination of pictures and a story would work to her advantage. It did. She sold stories to all kinds of news outlets.”

  “You said you went your separate ways. You weren’t friends anymore?”

  “We were still friends. I mean, if I needed something, I always knew I could call her. And vice versa. It just wasn’t as easy as it used to be. We admittedly drifted apart. It had been months since we’d last spoken when she called me out of the blue one day to meet her for dinner, to catch up. A month later, she was gone. You know the rest.”

  “So you’re looking for her killer because of guilt? You thought you’d let her down, because you weren’t as close as you once were?”

  “I never thought of it that way. But I suppose that’s part of it. She had no one else, not really. I can’t help feeling that I could have done something to prevent her death.”

  “You couldn’t. Trust me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I just don’t think you should feel guilty about her. Whatever happened, it’s not your fault, or your responsibility.”

  She cleared her throat. “Thank you. That’s nice of you to say.” She twisted her hands together in her lap, a thoughtful expression on her face.

  “Uh-oh,” he said. “I know that look. More questions for me
?”

  “Just one.” She paused as if gathering herself, her knuckles turning white because she was clasping her hands so tightly. “If you didn’t kill her, why do you think it would be a disaster if I ask to see the medical examiner’s report?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The bug I put in the satchel. You and Mason discussed it that night.”

  “Good grief. I didn’t remember that he and I had talked about the ME’s report.”

  He scrubbed his face with his hands. This wasn’t a question he’d expected to come up. And he wasn’t sure how to proceed. Mason wouldn’t want him to tell her anything. But he’d crossed that line the moment he told Hayley that he trusted her, and that he’d answer any question that she had. He wasn’t playing by Mason’s rules anymore. He was following his own conscience.

  “Dalton?”

  He pulled his hands down. “It’s complicated.”

  “I’m sure you can explain it so that I understand it.”

  “That’s not what I mean. It’s complicated because it’s tied up with the ongoing investigation.” He drew a deep breath, prepared to lay it all out on the line. To finally tell her the whole story. “After Bethany hired us to help her bust the crime ring, we realized—”

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. “Sorry. Let me see who’s calling.” He pulled it out, then sighed heavily. “It’s Mason, and he added the 911 code, which means it’s urgent. I have to take this. Give me a minute.”

  She gave him a tight smile as he headed into the kitchen.

  He kept his voice low, hoping it wouldn’t carry. “Hey, Mason. What’s going on?”

  When his boss finished updating him, a sick feeling settled in his stomach. “Got it.” He checked his watch. “You think Sampson can get us access to the scene that fast? It happened two hours ago? All right. I’ll meet you there.”

  He ended the call and slid the phone into his pocket.

  “That sounded dire. What’s going on?” She stood in the doorway, making no apologies for her obvious eavesdropping.

  “Not something that I can discuss. I need to go.” He motioned toward her leg. “How’s the cut this morning? It’s not bleeding again, is it?”

  “It wasn’t when I got dressed. I had a good doctor last night.”

  He smiled and squeezed past her. “Gotta go.”

  “You said you’d be honest with me,” she called out.

  He stopped at the door, then turned around. “I am being honest. I need to leave.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “A new development in the investigation.”

  “Into Bethany’s murder?”

  He hesitated.

  “Dalton. Tell me. Please.” She swiped his Stetson from the end table and handed it to him.

  He set it on top of his head. “There’s been a murder, and Detective Sampson is going to let us take a look at the scene as soon as the medical examiner releases it.”

  “A murder. You think the killer is the one who killed Bethany?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you going to the scene?” She put her hands on her hips. “You think it’s this Ghost again? The one that has killed other people?”

  “We know it is.”

  “How?”

  “It’s...”

  “Complicated?”

  “Yes. I really have to go, Hayley.”

  “Take me with you. I’ll stay in your truck until you’re ready to leave. Then you can take me to Camelot and I’ll do whatever you need me to do with your computer. My life is a wreck right now. So is yours. We need this case closed.”

  “You’re right about that,” he said.

  “If my running out of your office building yesterday is the reason that someone else has died, if I could have prevented their death—”

  He crossed to her and took her hands in his. “The body, the person who was murdered, they’ve been dead for some time. You couldn’t have prevented it.”

  She turned her hands over and laced their fingers together. “What about the next one? Or the one after that? Let me help you. I’ll do whatever you need. I want to find this killer as much as you do and prevent any more deaths. And if I can prove that I’m innocent along the way, bonus.”

