The Coltons of Mustang Valley

While she had to have dealings with him anyway because she’d been assigned his father’s case.

No one else wanted anything to do with investigating Tyler’s death. His case was done. Closed. They thought her paranoid, needing to get over it, at worst. And a grieving sister who was struggling to accept the truth, at best. Which was why the case files were at home, not work. Why her dining room wall had become an investigation board.

“I’m not really dressed for a trek up the mountain…” He looked at her and finished, “But, yeah, let’s go now.”

Whether he still had the talent to read her, or she’d just been obvious in her thoughts of “now or never,” she didn’t care to guess. But after locking up, she holstered her gun at her waist and headed out of her house through the door off the kitchen that led to a two-car garage.

Rafe offered to drive. To take his truck. She wasn’t riding anywhere with him. The control was all hers or she wasn’t going.

Not that she said as much aloud. She just got in her Jeep and pushed the button to raise the garage door. He climbed in beside her without pressing the matter.

Smart man.

“One of the last times that Tyler talked about having changed his life around…he was telling me how good he was doing, loved working as a cowboy, actually out on the range for a week at a time, moving herds, running down strays and assisting with difficult births. He’d been thinking about riding in an amateur rodeo during the county fair…and then he let something slip,” she said, doing everything she could to remain fully focused on the case at hand, and not getting distracting by the man at her side.

“He said that he was staying away from the ‘Big B.’ He paled right afterward and when I questioned him on it, he just shook his head.”

“The Big B? Is that a person?”

“I have no idea, but I assume so. It kind of sounded like it, like it was someone he had to avoid, not a place he just didn’t go to anymore. I’ve looked all over the county and can’t find any establishment that would go by the name Big B.”

“Odin Rogers doesn’t have a B,” Rafe said, almost as though she hadn’t already figured that out.

“And his middle name is Paul,” she let him know she’d done her homework. And could spell enough to know there was no B in that, either.

“I’m thinking that someone who works for Rogers is the Big B. Maybe one of his hired thugs. Or, I suppose, it could be some kind of moniker for a substance cocktail, but not one that’s on any radar.”

The entrance to the drive up the mountain was several miles outside of town, in the opposite direction from the RRR. The well-worn, if little used one-lane road had been carved into the mountain back in the early days of gold and copper mining. Her Jeep bounced up it just fine, taking the sometimes harrowing turns slowly when she couldn’t see ahead to know if she’d need to yield to oncoming vehicles.

“You’ve obviously done this a few times,” Rafe said, holding on to the handle just above the door frame. He didn’t look nervous though. He was smiling.

And she almost missed the next turn.

Being up on the mountain with Rafe, away from the world, with only more mountains, higher peaks, and the gulch below in sight, threw her. They’d spent most of their hours together out in the middle of nowhere, out of view, out of sight, so they wouldn’t be caught together. In the vast Arizona landscape, she’d felt so free.

Free from her father’s drinking. From worry. From little Tyler needing things from her.

Free to love Rafe Kay.

Free to love Rafe Colton.

Standing up on that mountain with him, even several feet apart, watching him look over an area she pretty much knew by heart, she felt her whole being suffused with a sense of rightness, followed by a stream of longing that almost brought her to her knees. Everything about him was familiar in that moment. The way a few strands of his thick blond hair picked up when a breeze blew over them. The set of his shoulders. The intent focus he gave to whatever had his attention.

How could twenty-three years make no difference at all? Especially when it made all the difference in the world?

“This is where he went over,” he said, apparently not as affected by being alone in the wilderness with her as she was with him. And why would he be? He’d probably taken a lot of girls back to their old hiding places. And why not? They were a known way to get past Payne.

Those old hiding places were all part of his family’s land.

“Yes.” She gave herself a strong mental shake and focused on why she was up on that mountain. On why she was talking to Rafe Colton at all.

“And there was no scuffle? No sign of struggle?”

She shook her head. Another fact that Chief Barco had taken into consideration before ruling her brother’s death accidental.

