Mountain of Evidence

by Cindi Myers

  He grabbed her, and she cried out, startled, and then in pain, he was squeezing her so hard. “Where is Dane hiding?” he asked. “You must know. You two were lovers. You said he’d been in contact with you since he left. Why? Did he want you to meet him and run away?”

  “I don’t know where he is,” she protested. “He never told me anything. And we’re not lovers. Not for a long time.”

  He shoved her away. “No, you’re not Dane’s lover. You’re sleeping with that cop, that Ranger Brigade commander. You’d do that old man but you could hardly stand to kiss me.” He swore at her, then put the car in gear and they rocketed forward once more, but not as fast as before, and after a few seconds, he switched on the headlights.

  The high beams illuminated a landscape of rock and sagebrush, the road two faintly discernable ruts climbing steeply. Not the road to the Mary Lee Mine, she thought. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I know a back way into the park,” he said. “We’re going to look for Dane.” He sounded calmer now. More sane.

  She assumed he meant the National Park. “It’s a big park,” she said. “How will you find him?”

  “Because I’ve got you. He’ll want to save you. He’s got a hero complex, did you know that? It’s why he started Welcome Home Warriors. He wanted everyone—all the townspeople, and all of us veterans—to look up to him. That Dane Trask, what a great guy.” He laughed. “People aren’t saying he’s so great now.”

  “But Dane did help a lot of people,” she said. “He helped you get a job with TDC.”

  “I got that job on my own,” he said. “Dane just took credit for it.”

  Was that true? She tried to remember, but she hadn’t paid that much attention.

  “And then he stole all that money from TDC,” Toby continued. “Everybody thought he was such a hard worker, winning all those awards, and putting in all those long hours, when in fact, he was siphoning off money from the jobs he worked.”

  She started to protest that that didn’t sound like Dane, but could TDC really make those accusations without proof? Toby continued talking. “When he found out everyone was on to him and he was going to be arrested, he tried to fake his own death, pushing that truck into the canyon. But then he was stupid enough to keep showing up. He couldn’t lay low and keep quiet. People like him, always wanting to be in the spotlight, can’t ever do that.”

  The Dane she had known and loved hadn’t been one to seek the spotlight. He had never been shy or timid, but he never went out of the way to tout his own achievements. Had love blinded her to his faults?

  “The people at TDC were on to him for a long time,” Toby said. “But they had to be careful. They had to collect a lot of proof. I talked to one of the people who was investigating Dane and he told me all kinds of things they found out about him. They said he was selling drugs to some of the guys at Welcome Home Warriors. Some of those men and women were fighting addiction and instead of helping them, Dane was making money off their weakness. Disgusting.”

  Eve listened, dazed, trying to take it in.

  “The guy at TDC told me they thought Dane had a secret safety deposit box where he kept records of all this stuff. I did some snooping and figured out where it was, but when I looked inside, it was just a bunch of pictures and stuff. He was too cagey to keep anything incriminating, I guess.”

  “You broke into Dane’s safety deposit box?” She shifted to face him, even though she could see him only dimly in the light from the instrument panel. “How did you get the key?”

  His teeth flashed white as he grinned. “Dane mentioned once that he had given you a key. I don’t remember how it came up, but I went to your house while you were at work one day to look around. You really should have better security. A woman living by herself can’t be too careful.”

  She felt sick, knowing he had been in her house, had pawed through her things. And to think she had kissed this man!

  “And then he murdered that woman. Everybody said they didn’t see it coming, but I did. I knew he had that kind of violence in him. You didn’t believe me when I tried to warn you, but now you see it’s true, don’t you?”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

  “Don’t you see?” Toby’s shout reverberated through the darkness. “He has to be stopped. The police won’t do it. Your precious Ranger commander won’t do it. So I have to do it.” He wrenched the car off the road, careening wildly.

  “Stop!” Eve screamed. “You’ll kill us both!”

  He braked hard, skidding and slamming into a rock outcropping. The airbags exploded, filling the air with choking white dust. Eve felt the impact against her chest, and bowed her head, eyes watering, disoriented in the darkness. In the sudden silence her own ragged breathing filled her ears. The driver’s door opened with a metallic protest, and a cold breeze raised goose bumps on her arm. Then her own door opened and Toby pressed his knife to her chest.

  She went rigid, steeling herself for the first cut. But instead of stabbing her, he sawed at her seat belt, then dragged her from the car. “Come on,” he said. “We walk from here.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Masterson’s car isn’t at the airport or the bus station or the train station.” Lieutenant Dance stood at the front of the room, briefing the members of the Ranger Brigade, as well as Montrose County Sheriff’s deputies, Colorado Department of Public Safety officers and Montrose Police Department officers who had mobilized to search for Toby and Eve. Men and women filled every seat in the Sheriff’s Department classroom, and stood shoulder to shoulder along the walls, many clutching cardboard cups of coffee. Grant had positioned himself in a back corner, arms crossed over his chest, jaw clenched. “We checked hotels in Montrose, Delta, Grand Junction and all the surrounding communities and the car isn’t there,” Dance continued. “We’ve alerted gas stations, campgrounds and any other place they might have gone. We’re drawing a blank.”

