Ice Cold Killer

by Cindi Myers

  “The road’s closed again?” Ryder asked.

  Travis nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  “I found a snowmobile at Ken’s duplex, with the windscreen shot out,” Ryder said.

  “He admitted he tried to run us down at Silver Pick,” Darcy said. “And he was the one who pretended to be an old woman with a mastiff, who ran me off Silverthorne Road that night.” She studied the faces of all three lawmen, trying to figure out what they were thinking. “I don’t think he killed Kelly or the others,” she said. “Maybe I’m wrong, but...”

  “I don’t think he killed them, either,” Ryder said. “He was teaching a class full of students when Kelly was killed.”

  “He was supposedly at a basketball game when that truck ran Darcy off the road,” Gage said.

  “That one was easy enough to fake,” Ryder said. “He went to the basketball game, made sure he saw and talked to a lot of people, then slipped out. People would remember he was there, but they wouldn’t necessarily remember the exact time they saw him. The classroom is tougher to fake. Everyone we talked to said he was there the whole time.”

  “So the killer is still out there?” Darcy asked.

  “Maybe,” Travis said. “Or maybe he took advantage of the break in the weather and left town.”

  “I’m still hoping Pi and his friends saw something that will help us,” Ryder said.

  “So far they’re still not talking,” Travis said. “But I’ve contacted all their parents and they all agreed this business of daring each other to do risky things has to stop. They’ve agreed that the boys should spend their spare time for the next few weeks doing community service.”

  “What kind of service?” Darcy asked.

  “They can start by shoveling snow. We have a lot of it to move at the school and at the homes of elderly residents. That should keep them out of trouble.”

  “So what do you do about the killer?” Darcy asked.

  Ryder’s arm around her tightened. “We wait.”

  * * *

  DARCY WAS SURPRISED to learn it was only a little after seven o’clock when Ryder had arrived at her house. By nine, the two of them had moved her belongings—including all four cats—into the house he rented on the other side of town. She had located the cats hidden in various places around the house—behind books on a shelf, under a sofa cushion, in a cubby in the kitchen. She dosed them all with an herbal sedative and Ryder helped her stow them in their carriers and gather their food, treats, toys and litter boxes. He didn’t ask why she had changed her mind about leaving the cats at the house, merely helped her move them. She hoped it was because he understood she needed them with her. They were part of her home—and the tiny house would never feel like home again.

  When they had unloaded the cats and her belongings at Ryder’s place, he made macaroni and cheese and served it to her with hot tea spiked with rum. “This tastes better than anything I’ve ever eaten,” she said, trying hard not to inhale the bowl full of orange noodles that had to be the ultimate comfort food.

  “I’m not a gourmet cook, but you won’t starve while you’re here,” he said.

  She wouldn’t have to be afraid while she was here, either, she thought.

  After supper he persuaded her to leave the dishes until the next day, and he built a fire in the fireplace. Then they settled on the sofa and he wrapped a knitted throw around them both. “Do you want to talk about what happened?” he asked, his voice quiet.

  “The sheriff said I’ll need to give a statement to him tomorrow.”

  “You can wait until then if you like,” he said. “We can try to find a victim’s advocate for you to talk to, too. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

  “I want to tell you.” It was true. She laced her fingers through his. “Talking can help. I learned that before—after Jay kidnapped and raped me.” It had taken her a long time—years, really—before she had been able to name the crimes done against her so boldly. But naming them was a form of taking control, she had learned.

  Ryder settled her more firmly against him. “All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”

  So she told him everything—from the moment in the kitchen through everything that had happened until his arrival at her house. Reciting the facts, along with admitting her terror in the moment, made her feel stronger. “As bad as it was, it could have been so much worse,” she said. “That’s one reason I don’t think Ken is the one who killed Kelly and the others. He’s a terrible man, but I don’t think he’s a murderer.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Ryder agreed. “But I’m glad he’s behind bars now—or will be, as soon as his doctors okay his release. And I’m not sure I can put into words how relieved I am that you’re safe.”

  She turned into his arms and kissed him, a kiss that banished the chill from the last cold places within her. “Ken was right about one thing,” she said.

  “What is that?”

  “I was wrong to insist on continuing to stay out at that isolated house by myself. Not that I would have ever accepted his offer to stay with him, but I could have gone to Stacy’s.”

  “I’m glad you’re here right now,” he said.

  “I’m going to stay as long as you’ll have me,” she said.

  “How about forever?”

  She stared at him, her heart having climbed somewhere into her throat. “I love you,” he said. “And I want to keep on loving you. But I don’t want to pressure you or control you or ever have you think I’m like Ken or Jay or anyone else who would try to hurt you.”

