Burn on the Western Slope (Crimson Romance) (27 page)

Garret sat the box his lap. Everything had been bagged as evidence but he removed the gloves he’d carried with him to be safe. He shoved aside the man’s beanie and a bag of change.

“Have his things been dusted for prints?” he asked.

“Of course,” the chief muttered.

Garret turned on the phone through the secured plastic and scrolled through the dialed and received calls. One number had called three times in a row within thirty minutes. The name assigned to the number said Kate.

“Who is Kate?” Garret asked, assuming Chief Castro had done his research.

“That’s his wife.” The chief sounded like he didn’t like Garret’s interference, but he didn’t care. There weren’t many murders in Tanyon, and Garret wasn’t going to let the investigation lie with an inexperienced police force when jewels were involved.

Garret turned off the phone and filtered through the rest of the man’s belongings. Anxiety twisted in his gut when he found a wallet, unsecured.

“Is there a problem?” the chief asked.

“Why in the hell isn’t this secure?”

Castro reached for the wallet but Garret pulled it away. At least he was wearing gloves.

“Oops.”

“Oops? Is that the kind of investigation you run?”

“It was late, Garret. We’re a small town police force. It’s just a wallet. He had it in his pocket and I don’t think anyone touched it but the officer who put it in the box.”

This investigation was heading nowhere if Castro didn’t start doing things right. Leaving evidence exposed was the least of the chief’s mistakes. “Get an evidence bag and log this.”

While he waited for Chief Castro to return, Garret flipped open the vic’s wallet, a rich, buttery brown leather, and leafed through his personal effects. Twenty-three dollars, mostly in ones and fives. A few photos of a blonde busty woman. Probably the wife. An American Express Gold.

Chris’s business card.

• • •

Buildings faded as the helicopter climbed. Garret turned his attention to the horizon. Dillon Johnson only lived one hour as the crow flies, and Garret hoped he would be home.

He hadn’t been warned company was coming.

Dillon was one of the skiers who’d accompanied Chris on his outing the day he disappeared, and Garret planned on asking him what really happened that day. Reading the police reports wasn’t enough. He caught the deception in each gap of the letters. Deception that none of the other cops picked up on or they just didn’t care. He’d talk to every witness if he had to and from there, he’d draw his own conclusions.

He’d discussed the investigation with Buchanan but hadn’t told him everything. He hadn’t admitted his feelings for Reagan, hadn’t admitted that he now knew her in ways most investigations would never reveal. He hadn’t mentioned his newfound vendetta and possible link to Jonathan’s killer.

He’d admitted he couldn’t connect Reagan to the Mass family but had new leads to go on. Buchanan didn’t need to know those leads had nothing to do with Reagan and everything to do with her brother.

He was beginning to like Reagan in more than just friendship terms, and he could almost see forever with her. Almost. He wanted to ask her for more, but the thing with Kyle hung over his head and this … this cheap shot that God dispensed on him.

The only way to end this was to resolve it. The man who killed Jonathan did not deserve to go free, and if Ray or Gil Grant or Kyle or even Reagan was involved in any way … they had to face his terms.

Even if they were already dead.

Dillon Johnson was a man most people wouldn’t look at twice and remember. Average height, brown hair, appeared perfectly normal unless you got close enough to see the twitch in his eye. The twitch that told Garret he was lying.

When Garret flashed his badge, Dillon said he was just leaving, so it had to be quick. Garret made it anything but quick. He stepped inside his house and asked for a glass of water, claiming he was famished from the ride over, with no intention of drinking something a stranger gave him.

He claimed he had to use the restroom, using that time to look through the medicine cabinet. Shave cream, toothpaste, Scope, and generic shampoo were the extent of Dillon’s bathroom paraphernalia.

When Garret finally sat down with Dillon and asked him questions, Dillon’s knee bobbed up and down as he held it in his hand and tilted back on the couch’s cushion. Garret started with easy questions but as Dillon grew more comfortable, Garret became more direct.

“Do you know Kyle Maloney?”

“I have no idea.” Dillon’s eyes shot up in a quizzical manner, but he wasn’t fazed. He had no idea who Kyle was.

“What about Gil Grant?”

