by Liz Shoaf
Chloe took in her surroundings. It wasn’t much to look at. Log walls. A tiny kitchen/living area, a bed pushed against the wall, and one small bathroom with a privacy door. What struck her was the neatness of the place. It made her think of military precision.
Avoiding the two windows, one on each side of the cabin, she wandered around the small space. There wasn’t much to see. An old couch with a ratty afghan folded across the back. A coffee table, but no side tables. No computers or television anywhere, not even a smartphone or tablet. A mountainous landscape on one wall, pretty high-end. Being a lover of the arts, Chloe squinted at the signature at the right-hand bottom of the painting. The name Ned was scrawled in tiny letters. No last initial. She filed away that small piece of information—you never knew when it might come in handy—and focused on Ethan. She checked out the gun in his hand as he stood to the side of the kitchen window—the one facing the shooter side of the cabin—and kept watch.
“I didn’t know an S&W was standard police issue.”
He glanced back at her. “We have more of a choice now. I like the feel of the S&W M&P 9. It works for me. You know a lot about guns.”
She ignored his snoopy, unspoken question. “As soon as we return to town, I want my gun back. I need it now. We just got shot at again.”
Ethan ignored her complaint and glanced at the opposite window. “Keep a watch out that window, but stay to the side and be careful. I’m pretty sure the shot was long-range, and in all probability the guy has fled, but we still don’t know where Ned is.”
Now she really wished she had her gun, her knife and her dog. She didn’t doubt that Mrs. Denton was spoiling Geordie. “You think Ned shot at us?”
“Ned’s been in Jackson Hole awhile, but no one really knows much about him. I’m not taking any chances.”
Chloe felt a small draft coming from the ceiling and glanced up. She froze in her tracks when she realized she was staring at the bad end of what looked like an AK-47. The man staring down at them through the hatch in the roof was scary looking, deadly scary.
Was this the man after her? If it was, she and Ethan were sitting ducks, and she didn’t have a weapon on her anywhere. If they made it out of this alive, she was going to get her gun back even if she had to steal it from the police department lockbox.
“Huh,” a gruff voice said from above. The caveman tossed his weapon in the direction of Ethan and the sheriff caught it with his left hand, but Ethan kept his handgun pointed toward the bear of a man who dropped through the opening. His feet hit the floor with barely a whisper, and Chloe took a step back when she got a good look at him.
He had to be at least six-and-a-half feet tall. Frizzy hair covered his face, but intelligent green eyes took her measure. He wore holey, faded jeans and a heavy fleece jacket. The man was huge.
“Ned,” Ethan said.
“Sheriff,” Ned responded.
Now that she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be shot, Chloe regained her equilibrium. “Talk about men of few words,” she mumbled to herself, and both men turned toward her. No one was shooting, so she might as well get the show on the road. At the rate they were going, it’d take Ned and Ethan all day to communicate.
“Listen, Ned, someone just shot at us. You know anything about that?”
A bushy brown eyebrow lifted and Ned just stared at her for a second. Chloe would rather have fled to the tiny bathroom, away from that intense stare, but she stood her ground.
“Huh,” Ned repeated.
Ethan stepped in. “Ned, we came here to talk to you and someone shot at us long range from the east side of the mountain. Do you know anything about that?”
Ned pointed at the weapon he’d tossed Ethan. “Check it.”
Ethan kept his gun in his hand and laid Ned’s weapon on the floor. He studied it, rose to his feet and tucked his own gun back inside his jacket pocket.
“It hasn’t been fired recently. Ned, did you see the shooter?”
Ned’s chin dipped in answer. “Was tracking him on the ridge. Found his spot right after he left. Didn’t go after him because someone, you, entered my cabin. He’s gone.”
Chloe swiveled her head around, taking a close look at the walls and the ceiling. There were no signs of security anywhere. No cameras, no wires, no trip alarm that she could see. How did he know they’d entered his cabin? But, really, that wasn’t important right now, and Chloe had had enough.
“Do you have a computer here?”
Ned’s eyes flickered the tiniest bit before he turned to Ethan. “I keep to myself and bother no one.” He waved a hand at the one-room cabin. “You see a computer?”
Ethan shook his head. “No, I don’t see a computer.”
Ned stared at them until Ethan backed off. “Let me know if you come across any information on the shooter.” He turned as he took Chloe by the arm. “And I’ll be back if I find out that you’ve been spying on the station’s computers.” He pulled her forward. “Let’s go.”
She pulled her arm away. “That’s it? He didn’t really answer the question. It was an evasion.”
Ethan stopped on the threshold of the door. “I don’t have a warrant and I have to take the man at his word.”
What a waste of time. She couldn’t believe Ethan wasn’t pushing Ned harder.
Ethan left her standing there as he headed toward the car, but she stilled when a fuzzy whisker tickled her ear. “Your laptop is in North Carolina. Mocksville, to be precise. I’m sure you know how to find it. And tell Stan that Ned sends his regards.”
