by Cindi Myers
“I hate to keep calling the Colorado State Patrol,” Mrs. Farrow said. “They’re always very nice, of course. And they tell me they’ll contact me when they know something, but then I don’t hear anything, and we can’t even get there to see our girl, or to take her...her body for the funeral. It’s just so awful.”
“It is,” Darcy said. “It’s the most awful thing I can imagine.” She grieved terribly for her friend—how much worse the pain must be for Kelly’s mother.
“It doesn’t even seem real to me.” Mrs. Farrow’s voice was stronger now. “I don’t think it will be until I see her. I keep dreaming that there’s been some mistake, and that she’s still alive.”
“I catch myself thinking that, too,” Darcy said. “I wish she were still here. I miss her all the time.”
“The officer I spoke to said they were sure the woman they found was Kelly.”
“Yes,” Darcy said, speaking softly, as gently as she could. “It really was Kelly.”
The sobs on the other end of the line brought tears to her own eyes. As if sensing her distress, Elinor crawled into her lap, and the other cats arranged themselves around her, a furry first-aid team, offering comfort and protection.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Farrow said. “I didn’t mean to call and cry like this. I just wanted to talk to someone who knew her, who understood how wonderful she was.”
“Call anytime,” Darcy said. “It helps to talk about her. It helps me, too.”
“Thank you. I’ll say goodbye now, but we’ll be in touch.”
“Goodbye.”
She ended the call and laid the phone back on the table beside her. She turned back to her book but had read only the first page when headlights swept across the windows, and the crunch of tires on her gravel drive made her clamp her hand around the phone again. She glanced toward the loft where the gun lay in the drawer of the table beside her bed. Then she shook her head and punched 911 on her phone. She wouldn’t hit the send button yet, but she’d be ready.
The car stopped and the door creaked open. Darcy wanted to look out the window, but she didn’t want to let whoever was out there know her location in the house. Footsteps—heavy ones—crossed to the house and mounted the steps to her little front porch, then heavy pounding shook the building. “Darcy, it’s me, Ken. Please let me in. I need to talk to someone.”
Her shoulders sagged, and annoyance edged out some of her fear. “Ken, I really don’t want to have company right now,” she said.
“Just let me in for a few minutes,” he said. “Today has been so awful—for us both. I just need to talk.”
She wanted to tell him no—that she just wasn’t up to seeing him right now. But he sounded so pitiful. Fiona had been his partner in the scavenger hunt—to have her killed must have been a shock to him. Sighing, she unlocked the door and let him in. “You can only stay a few minutes,” she said. “I really am exhausted.”
He had changed clothes since leaving the ranch and wore baggy gray sweatpants and a University of Wisconsin sweatshirt. His hair was wet as if he had just gotten out of the shower. “Thanks,” he said. “I was going crazy, sitting at the house with no one to talk to.”
“Do you want me to make you some tea?” Darcy asked.
“No. That’s okay.” He began to pace—four steps in one direction, four in another. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he said.
“I can’t believe it, either.” Darcy settled on the sofa and hugged a pillow to her chest. Three women dead—it was hard to accept.
“That cop as good as accused me of murdering that woman.”
Of course. Ken wasn’t upset because Fiona had died. He was agitated because he had been questioned. “He’s just doing his job,” she said. “The cops questioned everyone.”
Ken stopped and faced her. “Why are you defending him? Is there something going on between you two?”
“No!” But her cheeks warmed at the memory of the kiss they had shared under the mistletoe. Maybe something was happening with her and Ryder—but she wasn’t clear what that something might be. Or what it might turn into.
Ken began to pace again, running his fingers through his hair over and over, so that it stood straight up on his head, like a rooster’s comb. “You shouldn’t be here by yourself,” he said. “You should come and stay at my place. No one will bother you with me around.”
“No one is going to bother me here.”
“You can’t know that.”
She wasn’t going to waste her breath arguing with him. She picked up her now-cold tea and sipped, waiting for him to calm down so she could ask him to leave.
More headlights filled her window. “Who’s that?” Ken demanded.
“I don’t know.” She stood and went to the door. A few moments later a light knock sounded. “Darcy? It’s me, Ryder.”
Relief filled her and she pulled open the door. She wanted to throw her arms around him, but thought better of it, feeling Ken’s stare burning into her back. “What are you doing here?” Ken asked, his tone belligerent.
“I wanted to make sure Darcy was all right after the upsetting events of this afternoon,” Ryder said. He moved into the room and shut the door, but kept close to Darcy. “Why are you here?”
“Darcy and I are friends. I wanted to make sure she was all right, too.”
“Thank you for checking on me, Ken,” Darcy said, hoping to defuse the situation by being gracious. “I’ll be fine. You can go now.”
“Is he staying?” Ken asked.
“That really isn’t your concern,” she said. She patted his arm. “Go home. Try to get some rest.”
He hesitated as if he intended to argue, then appeared to think better of it and moved past Ryder and out the door. As he pulled out of the drive, Ryder gathered Darcy close. “Your heart is pounding,” he said into her hair. “Did he frighten you?”