  He wished he’d had more time to answer her earlier questions. Then she would have understood better what she was up against. What they were all up against. He stood in indecision, then sighed. “How soon can you be ready to leave?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  As parks in Gatlinburg went, Hayley didn’t think this one was much to brag about. It was off the beaten path, halfway up a mountain, nowhere near any of the hundreds of gorgeous waterfalls that made other parks popular tourist destinations. This one was rarely used, except for an occasional jogger who might stumble across it.

  Which was probably why the body had lain here undiscovered for some time.

  She waited in the passenger seat of Dalton’s truck, as promised, while he joined Mason and a handful of his fellow Seekers, along with two uniformed officers beside one of the strands of yellow tape roping off a section of the park. Behind them, two members of the crime scene unit were setting numbered yellow markers under trees and along the jogging path while a third snapped pictures. The medical examiner and his assistants were currently hunched over something just inside the tree line, likely the victim.

  A gray sedan pulled up on the driver’s side of the truck. The driver got out of the car, and for a moment her gaze locked with hers. Hayley stiffened as she recognized Sampson. The detective’s eyes widened, then she whirled around without nodding or acknowledging her in any way and headed toward the others. That puzzled Hayley. After all, it was she who should be upset that Sampson had lied. Not the other way around.

  The group greeted the detective when she reached them. She spoke briefly to the uniformed officers, who then nodded and walked off toward the CSI team. Sampson must have been updating the team about whatever had been found, because they all seemed to be listening intently. At one point, Dalton glanced over the top of Sampson’s head toward Hayley and nodded. She wasn’t sure if the nod was meant for her or Sampson, so she didn’t motion back.

  A few moments later, everyone turned toward the jogging path to their right. The ME and his team were rolling a gurney toward the parking lot with a black body bag strapped on top. The CSI team had stopped their work and were standing, respectfully watching the procession. The two uniformed officers watched as well, their hats over their hearts. Hayley glanced at Dalton to judge his reaction. He’d taken his hat off, too, and held the Stetson politely by his side, his expression somber. Everyone’s was.

  But it was Sampson who seemed the most affected. She had her hand over her heart and seemed to be shaking, just enough for Hayley to notice. Dalton must have noticed, too. He subtly moved closer to her, as if to offer his support.

  As the ME’s van drove out of the lot, Sampson turned to Dalton and he hugged her. The others closed rank, their hands on each other’s shoulders to form an unbroken circle in a show of solidarity. And then Hayley knew: the victim must have been a police officer.

  When the group broke up, they each went their separate ways, getting into the various cars and SUVs in the parking lot. After one last hug, Dalton kissed Sampson on the cheek and walked her to her car. He stood watching her drive away.

  Hayley dropped her gaze, feeling like she was intruding on a private moment. When the driver’s side door opened, she started, then blew out a shaky breath as Dalton looked at her with concern.

  “Did I startle you?” His voice was regretful, gentle, kind.

  How had she ever thought him capable of hurting anyone?

  He shut his door but didn’t start the engine yet.

  “I’m sorry about your friend, the police officer who died.”

 
“What makes you think he was a police officer?”

  “I assumed...because the other police stood at attention, and your friend, Detective Sampson, was so upset.”

  He considered her answer a moment, but didn’t look at her. Instead, he stared through the windshield. “He wasn’t a police officer or this park would have been crawling with cops. He was an attorney, a defense attorney who worked a lot with Sampson, and with it being a small town, a lot of the police knew him too.”

  “Did you?”

  He shook his head. “No. The other Seekers knew him. It’s hitting them hard.”

  “He was another victim of The Ghost?”

  “Yes. The drug dealing and gunrunning rings that have popped up on our radar around here, we believe those are connected to the killer. But we aren’t sure how. Either he’s one of the criminals in those networks and he’s killing those negatively impacting his business, or he’s killing people for another reason and planting evidence about criminal networks to keep the police too busy to exclusively focus on his murders. We’re still trying to figure out the specific link between victims, other than that they’re all either in law enforcement or work closely with them.”

  “That sounds like the people who work as Seekers.”

  “Don’t think we haven’t thought of that. Seth was a Seeker, and we’re beginning to believe he was one of The Ghost’s victims. But he’s not on the murder list.”

  “Murder list? There’s an actual list?”

  “Yes. Why do you use a ghost as an icon on the websites that you design?”

  His question couldn’t have caught her more off guard. “Why? I just... I mean, it was my nickname in college and—”

  “It’s your nickname?”

  “Well, it was. The other kids resented that I barely showed up for classes and still managed to pass with flying colors. They called me a ghost since they never saw me. At first, it hurt my feelings. But after a while, I sort of liked it, wore it like a badge of honor. Even started signing my assignments with a hand-drawn image of a ghost. Why are you asking that? Please tell me you aren’t trying to call me a murderer because some serial killer calls himself The Ghost.” She smiled, expecting him to smile back.