Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) (34 page)

They’d pulled up twenty yards short of
X
-marks-the-spot, saving the pathway for further analysis as
they worked their way up to the plateau. It would have been a
likely rest stop for Carl to take a slug from his water bottle in
the miniscule shade of a tall, rounded rock sticking out of the
side of the hill. Brax took a slug of his water. The morning hadn’t
reached the high temps yet, but the hills had already begun to
bake, shimmering waves of heat rising off the rocks.

If it had been his scene, Brax would have
brought an ID tech, or at the very least, a processing kit. The
extent of Goldstone Sheriff’s department’s evidence kit was a box
of rubber gloves the dispatcher’s wife had swiped from the hospital
in Bullhead, paper lunch sacks from the minimart, and a disposable
camera.

“That’s where he went down.” Teesdale
pointed.

One long scuff mark marred the hillside.
Carl’s journey was not a straight fall, but a steep, protracted
roll, interrupted by small rock formations and scrubby brush.
Nothing large enough to grab onto or stop Carl’s descent in
progress.

Brax squatted, resting his elbow on his knee,
to study the dusty trail. “You say it’s pretty well used?”

Teesdale came down to his level. “Couple a
hikers a week maybe. I’d be damn surprised to find it devoid of
footprints.”

Brax could make out layers of faded shoe
prints. A light breeze blew over them, shifting the puffy dirt
granules as if they were snowflakes. If there had once been a tread
to match to a shoe, it was probably long gone even before they’d
found Carl’s body. A fine layer of dust coated everything in
Goldstone, from the cars to a trailer’s white siding, and it took
barely more than a breath to move the fine stuff around.

Shoe prints weren’t going to solve the case.
The most they’d provide was icing on the cake once a shoe to match
to was found.

Simultaneously, they rose and stepped to
either side of the path, Teesdale taking the cliff side and Brax
the opposite.

If they were lucky, they’d find a bloody rock
that had been used to crush Carl’s skull before he was pushed over
the side.

They weren’t lucky. They found nothing.
Teesdale took a couple of pictures of partial prints. If a scuffle
had ensued, any evidence in the sand was long gone.

Having made slowly decreasing circles around
the area, they finally stood above the very spot Carl had fallen.
Brax squatted for a closer examination of the sector. You saw a
hell of a lot more at ground level than if you stood, looking
down.

Most important was what he didn’t see. “There
are no shoe prints here.” As if someone had cleared the area.

At the edge of the path, Teesdale hunkered.
“Interesting.”

Brax turned on the balls of his feet. “In
fact, there aren’t any from here”—he pointed approximately five
feet above the fall site—“to there.” About another five feet back
down the path. From the base of an oddly shaped rock to the edge of
the drop.

“Well, hell. Ain’t that cause for
speculation?”

As evidence, it sucked, but a killer was
never caught by one spectacular find. It was always the small
things which, when added together, could be brought to put pressure
on a suspect until he or she cracked under the mounting weight.

Retreating, watching to make sure he stepped
into the footprints he’d already made, Brax backed up. And kept
going even as his feet felt the slight rise. He had no idea what
he’d see, if anything at all. But he’d been trained to survey a
scene from every angle and from every possible level—ground, waist,
eye, and above, if you could. Each gave a different
perspective.

Ten feet back up the hillside, he dropped to
a hunker once more, one foot flat, the other taking his weight on
the ball.

The plateau, the path, the rock. One side
still in shade, the other in the heating sun, the rock rose at an
angle from the hillside. For a moment, he almost smiled. Wide at
the base and cylindrical, with a slightly rounded bulge at its
peak, it jutted like a hardened penis.

He didn’t think Teesdale would appreciate the
analogy, and it certainly wasn’t appropriate to the mission. But he
couldn’t take his eyes off the rock.

It reminded him of something. Yeah, yeah, a
cock. But something else. Something at the edge of his mind.

Jesus H. Christ. It was the rock in Simone’s
fantasy. The first stop where the woman had pushed her partner back
against
that
rock and taken him in her mouth.

Shit.

“Think we’re done here,” he said, rising to
his feet.

