He wouldn’t exactly say Lori flaunted her subtle feminine curves, but she had a way about her. A beautiful, sweet woman—she’d lost her husband two years ago. Evelyn had brought her up to Heath several times. They were both in the guest ranch business. Yada yada.
“How did you get past the guard?” he called.
“I told him I was keeping your horses and dogs, and you wanted to see me.”
Only half true. Pete had worked with Lori to transfer and board the horses and dogs, for which Heath was grateful. Despite her generosity, Heath hadn’t wanted to see her, especially right now.
As if emphasizing his thoughts, Harper came up behind him. The last thing he wanted was for her to get the wrong idea. That shouldn’t matter to him, but it did. Lori was interested in Heath. He had no doubt about that, but he didn’t return her interest. Still, she was a fellow guest ranch owner, an active member in the community, and they were friends.
Lori stepped onto the porch and her light perfume found its mark.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
Her smile made him uncomfortable. Maybe he was overly sensitive. The woman was simply being warm and friendly. She had told him that all Texans were that way. “You and Evelyn. Pete too. Y’all need to come stay with me. I’m worried about you staying here. It could be dangerous.”
The door shut behind him. Harper had gone back inside. She probably thought Heath had something going on with Lori.
“She can come too. Anyone who’s here with you is welcome at Circle S.” She leaned in closer to whisper. “Now don’t go telling anyone I said this, but I heard that a lot of law is about to drop down on this ranch. They’re probably going to kick you to the curb anyway.”
“Why would you hear that before me?” Heath said the words, but he had a pretty good idea why. Lori had a way of making people give up secrets. She might have even heard that from whoever was on guard duty at the gate.
Heath ushered Lori off the porch and into his home where he found Harper back in the kitchen making hot chocolate with water from the teakettle. He introduced the women to each other and Harper offered to make Lori hot chocolate too.
Heath left them and got on his cell to Taggart. Left a voice mail. Then called Moffett.
She answered. “Heath, I was just about to call you.”
“Is there something I should know?”
“We found out who we believe could be the victim based on Harper’s sketch. Her parents reported her missing today. She was backpacking with her new husband. They were honeymooning. He’s also missing. We’ll need Harper to look at photographs and ID her as the woman she believes she saw.”
Heath rubbed his eyes as Harper approached. “Heath, what is it?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SATURDAY, 9:12 A.M.
BRIDGER COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE
The passenger seat in Heath’s truck was becoming all too familiar. Harper’s palms slicked. She wrapped her hand around the door grip on their approach to the Bridger County Sheriff’s Office. When she’d come here to meet the sketch artist, the place had appeared calm. Everything was as it should be.
Today tension rippled through the air, with the heat already rising from the black asphalt as they made their way to the building.
Her heart had broken at the news that not one but two people were missing. Even more shattering—honeymooners. That she had possibly witnessed the new bride’s demise left Harper broken and empty. The woman’s parents had flown in from Nebraska last night, hoping for news of their daughter. They recognized her as possibly being the woman in the sketch artist’s composite. Harper had been called in to identify the victim from a photograph lineup.
Harper wanted to meet the parents. To somehow console them, but that wouldn’t happen during the investigation. Sheriff Taggart would have to look closely at them. It was standard procedure to suspect the people closest to a victim because murders were most often committed by someone the victim knew. Despite her time as a crime scene photographer, Harper still couldn’t fathom that truth. Would Harper also be asked to look at pictures of the father—was he the man behind the weapon? She shuddered. The sheriff would also suspect the husband. He was still missing but could have committed the crime. Waves of grief rolled through her as she struggled to believe that a family member could murder a loved one.
At the doors to the county sheriff’s office, Heath ushered Harper through to find Detective Moffett waiting.
“The parents are sequestered in another room, waiting to hear the news. We have photographs of their daughter for you to look at.”
“What about her father?” Harper didn’t spell out her meaning for the detective.
“At this moment, he doesn’t match your description of the murderer.” She leaned in. “He’s in a wheelchair. Has MS.”
“I see.”
Moffett led her to a room. Photographs were laid out on the table. Harper closed her eyes and recalled the images of the victim she had committed to memory.
Before Harper looked at the photographs, she glanced at Heath, then Moffett. “They’ll want hope that she’s still alive.” Harper couldn’t give them any. She’d seen the woman’s empty eyes.
“We all do,” Moffett said.
Harper steadied herself, then faced the nameless photographs lined up on the table. Many different women stared back at her. Blood rushed to her head, roared in her ears.
She ran a forefinger over the edge of one particular photograph. Those eyes—she could never forget them.
The woman in the photograph was smiling. Laughing with friends. Tears burned down Harper’s cheeks.
Why had this cruelty happened?
She glanced at Moffett. “This is the woman I saw. Is it . . . Is it her?”
“Yes.”
“Can I have her name, please?”
“Sophie Osborne. Her husband’s name is Chase,” Moffett said.
“And the parents?”
“Rick and Netta Batterson.” Moffett studied Harper. “Anything else?”
Harper shook her head.