“But if he was facing the gully down below, thinking he was alone, or if he was up here with someone he trusted, he could easily have been taken off guard.”

Tyler could have been making out with someone. Not that she’d ever considered that before, but she definitely knew how lost you could get in a kiss when you were out in the middle of nowhere…

“He hadn’t been expecting to be in a fight. Hadn’t had a chance to defend himself,” she said, bringing her thoughts firmly back to current ground.

Rafe turned slowly, glancing all around them. He didn’t walk far, didn’t venture too close to the cliff’s edge.

Glancing at the slick-bottomed, expensive leather dress shoes he was wearing, she didn’t blame him.

“What’s over there?” He motioned to a cliff side that tilted downward, toward another shallower gully off to the left of where Tyler had been pushed.

Shrugging, she walked that way. “I never climbed down to see,” she said. It wasn’t like she’d hiked an entire mountain range. Most particularly not alone. No reason to do so. “There’s no path, no sign of broken vegetation, so obviously it’s not a place people go.” She moved closer, anyway. Rafe thought he noticed something.

She trusted his instincts.

Not him.

But he’d always had good instincts. Like the time he’d shoved her back and to the ground, a seemingly mean thing to do, until she’d noticed the rattlesnake he’d prevented her from stepping near. He noticed things. Knew things. He always had…

What the…

“Rafe, look…” She was probably just seeing things. “Is that a trail over there? Leading to that cliff face across the way?”

When he came up beside her, she turned red. Hot. Embarrassed that she’d just been seeing things. Of course there was no…

“I’m not sure,” he said. “If it is, it’s covered over with all of those tumbleweeds.”

“Yeah.” She’d been overreacting.

To him. Which clouded her normally spot-on thinking. She could feel his body heat. He was that close. And could smell him, too.

It wasn’t possible that a boy of thirteen would carry the same scent as a man of thirty-six. Logically, she knew that. Her olfactory nerves were out of control.

“It’s kind of funny, though, that they’re all conglomerated around that one area, don’t you think?” She had to say something, even if it was stupid. Better than standing there letting the past take control of her present. Ruin her present.

“Not if the wind blew them. They stopped there because of the cliff face…”

Something sounded behind them. A crunch of something heavy on the hard ground. Hand to her gun, Kerry froze. If it was a bear, or, more likely, a mountain lion, their greatest hope was to keep it calm. To pray that it didn’t charge them before she could turn and get a shot off.

“What’re you two doin’ up ’ere?”

Not recognizing the voice, yet relieved to know that their intruder was human, Kerry spun around, her gun steady and pointing forward.

“Hey there…put that thing down. You ain’t s’posed to be huntin’ up here…”

The man was older than both of them by a good ten years. Maybe more. Rough looking and wearing a forest ranger uniform. Dropping her gun, she reached into her back pocket for her badge wallet.

“I’m Detective Kerry Wilder,” she said, aware of Rafe right behind her as she approached the man, showing him her identification.

“Yes’m, I know who you are,” the man said, pulling out his own ID. “Grant Alvin,” he said. “My wife and I transferred in with the Forest Service about five years ago. Used to be up at the Grand Canyon,” he said.

Kerry knew some of the forest rangers in the area by sight. Not all. Those near Mustang Valley usually lived in remote, government housing, someplace in national forest territory. And unless there was a matter in MVPD’s jurisdiction, they didn’t really cross paths.

But if he’d been in the area for five years… Shouldn’t someone have talked to him about Tyler’s death? She hadn’t seen his name in any reports. Getting excited as she faced a possible new lead, she said, “I’m investigating my brother’s death.” She named Tyler and gave the man the date and time of death that the coroner had given two years ago.

Staying silent, Rafe stood right beside her, like he was poised to jump to her defense at any moment. Fancy clothes and all. Like his slippery shoes would get anywhere near as far as her well-worn cowboy boots.

Still, she was glad he was there. If the ranger had been a bear—if she’d been about to die—having Rafe there, dying with him…

“You lookin’ at that old case agin?” Alvin looked at her like she was cow dung. “It was an accident. They all said so.”

