Undercover Hunter (15 page)

Chapter 9

A
little before noon, she awoke. She felt Cade stir and sit up, leaving her to feel amazingly bereft. Never would she have imagined that a man leaning on her that way could have been so comforting and relaxing.

Reluctantly, she returned to the world, sitting up and stretching. Cade rose from the couch, saying nothing, and returned a few minutes later with mugs of coffee. He handed her one.

“Good morning,” he said. His voice sounded rusty.

“I guess it’s here again,” she agreed. “Thanks for the coffee.” And for the comfort. She didn’t say it, aware that there were some places it wasn’t safe to go.

He wandered to the window, pulling back the curtain and looking out. “The blizzard has settled down. Just a little gently falling snow, but you can’t actually tell where the street is.”

“I guess Gage and Craig might not even show today.”

“It’s possible.” He dropped the curtain and came back to sit on the other end of the couch. “Just enjoy your coffee. No need to jump right back in with both feet. I think we’ve earned a little slack time.”

As if there was anything else they could do right now. But she simply nodded and tried to let her mind wander over things that had nothing to do with the case. Blind alleys were most likely to develop when you couldn’t put something aside for a little while, when you focused too hard. Letting the mind drift could not only be refreshing, but it might allow new avenues to suddenly appear all on their own.

“I’ve always liked this town,” he remarked. “Not that I was ever here for very long, and it’s been quite a while.”

“What did you come for before?”

“Mainly just to bring information or pick some up. Passing through. Didn’t even stay the night or meet anyone except the sheriff really. Usually the locals can handle their own problems, but sometimes they spill out of the county, so we exchange information.”

“So you’re not worried anyone would recognize you?”

“Not likely. It’s been quite a while and I didn’t exactly hang out. But I still liked this place.”

“I like most of what I’ve seen of it so far. I’m wondering about the ski resort, though.”

He turned on the couch, raising one denim-covered leg a little so it rested, bent, on the cushion. “Exactly. I’ve seen what oil did to places, and I’ve seen what tourism can do. I realize you can’t fight change, but the idea that this town won’t change if it becomes a big ski destination...well, I’m not buying it.”

“It bothers you?”

“I don’t want to see it become plastic, like you said. But they need the boost to their economy. Only time will tell what it does to the area. They’ve been through changes before, though. A big semiconductor plant was here for a few years. Lots of jobs, kids didn’t leave as often, new people came in. It created some tension. Then the place shut down and everyone paid in some way. But they did finally get a community college.” He smiled, then sipped his coffee.

“You think the same thing might happen with the resort?”

“They talk about hiring locally. I think Masters believes it, too. But if it grows...” He shrugged. “Time will tell.”

She peered at him. “Are you getting nostalgic?”

“Why not? This was like a place out of time for so long. The modern world impinges every so often, chipping away at the rural life. Inevitable. I’ve watched it happen all over the state. No point in making a judgment about it. It just is.”

She nodded, thinking about it. “That one-horse town where I grew up?”

“In Texas. Yeah?”

“It’s still a one-horse town. It’ll probably never change because it’s planted in the middle of ranch-and farmland, and there’s no reason anyone would want to build anything in the middle of nowhere. Not there. So my mom and pop run a small pharmacy. Would you believe it still has a lunch counter? That’s how little the place has changed.”

“But you moved on?”

“Obviously. I couldn’t find what I needed there. A lot of kids move on, like you were saying about this place. Some make it to college, others enlist, taking the fastest bus out of town. Very little opportunity, unless you want to be someone’s hired hand. If the distances weren’t so huge, the place would probably have dried up and blown away, but it’s easier for most of the ranchers and farmers to head to our town for some things. The co-op is booming, for example. Plenty of feed, seed and fertilizer to sell. The equipment companies do a decent business. And nobody’s going to drive to Amarillo or Lubbock to get a prescription filled or to go to church. So it hangs on. But it’s a little like watching sunset in slow motion.”

“You make it sound sad.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Once upon a time it seemed that way to me.”

“Now?”