“Thank you for your help.”
Strong but gentle hands gripped her shoulders and led her out of the room to another, more comfortable room. Heath brought her a mug of hot, steaming coffee. “I’m so sorry you had to go through this. I’m sorry for the parents.”
“And now that we know for sure it was her, we also know her husband may have been murdered too.” Harper shivered. “Or could it have been him who killed her? Do you happen to know how old her husband is?”
“I looked at pictures of him too. He’s around Sophie’s age.”
“Then he didn’t kill her.” She’d seen part of the shooter’s face. The wrinkles surrounding his eyes. “The shooter was much older. Not a young man on a honeymoon. It wasn’t the husband.”
“Agreed. At least that’s what I gathered from Laura’s composites.”
The good news was that multiple agencies would now look for the two missing hikers. The bad news was that Harper was certain at least one of them was dead. She didn’t hold out hope for Chase, unless he had somehow escaped and gotten lost in millions of acres and was still trying to find his way back to civilization. But with a hunter after him—someone who was familiar with the area—his chances of survival were slim.
Detective Moffett came into the room with a laptop. “I’ve informed the parents. We’re now searching for two people. We’ll ask for volunteers as well. Ms. Reynolds, are you up for it? If so, you and Deputy McKade can help with the search. The sheriff appreciates your eye for details. You’ve brought us this far.”
Wow. The sheriff’s crew had gone from being skeptical of Harper to being staunch supporters almost overnight. The detective’s question surprised her, and she glanced at Heath.
He crossed his arms. “I’m not on board with it. It would be too dangerous for Harper out there.”
“Sheriff says it will be fine. With a huge contingent of law enforcement out there, search dog
s too, the shooter would be a fool to stick around. But Sheriff assigned Deputy Arty Custer to go with you as a precaution. We need all the help we can get.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
SATURDAY, 2:28 P.M.
BRIDGER-TETON NATIONAL FOREST
Flanked by Heath and Deputy Custer, Harper hiked the trail with the new camera she had bought in town. She and Emily had each gotten a new laptop as well. They were burning through their remaining funds much too quickly as they waited on the insurance to process their claims on the Airstream and truck. She hoped this would be the last time she had to spend big bucks for a while. She still needed to replace her tripod and get another telephoto lens.
As they hiked, she couldn’t stop thinking about Heath. So what if he wasn’t on board with her joining the search? Law enforcement needed all the able bodies they could get—and Sheriff Taggart had okayed it. Shutting down the national forest was no easy thing at the height of tourist season. Still, Heath preferred that she stay back at the ranch safe and sound until this was over. But Lori Somerall had other thoughts. She wanted them all to move to her ranch house, away from the chaos and danger.
Harper liked the woman, and in another life they could have been friends, but in this life Lori definitely had her eyes on Heath and that set Harper on edge. So she was relieved when he declined Lori’s invitation. Before Lori had showed up, he had almost kissed Harper. And she had leaned into his hand, unable to resist his touch. What was the matter with her? Had this situation made her entirely too vulnerable?
She had the feeling that it wouldn’t matter. She would be uncontrollably drawn to Heath in any situation. It was almost as if an invisible force that spanned time and distance had brought them together again. But Harper knew she could never be with Heath. He needed someone though—just not her.
She refocused her thoughts on the task at hand and resolved to keep them there. But that was difficult since the man in her thoughts hiked right next to her, his broad shoulders distracting her.
She stopped and guzzled water. Poured some over her head, the shocking cold a slap in the face.
“You don’t want to drink too much too soon,” Deputy Custer said. “Save it for later.”
Right. She hiked forward and followed the deputy off the trail. He yanked out a paper search map. “We’re supposed to search this region off trail for, you know, a body or anything out of the ordinary.”
The sun beat down on them, deterred only by the shade they now entered along the trail. They hiked up an incline, gasping with the effort, always looking, always searching for evidence of a violent crime.
A couple of hours later, Harper broke the silence. “Sophie and her husband, Chase. They hiked for days on miles and miles of trails. What did they see, Heath? What did they come across that got Sophie killed? That sent her running from a killer? You don’t think he was a poacher out hunting and didn’t want them to snitch on him, do you? Is that worth a life?”
Heath shook his head. “In my opinion, nothing is worth a life. And yet lives are taken for reasons beyond me all the time.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “He’s a psychopath. That’s what I think. Nobody but a psychopath could murder a woman like that.”
Deputy Custer chugged his bottle of water. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything. This guy hid his tracks well or else we would have found something by now. We’ve covered our area. We should head back and regroup.” He took a step.
Water slid from his mouth as he collapsed. Rifle fire echoed through the woods.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Get down!” Heath shoved her to the ground, threw his body over her, and relayed the emergency on his radio, grateful that he’d donned full deputy gear, which included body armor.
Harper wore body armor and carried a weapon too. Heath had insisted, and she hadn’t argued.
But none of it mattered. The body armor worked against pistol rounds but not high-velocity rifles—like what had probably taken out Arty.
He needed to shield Harper, but what about Arty? “Arty! You okay?”
