Ice Cold Killer

by Cindi Myers

  “I do,” she said, and slammed the door, maybe a little harder than necessary. She drove away, but when she looked in the rearview mirror, Ken was still standing there, watching her. She didn’t think he was a killer, but she was glad she had decided not to date him anymore. She had never been completely comfortable with him. And while she trusted Ryder to have her best interests at heart, she couldn’t say the same about Ken.

  * * *

  ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON the parking area around the ranch house at the Walker Ranch was so packed with vehicles that a person could have been forgiven for thinking the wedding day had been moved up, Darcy thought as she maneuvered the truck into a parking spot. A steady stream of young people made their way to the bonfire in front of the house where Darcy found Emily Walker greeting everyone.

  Ryder caught her eye from the other side of the bonfire and joined her. “Are all these people in the wedding party?” Darcy asked. She recognized Tammy Patterson, who worked for the Eagle Mountain Examiner, and Fiona Winslow, who waited tables at Kate’s Kitchen. Dwight and Gage from the sheriff’s department were there, and Dwight’s new wife, Brenda Stinson. A few other people looked familiar, though she couldn’t name them.

  “Some of them. Others are people from town, and some visitors.” He indicated a dark-haired man in a sheepskin jacket and cowboy hat. “That’s Cody Rankin, a US Marshal who’s one of the groomsmen. To his left is Nate Hall. He’s a fish and wildlife officer—another groomsman.”

  “We ought to be safe here with all these law enforcement officers,” she said.

  “When you’re in the profession, you end up hanging out with others in the profession a lot,” Ryder said. “But there are plenty of civilians here, too.” He nodded toward a pair of men in puffy parkas, knit caps pulled down low over their ears. “Those two are students Emily knows from Colorado State University. They came to Eagle Mountain on their winter break to ice climb and got trapped by the snow.”

  As she was scanning the crowd, Ken arrived. He saw her standing with Ryder and frowned, but didn’t approach. Darcy was glad. After their uncomfortable encounter last night, she intended to avoid him as much as possible.

  Emily climbed up on a section of tree trunk near the fire and clapped her hands. She wore a white puffy coat, and a bright pink hat, skinny jeans tucked into tall, fur-topped boots. Her long, dark hair whipped in the wind and her face was flushed from excitement or the fire, or both. “All right, everybody. I think everyone’s here,” she said. “I think you all know each other, but I wanted to introduce Jamie Douglas. She’s been in town for a while, but she’s the newest deputy with the Rayford County Sheriff’s Department.”

  A rosy-cheeked brunette, who wore her hair in twin braids, waved to them.

  “And last, but not least, we have Alex Woodruff and Tim Dawson.” Emily indicated the two men Ryder had pointed out. “They live in Fort Collins and go to school at CSU.”

  Everyone waved or said hello to Alex and Tim, who returned the greetings. “All right,” Emily said. “Let’s get this party started.” She pulled a handful of cards from her coat pocket. “I want everyone to form teams of two to three people each. Here are the lists of items you need to find. The first team to find all the items on the list wins a prize. Gage, please show everyone the prize.”

  Gage stepped forward and held up a liquor bottle. “What if you don’t like Irish cream?” someone in the crowd asked over the oohs and ahhs of other guests.

  “Then you give it to me, because it’s my favorite,” Emily said. She held up her phone. “It’s two o’clock now. Everybody meet back here at four and we’ll see who has the most items. We have plenty of food and drinks to enjoy around the bonfire, too. Now, come get your lists.”

  Ryder took Darcy’s arm. “Let’s team up together,” he said.

  “All right.”

  He went forward and got one of the cards, then rejoined her and they leaned in close to read it together. “A bird’s nest, animal tracks, red berries, spruce cones, old horseshoe, mistletoe,” Ryder read. “How are we supposed to collect animal tracks?”

  “We can take a picture,” Darcy said. “Where are we going to find a rock shaped like a heart with all this snow?”

  “Maybe down by the creek.” He handed her the list. “Did you bring snowshoes?”