“Gil Grant? No idea.” Dillon’s eyes shot to the right and he answered the question first with one of his own. His face paled, he wouldn’t look Garret straight in the eye and when he did, they were unfocused.

“Okay, I didn’t think you would recognize the name,” Garret lied, trying to befriend him. “But I have to ask these things. My boss will ask me if I questioned you properly.” He held his hands up and open. Dillon was becoming increasingly twitchy.

Dillon mounted a hand over his mouth and coughed. Garret didn’t know him well enough to know if that was a habit or a cover-up.

“What about Chris Boyce?”

Dillon shot up from the couch as if a fire had been lit. “What is this? I don’t have to answer these questions.”

“I take it you know Chris.”

“Of course I knew Chris. You know I knew Chris.”

“Okay.” Garret kept his posture relaxed and his face composed, but he remained prepared for the worst. “Sit down, it’s okay.”

Dillon sat, but he didn’t keep still. His foot tapped on the floor and he kept glancing at the door as if ready to run at any moment.

“I … I was torn up when Chris went missing. I haven’t been skiing since.”

“Tell me what happened that day.”

“Why?” Dillon’s brow furrowed, but he wouldn’t meet Garret’s eyes. “I already gave a written report, and it was weeks ago. I’m trying to live a normal life and you want to rehash bad memories?”

“Tell me what happened that day,” Garret repeated.

Dillon sighed. “It was snowing. We were heli-skiing. You ever been heli-skiing?” With that, Dillon’s movements stopped and his tiny slits of brown sifted directly into Garret’s eyes and darted away again. “All I was thinking about was my time on the mountain. I only found out he was missing later.”

“How did you find out about his disappearance?”

Dillon took a moment to answer. “We were supposed to meet at the base of the mountain later. We all met and waited for thirty minutes, but he never showed up. We assumed he found something else to do, you know? We found out about the avalanche later. The police sent out a search crew, but … ”

“Why wasn’t he wearing protection on his face?”

Dillon skulked rearward, slumping his shoulders and resting his back against the cushion of the sofa. He didn’t meet Garret’s gaze. “I don’t know, man. I didn’t know he wasn’t. I wasn’t paying much attention, you know. I was getting ready to jump myself.”

“What was he wearing that day?” Garret knew it wasn’t ski gear, but that could easily be explained. In an avalanche, his clothing could have been torn off, his ski gear wrenched away.

“I don’t remember.”

Garret asked more questions unrelated to the accident. How long had he been skiing, where’s his favorite place to ski? Dillon talked animatedly, his eyes clear and receptive when he discussed things that didn’t bother him. But when things did bother him, or he was lying, he wouldn’t quiet meet Garret’s gaze.

That’s why Garret would bet on a million that he was lying about something.

He just didn’t know what.

• • •

It took three days to retrieve the cell phone records of Reagan, Chris, and Ray. Garret spent those three days learning all he could about Reagan. That she liked her coffee with crushed leaves of fresh mint. How much she loved a foot rub, especially when it involved lotion. And her aversion for horror movies. Her lips crinkled with her eyes when she had her nose in a book and she cooked the most hellacious pot of beans he’d ever tasted.

She’d agreed to watch a horror movie with him as long as he would cuddle. They ate a bowl of beans by candlelight. He took her skiing again and they made love. Lots of love.

The FBI faxed the phone records to Air Dog and Chayton scowled when he told Garret they’d arrived. Without explanation, Garret took them back to Reagan’s condo and lazed on the couch with her as he scrolled through Ray’s and Chris’s phone records. He’d save Reagan’s for later when she wasn’t around. He highlighted numbers he knew in yellow — Chayton had called Ray several times throughout the month before he died — and numbers he wanted to check he highlighted in green.

Garret wouldn’t stop until he determined whether or not Ray’s death was linked to Jonathan’s murder, if either or both were linked to Javier Mass, and how Reagan was connected.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Reagan asked as she studied him. She had her hands buried in a stuffed moose that rested on her chest. Her feet were tucked under him and his over hers as they lay across from each other. The television played in the background, but she hadn’t been paying attention to it for the past five minutes. He’d felt the heat of her gaze on him.

