Читать книгу Bear Claw Conspiracy - Jessica Andersen - Страница 7

Gigi nailed three bad-guy targets, skipped the little old lady cutout, tagged the last two baddies and slapped her Beretta on the counter with a flourish that might not have been strictly necessary, but damn, she was on a roll.

Granted, the firing range’s offerings were pretty basic, but still.

She slipped off her headphones and turned, just catching the tail end of her friend Alyssa’s impressed whistle. The heavily pregnant blonde’s eyes glittered with appreciation behind her tinted safety glasses, but she faked a pained look. “Please tell me you didn’t just pick that up for the test, like you did the computer stuff you showed me.”

Gigi grinned and slicked her dark, asymmetrically bobbed hair behind her ears before pulling her clip, clearing the chamber, and giving the weapon a quick, practiced wipe down. “I shot my first rifle when I was nine, started with handguns when I was thirteen.”

“Thank God. I was starting to get seriously depressed, thinking that you’d only been shooting for the past six months or so.”

“Nope. More like the past two decades. And you don’t look the slightest bit depressed.” In fact, the head of the Bear Claw P.D.’s Forensics Division looked amazing—rosy cheeked and curvy, with the mysterious “I know something you don’t” look that Gigi associated with her sisters’ first pregnancies. “I take it you’re feeling better?”

“Incredible.” Alyssa smoothed her palm across the top of her protruding belly. “After the past three weeks of abject almost-time-to-pop yuckiness, I woke up this morning feeling amazing.” A smile touched her lips with an entirely different sort of knowing look. “Tucker did, too, much to his surprise and delight.”

“Ouch.” Gigi exaggerated the wince. “Taunting the celibate again, are we?”

Alyssa twinkled at her. “A girl who looks like you and shoots like that doesn’t need to be celibate.”

“Right. Because guys perform best at gunpoint.” When Alyssa gave her a “yeah, right” look, Gigi lifted a shoulder. “I guess I’m not a casual sex kind of girl.”

Her friend’s blue eyes narrowed. “I never thought you were.”

Maybe not, but plenty of guys looked at the outside packaging and thought they knew what was going on inside it. If she mentioned that, though, Alyssa would bring up the m word again—makeover—and that wasn’t happening. What might look a little too glittery in Bear Claw played just fine in Denver, and Gigi liked her personal style. There was nothing wrong with being different.

So as they crossed the parking lot toward her borrowed SUV, she went with a second, equally honest answer. “I’m not going to be here for much longer, which would make any sort of hookup, for entertaining sex or otherwise, casual by definition. No offense, but when the call comes, I’m out of here.”

The Denver P.D. was piloting an accelerated SWAT/critical response training program that would leapfrog a few select forensic analysts straight into existing hazardous response teams—HRTs—where they would act as both technical support and boots on the ground. Although the TV shows made it seem like every CSI was a badge-wearing, gun-carrying cop, that was far from the case in most jurisdictions, where the cops were cops and the lab rats were … well, lab rats.

Going from the lab straight to hazardous response was a heck of a leap, but the members of Gigi’s family were anything but conventional when it came to their ambitions. Whatever the Lynds did, they did it full throttle.

Alyssa glanced away. “I know you’ve only been here a few months, and we’re just really getting to know each other. And it’s not like I don’t have other friends. Good friends. But … I like how you bring a new perspective to things around here. I wish—selfishly, I admit—that I had the budget to hire you away from Denver and keep you here in the lab. Thanks to Mayor Tightwad, I don’t, so I have to think outside the box. If that means hunting down a few eligible bachelors …”

“Aw.” Throat tightening, Gigi nudged the other woman gently with an elbow. “Thanks. But let’s be realistic—I’m focusing on my career, which means you can’t tempt me with a guy.” The members of her family paired off in their mid-thirties, once they had a degree or two and a tenure track. She might not have inherited the Lynds’ love of academia, but she had gotten their ambition in spades. “Besides it’s not like I’m going to Mars or Timbuktu or something. I’ll visit.”