Unlike his previous caveman speech, the cultured voice made Chloe freeze, her feet glued to the wide-planked floor. Ned knew Stan? FBI Director of Criminal Cyber, Response and Services Branch and her adoptive father? He must have seen her name on the station’s computer system when Ethan ran her prints and checked her out. Ned had to be responsible for the worm in the system. Without looking back, she flew to the car, jerked open the passenger door and climbed inside, shaken to the core.
Ethan’s mind was crowded with questions. He glanced at Chloe. She’d been quiet on the bumpy ride down the mountain. He almost missed her sass. Almost. The lady was an enigma, and he was determined to uncover all her secrets.
“Could someone have gotten into my computer and listened to our conversation and that’s how they got to Ned’s mountain ahead of us?”
Her face paled, and that made his stomach churn.
“It’s illegal, but possible for someone to break into a computer with video capability and listen in on conversations. I was concentrating on my cloud. I caught the worm coming in, but I wasn’t really paying attention to anything else at the time.”
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Great, now I have to worry about worms and someone listening to private conversations.”
She chuckled, and it lifted his spirits. “I’ll check it later, see if I can follow anyone’s footprints in the system.”
“Listen, I didn’t push the issue with Ned because it was obvious he wasn’t going to tell us anything and I didn’t have a warrant to search the place.”
He glanced at her. She had her thumbnail in her mouth, chewing away. As soon as she saw him looking at her, she jerked her hand down and laid it on her thigh. “I have to buy a laptop and then I’m going to North Carolina, with or without you.”
“Why?”
“Before we left, Ned whispered something in my ear. He told me my laptop is in North Carolina. I should have already tried to track it.” Her voice wobbled. “I know someone in North Carolina. I hope the killer isn’t aware of them.” She took a deep breath and faced him full on. “I told you the worm came from Ned’s cabin and I was right. Very few people know how to track devices and Ned had already found my laptop. He must have copied all the information I have stored in my cloud and now has access to my laptop.”
Chloe sounde
d cagey to Ethan. There was something she wasn’t telling him.
“Did he say anything else?”
She averted her face, a sure sign of someone hiding something. “Not really.”
He let it go for the moment. “Okay, how did he track your laptop to North Carolina, or do I want to know?”
The tension eased in the Jeep and she chuckled. “I’ll tell you anyway. Most people aren’t computer savvy. I installed a remote tracking and recovery program. If the thief doesn’t wipe the system or disable the tracking program, and he boots the computer and connects to the internet, I can control the computer and track it.”
It took a moment for Ethan to process what she said, and when he realized the implication, excitement coursed through him.
“You mean there’s the possibility we can track your laptop, and possibly the killer, through technology?”
She gave him a sideways glance and grinned. “Unless the killer gave it to someone else in order to throw us off his track.”
“Great.” Ethan knew he sounded disgruntled, but he couldn’t help it. Chloe Spencer had shown up in Jackson Hole with a big attitude, a bag full of secrets, and a dog that would lick you one minute and bite you the next.
On the other hand, he hadn’t felt this alive since his wife died.
“Fine, we’ll get you a laptop and see if we can pick up the trail. If we can, we’ll head to North Carolina. We don’t have any other leads.”
Chloe went quiet again, but he could only imagine the wheels turning at the speed of light in that agile brain of hers.
Out of the blue, she said, “Tell me about Sherri. Mrs. Denton said she died not long after you moved to Jackson Hole.”
He didn’t really care to talk about his past, but maybe it would encourage Chloe to tell him about her life. “Back to Jackson Hole. I grew up here but moved to Chicago after college. The Chicago Police Department recruited me right out of school. I worked my way up quickly and ended up in the Detective Division. I met Sherri, we got married and had Penny. I talked her into moving back to Jackson Hole because I thought it would be a safer and more wholesome place for our daughter to grow up.”
“But?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “But Sherri wasn’t happy. She was a city girl. She tried to fit in, but it seemed like everything she did went wrong.”
In a wry tone, Chloe gave her version of the events. “Bottom line, you blame yourself, and you’re stoically raising your daughter while steering clear of any romantic entanglements.”
Fury tore through him. “You don’t know anything about it.”
She snorted. He was laying his heart on a platter and the woman snorted.
“I know you’re being selfish. Think about this. Maybe Sherri wasn’t that happy in Jackson Hole, but maybe, just maybe, she loved you and her daughter enough that she was giving it her best shot, and had she not passed away, maybe things would have worked out.”
Chloe’s words hit him like a sledgehammer. Was it possible things would have worked out for Sherri in Jackson Hole, given enough time? He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to think about it right now. Time for Chloe to give up something.
“So what about you? You said your parents died on the mission field. That’s an admirable choice of career. Helping others.”
“Yeah, they helped others, all right,” she mumbled under her breath.
Ethan heard her response and was surprised. “You didn’t like them being in the mission field?”
She swung her head around just as the Jeep hit a particularly deep rut, but he caught the fierce expression on her face. “They died, Ethan. They were murdered while ‘helping’ people.”