Reagan smelled like tangerines and mint, and he wondered when mint had become so sexy. Probably when he’d discovered the lingering scent of Reagan wasn’t the remnants of toothpaste or chewing gum. He’d kissed her hand and tasted the oily soapy balm of lotion she’d applied after a long shower.

He’d been studying the papers when she’d stepped from the shower. The blue panties she wore could have rivaled the sky on a sunny day. They hung low on her hips, emphasizing the curves of her legs and rear. The matching bra was a front clasp, and Garret wondered if it was new.

Her soft, smooth legs gleamed with the lotion she applied. She’d lain on the couch next to him and tucked her feet under him. He’d smiled but kept sorting through phone records. Bra and panties. That’s all she wore as she lay on the couch with him. As much as he would love to bury his problems, right now he had to focus on solving this case. Had to figure out if there was a case to solve. One glance at her would make him lose all focus, all control.

“I’ll be happy to help,” she said again as she finagled her feet on top of his chest and traced her toes against his cheek. He’d never seen such heavenly toes. Soft. Feminine.

He grinned as he looked at her and rubbed his arm up and down the leg that now taunted him. She wasn’t covered with a blanket, but the way she laid kept her thighs closed. Her eyes flicked downward, where his erection pulsed and grew.

“Rubbing against me like that isn’t helping,” he teased. “And looking at me like that isn’t helping either. I’m almost finished, but I have to surf these numbers and see if anything sticks out.”

“I see something sticking out,” she said as she leaned forward and cupped his erection. Even through his pants, his shaft throbbed under her touch.

Moving her hand away, she groaned and stretched, resting her leg against the top of his shoulder, her foot near his cheek. This time the apex of her thighs was open and exposed and enticing. Just as he was about to throw the papers aside and go to her, he caught the number ingrained in his memory.

Glancing at Chris’s record again, the number was like a firefly, snapping and flapping its flare for attention.

“Damn.” Garret pushed Reagan’s foot aside and stood, his head spinning. The glossy taunt of Reagan’s body and the soapy scent of lotion were now claustrophobic.

Days before Ray died, a number called Chris. The same number that had always linked to murder, somehow, someway.

The number had been ingrained in Garret’s memory since he’d taken this assignment eighteen months ago. They hadn’t been able to trace it, never could prove it belonged to the Mass organization. But the FBI was certain.

Every time that number appeared, dead bodies popped up.

Chris had been involved with Javier Mass. Did Ray know? Had he found out? Was his death no accident? Was it an accident Reagan was involved with this same family? Maybe the whole family was involved in something Ray wanted no part of. Maybe that’s why his mother refused to speak with him.

Muscles twitchy, he paced.

“Garret?” Reagan asked. Her gentle voice should have been calming, but was more like a chunk of ice had been ditched into a vicious firestorm, hissing and steaming and crackling, leaving an ashy pit of soot in the bottom of his stomach.

Edgy and discontent, he longed to get out on his skis and lose himself to the world. He glanced at Reagan. He could lose himself in her arms, but right now he felt too agitated and distrustful of her.

He’d taken too many risks with this investigation. Too many risks with her.

“Are you okay?” Reagan came up behind him and encircled him, nuzzling her face into his back and her pelvis against his rear. He immediately hardened. Even through his pants, he felt her. Longed to experience her moist heat, skin on skin. She stroked his stomach. “You’re tense tonight.”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

She massaged his neck. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll give you a massage?”

He closed his eyes. He’d already lost himself. He wasn’t sure what it was about Reagan that made him so vulnerable, but he wanted to trust her. He’d kept himself closed to love for so long that he’d convinced himself he didn’t need it. But when Reagan touched him this way … it made him forget about the evil in this world.

Chapter Eighteen

Reagan woke to the smell of caramel and cinnamon. That was the only way she could describe the spice wafting from the kitchen. Golden shavings of sunlight drifted above her stomach like sprinkles of snow, spewing out a prism of colors across the room as they struck the music box she’d tried to repair.

She could see her next painting in her mind’s eye. A woman, lying across the bed in tumbled sheets, the sunlight spinning a web of colors throughout the room.

Giggling, she sat up, but didn’t rush out yet. Garret was preparing breakfast, she could hear the sizzle of bacon now, and no matter how tempting the coffee, she didn’t want to ruin his surprise.