Alyssa shot her an “it won’t be the same” look. “Are you sure—” Her phone rang with the plain digital ringtone that said it was official business. Immediately straightening away from Gigi’s SUV, Alyssa pulled the phone and answered with a clipped, professional “McDermott, Forensics.” But then her face softened. “Hello, McDermott, Homicide. What’s up?”

Gigi started to wander off and give Alyssa privacy to talk to her husband. Baby McDermott’s arrival was so imminent that most of the couple’s business conversations inevitably turned personal, which made Gigi … Well, better to give them privacy.

“Station Fourteen?” Alyssa said, voice going worried. “Matt’s station?”

The name stopped Gigi in her tracks.

Matt. As in Matt Blackthorn, head ranger of the state park’s most remote outpost. The one guy she had noticed in Bear Claw, and not necessarily in a good way.

Her first impression had been positive—how could it not be? Blackthorn looked like one of the guys on the glossy brochures put out by the tourism bureau—edgy and gorgeous, with subtle bronzing and hard, commanding features that fit with his rumored Cherokee heritage. But unlike the professional models in the brochures, Blackthorn carried a rugged, purposeful energy and seemed to bring the mountain air down to the city with him—not the tame air of the ski slopes, but that of the wilderness, uncivilized and predatory.

The first moment she’d laid eyes on the big ranger, she had actually caught her breath.

They’d both been in the hallway outside of Tucker’s office, her coming in, Blackthorn going out. And for a moment, something had sparked between them. At first, she had thought it was mutual attraction—the heated flash in the depths of his dark green eyes had resonated with the “hell, yeah” her hormones had been chorusing.

Then his gaze had shifted as he took in the rest of her, and his expression had tightened, killing the light of interest. Zap. Gone.

She didn’t know what he had or hadn’t seen in her, or what it had meant to him. She only knew that he’d touched the brim of the black felt hat he wore over his dark hair, and kept going. And the next time they’d crossed paths, when she’d done a briefing on a rash of parking-lot break-ins at several trailheads leading to the backcountry, Blackthorn had cut the conversation short enough to earn them a couple of raised eyebrows from the other cops and rangers involved in the meeting.

After that, she had avoided him. Not because he made her uncomfortable—she didn’t give anyone that power—but because it didn’t matter whether or not the head ranger of Station Fourteen liked her. She was there to work evidence for the Bear Claw City P.D. and prove to her bosses back home that she could fit herself seamlessly into an existing team like the BCCPD’s crime lab. Blackthorn wasn’t part of that world.

Unless there was a crime scene up at Station Fourteen. Then he was very much a part of her world—at least for the duration of the case.

Alyssa frowned. “Cassie’s going to be tied up for the next few hours and there’s no way I’m driving up to the middle of nowhere, never mind hiking to the site. Gigi can—” She broke off and glanced in Gigi’s direction. “Okay. I can switch some stuff around and send Cassie, I guess. Tell him she’ll be coming in behind the officers, and will need really good directions or a lead-in. We’re shorthanded as it is. It won’t do us any good to lose an analyst to the Forgotten.”

Gigi barely heard the last part. She was too busy seething at the realization that Blackthorn had told Tucker—a former member of the Denver P.D. who had a direct pipeline to her bosses—that he didn’t want her on the case.

“That backstabbing—” She bit off the snarl as Alyssa clicked her phone shut and regarded her curiously.

“What on earth is the problem between you and Matt?”

Taking a deep breath, Gigi slapped a layer of professionalism over her other emotions. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no problem. We met a couple of times, I was pleasant, he wasn’t. End of story.” At least it had been. Now she wanted a piece of him for trying to torpedo her. What had she ever done to him?

Nothing, that was what. Judgmental idiot.

“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Alyssa said. “It’s not like him to be a jerk to anyone, especially a woman, never mind leaning on Tucker for something like this.”

Gigi said through her teeth, “I’ve barely spoken to the man. If he took one look at me and decided he didn’t like what he saw, that’s his problem.”