  “He could have taken her to a private residence,” a woman in the crowd said. “If the car is in a garage somewhere, we’ll never see it.”

  “Masterson rents an apartment midtown,” Dance said. “We’ve had the place staked out since shortly after he took Ms. Shea. He hasn’t been there. He hasn’t been in contact with friends, family, or people he knows from work. We put a trace on his cell phone, but the battery is either dead or he’s removed it. In any case, he hasn’t used it to make any calls, and he hasn’t purchased anything with his credit cards.”

  “What’s his history?” a man asked. “Has he done anything like this before?”

  “He’s got a couple of domestic violence charges dating back three years,” Dance said. “Both involving physical altercations with a woman he was dating at the time. They were both charged. But nothing since then.”

  “Somebody said he dated Ms. Shea?” someone else asked.

  “He went out with her one time that we’re aware of.” Dance looked to Grant for confirmation. Grant gave a curt nod. “Her coworker at the flower shop said she recently turned him down for a second date,” Dance continued.

  “Maybe he didn’t like that,” a woman said.

  “Maybe not,” Dance said. “Right now, we don’t care about his motivation so much unless it gives us a clue as to where he is now.”

  “We need to focus on the National Park,” Grant said.

  The rustle and creak of uniforms and weaponry filled the room as everyone shifted to look at him. Grant pushed his way toward the podium. “Grant Sanderlin, Ranger Brigade Commander,” he introduced himself. “Masterson was obsessed with Dane Trask. He tried to date Trask’s administrative assistant and his daughter, and only succeeded with Ms. Shea, who had a long-term relationship with Trask that ended six months ago. New evidence has come to light this evening that leads us to believe it was actually Masterson who murdered Marsha Grandberry in the park, and left one of Trask’s Welcom
e Home Warriors business cards on the body in an attempt to frame Trask. Masterson and Trask worked together at Welcome Home Warriors, so Masterson had easy access to those cards.”

  “What evidence?” a man asked.

  “Ms. Grandberry took a selfie with her phone at the trailhead, just before she set out on her hike. An enlargement of the photograph shows Masterson standing nearby, watching her.”

  A murmur spread around the room. “It’s a big park,” someone in the back said. “Where do we start?”

  Grant pulled a map of the park from his jacket and pinned it to the wall behind him. He used a pointer to indicate a section ringed in yellow highlighter. “We’ve had several confirmed sightings of Trask in this general area. We think Masterson may take Ms. Shea here, in an effort to lure Trask out of hiding.” It was, at best, an educated guess, but for now it was all they had.

  He stepped back from the podium, and Dance took over to assign areas for the various groups to patrol. Grant left the room, signaling to Carmen Redhorse to accompany him. “I’m headed to the Dead Horse Trail,” he said. “Masterson killed Ms. Grandberry there, so he may return with Eve. I want you and Knightbridge as backup.”

  “Yes, sir,” Redhorse said. “Are we going in on foot?”

  “Yes.” It was a risky move, carrying with it the danger of being ambushed, but in that rough country, he didn’t see any other approach to take.

  “If I may, sir, I think we should send officers in from both sides in a flanking maneuver,” she said. “It’s rough country there, but it is possible to approach from the south and east.”

  “Good idea. No more than a couple in each group,” he said. “We don’t want to sound like a herd of buffalo closing in on him.”

  “No, sir.”

  He left her to the details and returned to his cruiser. He sat, the engine and lights off, the radio turned down so that the chatter was a low murmur. He had called Janie and talked to her before going into the sheriff’s department, and she had sounded tired, but calm, and had seemed okay with spending the night with Sarah and her husband, but had made him promise to call her as soon as he found Eve. Her faith that he would find Eve, and that she would be all right, buoyed him.

  He closed his eyes and tried to put himself in Masterson’s shoes. He couldn’t think what the man was thinking, only try to predict based on past behavior. Masterson projected an air of swagger and confidence, which sometimes was a blind for deep insecurities. He and Trask had worked together, had maybe even been friends. Trask had helped Masterson find his job at TDC. Unlike others of Trask’s friends, who had defended him when he was accused of theft and murder, Masterson had on more than one occasion tried to persuade people—particularly Eve—that Trask was dangerous.

  Possibly, Masterson was jealous of Trask, of the respect and admiration Trask had received. He wanted that respect and admiration for himself. He wanted the life Trask had led.

  He wanted the woman Trask had loved.

  Grant wondered what an FBI profiler would think of his theories. He didn’t have time to wait for a profiler’s opinion. He could only act on his own instincts, and his instincts told him Masterson would bring Eve to the national park—to taunt Trask or maybe to trap him. But Grant intended to get to him before he had a chance to do either.

  * * *

  EVE DIDN’T KNOW how long they had been stumbling along in the dark, over boulders and through brambles, falling and getting up and falling again. After her fifth fall she had persuaded Toby to untie her hands. “There’s nowhere I can run to out here,” she said. “And I can balance myself a lot better if I can use my hands. I’ll be able to move faster.”