“No. Just annoyed me.” She looked up at him. “I think he has a habit of rubbing people the wrong way.”
“What did he want?”
“He was upset. He seemed to think you believe he killed those women.”
“We haven’t identified anyone as our main suspect.”
“Ken is annoying, but I can’t believe he’s a killer,” she said. “And you said his alibis checked out.”
“Alibis can be faked,” he said. “And right now it’s my job to be suspicious of pretty much everyone.”
She started to protest again that Ken couldn’t be the murderer—but how much of that was a true belief in his innocence, and how much was her desperate desire not to be wrong again about a man she had trusted? She probably would have defended the man who raped her, too—until he turned on her. Was she making the same mistake with Ken?
She put her hand on his shoulder, the leather of his jacket cold beneath her palm. “You’re freezing,” she said. “And you must be exhausted.”
“I’m all right,” he said.
“At least let me fix you some tea or soup.”
“I wish I could stay, but I need to get over to the sheriff’s department. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“You’re going back to work?” she asked. “Does this mean you have a suspect?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you if I did, but no. No suspects yet. We need to look at the evidence we gathered today and see if we find something we’ve missed before.”
“You don’t really think one of the party guests is the killer?” she asked. Everyone had seemed so nice—people she either already thought of as friends, or whom she looked forward to getting to know better.
“We just don’t know.” He kissed her cheek. “All you can do is be extra careful.”
He started to pull away, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged his lips down to hers. She hadn’t intended to kiss him so fiercely, had only wanted
to prolong the contact between them, but as soon as their lips met the last bit of reserve in her burned away in the resulting heat. She lost herself in the pleasure of that kiss, in the taste of him, in the power of his body pressed to hers, and in her own body’s response.
He seemed to feel the same, his arms tightening around her, fitting her more securely against him, his lips pressed more firmly to hers, his tongue caressing. She felt warmed through, safer and happier than she had felt in a long time. They broke apart at last, both breathing hard, eyes glazed. He stroked his finger down her cheek. “I wish I didn’t have to go,” he said.
“I wish you didn’t have to go, either.”
He stepped back, and she reluctantly let him. “Lock the door behind me,” he said.
“I will.”
“If Ken comes back here, don’t let him in,” he said.
“All right,” she said.
She didn’t want to let anyone in—into her home, or her life, or her heart. That had been her policy for years. But Ryder had breached those barriers and the knowledge both frightened and thrilled her. He wasn’t a killer. Ryder would never hurt her. She knew that, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have the power to hurt her. Maybe not physically, but if you gave your heart to someone, you risked having it broken. She had been so wrong about a man before—would she ever really be able to trust her judgment again?
* * *
RYDER WAS THE last to arrive in the situation room at the sheriff’s department. He filled a mug from the coffeepot at the back of the room, then settled at the table next to Gage. Like Ryder, most of the others still wore the clothes they had had on that afternoon. Only the sheriff and Dwight were in uniform—Ryder assumed because they were on duty.
“Let’s get started,” Travis said from the front of the room. “I’ve asked Cody and Nate to sit in, since they were at the ranch this afternoon.”
US Marshal Cody Rankin and Department of Wildlife officer Nate Hall nodded to the others.
Travis moved to the whiteboard. “Let’s start by summarizing the information we learned this afternoon,” he said. “Jamie, you helped interview the women. Anything there?”
“Ryder and Darcy appear to be the only people who saw Fiona after she and Ken set out on the scavenger hunt,” Jamie said. “No one thought it was odd for her to be with him. Several said they were laughing together when they split up from the rest of the group to start the hunt. No one saw any strangers or anything they thought was odd or out of place.”
Travis nodded. “About what we got from the men, too.”
“I don’t think any of the women had the physical strength to overcome Fiona,” Jamie said. “Even two women working together would have had a hard time, and she would have fought and screamed. Someone would have heard.”
“There were no signs of struggle in the stream or on the bank,” Dwight said.
“There were a lot of footprints in the soft snow,” Ryder said. “Too many to tell who they belonged to.”
Travis picked up a sheet of paper from a stack on the end of the conference table. “The medical examiner says Fiona was struck on the back of the head,” he said. “It wasn’t enough to kill her, but it probably would have knocked her out, at least long enough to restrain her.”
“So whoever killed her comes up behind her, hits her in the head with a big rock before she can say anything,” Gage said. “She falls, he wraps her up in duct tape, slits her throat and leaves.”
“That’s different from the way he handled Kelly and Christy,” Ryder said.
“Probably because he was in a hurry,” Gage said. “He was out in the open, with lots of people around. He needed to get her down quickly.”
“So we’re pretty sure it’s a man,” Travis said. “I think it’s safe to rule out the law enforcement personnel who were at the party.”
“That leaves Ken, Alex and Tim,” Ryder said.
Travis wrote the names on the whiteboard. “Ken was the last person seen with Fiona,” he said. “He’s big and strong enough to take her down without too much trouble, and he was alone with her. Alex and Tim could have worked together. They’re new to the area, and we don’t know much about them.”