Alyssa’s look went speculative, but she said only, “He told Tucker he didn’t think you could handle the backcountry, that he’d rather wait for someone he didn’t have to babysit.”

“He …” Gigi counted to ten and reminded herself that it didn’t matter what Blackthorn thought of her. Tucker was a fair guy and a top-notch cop, which meant he cared about results. “Fine, let’s give Ranger Surly what he wants. I’ll take over for Cassie and she can deal with his parking lot smash-and-grab.”

But Alyssa shook her head, expression clouding. “It’s way more than that. A few hours ago, two men attacked and injured one of his rangers—a woman named Tanya Dawes. They just airlifted her out.”

“Oh.” Oh, damn. Gigi exhaled in a rush, knowing full well that aggravated assault trumped any personal issues that might or might not exist between her and Blackthorn. “Is she going to be okay?”

“It looks like she took a serious blow to the head and may have some internal injuries. I guess she came around just long enough to tell Matt that two men had ambushed her.”

“Sexual assault?”

“No sign of it, which is good. But the head injury … that’s not good.”

“Did she give Blackthorn any sort of description?” “Nothing.”

“Damn.” Which meant that the crime scene analysis could be critical. “How do you want to handle it?”

Alyssa thought for a few seconds, then said, “I want you to head out to Station Fourteen. According to Matt, the scene took a beating when they airlifted her out, which makes you the better choice. Cassie is hell on wheels with the tech stuff, but you’ve got more experience with contaminated scenes. And if the problem between you and Matt is strictly an oil-and-water sort of thing, you’ll deal with it. Right?”

Gigi nodded, already mentally reviewing the field kit she had with her, looking for gaps. “Of course. I’ve taken static on crime scenes before. I can handle myself.”

More importantly, this wasn’t about her and it sure wasn’t about Blackthorn. She was there to do a job and she didn’t intend to let anyone get in her way … especially not a park ranger with a great body and a nasty judgmental streak.

WHEN THE FIRST BCCPD vehicle churned into view in a cloud of dust, Matt was surprised to see Jack Williams at the wheel.

Williams, who topped six feet and had early salt in his chestnut hair though he was just on the downside of thirty, was one of the top detectives in Homicide. Born and raised in Bear Claw, Jack was the latest in a long line of Williamses to serve the BCCPD, and Matt’s gut had long ago put the guy in the “solid cop” category.

As Williams climbed from the SUV, Matt headed over, hands in his pockets, still wearing his shotgun and knapsack over his shoulder. “I’ll have to thank Tucker,” he said to Williams. “This isn’t exactly a case for Homicide, but I’m damn glad to see you.”

The detective gave him a nod. “We take care of our own.”

Matt didn’t think he was talking about the close connection that had evolved between the P.D. and park service in Bear Claw, but didn’t want to go down that road, so he said simply, “Thanks.” He glanced over as a second cop got out of the SUV—a younger uniformed officer with a startling shock of white-blond hair and pale eyes that together made him look washed out beneath the late-summer sun. “New partner?”

“Billy Doran,” Williams said by way of introduction. “Thanks to Mayor Cheapskate’s latest round of cuts, we’re down to under a dozen detectives trying to cover the whole damn city. Rather than partnering detectives, Tucker’s got some of us teaming up with uniforms.”

Despite his one-time interest in politics, Matt had stayed well clear of Bear Claw’s issues, just as he largely avoided the city itself. He hadn’t moved to Station Fourteen to get involved in city stuff, after all. Even so, he knew that Mayor Percy Proudfoot had been taking some serious hacks at the budget in an effort to turn around a huge budget deficit. The P.D. in particular was having to get creative.

He sent the kid a nod. “Doran.” Turning back to Williams, he said, “I’ll lead you guys in, then come back down for Cassie when she gets here.” He hesitated. “There’s something I didn’t get a chance to tell Tucker.” He told them about the feather, patted his buttoned pocket. “You guys want it?”