  They retrieved their snowshoes and put them on, then set out in the wake of other partygoers, everyone laughing and chattering. For once it wasn’t snowing. Instead, the pristine drifts around them sparkled in the sun, the dark evergreens of the forest standing out against an intensely turquoise sky. “Emily must live a charmed life to get weather like this for her party,” Darcy said as she tramped across the snow alongside Ryder.

  “I’m hoping this break in the weather lasts,” Ryder said. “The highway department is blasting the avalanche chutes today, and they’ve got heavy equipment in to clear the roads. With luck they can get everything open again by Monday morning.”

  “Will that help you with your case?” she asked. “Having the roads open?”

  He glanced at her. “It will. But I don’t want to talk about that today.” He pointed a ski pole toward an opening in the woods. “Let’s head to the creek, see if we can find that rock. And maybe the bird’s nest, too.”

  “Are birds more likely to nest along creeks?” she asked.

  “I have no idea. You’re the animal expert here.”

  She laughed. “I can tell you about dogs and cats, some livestock, and a little about ferrets and guinea pigs. I don’t know much about wild birds except they’re pretty.”

  “Did you always want to be a veterinarian?” he asked.

  “I wanted to be a ballerina, but short, awkward girls don’t have much a chance at that,” she said. “Then I wanted to be a chef, an astronaut or the person who ran the roller coaster at Elitch Gardens. That was just in third grade. I didn’t settle on vet school until I was a sophomore in college, after I got a part-time job working at an animal hospital. I thought I would hate it, but I loved it.”

  “It’s good to find work you love.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “Do you love your job?”

  He glanced down at her, his expression serious. “I do. I like doing different things every day and solving problems and helping people.”

  “Is it something you’ve always wanted to do?” she asked.

  “I went to college to study engineering, but attended a job fair my freshman year where the Colorado State Patrol had a booth. I’d never even thought about a law enforcement career before, but after I talked to them, I couldn’t let go of the idea. I talked to some officers, did a couple of ride-alongs—and the rest is history.” He stopped and bent to peer into the underbrush. “There’s red berries on that list, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He leaned forward and reached into the brush, and came out with a half dozen bright red berries clustered on a stem. “That’s one down,” he said. He handed the berries to her. “Stash those in my pack.”

  She had to stand on tiptoe—not an easy feat in snowshoes—in order to unzip the pack and put the berries inside. He crouched a little to make it easier. “Ready to keep going?” he asked.

  She nodded and fell into step behind him this time as the woods closed in and the path narrowed. “How did you meet the sheriff?” she asked.

  “We met in the state police academy,” he said. “We just really hit it off. We kept in touch, even after he signed on with the sheriff’s department in Eagle Mountain and I went to work for CSP. I visited him here on a vacation trip and fell in love with the place. When a job opening came up, I jumped on it.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “How did you end up in Eagle Mountain?”

  “Kelly visited here and came back and told me it was the perfect place to open a practice,” she said. “There were a lot of people moving in, a lot of area ranches, and only one solo
vet, so she thought we’d have plenty of business. I was ready to get out of the city so I thought, why not give it a try?”

  “Will you stay, now that she’s gone?”

  She stopped. “Why wouldn’t I stay?” Leaving hadn’t crossed her mind.

  He turned back toward her. “I hope you will stay,” he said. “I just didn’t know if it was something you’d want to do—or be able to afford to do.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, the money thing might be a problem. But I’m going to try to find a way to make it work. This is home now.”

  “An awfully tiny home,” he said.

  She laughed. “It’s cozy and it’s cheap,” she said. “Maybe it wouldn’t be practical for a family, but it’s perfect for me right now.”

  The clamor of shouts ahead of them distracted her. Something crashed through the underbrush toward them, and Tim Dawson emerged onto the trail just ahead of them. “It’s mine!” he shouted, waving what at first appeared to be a ball of sticks over his head. As he neared them, Darcy realized it was a bird’s nest. Laughing and whooping, he ran past her, followed by his friend, Alex Woodruff.