“Maybe it was,” Kerry acknowledged, not wanting to get on the wrong side of the Forest Service. “I’d just like to be sure.”

“Seems like there’d be more important stuff for you to be doin’,” the somewhat-large man said, holding his ground, his arms crossed against his chest.

“I’m doing this in my own time,” she told him. And then asked, “You said you’ve been in the area for five years.”

“That’s right.”

“And you patrol this mountain?”

“Sometimes. Depends.”

“Were you here two years ago?”

“Off and on.”

“You ever notice any suspicious activity?”

“No.”

Something about the speed of his response put her on edge. Further on edge. The guy seemed pissed off. Put out.

She and Rafe weren’t doing anything wrong. The land was open to the public. They hadn’t even veered far from where they’d pulled the Jeep off the track.

“No one hanging around…no vehicles that visit frequently? Anything that might be big enough to haul guns in and out? Repeat visitors who only stay a minute or two each time they come?”

“Nothin’,” Alvin said, dropping his arms to take a step closer to them. “There’s nothin’. And now the two of yous need to be getting on down the hill,” he said. “It’s getting late, gonna be dark soon, and there’s all kind of wild animals out here at night. I sure don’t want to be having to come back up and git you down,” he said. And then, with a sour look added, “And them thousand-dollar leather shoes sure ain’t gonna keep that one from sliding off a cliff.” He practically spat the last four words.

Before either of them could respond, the man turned and then walked off.

Kerry could have called him back, but she was just as glad to see him go.

“What the hell was that?” she breathed, staring at Rafe. “Did he just threaten you?”

“Seemed that way.” Eyes narrowed, Rafe was staring after Alvin, who’d apparently come upon them on foot. There was no other vehicle in the immediate vicinity, which would explain why they didn’t know he’d been approaching.

“How’d he know we were up here?”

“I’m guessing he heard the Jeep. Came to check us out.”

Which would be his job. Still… “He seemed kind of paranoid, though. What’s it to him if I look into a cold case?”

“I’m not sure.” Rafe didn’t say much, but one look at his face told Kerry that he wasn’t blowing off the incident. He was going to find out more.

Because he had the clout to do so.

And for the first time in a very, very long time, she was glad that she knew Rafe Colton.

Chapter 4

He knew exactly who to call. Chafing to get down off the mountain and into the privacy of his truck, Rafe thought about the woman he’d known briefly, but intimately, almost a decade ago. Colton Oil had mistakenly been excavating on government land. As the newly appointed CFO and eager to prove himself, Rafe had quickly and personally presented a financial offer to the government’s attorney, Shelly Marston, to allow the company to continue drilling with more than fair remuneration to the government. He’d spared CO the cost of pulling out, applying for permission to drill and moving back in, and the government received more than usual compensation for the use of the land. And Shelly… She’d reminded him of Kerry. Same auburn hair. Same strength and sass. One night with her had told him that he couldn’t go back. And that it was grossly unfair to another woman to use her as a stand-in.

Which was just as well. The next morning, when Shelly told him at breakfast that she’d appreciate it if, as part of their deal, he’d keep their night together just between the two of them, he’d noticed the wedding ring that had not been on her hand the day before.

She’d said that she and her husband were separated, going through some growing pains with careers that took them to different parts of the country, but that her night with Rafe had shown her how much she loved her family.

They’d used each other. Which had formed an odd bond between them. A completely nonsexual, noncommunicative bond. They’d go years without talking. But when either of them needed some professional advice in the area of the other’s expertise, they picked up the phone trusting that it would be answered…

He saw a flash—a reflection off silver—a second before Kerry rounded the bend. Suddenly, they were forced cliffside, inches from going over.

His shoulder hit the door. He felt Kerry swerve again, felt the propulsion forward as his chest slammed into the seat belt, sensed a tightening within that braced for the unknown. And was aware of the thud as the Jeep came to a stop nose to nose with the mountain on the opposite side of the road. It took him a second to realize that flash of silver had been another vehicle.