“I’m glad Mom and Pop are still doing well.”

“You look Native American.”

She smiled. “My great-grandmother was Comanche. I’m told I look a lot like her.”

He laughed quietly. “I hear the Comanche were great warriors. I guess the blood runs true.”

She blinked, surprised, then laughed. “Maybe so.” She felt complimented by his remark, even though he was probably only referring to her decision to join the army. She hadn’t been unique in that. It
was
the fastest bus ticket out of town.

“You ever think about going back to take over that pharmacy?”

She shook her head. “I came here because I like the rural life, but only to an extent. I’d die spending my days behind a counter.” She needed more action than that. So far, her new job in Wyoming seemed to be doing that and more.

“That bother your parents?”

She shook her head. “Maybe at first, but they adjusted. They’ve hired a young couple to help out, and they’ll probably buy the place when my parents retire.” All neat and tidy. At least her parents didn’t resent her for not taking over the family business. That would have disturbed her, but instead they seemed more than willing to accept she had different needs.

Her hometown was so far away from where she was now in space and time. She felt a twinge of longing for her family and familiar sights but knew she could never go back for more than a visit. Whatever it was about her, she had been driven to take a different path through life.

Rising, she went into the kitchen and made toasted scrambled-egg sandwiches for both of them. Cade joined her just as she was finishing up, remarking that he couldn’t ignore the good smells.

“About the limits of my cooking,” she told him wryly. “It’s not my thing, anyway.”

“Don’t enjoy it?”

“Never have.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I do,” he answered casually enough. Her heart skipped a little, wondering if he meant anything more, then she dismissed it. Sometimes she just needed to turn off the investigator inside of her and take things at face value.

He complimented her scrambled eggs as they sat at the table. But sitting at the table had an inescapable effect: the files stacked at one end drove DeeJay’s thoughts back to the case. She sensed by Cade’s silence that he was also thinking about the case again. Well, it had been a nice break.

They didn’t talk about it, however, not even as they washed the dishes and made more of the inevitable coffee. DeeJay checked her tablet and found the police wireless was still down. Same for the cell phones. They hadn’t heard a plow yet, and DeeJay finally looked out front to take in a world that had become almost formless under a deep blanket of snow. Oh, she could see the houses across the way, but drifted snow rode up onto porches and covered roofs thickly. Even the trees that lined the street looked as if they had donned heavy white coats.

Cade came to stand beside her. “Hard to say how much of that is snow that fell during the storm and how much is snow that was blown until it found a relatively windless place to land.”

“Does it make any difference?” she asked.

“Only when it starts to melt over large areas. Ten inches would only cause light flooding. Even two feet over a large enough area could swamp some places if it melts fast enough. But for now the problems are the same, ten inches or ten feet, we’re snowed in.”

“I’m honestly surprised we didn’t lose power.”

“Me, too. We lost just about everything else, though.”

Including email. She was impatient to see what Lew had sent them, but there was no way to get to it. She wanted to talk to Gage, and to Craig Stone, but she couldn’t imagine that either of them had a magic carpet to bring them here. They were definitely on hold.

She wondered if she should go through the files again, then decided against it. Cade’s nearness at once aroused and troubled her. She felt relief when he left her side to return to the couch, a relief that was tinged with disappointment. Caution lights flared in her brain, but the rest of her didn’t seem to want to listen.

Maybe she was having some kind of reaction to all the years she’d refused to dip her toes into a possible relationship. She’d buried a part of herself because it just wouldn’t fit safely in her career. Oh, some managed it, but she hadn’t even been willing to try. Nothing more miserable than having to see a guy every single day when you’d just broken up. It could create other kinds of problems, too.

She
had
dated, well outside her unit, but had always broken it off because she was wary and uneasy. She couldn’t say exactly why, unless maybe it was that rape so long ago, but she found it hard to trust that any relationship would endure. Especially when life had sent her all over the world.

Now she’d gone and done the very worst thing: she’d had sex with her partner. Great sex. The kind she would call lovemaking. But where did that leave them now? Confined to a house together, with a difficult, haunting case to work on, and trying to ignore the fact that they’d crossed the lines?