  She and Ryder started forward again, only to have to move off the trail again to allow Ken and Fiona to pass. “That jerk stole our bird’s nest,” Fiona said as she passed them.

  “It was a jerk move, but there are probably other nests,” Ryder said.

  Fiona stopped, panting. “That’s what I told Ken, but he’s too furious to listen to reason.” She bent forward, catching her breath. “Fortunately, those two are too fast, so I don’t think he’ll catch them.”

  “Do you want to hunt with us, instead?” Darcy asked. Not that she wasn’t enjoying spending this time alone with Ryder, but she knew enough about Ken in a bad temper that she didn’t want Fiona’s afternoon ruined.

  “Good idea to switch teams,” Fiona said. She straightened. “It’s sweet of you to offer, but I saw Tammy and Jamie up the creek a ways. I think I’ll join them.” She waved and headed back the way she had come.

  Ryder and Darcy set out again and in another few minutes they reached the creek. The area near the trail was deserted, but tracks in the snow veered to the left along the bank. Ryder turned right. A few minutes later he stopped, putting an arm out to stop Darcy. “Animal tracks,” he said, pointing to a row of tiny paw prints in the snow.

  While he pulled out his camera and took several photographs, Darcy crouched to examine the tracks more closely. “I think they might be a weasel or something.”

  “I thought you didn’t know about wild animals,” he said.

  “No. But they look a lot like a ferret. And ferrets are related to weasels.”

  Ryder pocketed his phone. “We have berries and animal tracks. What else is on the list?”

  “The bird’s nest and the rock shaped like a heart. A horseshoe—I don’t think we’re going to find that here.”

  “We can save the horseshoe for last. I know where the Walkers put all their old ones.”

  “Then we also need a spruce cone and mistletoe.”

  He scanned the trees around them, then took a few steps forward and plucked an oval brown cone from a tree. “One spruce cone,” he said and handed it over.

  She closed her hand around the cone and turned toward his backpack, but froze as her gaze landed on a familiar clump of leaves in the tree over their heads. “Isn’t that mistletoe?” she asked.

  Ryder looked up, and a grin spread across his face. “It is.”

  “How are we going to get it down?” It had to be ten feet up the tree.

  He looked down again, into her eyes, and her heart fluttered as if she’d swallowed butterflies as she realized they were standing very close—so close she could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, and make out the individual lashes framing his blue eyes. He put a hand on her shoulder and she leaned in, arching toward him, and then he was kissing her—a slow, savoring caress of his lips, which were warm and firm, and awakening nerve endings she hadn’t even known she had.

  She moaned softly and darted her tongue out to taste him, and the gentle pressure of the kiss increased until she was dizzy with sensation, intoxicated by a single kiss. She opened her eyes and found he was watching her, and his mouth curved into a smile against his. She pulled back a little, laughing. “That’s some really powerful mistletoe,” she said.

  “I’m thinking we have to get some to keep now.” He looked up at the green clump of leaves, which grew at the end of a spindly branch of fir.

  “You can’t climb up there,” Darcy said. “The tree would never support your weight. And there aren’t any branches down low to hold on to.”

  “Maybe I can throw something and knock some down.”

  “Throw what?”

  “I don’t know. A big rock?”

  She looked toward the creek. Though snow obscured the banks and ice glinted along the edges, the water in the center of the channel was still flowing, and lined with rocks. “I’m not going to stick my hand in that freezing water,” she said.

  He stripped off his gloves and handed them to her. “I will.”

  “A picture is probably good enough,” she said as he kicked out of his snowshoes.

  “I told you, I like to solve problems.” He took a step forward and immediately sank to his knees in the soft snow.

  She put a hand over her mouth, trying to suppress a giggle. “Ryder, I really don’t think—”

  A scream cut off her words—an anguished keening that shredded the afternoon’s peace and tore away the warmth Darcy had wrapped herself in after Ryder’s kiss. “Who is that?” she asked.

