The Deepest Cut
Authors: Dianne Emley
ALSO BY DIANNE EMLEY
The First Cut
Cut to the Quick
Contents
For
Linda Marrow
and
Dana Isaacson
My brilliant editors who light the path
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, Linda Marrow and Dana Isaacson. I’m awed by your superb editorial instincts. Special thanks to Junessa Viloria for her valuable comments about the manuscript and assistance with so many things. Kate Collins also made important contributions to the book.
I’m grateful for the continued support and enthusiasm of the Bal-lantine team: Gina Centrello, Elizabeth McGuire, Kim Hovey Scott Shannon, Rachel Kind, and Lisa Barnes.
My agent, Robin Rue at Writer’s House, provided much-appreciated wisdom and hand-holding. Thanks also to Beth Mller.
While I write about many actual locations (used fictitiously), some are the products of my imagination. You won’t find the city of Colina Vista among the San Gabriel Valley foothill cities. Its police department is fictional. I’ve also made up several streets in Pasadena, California, and neighboring cities where evil acts take place.
Although this is a work of fiction, the book has benefited from the kind assistance of law-and-order professionals. Any errors in policy or procedure are mine.
Thanks always to the Pasadena Police Department. I’m especially grateful to Lieutenant Lisa Perrine for being so generous with her time and to Officer Kim Smith for her help.
Retired Police Captain Steve Davidson was again immensely helpful.
Retired police captain Steve Davidson was again immensely helpful.
Karla Kerlin, judge, Los Angeles Superior Court, and Colleen Crommett, deputy district attorney, Orange County, gave advice about criminal law.
Gerald Petievich, author, pal, and former Secret Service agent, helpfully batted around plot points.
Author and pal Eric Stone and book club buddy Roseanne Wong offered insight into Chinese culture.
My cousin, Bill Tata of Imagine Design, does a fantastic job of designing and maintaining my website: dianneemley.com.
My cousin, Robin Hayhurst, gave me a local’s perspective of Montaña de Oro, one of the most exquisite places on earth.
I’m blessed with terrific friends. Some contributed to the manuscript. All endured bouts of writer craziness. Thank you: Jayne Anderson, Rosemary Durant, Ann Escue, Mary Goss, Katherine Johnson, Toni Johnston, Dottie Lopez, Leslie Pape, and Debra Shatford.
And last but never least, thanks to my wonderful husband Charlie, my safety net, my love, who can now fully embrace what it means to be married to a crime novelist.
They were separate people with separate destinies. Why should they seek to each lay violent hand of claim on the other?
—D. H. Lawrence,
The Rainbow
ONE
Montaña de Oro State Park
Central California Coast
Eight years ago
T
HIS WAS HIS CHANCE TO GET IT RIGHT. HE WAS NERVOUS BUT
confident. This was good. No … great. Perfect. A fresh start. A new day. The first time had been a bloody mess. Of course, it counted. It had been
everything—
which was part of the problem. He’d been careless. He wouldn’t do that again. Because he’d learned that killing is never as easy as you hope, but it’s sooo worth taking the time and trouble to do it with style. Practice makes perfect. Here he was and here she was. Take two.
Looking up at California State Park Ranger Marilu Feathers, he let a smile tickle his lips and said, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
He pulled one corner of his mouth higher than the other, crafting what was intended to be a rakish grin. She’d know that he knew it was a corny old saying, and that would show his mastery of the situation. While he was at it, he arched an eyebrow, aiming to look clever, disarming, maybe even handsome. He was rewarded. She smiled. She was flirting with him.
In no mood, Feathers smirked. It was Christmas Eve and this
clown was about to make her late to dinner at her parents’ house with her brother and his family. Her young niece and nephew wouldn’t care, but her sister-in-law would find it an opportunity to remind single, childless, thirty-something Feathers about the importance of schedules for children.
She’d taken her horse instead of the Jeep to do one last patrol of the nearly deserted sandspit, ringing in the holiday and a well-earned break with a sunset gallop. And now this.