Cade seemed to be fairly comfortable but how would she know? Neither of them mentioned last night. It might as well have been erased.

Except that she couldn’t erase the memory, or her tingling awareness of him. Couldn’t wipe away a hunger to tumble back into bed with him. The only way to live with that was to pretend it didn’t exist even as the memories dogged her. Maybe that’s what he was doing. Or maybe it had been utterly meaningless to him.

She half hoped it had been, because it would be easier to pretend she felt nothing if he was unaffected. All they had done, really, was scratch an itch. Now they could move on.

She wished like hell she believed that.

All of a sudden, movement caught her eye. Leaning forward, she saw a man coming down the street, skimming along the top of the snow on cross-country skis. He was covered from head to toe in winter gear and seemed to be wearing a backpack.

“Well, will you look at that,” she said.

Cade rose and joined her. She felt his laugh before it reached his lips. “Doggone, talk about prepared.”

“It never would have occurred to me!”

“If I’d been home, it would have crossed my mind, but they didn’t issue us skis for this job.”

DeeJay started to smile as she watched the man glide down the street. He was using the traditional Nordic style, long strides that were much like walking except for the glide that carried him forward even farther.

“I prefer that stride,” Cade remarked. “The stuff athletes do these days that looks more like speed skating? Not a fun way to ski cross-country.”

“This looks like something you could do almost all day long.”

“Exactly.”

Much to her surprise, the skier paused before their house, then began to glide toward their porch. “What the...?”

When he reached the porch, he bent to release his bindings and leaned his poles against the rail. Clearly, he had meant to come here.

“I’ll get it,” Cade said. “If you don’t mind.”

She didn’t mind, but she followed him anyway, curious.

Cade opened the door to the icy day, and DeeJay peered around to see a tall man with gray eyes smiling at them. “Craig Stone,” he said. “Special delivery.”

* * *

They gathered at the kitchen table after Craig dumped most of his outerwear. He brought the backpack with him and answered DeeJay’s question.

“Well, two things brought me this way. I got back into town late yesterday afternoon and I got a curious call from Gage Dalton. It left me feeling like I needed to get these maps to you as soon as possible. Then my wife, Sky, got to craving some chocolate. She’s pregnant and from what I can tell these cravings are pretty strong. I found out the convenience store over this way is sort of open, but of course she didn’t want me to come out just to get her chocolate. So when I told her Gage wanted me to see you two as soon as possible...” His eyes danced. “Two birds with one stone. Me.”

DeeJay and Cade both laughed. Charming man, DeeJay thought. She brought him coffee, which he accepted gratefully, and asked if he was hungry. She was sure she could find something easy enough for him to cover her lack of skill.

“Not at all hungry,” he answered. “I’ll probably pig out on chocolate along with Sky when I get home, though. So you wanted to see trail maps and contour maps.” He leaned over and pulled a stack of folded printed maps from his backpack and laid them on the table. “Anything special?” His gaze was curious. “I’m thinking you’re not just looking for touristy reasons, not if Gage thought it was important.”

Cade and DeeJay shared a look and reached agreement silently. Both stuck their hands into their hip pockets and pulled out their badge cases. They opened them on the table in front of Craig.

“This is about the boys, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes,” Cade answered. “Gage said you’re law enforcement.”

“In the forest, anyway. Also a biologist. I can tell you which hat I prefer.” He leaned back, lifted his coffee, sipped and then sighed. “All right then. How can I help?”

DeeJay leaned forward. “We need to know how the perp got to the site where he hung the bodies last time. It’s not in the reports, and you know the country.”

“About as well as anyone,” he agreed. “Nobody asked me that before. Curious. Or maybe not. They found the scene so long after it all happened.” He straightened, put down his cup and began to sort through maps. “We’ve been looking for the boys, you know. None of us can get what happened last time out of our heads, so we’re looking to see if he’s stashing bodies in the forest again. Nothing so far.”