  Ryder fought his way out of the drift and shoved his boots back into the snowshoes. “It came from downstream,” he said and headed out, leaving Darcy to keep up as best she could.

  Chapter Nine

  The screams had died down by the time Ryder reached the crowd of people on the stream bank. Gage turned at Ryder’s approach, his expression grim. Next to him, his sister Emily stood with her face in her hands, drawing in ragged breaths, clearly trying not to cry. Tammy and Jamie both knelt in the snow, Tammy sobbing loudly.

  “What’s going on?” Ryder asked Gage. But then he saw the woman half-submerged in the shallow creek, hands and feet bound with silver duct tape, blood from the gash at her throat staining the water pink.

  Behind him, Darcy made a choking noise. He turned to look at her, but Emily had already put her arm around her and was leading her away. “Travis is on his way,” Gage said. “And Dwight. And probably Cody and Nate, too.”

  Ryder made himself look at the body in the water again. Fiona’s knit cap had come off and her shoulder-length brown hair was spread out around her head, moving in the current of the stream as if blown by a gentle wind. “This must have just happened,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Darcy and I saw her maybe half an hour ago. She and Ken Rutledge were chasing those two college guys—Tim and Alex—down the trail. She said Tim had stolen a bird’s nest they had found. Ken was going after them. She decided to turn around and try to find Tammy and Jamie.” He nodded to the two women kneeling in the snow. Emily and Darcy were beside them now, urging them up and away from the creek.

  Tammy’s sobs had quieted, and Jamie helped her to stand, then joined Gage and Ryder on the bank. “We didn’t touch anything,” she said. “I looked and I didn’t see anyone else around here, or any obvious tracks.”

  Thrashing sounds in the brush heralded the arrival of Travis. “I sent Dwight to round up the rest of the guests and get them to the house,” Travis said. He scowled at the scene beside the creek. “We need to get everybody out of here,” he said.

  “I’ll take the others up to the ranch house,” Emily said. Pale, but composed, she took Darcy’s hand. “Darcy will help me.”

  The lawmen stood beside a large cottonwood, the bare branches forming a skeletal
canopy over their heads while Emily and Darcy persuaded Tammy to come with them. When the others were out of sight up the trail back to the house, they began to work.

  Gage and Jamie cordoned off the scene while Ryder took photographs. All the blood had washed away by now, leaving Fiona looking more like a mannequin than a human, her skin impossibly pale. Or maybe it only helped to think of her that way. She looked cold, sprawled in the icy water, though he knew she couldn’t feel the chill anymore. She would never feel anything again, and the fact that she had been killed minutes after he saw her, when he was located less than a quarter mile away, gnawed at him.

  Travis returned from a walk down the creek bank and the lawmen gathered under the tree once more. “The snow is churned up on this side of the creek for a good five hundred yards,” he said. “There are some indistinct snowshoe tracks—probably from the guests on the scavenger hunt. No tracks on the opposite bank that I could find. My guess is the murderer walked in the water when he had to, and on trampled ground the rest of the time.”

  “So we’re looking for a person or persons with blood on his clothes and wet feet,” Gage said.

  “He might not have any blood on him,” Jamie said. “If he had her in the creek, facing away from him, he could reach in front of her, cut her throat and all the spray would go out in front and into the water.”

  “You say she was with Ken when you and Darcy met her on the trail?” Travis asked Ryder.

  “He passed us first,” Ryder said. “Well, Tim and Alex ran past us, and a few seconds later Ken ran past. Fiona was a few seconds behind him. She stopped to talk to us for a few more seconds, then turned and went back the way she came. She said she was going to catch up with Tammy and Jamie and hunt with them.”

  “She never found us,” Jamie said. “We didn’t hear or see anything of her until we came across her body.”

  Ryder was silent, recreating the scene in his head. “When Darcy and I got to the creek, where the trail stops at the creek bank, all the other tracks had turned left,” he said. “We turned right and didn’t see any other tracks.”