The stranger looked Feathers over with a measure of scrutiny and delight, as if examining a long-sought-after rare book found by chance at a yard sale. He had watched in awe from the moment she’d appeared with Gypsy, her big roan mare, from the pass-through between the dunes and had begun galloping across the sand. She scattered spindly-legged sandpipers and inky black cormorants feeding in the surf while brown pelicans and Western gulls circled above, the gulls calling,
“Kuk, kuk, kuk.”
He had known she’d take Gypsy from the stable behind the dunes, would go down the Jeep path onto the spit, and would turn right, toward the Rock. He had known exactly where to position himself. She often rode at sunset, when the sandspit was quiet, but not always. He’d spent disappointing hours, primed, waiting, only to return home unfulfilled. While frustrating, waiting taught him discipline, which he knew he sorely needed. Now, at last, his
reward.
His heart had thrilled with each beat of the horse’s hooves upon the sand.
He felt his emotions running away with him and— just as Feathers had reined in her horse— he seized command of himself. His reward was near. His memories of this moment would keep it alive and fresh forever. All he had to do was hold on.
Hold on.
Feathers pulled up her horse beside the makeshift barrier and managed an insincere “Good evening, sir,” and then the admonishment. “You’re in the snowy plover restricted habitat. You can’t be here, let alone have a campfire.”
He knew that. Who could miss the miles of yellow nylon rope on four-foot metal stakes marked with signs, some drawn by schoolchildren, “Share the beach!” “We love the snowy plover!” He thought the stupid bird deserved to go extinct, but he knew that if she could Ranger
Feathers would sit on their nests— mere shallows in the sand, the lazy birds. He’d not only purposefully gone into the restricted habitat, he’d built a fire with driftwood. Brilliant. Did he know how to push her buttons, or what?
Near him now, she was a sight to behold, tall in the saddle, her dun-colored uniform fitting loosely on her big-boned, lean frame. He was beguiled by her uniform, her round, flat-brimmed Ranger Stetson hat, her gun, and her badge. Her plain face so easily adopted that no-nonsense bearing. He’d seen her laugh, but soon after, her face would reassume that stern countenance, that
command presence
coveted by cops. It came naturally to Feathers. She had been born for the job.
He’d told her, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Rakish grin. Arched eyebrow.
He returned his attention to the marshmallow he was roasting on the end of an opened wire hanger. The next move was hers. He was so excited, he could hardly stand it.
Get a grip, buddy!
Feathers thought,
What’s he doing? Trying to flirt with me?
She guessed he was one of the college kids that abounded in Morro Bay and Los Osos, the relaxed beach cities adjacent to the sprawling state park. A state university was nearby, and students frequented the park to hike in the jagged coastal mountains or to surf and raise hell on the long stretch of secluded sandy beach reached by foot or horseback via twisting, steep trails that traversed the dunes. Only rangers were allowed to drive there.
She had invested a lot of time over her years at the park reprimanding, citing, and sometimes arresting the drunken, the loaded, and the pugnacious of all ages. In addition to providing the public information about hiking trails, campsites, local flora and fauna, and the locations of public restrooms, her job was to enforce the law in the park. Those who did not revere this sacred space would feel her iron hand. She was protective of these eight thousand acres. Her corner of paradise. Her mountain of gold.
The young adult visitors were usually in packs, or at least pairs. This jackass was alone, sitting on a cheap, webbed-nylon folding chair. He wore a heavy plaid wool jacket, buttoned to the top, blue jeans, and
sand-caked athletic shoes. A wool watchman’s cap was pulled low over his ears. She saw no belongings other than the chair, the open bag of marshmallows on the sand near his feet, and the wire hanger. The jacket, though, had deep pockets.
The park was nearly empty. Only a few campsites were occupied. The sandspit was deserted except for this guy. He was burning driftwood, an additional insult to the park. Her park.
“Sir, you’re going to have to put out that fire and move out of the restricted area. Now.”
“I know, Ranger Feathers.” He pulled the golden, softly melting marshmallow from the flames and swung the wire toward Feathers. “Toasted marshmallow?”
The sudden motion startled the horse, and she pranced backward. Gypsy was Feathers’s personal horse and unaccustomed to aggressive movements.
“Watch it, pal.” Feathers steadied Gypsy, the horse moving so that Morro Rock was behind them. The giant, crown-shaped, long-extinct volcano at the mouth of the bay was silhouetted by the fading winter sun.