“Keep it until Cass gets here,” Williams said. “It’s probably better not to move it around more than necessary. But don’t be surprised if she wants your shirt, too, in case there’s transfer.” He grinned. “Just watch what you say if she does. Last guy who made a sexist joke about the crime scene girls got the rough side of Alyssa’s tongue, and then spent some quality time directing traffic for a sewer repair crew, courtesy of Chief Mendoza.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Actually, it didn’t matter to him whether the Bear Claw analysts were women or Martians, as long as they got the job done.

“Grab the gear,” Williams said to Doran. To Matt, he said, “Lead on and let’s see what these bastards left us.”

“Not much that I could see. The scene is pretty torn up.”

Sure enough, once he got them up there, Williams shook his head. “You weren’t kidding. What isn’t bare rock is a frigging mess.” He sent Doran to take pictures and notes, but didn’t look optimistic. “I have a feeling our best bet is going to be talking to Tanya when she wakes up.”

Matt nodded, partly in thanks for the word choice. When she woke up. Not if. When.

The detective said, “Want to run me through what you saw? Maybe being up here will kick loose something new.”

“Of course.” Matt started right from the moment he heard Cochran’s first shout, but it was becoming rote. And, really, he hadn’t been there when it counted.

By the time Doran was done, Williams was ready to head back down to the station and question the Cochrans, so Matt led them back to the vehicles.

On the way, he radioed Bert for an update and got confirmation that Tanya’s injuries were from an attack rather than a fall, along with the grim news that she was still unconscious and the early scan results weren’t good. Damn it.

Forcing his emotions down where they belonged, Matt asked, “How about the CSI? Did she come through the station yet?” If Tanya wasn’t waking up, they needed to get moving on the scene. Every minute they wasted was another minute the perps were using to get away … or plan another attack.

“Yeah. She should be there any minute.”

Sure enough, the cops were loading up their SUV when the radio on his hip squalled a broken transmission. All he caught was a woman’s voice and the words “almost there.”

The dust kicked up by Williams’s departing SUV was just clearing when a new cloud took shape and a nearly identical vehicle appeared coming the other way.

Matt checked his watch and was surprised to see that even though it felt like days had passed, it had only been five or six hours of real time. That meant they had a couple of hours of daylight left.

They would need it, too. It wouldn’t be easy to truck in lights, and there wasn’t much chance of an airdrop. Tucker had already given him the heads up that the P.D. was getting pressure from higher up the food chain—aka Mayor Proudfoot’s office—to keep Tanya’s assault on the down low and not over-commit resources.

The official line was that the attack wasn’t all that different from an in-city mugging, and while Tanya would get some preference as a ranger, the P.D. shouldn’t go overboard. The real rationale, though, was even simpler: Bear Claw City was hurting for money and couldn’t afford to lose any tourists.

Matt hated the equation, the politics.

The SUV cruised in going too fast and kicked up dust, suggesting that Cassie, too, knew they were racing the sun. Grit hazed things as the door swung open and she got out, hauling a heavy-looking tackle box with her.

He headed over, extending a hand. “Let me grab that for …” He trailed off, stopping dead as his gut fisted on a surge of heat mixed with dismay.

The woman coming toward him wasn’t the businesslike blonde he’d been expecting.

Not even close.

A sizzle shot through him at the sight of a sharp, triangular face beneath a crooked cap of shiny dark hair. He told himself the sensation was dismay, because he sure as hell shouldn’t be feeling anything else toward a woman like Gigi Lynd.

Gigi. It sounded like it should come with a French label and an import tariff. And from her trendy haircut and unbalanced ear piercings—one on the right, three on the left—to the silver-gilded tips of her gleaming lizard-skin boots—black today rather than the purple she had been wearing before, but equally as impractical—she didn’t belong anywhere near the backcountry. Or him.

His pulse raced. He was going to kill Tucker.

Her white button-down was open just low enough to show a hint of cleavage, and the black belt that rode below her narrow waist had a gleam of silver that drew the eye.