“Ken has strong alibis for the other two murders,” Ryder said. “And we’re assuming all three women were murdered by the same person because of the business card.”
“Do we have any idea what the significance of Ice Cold might be?” Jamie asked.
“I’ve been working on that.” Dwight, who had been rocked back in his chair, straightened. “Online searches haven’t turned up anything—no businesses by that name. Maybe the killer is bragging about how ‘cool’ he is.”
“Or how fearless and unfeeling?” Jamie suggested. “Nothing can touch him because he’s ice cold.”
“We know this guy likes to show off,” Ryder said. “Leaving the cards at the scene of each killing is a way of bragging. And killing Fiona when he was pretty much surrounded by cops is pretty arrogant.”
“Tim and Alex struck me as arrogant,” Gage said.
“Let’s check their alibis for the other two killings,” Travis said. He glanced at his note. “And there’s one other man on the scene we need to check.”
“Doug Whittington,” Gage said.
“Right,” Travis said.
“The cook’s son,” Ryder said, remembering.
“It would have been fairly easy for him to slip away from the house and follow Fiona and Ken into the woods,” Travis said.
“What do you know about him?” Ryder asked. “Has he worked for your family long?”
“Rainey has been with us for at least ten years,” Gage said. “Doug only showed up a couple of months ago.”
“My parents agreed he could stay to help Rainey with the extra workload of so many wedding guests,” Travis said. “She promised to keep him in line.”
“What do you mean, keep him in line?” Ryder asked.
“He has a record,” Travis said. “In fact, he just finished a fifteen-month sentence in Buena Vista for assault and battery.”
“He beat up his girlfriend,” Gage said. “Broke her jaw and her arm.”
Jamie made a face. “So a history of violence against women. That definitely moves him up my list.”
“Let’s check him out,” Ryder said. “But be careful. Make it seem routine. Not like we suspect him.”
“We’ll keep a close eye on all our possible suspects,” Travis said. “Whoever did this may think he can kill right under our noses, but he’ll find out he’s wrong.” He laid aside the marker he’d been using to make notes on the whiteboard. “Dwight, I want you and Ryder to interview Doug tomorrow. Since his mother is so closely associated with our family, Gage and I should keep our distance for now.”
“I want to talk to Alex and Tim tomorrow, too,” Ryder said. “Double-check their alibis for the other murders.”
“If the roads open up tomorrow, we’ll have someone rush the forensic evidence we’ve collected to the lab,” Travis said.
“I wouldn’t hold your breath on that,” Gage said. “The snow is really coming down out there.”
“We’ll do what we can,” Travis said. “For now the rest of you go home and think about what we know so far. Maybe you’ll come up with an angle we haven’t examined yet.”
Ryder said good-night to the others and climbed into his Tahoe. But instead of driving to the guest house he rented on the edge of town, he turned toward the address for the cabin Alex and Tim said belonged to their aunt. He wouldn’t stop there tonight; he just wanted to check it out and see what those two might be up to. And if they weren’t home, he might take a little closer look at the place.
He had just turned onto the snow-covered forest service road that led to the cabin when he spotted a dark gray SUV pulled over on the side of the road. The vehicle was empty, as far as he
could tell, but there were no houses or driveways nearby. Had someone broken down and left the car here? An Eagle Mountain Warriors bumper sticker peeked out from the slush that spattered the vehicle’s bumper. Where had he seen this vehicle before?
He parked his Tahoe in front of the SUV and debated calling in the plate, which was almost obscured by slush. He climbed out of his vehicle and walked back toward the SUV to get a better look. He had just pulled out his flashlight when shouting to his right made him freeze. A cry for help, followed by cursing and what might have been jeers. He played the light over the side of the road and spotted an opening in the brush. It appeared to be a trail. As the shouting continued, he sprinted down the narrow path into the woods.
Chapter Eleven
The trail ended in a clearing at the base of ice-covered cliffs. Ryder shut off his light and stopped, watching and listening. Moonlight illuminated two young men in Eagle Mountain High School letter jackets standing at the base of a frozen waterfall, while a third young man dangled precariously from the ice. “Help!” the man stranded on the ice called.
“Chicken!” one of his companions jeered.
“You don’t get credit unless you make it all the way up,” the third man said.
“This ice is rotten,” the first man said. “This was a stupid idea.”
“You took the dare,” the second man said. “That’s the rules. To get credit, you have to complete it.”
Ryder switched on the light, the powerful beam freezing the three teens. They stared at Ryder, expressions ranging from defiance to fear. Ryder moved toward them. “I heard the shouting,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Just doing some climbing.” The first young man—blond, with acne scars on his cheeks—spoke. He slouched, hands in pockets, not meeting Ryder’s eyes.
Ryder played the beam of light over the young man on the ice. He balanced on a narrow ledge on one foot, hands dug into the ice in front of his chest. “You okay up there?” he called.
“I’m fine.” The man spoke through clenched teeth.
