Tampered

by Stella Bixby

  He stuck the earbuds back in and resumed his jog back the way he came.

  News trucks, police cars, and city vehicles packed the tiny gravel parking lot when I got back to the office. The PIO was giving an impromptu news conference, basically saying we had no information but would be distributing a statement when we did.

  Thankfully the parents and their kids were gone. A twinge in my gut told me this might just get me fired—taking kids on a mountain lion hunt leading to a dead body—but I’d only been doing what they’d instructed.

  “What’d yeh find this time, Blondie?” Seamus, one of the other park rangers, asked in his deep Irish brogue when I unlocked the small two-room office.

  “Fingers,” I whispered so the news people couldn’t hear. “Sticking out of the ground.”

  Seamus laughed as the forensics team approached.

  I pointed them back to the scene. “It’s about a half a mile or so down the path.”

  They nodded and walked toward where Jerry and Luke had stayed.

  Seamus shook his head, his scruffy hair flopping around like a big shaggy dog’s. “Only you.”

  “Technically, the community service kids found them.” I walked behind the counter in the office and plopped down on a stool.

  “Let me know if yeh need anything,” he said, walking out the door. “See yeh for spaghetti tonight.”

  “If I’m not tied up here,” I said.

  Seamus and Shayla had been dating several months. He was a regular fixture in our apartment.

  When the door was closed, I pulled the diamond ring from my pocket. It still didn’t feel quite right on my finger, but that’s where it belonged.

  I made the excuse that it could get damaged in my line of work, but deep down, I knew guilt was the real reason I didn’t wear it all the time.

  I shoved it back inside my pocket for safe-keeping.

  Within two hours, Luke, Jerry, and the forensics team came walking up the path carrying a single duffle bag. I was sitting on the front steps of the office, watching a group of geese waddle around.

  Luke branched away from the group and headed straight for me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “I expected to be here late.”

  He glanced back at Jerry, who was getting mobbed by the cameras.

  “Good news,” Luke said. “It wasn’t a body.”

  “What do you mean it wasn’t a body? I saw the fingers.”

  “It was an arm. A prosthetic arm.”

  That would explain the weird cracking of the skin. “How did it get here?”

  “Who knows? We’ll have to check the serial number to see who it belongs to. We’ll work from there.”

  “Were there any other clues? Any blood?”

  “No blood.” He laughed. “Which is a good thing.”

  “Of course, it is,” I said.

  “The arm did look battered, but that could be because it’s been buried for a while.”

  I pulled out my ponytail and redid it. My hair was getting obnoxiously long. I was considering going short—real short—and maybe instead of blonde highlights going for a red.

  “Don’t look so sad,” Luke said. “It’s good it wasn’t a body.”

  “I know,” I said. “But that means the kids will be back. Let your girlfriend know how much I appreciate that one.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend anymore,” Luke said, not looking at me.

  I stopped fiddling with my hair.

  “Nikki and I broke up this morning,” he continued.

  He looked so sad. I wanted to hug him, but with all the people around, it didn’t seem like the best idea. Instead, I reached out and rubbed his arm. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

  “I’ll fill you in later,” Luke said. “I need to get back.”

  The last few weeks, he and Nikki had both confided in me about how they weren’t happy with the other one. Their breakup seemed inevitable.

  But if that was the case, why was Luke so upset about it?

  3

  Once the reservoir was back to its usual quiet self, I typed out a message to Nikki.

  I heard about you and Luke. I’m sorry. If you need to talk or a drink, let me know.

  Her response came almost instantly.

  K

  I so badly wanted to call Luke and find out what happened, but I needed to get on with my shift and get the reservoir closed so I could make it to dinner.

  Oh and the community service project didn’t turn out like you’d hoped.

  What do you mean, it didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped?

  I could hear the anger behind the words on my phone screen.

  The kids found a prosthetic arm. I thought it might have been a body, but it wasn’t. And I may have told them there could be mountain lions here.

  She might kill me, but it was better she heard it all from me.

  I’ll get it figured out.

  That was it?

  I waited for more to come, but it didn’t, and I didn’t want to push.

  On my drive around the reservoir toward the end of my shift, I came upon the place where we’d found the prosthetic.

  The forensic team left the hole uncovered where they’d dug up the arm. It was only about a foot deep—a pile of dirt off to the side. They must have had some powerful heaters to be able to get the arm out so quickly from the frozen ground.

  I pointed the beam of my flashlight into and around the hole. The forensics team rarely missed anything, but if they thought this was a harmless find, they may not have been as thorough as they should have been.

  When I came up with nothing in the hole, I walked further around it—past the cluster of muddy footprints.

  What I was looking for, I didn’t know. But something in me felt like there was more to this case than met the eye. Maybe it was the fact that the job had been relatively boring since the beginning of the year.

  Or maybe it was my gut.

  Just as I was about to give up, something shiny caught the beam beneath a pile of dead tree branches about ten yards from the hole. I pushed them aside with my foot to uncover a single sleek red stiletto. It looked expensive. Probably more expensive than my entire wardrobe.