There was a swell of emotion in her statement and he decided to change the subject. The dirt road ended, and he turned the Jeep back toward town.
“You told me you have an apartment in New York and you own a company that helps corporations with their computer security. How did you get into that field?”
She shrugged. “It was a logical career, considering my computer skills.”
Ethan was certain there was more to the story, but he let it slide for now. He pulled the Jeep into a space in front of the computer store and Chloe hopped out of the car as soon as it stopped. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes.” She disappeared into the store.
Before she got out of the car, Ethan had scanned the area for possible shooters and now took his first full breath since Chloe Spencer had blown into town. He pulled his phone from his breast pocket. It was one of those new smartphones that he barely knew how to operate, and he wondered if anyone out there was listening in or watching him through the camera lens.
He shook his head in frustration. Chloe had made him paranoid and he refused to live that way. He called the station and got his deputy on the line. Then again, maybe it would be prudent to watch what he said on an open cell phone line.
Earlier that morning, he had sent a text to David, instructing him to do a search on Chloe. He felt a little guilty, but wiped away those emotions—he had two murders to solve. She had admitted herself that a dead body had been found in her apartment, but she hadn’t explained, to his satisfaction, enough about the person who gave her that information.
His gut was telling him Chloe was innocent, but he had learned not to completely trust his instincts, because look at what had happened when he’d moved his family from Chicago to Jackson Hole.
David answered on the third ring. “Cummins here.”
“David, what did you find out about Chloe Spencer?”
“Well, Miss Spencer has led an interesting life, I’ll give her that.”
Ethan’s patience was running thin.
“Information only, David.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry. Chloe Spencer is twenty-five years old and she’s an only child. She grew up in North Carolina. Her parents were killed on the mission field in Somalia when she was ten years old. There were no known relatives, so she was placed in the care of an orphanage in North Carolina until she was sixteen. Then all of a sudden she was adopted. It’s unusual for someone that age to get adopted.” Ethan gave a small growl and David hurried on. “Anyway, she owns a company called Spencer Security. The company is successful and the woman is fairly well-off. One interesting thing, though, is that her adoption was closed. The records are sealed, and I couldn’t find out who adopted her.”
Ethan was curious about her adoptive parents and why they had taken in an older child. He also wondered if Chloe and Peter Norris had had more than a business relationship. That would explain why the killer had chosen Peter as the first victim. The thought didn’t sit well with Ethan.
“Is that all?”
“That’s it.”
Chloe stepped out of the store and Ethan closed the conversation. “Call me if you find anything else.”
Ethan liked to gather all the information available. Sometimes small bits of information played into a case, and sometimes they didn’t. Looking pleased with herself and carrying a large box and two small ones in her hands, Chloe climbed into the Jeep.
Ethan slipped the phone inside his jacket pocket.
TEN
When Chloe slid into the passenger seat of the Jeep, she was curious about the perplexed look on Ethan’s face, but she was so happy to have her own technology in her hands that she ignored it.
He stared at the boxes she’d laid on her lap and she shrugged. “I withdrew enough cash before I left New York for any kind of emergency so the killer couldn’t track me. I bought a smartphone and tablet along with the laptop. I can access my cloud from any device. I bought internet usage for all three devices, so I don’t have to depend on Wi-Fi.”
He nodded and started up the car. “I have to pick up Penny. School’s about out for the day.”
Chloe nodded and tore into the boxes. They’d removed them in the store to
do the initial setup, but she needed to do some major tweaking on the devices to bring them up to her standards. She also had to download all her programs and contacts. She really needed to check her email. There were bound to be more emails in her inbox than she wanted to deal with at the moment. And she was going to shore up the security on her cloud and email account so no one could tell if she accessed either.
“Can the killer track you on this new computer?”
She grinned. “Unlikely. I purchased it using a fictional name. But if anyone hacks into my cloud, they’ll be able to track me. I’ll divert my emails to my alias.” Hopefully, all the precautions would buy her some time.
Ethan frowned as he pulled the Jeep into a parking space just as a loud bell rang and a slew of kids swarmed out the front door of the building.
Disapproval was written all over his face, and Chloe wished she’d kept her mouth shut about using a fictional name. Time for a big distraction. “How many kids can they fit into that building?”
Ethan sent her one of his distinctive interrogatory looks and she knew she’d slipped up. She huffed, “I was such a handful, they decided to homeschool me at the orphanage,” and that was all of her past she was willing to share.
Ethan shook his head and got out of the car. Chloe ignored him and slipped the laptop out of its box and opened it up. Pure ambrosia. She laid her fingers on the keys, ready to get to work, but lifted her head and stared through the windshield. A blond-haired, blue-eyed streak of lightning peeled away from the mass of students and threw herself into Ethan’s arms. Ethan hugged his daughter fiercely and turned in a circle, Penny laughing the whole time.
Chloe felt a deep pain grip her heart. Long-buried memories of her own father swinging her through the air rushed to the surface. She shook her head to dislodge the painful thoughts. Those memories were best left forgotten.