  “All right, but if you try to run away, I’ll kill you,” he said, with all the emotion of someone explaining to a five-year-old that failing to clean his room would result in a lost allowance. He flashed his knife again to cut her free, and she winced as she brought her arms forward and rubbed feeling into them.

  “Come on,” he said, and grabbed her arm and dragged her after him again.

  After what seemed like an hour of walking, the ground became less rocky, and stunted junipers and oaks replaced the sagebrush and weeds. Eve wondered if they were near the rim of the Black Canyon, then wished she hadn’t thought of that. In the darkness it would be so easy to stumble into that black void, and fall for many minutes before hitting bottom.

  At that moment, Toby shoved her to the ground, then crouched beside her. “What is it?” she asked. But then she heard it—the steady throb of a helicopter, flying low.

  “Keep your head down,” he said. “Don’t look up. We don’t want them to see us.”

  She pressed her forehead to the ground and closed her eyes. Was the helicopter looking for them? How would it ever find them down here in the darkness?

  The throb of the chopper grew louder and louder, then receded, never passing directly over them. When they could no longer hear it, Toby stood and pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  A short while later she sensed another change in the terrain. Though it was darker than ever, the little moonlight that was available blocked by trees crowding in around them, the ground was smoother underneath. “Are we on a trail?” she asked Masterson, who hadn’t spoken in perhaps an hour.

  “You get an A,” he said. “Clever girl.”

  A trail meant they were in the developed area of the park. Development meant people. Hikers wouldn’t be out this time of night, but would park rangers?

  Janie would have alerted Grant to her disappearance by now. Eve couldn’t know how much the girl would have heard or seen from the back room, but Grant would be looking for her. How would he ever find her here in the park, miles from the flower shop and even miles, by now, from Toby’s car?

  She looked up, trying to gauge from the sky how many hours they were from dawn. More people would come to the park with light—climbers and hikers, campers and anglers. With them would come a better chance of being spotted. She just had to hang on until light.

  Toby stopped so suddenly she plowed into his back. He grabbed hold and held her against him, an embrace she didn’t welcome but could do nothing to fend off. Not without risking the knife he still carried in one hand. She could feel it now, resting against her left shoulder. “What was that?” he whispered, his breath hot in her left ear.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Listen!”

  She listened, holding her breath, and heard...nothing. “I don’t hear anything,” she said after a long moment.

  “I heard something,” he said. “Over to our left.” He gestured to the side of the trail.

  Was it Grant? she wondered. Had he somehow guessed where she was?

  “Maybe it’s Dane,” Toby said.

  “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  “Not yet,” he said. “This isn’t the right place for it.” He released his hold on her and shoved her forward once more. “Come on. We have to keep going.”

  * * *

  “WE’VE GOT SOMETHING from the aerial mapping the Forest Service chopper crew did.” Hud approached Grant at the Dead Horse trailhead, where he and his team were assembling.

  “What is it?” Grant grabbed the report and pulled his reading glasses from his shirt pocket.

  Hud leaned over his shoulder. “That little red blob there—that’s a heat source. It could be a couple of deer or an elk bedded down, but where it’s located, the chopper crew thinks it was people—possibly one big one, but maybe two. They weren’t moving.”

  “They probably heard the helicopter and froze,” Grant said. He tried to hide his disappointment. It might be Eve and Toby, but the information was too vague to tell.

  “There’s more.” Hud flipped to a second page in the report. This was a fuzzy black-and-white photograph of what looked like a wrecked car. “They got this, about
a mile and a half from the heat source,” Hud said.

  Grant squinted at the photo. “It’s hard to tell much about it. Maybe it’s been there a long time.”

  “Uh-uh,” Hud said. “They spotted it because they were getting a heat reading from the engine. It was still warm. And it gets better.” He turned to a third page. This was a close up, blurry but legible, of a license tag. “That’s the tag number for Masterson’s car. For whatever reason he abandoned it and started walking. They’re headed this way.”

  Grant let out a breath, feeling twenty pounds lighter. “All right, everyone,” he said in a normal tone of voice. “Let’s get in place. We’ve got confirmation that our targets are headed this way.”

  “What’s the plan?” Dance asked.

  “I want you positioned across the trail, about 100 yards out, hidden in the brush. I need two officers on this side of the trail.”

  “Spencer and Reynolds are on their way,” Dance said. “They should be here soon.”

  “Radio them to position themselves near the trail, about fifty yards apart. I’m going to be on the trail. If I can intercept Masterson, you three can close in from both sides. Redhorse will be behind me, about fifty yards farther south on the trail. Hud will be fifty yards north. Remember, he’s got a hostage, so do everything you can to avoid endangering her. I’m gambling we can catch him off guard.”

  Plans made, they moved toward their positions to wait and pray they could stop Masterson, before he killed again.

  Hold on, Eve, Grant sent a silent message. I promised Janie I’d bring you home safe. He had never made a promise he wanted to keep more.

  * * *

  EVE WAS TIRED, her body heavy, every step an effort. They must have walked miles over rough country, and that after working on her feet all day, then being terrified for most of the night. “I have to stop and rest,” she told Toby. “I can’t keep going.”