  I scanned the area but didn’t find another shoe.

  I snapped a picture and sent it over to Luke with the message:

  Think this might be related to the arm?

  I could almost hear his sigh.

  I’ll be there shortly. Don’t touch it.

  The clock on my phone told me I needed to get back to the office and close the gates. I’d easily be able to find the spot again.

  I jumped on the ATV and headed toward the park entrance to wait for Luke. Once he was in the park, I closed the heavy, eight-foot-tall gate behind him to make sure no one else came in.

  It was a relief Jerry hadn’t come too. Even though we got along, he still wasn’t my favorite person in the world. He usually treated me like an annoying gnat that he had to put up with because I had connections to Luke.

  “Wanna jump on with me so we can get this done quickly?” I asked Luke when he stepped from his police cruiser.

  “Sure.” He took the extra helmet and jumped on behind me.

  No matter how hard I tried to be cool, being this close to Luke made me a tiny bit giddy. I told myself it was the cold making me shiver. Thankfully, the noise from the ATV prevented the need for conversation.

  “It’s over here,” I said when I turned off the ATV.

  Luke pulled an evidence bag from his pocket. “You just happened to find it?”

  I shrugged. “Okay, so maybe I’d been looking.”

  “Don’t have much faith in us, do you?” His voice was playful.

  “I guess not,” I said with a laugh. “But it surprised me that everyone left after they realized it was a prosthetic. I mean, who loses their arm?”

  Luke stopped in front of the shoe and pulled on some gloves. “Her name was Selena Marquez.”

  “As in the Sele
na Marquez who went missing a couple of years ago?” My heart started to race. “And no one thought it would be a good idea to come back out and see if they could find anything else?”

  “I’m sure someone would have come back eventually.” Something in his voice wasn’t convincing.

  He picked up the shoe and put it inside the bag.

  “What are you not telling me?” I asked, my hands on my hips.

  “Nothing,” Luke said. “I’ll take this shoe back to the office and try to find out if it’s related.”

  He quickly put his helmet back on and was climbing on the back of the ATV.

  I didn’t move.

  “What?” he asked.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Tell me the truth.”

  He sighed and took off the helmet but stayed seated on the ATV.

  “You didn’t hear this from me, but this investigation is going nowhere,” he said. “So you might as well drop it.”

  “What do you mean it’s not going anywhere? We just found the first lead in a case that’s been cold for years.”

  “It’s above my pay grade,” Luke said. “But that’s why Jerry’s not here. I was told to pick up the evidence and let the guys upstairs handle the rest.”

  “Like the administration?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I have my orders.”

  “Well, I’m not a cop, and I want to know what’s going on.” I pushed my shoulders back. “Maybe I’ll just look into this one myself.”

  Luke didn’t respond right away as if he were contemplating my threat.

  I remembered the photos of Mrs. Marquez on the news. She was pretty even after cancer took her arm and her long brown hair. She’d been declared cancer-free only days before she’d gone missing.

  Her husband, the owner of Marquez Manufacturing—one of the largest manufacturing companies in the state—had made public pleas for her safe return. Even though she was cancer-free, she still needed medication, he’d said. The tears in his eyes had seemed so genuine.

  “Maybe it was the husband,” I said.

  “Rylie, stop,” Luke said, his voice serious. “I am telling you, you need to stay out of this one. I don’t even know that the chief knows all the complexities in this case. It’s been sealed.”

  “It can’t just be sealed.” I threw my hands up in the air. “There’s new evidence. No one searched Shadow Trail Reservoir when she went missing. Their focus was on her home. On the other side of the city.” I paused, giving Luke an opportunity to confirm, but he didn’t say anything. “It was the husband, wasn’t it? And he’s using his money to cover it up. That big fat jerk didn’t deserve her in the first place.”

  Luke stood from the ATV and put his hands on my shoulders. “Okay, seriously. You have to stop. You cannot investigate this one. You will have no one backing you up.”

  “Except you, right?” I gave him my best puppy dog eyes.

  He dropped his arms to his sides. “I can’t help you. Not anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” His voice was shaky.

  “How does you not helping me have anything to do with your breakup?” I asked. I’d assumed he wanted to tell me about some big argument they’d had that led to the falling out. I didn’t realize it had anything to do with me.

  “I’m leaving for a while,” he said.

  “Leaving? To go where?” My heart thudded in my chest. Over the past few months, Luke had become more than the high school sweetheart I’d failed miserably at trying to get back together with. He’d become my friend.

  “I’ve been accepted to go to the Middle East.”

  Tears sprung to my eyes. “What do you mean you’ve been accepted?”

  “I told you I signed up.”

  “And I thought it was a long shot.”

  “I did too. Until they called me.”

  “But can’t you tell them no? You have a life here. You have a girlfriend and a job and . . .”

  I wanted to say me, but my voice cracked.