By the time they’d stilled, his mind had caught up, was giving him instant replay in rapid staccato. And Kerry was saying, “Stay down,” and was out of the vehicle, gun drawn, crouching with her door as a shield on one side and the mountain at her back.

Keeping his head below the windshield, Rafe slid across the seat, digging his thigh with the gearshift, and slid out her open door to crouch beside her.

“That was deliberate,” she said. “He was waiting in this alcove for us to come around the corner.”

“The ranger?” He’d eventually caught up to the situation. Knew that she’d had the wherewithal to swerve on the wrong side of the oncoming vehicle that had been clearly gunning to run them off the narrow road into the valley below.

She shrugged. “Who else?” The tension in her voice stung him. Alerting him anew to the danger of their situation.

“Something about us up there, looking into Tyler’s death, sure had him paranoid,” he said aloud, looking behind him, up what he could see of the part of the winding road they’d just descended. “We need to go,” he said urgently, but softly, as though he could be overheard. “He’s going to be coming back down.”

She nodded. Did a three-sixty with her gun pointed out in front of her. And stopped.

“What’s that?” she said, pointing with her gun to a space in front of her opened car door. With the falling dusk, he didn’t immediately see what she was pointing at.

And then he did.

A boot. One that hadn’t been there long enough even to get dusty or look unused. To have white bird droppings or chewed holes.

A boot that matched those the ranger had been wearing.

“Why would he leave without his boot?” Kerry asked. “If he was sitting there in his vehicle waiting for us, he wouldn’t have been taking off his boots.”

He knew she was right. Didn’t want to worry about it at the moment. “Maybe he had an itch,” he said, inanely, and then, “Come on, Kerry, we need to get down off this mountain before he comes back.”

She nodded. “I know.” And pushed the door forward enough that she could scoot around it, scraping against the mountain as she went, and then toward the boot.

Rafe followed her. He wasn’t leaving her out there in the growing night alone.

“Look,” she said, pointing toward tamped down underbrush. “Someone dragged something heavy…”

“Like a carton of ammunition.”

She’d moved forward again, toward another drop-off on that side of the road. He’d grown up in those mountains, knew that they were filled with gullies and valleys, with steep slopes and dangerous, unforeseen drops. He knew how easy it would be for someone to fall and get hurt, if she missed just one step out there…

“Kerry, please,” he said, heart pounding as he followed her.

“Or like a body,” she said, her voice changed, shaking, and it took him a second to realize that she was responding to his comment about a carton of ammunition—or something else heavy having been dragged.

The land was mostly in shadows, but the setting sun still shone clearly in parts, highlighting the twisted body lying at an obviously lethal angle thirty feet below.

“Come on, we have to go,” she said, swinging her gun from side to side, watching as they hurried back to the Jeep.

“That was the ranger.” What the hell had they gotten themselves into? Not much point now in the phone call he’d been going to make—requesting a transfer for Grant Alvin. The ranger had just been sent much further away than he’d anticipated.

“I know it was. And I also know there’s someone else out here. We have to go. To get help.” She bit out the words with every step she took, pulling her phone off the clip at her hip. “There’s no reception,” she said, looking down, and in that instant, a shot fired out, dinged off the mountain less than a foot away from them.

Pushing Kerry into the Jeep in front of him, Rafe climbed in behind her, started the vehicle and sped off. Another shot rang out, but he made it round the bend before it could hit the car. He was driving too fast, prayed to God another vehicle wasn’t coming up around a bend, but knew that he couldn’t slow down. He had to get them the hell out of there before the gun behind them caught up.

What in the hell had just happened? Shaken mentally as well as physically, Kerry had a hand on the dash, turning in her seat to watch ahead of them as well as behind him, as Rafe sped the rest of the way down the mountain. Neither one of them spoke. All focus had to be on getting down to safety.

And when they’d reached the end of the drive, when Rafe had maneuvered them safely to the road leading into town, her brain started to shoot forward. The first thing she did was make a phone call, getting a specially trained rescue crew out to retrieve the ranger’s body. While it was too dangerous to drive up the mountain in the dark, Chief Barco was positioning a car at the base of the mountain to prevent anyone from leaving before daybreak.