  She put her fingers over his lips. “Shhh. I know the difference between you and those others.” She moved her hand and kissed the place where her fingers had been. “I love you, too,” she said. “And I want to be with you.” She kissed him again.

  “To forever,” he said and kissed her, softly and surely.

  “Forever,” she echoed. Saying the word was like uttering a magical incantation that opened the last lock on her heart. She felt lighter and freer—and more safe and secure—than she ever had.

  * * *

  Look for the next book in award-winning author Cindi Myers’s Eagle Mountain Murder Mystery:

  Winter Storm Wedding miniseries,

  Snowbound Suspicion, available next month.

  And don’t miss the titles in the original

  Eagle Mountain Murder Mystery series:

  Saved by the Sheriff

  Avalanche of Trouble

  Deputy Defender

  Danger on Dakota Ridge

  Available now from Harlequin Intrigue!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Smoky Mountains Ranger by Lena Diaz.

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  Smoky Mountains Ranger

  by Lena Diaz

  Chapter One

  Adam ducked behind a massive, uprooted tree, the tangle of dead roots and blackened branches his only cover on this wildfire-blighted section of the Great Smoky Mountains. Had the man holding the pistol seen him? He ticked off the seconds as he slid his left hand to the Glock 22 holstered at his waist. When half a minute passed without sounds of pursuit, he inched over to peer up the trail and moved his hand to the radio strapped to his belt. After switching to the emergency channel, he pressed the button on his shoulder mic.

  “This is Ranger McKenzie on the Sugarland Mountain Trail.” He kept his voice low, just above a whisper. “There’s a yahoo with a gun up here, about a quarter mile northwest of the intersection with the Appalachian Trail. Requesting backup. Over.”

  Nothing but silence met his request. He tilted the radio to see the small screen. After verifying the frequency and noting the battery was fully charged, he pressed the mic again.

  “Ranger McKenzie requesting backup. Over.” Again he waited. Again, the radio was silent. Cell phone coverage in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was hit-or-miss. It didn’t matter if someone was coming up from the Tennessee side, like Adam, or hiking in from the North Carolina border. Cell phones up here were unreliable. Period. Which was why he and the rest of the staff carried powerful two-way radios that worked everywhere in the park.

  With one exception.

  The Sugarland Mountain Trail, where the devastating Chimney Tops wildfire had destroyed a communication tower.

  Budget cuts meant the rebuilding was slow and had to be prioritized. Rehabilitating habitats, the visitors’ center and the more popular, heavily used trails near the park’s entrance were high on that list. Putting up a new tower was close to the bottom. So, naturally, the first and only time that Adam had ever encountered someone with a gun in the park, it happened in the middle of the only dead zone.

  There would be no backup.

  If the guy was just a good old boy out for target practice, the situation wouldn’t even warrant a call back to base. Adam could handle it on his own and be on his way. But the stakes were higher today—much higher—because of two things.

  One, the faded blue ink tattoos on the gunman’s bulging biceps that marked him as an ex-con, which likely meant he couldn’t legally possess a firearm and wouldn’t welcome a federal officer catching him with one.

  Two, the alarmingly pale, obviously terrified young woman on the business end of Tattoo Guy’s pistol.

  Even from twenty yards away, peering through branches, Adam could tell the gunman had a tenuous grasp on an explosive temper. He gestured wildly with his free hand, his face bright red as he said something in response to whatever the petite redhead had just said.

  Her hands were empty and down at her sides. Unless she’d shoved a pistol in the back waistband of her denim shorts, she didn’t appear to have a weapon to defend herself. The formfitting white blouse she wore didn’t have any pockets. Even if she’d hidden a small gun, like a derringer, in her bra, there was no way she could get it out faster than the gunman could pull the trigger.

  Did they know each other? Was this a case of domestic violence? Since the two were arguing, it seemed likely that they did know each other. So what had brought them to the brink of violence? And what had brought them to this particular trail?

  Neither of them was wearing a backpack. Unless they had supplies at a base camp somewhere, that ruled them out as NOBOs on the AT who’d gone seriously off course and gotten lost. Not that he’d expect any northbound through-hikers on the Appalachian Trail in the middle of summer anyway. Most NOBOs started out on the two-thousand-plus-mile hike around March or April so they could reach Mount Katahdin in Maine before blizzards made the AT impassable. But even if they were day hikers, they had no business being on the Sugarland Trail. It was closed, for good reason. The wildfire damage made this area exceedingly dangerous. Now it was dangerous for an entirely different reason.

  An idiot with a pistol.

  So much for the peaceful workday he’d expected when he’d started his trail inspection earlier this morning.