Teesdale glanced up. “We are?”

“Yep.” Brax considered pushing on up the
trail, but he couldn’t remember all the landmarks in the fantasy.
The landmarks themselves had left the least impression during his
read-through. His mind had focused on other, more vivid details.
“I’ve got to get to the bank when it opens.”

First, he had a more immediate connection to
investigate. Like why Carl had requested a fantasy that took place
on the very trail from which he’d fallen to his death.

Chapter Nineteen

Her mother had emerged from the bedroom
fifteen minutes later, draped in yet another pantsuit, this one
emerald with a flowing train behind it. She’d artfully arranged
herself on the sofa, the orange material a perfect backdrop to the
emerald silk. Della had refused to leave, sitting on the opposite
end of the couch basking in Ariana’s reflected glory.

Simone had refilled the coffeepot three
times, visited the bathroom twice, and turned on the swamp cooler.
It didn’t help.

“Simone, you’ll really shouldn’t wear yellow.
It makes your skin sallow.”

She almost jumped up to exchange the yellow
tee for pale peach. But Jackie gave her a look.
Don’t you
dare
.

“Simone, you have lipstick on your teeth. I
can see we’re going to have to take you for another makeup
application lesson at Guittard’s when we get home.”

She ran her tongue across her front teeth
until it hurt.

“She’s such a pretty girl, isn’t she, Della?
Of course, if she’d had Jacqueline’s looks and my talent, she could
have been a star. But Simone’s got her own special charms.” Ariana
beamed as if she’d said something wonderful.

What charms? According to her mother, she was
fat, she needed a facial badly to reduce blotchiness, and her hair
had turned to straw in the dry desert air. She wasn’t sure how much
more of her mother’s exalted presence she could take without going
stark raving mad. Or melting into a puddle of gooey tears.

She almost welcomed the telltale crunch on
her gravel drive and the sharp slam of a car door.

She knew without seeing that it was him.
Brax. Her hero. Come to her rescue. Standing at the door, she took
in his brisk stride up her front walk, her chest swelling with
emotion. Oh my, oh my, he was so...

Pissed.

He grabbed her by the arm even as she opened
the screen door.

“We have to talk.” He stopped, suddenly
noticing the four pairs of eyes focused on him. “About that bag I
brought over last night.”

“The bag?”

“Yeah. The paper bag.” He widened his eyes
with meaning.

“Oh. The bag.” Her hand fluttered, then she
managed to point to the back of the house. “I put it away. In the
guest room.”

“Let’s get it.” His teeth clamped
sharply.

Carl’s fantasy. What could he possibly want
with the fantasy now? They’d been through all that last night. He’d
gotten over his initial anger. Hadn’t he?

Obviously not, if the pinch of his fingers on
her upper arm meant anything. He didn’t hurt her, but neither was
he letting her go anywhere without him.

She let him lead her down the hall, past her
office to the guest room. The silence in the living room beat at
her nerve endings. Brax pulled her in and closed the door.

Thank goodness she’d made the bed.

“Where is it?”

“In the closet.”

He followed at her heels, then breathed down
her neck as she pulled the bag from its hiding place. He took it
from her numb fingers, then dumped the contents.

Her panties landed smack-dab in the middle of
the bed.

They both stared for two long, slow
heartbeats, long enough for Simone’s face to reach conflagration
stage. “I hid them in there last night. I guess I forgot.”

He spoke after the longest time. “I didn’t
forget. Not a thing. Sorry I barged in like that.”

“My mother already thinks you’re unforgivably
rude.”

He laughed, a short bark. “No extra harm done
then.” Taking her hand in his, he pulled it to his lips for the
briefest brush of his lips. “We have to go through the story again.
I saw the rock, right where Carl must have fallen. It’s real. And
I’m wondering how many other landmarks in there are real.”

Real?
“What rock?”

He pulled her close, chest-to-chest.
“
The
rock. Where you wrote that she—”

“Oh my God,
that
rock.” The blow-job
rock. She would never, ever write another fantasy in her life.
Well, not for anyone she knew. She did have to make a living, after
all.