“No,” he said without preamble as she squared off opposite him. “I want one of the others.”

Her smoky gray eyes narrowed. “You made that clear when you trashed me to McDermott.”

“I didn’t—” He broke off, guilt stinging because he hadn’t exactly trashed her, but he’d made it clear he didn’t think she had the backcountry experience or analytical chops to handle the case. “Look, it’s nothing personal.”

“Bull. You took one look at me and decided that I was incompetent based on, what? Some eyeliner and a little bling?” She flicked the more heavily pierced of her earlobes. “Fine, whatever, that’s your problem not mine. But you’re one-hundred percent right that this shouldn’t be personal. You don’t have to like me. Just get out of my way and let me do my job.”

The guilt twisted harder because she was right. He’d snap judged her, hard, which was so far from his usual style it was practically alien.

That didn’t mean she was the right analyst for the job, though.

He glanced up the trail. “Look, I’m sorry about the attitude. It’s just … Believe it or not, I don’t doubt your competence—McDermott wouldn’t have leaned on his contacts in Denver to get you if you weren’t the best crime scene analyst available. But you’re a long way from home, and the backcountry isn’t anything like the city. Alyssa, Cassie and Maya have all worked scenes out here before. You haven’t.”

She pierced him with a cool look. “Yet they sent me, even after you told Tucker not to. Want to take a guess as to why?”

“I don’t want to … Damn it.” He jammed both hands in his pockets, knowing he was beaten. And what was more, he was dead wrong. She hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve his suspicion. It wasn’t her fault that she was the first woman in a long time to make him want to stop and take a second, longer look. Maybe a taste.

And that so wasn’t happening.

He didn’t know what she saw in his face, but her expression softened. “I’m sorry about what happened to Tanya. And under the circumstances, I’m even sorry that my being here bothers you. But back in Denver I was the analyst of choice for badly contaminated scenes. Right before I left, I worked a murder scene at the edge of an eroded riverbank the day after a downpour. And yes, we got the guy.” She paused. “You want to get the two men who hurt your ranger? Then take me to your scene … and make it fast, because we’re burning daylight.”

Matt wasn’t sure which was worse: having been so thoroughly set down … or knowing that he was going to have to stick right with her. Because he’d be damned if anyone else got hurt on his watch.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, yeah.” Mind already skimming ahead to what he was going to need out of the Jeep, he whipped off his shirt and held it out. “You’re going to want this.”

It wasn’t until she gave a strangled gasp, eyes going wide, that he realized he was standing there bare-chested, and she had no clue why he’d just stripped down.

Heat washed through him. Oh, hell. That was so not cool.

“There’s evidence in the front pocket,” he said quickly. “A feather Tanya was holding when I got to her. Williams said you would want the shirt, too, for transfer.” He started to apologize, would have except for one thing:

She was staring at his chest.

He stilled, watching a faint flush climb her throat and work its way to her face as she swallowed. Then she jerked her eyes to his, and the blush hit hard.

Electricity raced over his skin, tightening his body as they stared at each other for a three count.

She recovered first, with a gulp and a small shiver that he felt deep in his gut. “Um,” she said, voice huskier than it had been a moment earlier, “hold that thought.”

When she put down the tackle box that contained her field kit, he thought … hell, he didn’t know what he thought. His brain was gone, melted by whatever had just telegraphed between them. So when she rummaged and came up with a large evidence bag, he just stared at it for a second.

Then reality returned and his brain reassembled itself.

Tanya. Evidence. The crime scene.

What the hell was he doing?

Without a word, he folded the shirt and tucked it into the bag, watched her seal it and scrawl her name on the first line of the evidence chain. Then he turned away and headed for his Jeep, saying over his shoulder, “Let me grab my jacket and we can hit the trail.”

And as he led her up to Candle Rock, he worked like hell to get his head screwed back on straight. Because he couldn’t afford to let himself get distracted in a crisis situation. Bad things happened when he did.