  “It’s a commitment I made when I signed up. My job will still be here when I get back.”

  “What about Nikki?”

  “She and I have been on shaky ground since December. You know that. It was only a matter of time before we ended things.”

  “So you’re just going to leave? What if something happens to you? What if you die?”

  He pulled me into a hug. I let the tears that had been held up in my eyes fall down his uniform shirt.

  “I won’t die. I’ll be back. I promise,” he said.

  “You can’t promise that. It’s like promising someone you’ll find their loved one’s killer. You don’t know.”

  Luke laughed. “I do know. My assignment is in a very low conflict area.”

  “How long?”

  “Two years,” Luke said.

  My heart fell. In two years I’d be married. Maybe even have a baby on the way. We’d practically be strangers.

  “When do you leave?”

  “Next week.”

  “Do you get to come home for the holidays?”

  “I don’t know the specifics yet,” he said. “But if I do, I’ll make sure I see you. Okay?”

  He looked like he wanted to kiss me. Part of me wanted to kiss him. But that was probably just residual feelings from our past relationship. They always said you don’t ever get over your first love.

  “But you have to promise you’ll stay out of this case. That you’ll try to stay safe while I’m gone. I’ve done a lot to protect you over the past year. Jerry won’t do that.”

  I couldn’t promise him I’d stay out of it. It wasn’t that I wanted to put myself in danger, but if no one would look into Selena’s disappearance because of some stupid politics, then I’d have to.

  “Rylie?”

  “I can’t promise that,” I said. “I’ll be careful but—”

  “Your idea of careful differs from mine by quite a bit.”

  “Says the man who volunteered to go to a war-torn country to what? Train some people to be cops?”

  “I needed a change. And I’ll be able to save a ton of money this way. By the time I’m back, I’ll have enough to buy a house free and clear.”

  I didn’t want to hear about how fantastic this opportunity was for him.

  “I should go,” I said. “Shayla’s making spaghetti.”

  “I know. She invited me too.”

  Perfect. Now I’d get to spend the entire night acting like everything was okay when a man I cared for a great deal sat across from me, preparing to sacrifice two years of his life.

  4

  Thankfully, Luke had to take the shoe to the station before coming over. If we walked in together, Garrett would probably get all grumbly, and that was the last thing I needed after the day I’d had.

  Ever since I’d broken Garrett’s trust, he’d been a bit on the suspicious side. Not that I blamed him. In response to his proposal Christmas Eve, I told him I’d just kissed another man.

  Luke had been my makeshift counselor since I’d royally messed up with Garrett. If it wasn’t for his advice, Garrett and I wouldn’t even be on speaking terms. Not that I could tell Garrett that.

  When I opened the door, Fizzy and the smell of rich marinara sauce hit me like a ton of bricks. “Hey buddy.” I scratched behind my pit bull Lab mix’s ears. “Were you a good boy today?”

  Shayla walked around the corner in light blue jeans and an off-white wool sweater. Her curly blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. “He was a saint, like always.”

  Shayla usually worked nights for Prairie City Police Department, but tonight was one of her nights off.

  “Garrett and Seamus are in the dining room. We were starting to wonder when you’d get here.”

  “I got caught up at the reservoir. I’ll tell you more about it later,” I said, though I would probably leave out the part about Luke leaving. That wasn’t my story to tell.

  “I invited Luke and
Nikki too,” Shayla said. “But I haven’t heard from either of them.”

  “Luke’s coming,” I said. “Nikki probably isn’t.”

  Shayla’s big eyes widened. “Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise?”

  “Something like that.” I pulled my coat and work boots off. “I’ll change into something else and be right in.”

  Our apartment was a two-bed, three-bath in a beautiful part of Denver. Usually, the rent would be astronomical, but I’d become friends with the owner, and she’d cut us a deal.

  My bedroom had light gray walls, a queen-sized bed that I never made, and an attached bathroom where I occasionally soaked in the massive bathtub.

  I hung my bulletproof vest and button-down shirt inside my closet and pulled out one of my favorite Denver Broncos hoodies. A pair of jeans and a brush through the hair completed the look. If I hadn’t been so hungry, I would have fixed my makeup too.

  Just as I was walking out, I remembered the ring in the pocket of my work pants. Panic rose in my chest. What if it fell out when I took them off?

  I reached into one pocket. Nothing. Then the other. My fingers landed on something hard and circular.

  “Thank goodness,” I said under my breath and pushed the ring onto my finger. It wouldn’t feel so weird if I wore it more often. Soon, I’d never take it off.

  “There she is.” Garrett stood and pulled out a seat for me when I walked into the room. “I hear you had an eventful day.”

  “Just a prosthetic arm,” I said, kissing him quickly.

  “Did yeh get everything finished at the reservoir?” Seamus asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Have they said anything on the news?” I didn’t want to give anything away about the investigation that wasn’t already public knowledge.

  “One of the stations said it was from a mountain lion attack,” Shayla said, a smile spreading across her face.