“I want to go back up there. I want to see
what’s at the end of that trail.”

“It’s a big cave.” Carl had her end it there,
before the couple went inside. “Do you think it’s real, too?”

“Highly likely. I want to know why he was so
specific. You said he gave you the physical details to use.”

“Yes. What does it mean, Brax?”

“Hell if I know. That’s why I’m going up
there. Someone killed him on the trail he told you to write about.
It could be simple coincidence, but that story is like a map, and I
want to follow it to its conclusion.”

“I shouldn’t have deleted all his emails. We
could have used those. It would have been easier.”

He unrolled several scrolls and arranged them
by number, stopping to glance down at the script. “It would have
been easier on
me
.” He looked at her, his gaze deep blue.
“Reading this the first time damn near killed me.”

What exactly did that mean? She wasn’t
stupid. She knew all about lust and anticipation and that the way
to a man’s heart wasn’t through his stomach. But still... “Do you
think I look insipid in yellow?”

“What?” A line furrowed between his
eyebrows.

“Nothing. I...”
I am totally stupid and
moronic asking a question like that at a time like this
. Her
cheeks heated with the silly schoolgirl insecurities that question
revealed.

“It makes you look...” He struggled for the
right thing to say. “You take my breath away whatever you’re
wearing.”

That was still about sex. She wanted, needed
more, but was afraid to ask for anything. She pointed to the neatly
scripted scrolls. “Do you want to follow it like a treasure
map?”

Simone flattened the first page even as it
struggled to snap itself into a tight roll again.

A map. That’s exactly what her fantasy was.
Brax pointed. “See that view you’ve described?”

The rise of the hills off to the left, the
muted sound of highway traffic, and the courthouse clock tower.

“I saw it when I was coming back down. This
is the same trail.” Brax looked at her. “Did he tell you to write
it that way?”

“I told you last night. He gave me all the
details to use. Except the...”

Except the sex parts.

* * * * *

The sex parts. Yeah, Simone got to make up
those for herself. Yes, Brax knew. How the hell could he forget?
Those were the parts he’d damn near memorized despite himself.

Page three. He found himself smoothing it out
almost reverently. His favorite page. Damn. The effect was worse
with her citrus scent swirling around him and the warmth of her arm
pressed to his as they knelt together at the side of the bed. He
leaned over to read.

The huge cylindrical stone jutted out from
the mountainside like a phallic symbol of the gods, casting its
shadow over the gorge below. Long, wide, with a rounded cap at its
peak, it resembled an erect cock, beckoning them to worship at its
base. She pushed him back against the rock, her hand flat against
his chest, sliding down through the buttons she’d opened. Her
fingers trailed his abdomen to the snap of his jeans
.

He knew what was coming. His body knew it,
too. The Simone effect. His jeans were suddenly a tad too tight and
heat rose to his face.

“Uh, that’s the rock,” he said, his voice a
little hoarse. Yeah, the rock. Think about that. Not what her
characters were doing on the rock.

Taking him in her mouth, she circled the
tip with her tongue
.

Shit. Think about the meaning of the rock, he
told himself. “Picture the jut of it out over the path.”

“Yes. Carl called it a phallic symbol.”

Damn. It was that all right. With Simone next
to him and her words on the page tempting him, the symbol was
overpowering, and her words like the call of a seductive siren.

“And the vista view from that rock.” The
view, yeah, that’s what he’d noticed right off. “It’s the
same.”

“The same as what?”

He hesitated too long.

“That’s where Carl fell,” she said for him.
He nodded, and she closed her eyes. “Are you sure it had to
be...”

In Cottonmouth, murder had never become
routine. But it hadn’t been a shock since his first year in the
department when he’d found Dick Monahan’s body at the bottom of
Lucas Tinsin’s bonfire. Property-line dispute.

“It was the same spot,” he said.

Carl’s keys had not slipped out of his
pocket, and the wind hadn’t miraculously swept clean the very
quadrant of plateau from which he’d made his tumble.

The hazel of Simone’s eyes deepened to stark
green magnified by the shimmer of tears. “They’re all my friends,
Brax.”