Of course, the perp could have already exited the drive, a minute or two after they did. With all of the turns in the road, she wouldn’t have known if the black SUV she’d seen was right behind them or not. He could have waited until her Jeep was out of sight and then turned in the opposite direction. Away from town. He could be long gone.

Still, she’d intended to drop off Rafe and head back out there to explore at least the lower part of the mountain drive, but the chief had other ideas.

For the moment, she’d been ordered to stand down. Worse, he was sending a patrol car to sit outside her home for the rest of the night.

She’d been shot at. End of story.

Except that it wasn’t.

“Who’s out there?” she asked Rafe, completely frustrated as she hung up the phone. She wasn’t good at inactivity. “And why?” Her whole life, the way she’d dealt with stress was by taking action. Same for combatting fear. You met it head-on. Dealt with it. You didn’t hide in your home behind other officers at your front line.

“And what in the hell is going on up that mountain?” she asked when her first question received no answer.

“You asked him about guns and implied something about drugs,” Rafe said slowly, his gaze focused on the road in front of them, as though he wasn’t going to relax a muscle until they’d made the last five miles into town. “You really think that there’s something big going on,” he continued.

“Big enough to warrant killing Tyler,” she said. “I know my brother wasn’t involved in anything illegal that last year, but before that?” She hated that the question even had to be out there.

“It’s possible he just stumbled into something,” she continued, thinking out loud more than anything. “Tyler, I mean. But…you saw the photos from Tyler’s fall,” she said.

What she was about to say was the fact most on her mind at the moment. And the one she left out of her verbal report to the chief. Someone else might notice. They might not. For the moment, until she could think, she was keeping silent.

Rafe’s nod was short. Succinct.

“Same way the head was bent back beneath the body…there’s no way two falls could end up with the body landing so closely the same.”

“Unless the bodies were held, probably by the neck, and then pushed in exactly the same way,” Rafe said, earning her respect. He was right there with her.

Just as she’d have expected her best friend from long ago to be.

“I’m not getting why the ranger was killed,” she said, less than a minute later. The town’s lights were up ahead. Still another mile or so away. “He clearly wasn’t out there protecting us. To the contrary, he wanted us gone. Like he was protecting something else.”

She was back to the drugs and guns. She couldn’t get off them, which told her that she was likely on the right path.

One that led, somehow, to Odin Rogers.

“Could be some kind of turf war and we drove into the middle of it.”

“I need to get back up there and find the casings from the shots that were fired. To run ballistics on the guns.”

Luckily they had a small crime lab right there in Mustang Valley, donated years ago by the Coltons.

“From what I heard of your conversation, you’ve been told to stay home for the rest of the night.”

“That doesn’t please me,” she said. But she knew better than to disobey the chief’s orders. He was chief for a reason. He knew the area. He knew his job. And she valued hers.

“I wonder if whoever killed the ranger was with him when he approached us? He had to get up there somehow and we never heard or saw another vehicle. Alvin walked up to us, walked away. Maybe whoever was driving the black SUV had parked the vehicle farther down and then followed the ranger up. Could be that person heard me asking Alvin about Tyler’s death. But then he’d know that the guy was a jerk. Warned us off. Why would that get him killed?”

Rafe’s shake of the head was brief. They’d entered Mustang Valley proper and he’d slowed to the speed limit.

“Whatever is going on must be big since it was worth killing not one, but two men over it.”

She glanced at him. “You believe Tyler was murdered.”

His quick glance thawed a small piece of her heart. “I trusted your instincts to begin with, but after this…it’s clear you were right, Kerry. The problem is, how are we going to prove it?”

There was that “we” again.

The two of them. A team. Just as she’d once imagined they’d be.

But it was only for a moment.

Because, ultimately, nothing between them had changed. She couldn’t trust him to have her back when life returned to normal and the Colton money and power became an issue again. Couldn’t trust him to stick around.