He waited, covering Harper, contemplating how to get her out of there. This wasn’t supposed to happen!
“Heath, can you let me up now?”
No. How was he going to keep her safe?
Oh, God, help me.
If Harper had been the intended target, the shooter had missed. The guy had missed her with his long-distance rifle, so maybe he wasn’t a military-trained sniper.
“Stay down. I’m covering you,” he whispered in Harper’s ear. “But let’s very slowly crawl over between those boulders.”
“What about Arty?”
He feared the worst. “I’m going to check on him after I get you to cover.”
“Heath, no. The shooter will kill you. I’ve seen what he can do!”
“Please do as I ask. We don’t know where he is. The report sounded after the bullet hit Arty, so he’s not close, but he could be moving toward us.”
Heath stared at her until he saw in her eyes that she would comply. She nodded her agreement. She was his responsibility, and more than that, she was his friend and someone he cared deeply about. But he cared about Arty too, and the deputy needed his help.
He protected Harper as they inched over to hide between two boulders. Heart pounding, he pressed his back against the rock to catch his breath. “He could make his way around and catch you from a different angle. Please, stay down and hidden.”
Heath hunkered to make his way over to Arty. Harper grabbed him, fear in her eyes. “Please be careful.”
The sniper hadn’t fired another shot. That was good, right? Or was he merely waiting for the right moment or making his way closer? Sweat beaded along Heath’s brow. He sucked in a few breaths, then crawled from tree to tree until he slid behind the trunk closest to the fallen deputy. Heath crouched down and peered around the tree.
Arty lay facedown. A bullet hole in his back.
Oh, God . . . Why?
Had he stepped in front of Harper at the wrong moment? Or exactly the right moment?
“Arty, please, say something.”
Crimson blood spread out beneath him.
Heath flattened himself and crawled closer. He touched the man’s carotid. Nothing. Fury boiled in Heath’s gut. He didn’t want to leave the man there, but he had to get Harper to safety.
He radioed again for help. “Deputy down. Shots fired.” He relayed their location the best he could.
“Response team is on their way.” Laura’s familiar voice came through.
“I don’t know if we can wait.”
“Then get her out of there, Heath.”
He’d completed thirteen weeks of basic officer training at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy, but it was his military training that he would fall back on now. Training and experience. He found Harper crouched behind the boulder, palming her weapon. Good. She hadn’t fallen apart, though he hadn’t expected she would.
“Arty?”
He shook his head.
“We can’t leave him.”
“He’d want me to get you to safety.”
“We don’t know where the shooter is, Heath. How are we going to get out of here?”
Heath eyed the woods ahead of them. Hoping. Praying that the shooter wasn’t making his way around to shoot them from a new position. “Let’s stay low and close to the trees.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait here for help?”
Sometimes the only choices weren’t choices at all. “Yes. I’m sure.” The doubt in his voice belied his confident words.
Heath fired several rounds into the ground to see if he could get a reaction.
Nothing.
“Let’s go.” Together, Heath and Harper held their weapons at the ready as they traversed the woods heading back in the direction from which they’d come and away from Deputy Custer. Arty. Heath couldn’t let the pain of his death strangle him now.
He had to get Harper to safety. A
nger at Taggart nearly blinded him. She shouldn’t have been allowed to come to these woods. At least they knew the guy was still lurking in the national forest. He hadn’t run.
Heath wished he had.
Whop, whop, whop . . .
A helicopter. Search and rescue? Or law enforcement? Relief whooshed through Heath. He wouldn’t have to get her out of here alone.
“How do we signal them without exposing ourselves?”
Heath shouted into his radio, letting dispatch know the helicopter was right on top of them above the trees. Despite their efforts, Heath and Harper hadn’t made it that far from where Arty was shot.
Two heavily armed men in tactical gear—SWAT—repelled from the helicopter to the ground.
How determined was the shooter? Had he left the area like Heath hoped? Heath stepped from the cover of a tree and jogged over. The helicopter hovered. “Loosely judging by the trajectory of the shot, I’d say the bullet that took Arty out came from the northwest. Of course, he could have moved by now.”
“We’ll stick with you until the rangers get here.” The officer nodded down the trail. “They’ll get you to safety.”
“I’d prefer if Harper got out of here in the bird.”
“She could be more exposed just getting up there.”
“I see your point.”
Ranger Dan Hinckley hiked toward them from the south, another ranger by his side. “Thanks for coming, Dan,” Heath said.
The two SWAT team members handed Heath and Harper off, then headed into the woods.
“Come on,” Dan said, “let’s get you out of here. Law enforcement is scouring those woods. If that shooter has any sense, he’s long gone by now.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Heath said. The shooter was still there after killing two hikers. Sheriff Taggart had requested Harper’s help, believing that the shooter wasn’t still in the woods. He’d made a bad call that had cost a life. The shooter had stayed behind to target Harper, even with law enforcement searching. That high-powered scope let him keep his distance in the hunt. He was cunning. He had a purpose. A mission.
Always Look Twice Page 16