  He switched the worthless radio off, not wanting to risk a sudden burst of static alerting the gunman to his presence. The element of surprise was on his side and he aimed to keep it that way as long as possible, or at least until he came up with a plan.

  He belatedly wished he’d dusted off his Kevlar and put it on this morning. But even though he was the law enforcement variety of ranger, as opposed to an informational officer, the kind of dangers he ran into up here didn’t typically warrant wearing a bullet-resistant vest. The heat and extra weight tended to outweigh the risks of not having a vest on since the possibility of getting into a gunfight while patrolling half a million acres of mostly uninhabited mountains and forests was close to zero.

  Until today.

  Still, it wasn’t the bullets that concerned him the most. It was the steep drop-off behind the woman. One wrong step and she’d go flying off the mountain. The edge was loose and crumbling in many places, particularly in this section of the trail. The couple—if that’s what they were—couldn’t have picked a worse spot for their argument.

  Sharp boulders and the charred remains of dozens of trees littered the ravine fifty feet below. Branches stuck up like sharp spikes ready to impale anything—or anyone—unlucky enough to fall on them.

  Twenty feet farther north or south on this section of the Sugarland path would provide a much better chance of survival if the worst happened. The slope wasn’t as steep and was carpeted with thick wild grasses. Fledgling scrub brush dotting the mountainside might help break someone’s fall if they lost their footing. They’d still be banged up, might twist an ankle or even crack a bone. But that was preferable to plunging into a rocky ravine with no chance of survival.

  The gunman and the woman were still arguing. But Adam couldn’t figure out what they were saying. Sometimes sounds carried for miles out here. Other times a person could barely hear someone a few yards away. It all depended on the wind and the configuration of mountains, rocks and trees nearby.

  At the man’s back, a vertical wall of sheer rock went straight up to a higher peak. In front of him was the woman and the sharp drop-off. Sneaking up on him just wasn’t going to happen. Either by luck or by design, he’d chosen a spot that was impossible to approach without being seen.

  As Adam watched, the man gestured with his pistol for the woman to head south, away from Adam. When she didn’t move, he stepped forward. She backed up, moving perilously closer to the edge. Adam drew a sharp breath. If he didn’t do something fast, this was going to end in tragedy. He’d have to approach openly, giving up his element of surprise, and hope that cooler heads prevailed.

  He unsnapped the safety flap on his holster—just in case—and straightened. Keeping his gaze trained on the ground, he boldly stepped onto the path in plain sight and whistled a tune—AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.” It seemed appropriate at the moment.

  Continuing to look down and pretending not to notice the couple, his hope was to get as close to them as possible and appear nonthreatening—just a ranger in the mountains, doing his job. Most people didn’t realize the difference between informational officers and federal law enforcement rangers anyway. They’d assume the pistol holstered on his belt was for protection against bears or other dangerous wildlife. Usually, it was.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw the man shove his pistol into his pants pocket. Adam kept moving forward, head down, increasing the volume of his whistling and tapping his thigh to the beat.

  “You gonna run int
o us or what?” the man’s voice snapped.

  Adam jerked his head up as if in surprise, stopping a few feet away from the couple. “Sorry, folks. Must have been daydreaming. Pretty morning for it, don’t you think?” He smiled and waved toward the mountains around them. “Even with the blight from the wildfires, it’s still beautiful up here.”

  The man watched him with open suspicion as if sizing him up and trying to decide whether Adam really hadn’t seen the gun. The woman stared at him, her green eyes big and round behind matching green-framed glasses. But instead of seeming relieved to have help, she appeared to be even more terrified than before.

  Adam struggled to maintain his smile. “I’m Ranger Adam McKenzie. You folks lost? Got to admit I’m a bit surprised to see you on this particular trail. Know why?”

  Tattoo Guy seemed to come to some kind of decision and offered his own smile that didn’t quite reach his dark eyes. “Afraid I don’t. Why?”

  “Because the trail is closed, for your safety. It’s because of the fires last season. You heard about those? Burned over seventeen thousand acres, ten thousand of them right here in the park. Killed fourteen people, too.” He didn’t have to fake his wince. The fire had been horrible, tragic. Innocent civilians—including children—had perished in the flames. Families had been destroyed. The community was still struggling to recover as best they could. But nothing could replace the precious lives that were lost.

  The man glanced at the woman, his eyes narrowed as if in warning. “Can’t say that I’ve heard about that. I’m not from around here.”

  “What about you, miss?” Adam grinned again. “Sorry. Where are my manners? I didn’t catch your name. I’m Adam McKenzie. And you are?” He held out his hand to shake hers, purposely leaving enough space between them so that she’d have to move away from the edge to take his hand.