Murder In Black Canyon

“I don’t like to carry a gun. I didn’t think this was a particularly dangerous situation.”

“Who did you come to see?” he asked again. “I can subpoena your files to find out. Save us both some hassle and just tell me.”

She hesitated, a deep crease between her brows as she weighed her options. “I came to see Andi Matheson. She calls herself Asteria now. But she doesn’t have anything to do with your case.”

“You said her father hired you. Who is he?”

She glared at him.

“I’ll bet I can find the answer in five minutes or less online.”

She continued to glare at him, and the intensity of her gaze sent a thrill of awareness through him. Oh, he liked her, all right. Maybe a little too much, considering her involvement in this case.

“Her father is Senator Peter Matheson,” she said. “I imagine you’ve heard of him.”

Dylan had heard of the senator, all right. Until recently, he had been in the news primarily for his campaign to disband the Ranger Brigade. He had claimed the task force of federal agents was intrusive, expensive and ineffective. He had succeeded in having the group defunded, only to wind up looking like a fool when the Rangers had brought down a major terrorist group that had been operating in the area. Congress had responded by expanding the group, and Matheson had mostly kept a low profile ever since.

And now the senator was mixed up with Metwater and his bunch of wanderers. Dylan scanned the silent camp. “How did you track her down here? You said her father didn’t know where she was.”

“I talked to her friends. Her best friend told me she and Andi had attended a presentation given by Daniel Metwater and Andi had been very attracted to him, and to the ideas he preached. I did some more digging and verified that she had indeed joined up with Metwater and his group.”

Dylan nodded. Textbook solid detective work. “Let’s have a word with Ms. Matheson. Maybe she knows something she’s not telling about all this.”

“I really don’t think—” Kayla began.

But Dylan had already moved to the nearest camper, a battered aqua-and-silver trailer wedged beneath a clump of stunted evergreens. He pounded on the door, shaking the whole structure. “Police! Open up!” he called.

A woman with a deeply tanned face and bleached hair eased open the door and peered out at them. “I’m looking for Andi Matheson,” Dylan said.

The woman shook her head. “I don’t know anyone by that name,” she said, and started to close the door.

“What about Asteria?” Kayla asked. “Where does she live?”

“Over there.” The woman pointed to a large white tent next to the Prophet’s trailer.

The tent was the kind used by hunting outfitters as a mess tent or gathering area, with a tall frame and roll-up canvas sides. One of the sides was open to let in the hot breeze. Dylan moved around to the opening and peered in. A blonde woman sat cross-legged on a rug on the floor, eyes closed, hands outstretched.

“Ms. Matheson?” Dylan asked. “Asteria?”

She opened her eyes, which were a deep blue. “I was meditating,” she said.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I have to ask you a few questions.” He took a step toward her. “I’m Lieutenant Dylan Holt, with the Ranger Brigade task force. I wanted to ask you about the body that was brought to your camp earlier today.”

Andi looked away. “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t want to look. It was horrible.”

Kayla moved up beside Dylan, her voice gentle. “We don’t want to upset you, Andi,” she said. “We just have a few questions and then we’ll leave you alone.”

“All right.” She motioned toward the rug across from her. “You might as well sit down.”

The room was furnished with a cot and several folding camp chairs, but Dylan lowered himself to the rug. The coolness of the earth seeped up through the rug’s pile. Kayla sat beside him. “Tell me what you saw this morning,” he said.

Andi shrugged. “I didn’t see much. There was shouting, and Abe and Zach came in, dragging something on a tarp. I thought they had killed an animal at first—there was so much blood. Then I saw it was a man and I looked away. I ran back here and hid.” She rubbed her hand across her stomach. “I didn’t want to see any more.”

“Do you know a man named Frank Asher?” he asked. “He works for the FBI.”

“Frank?” She stared at him, eyes wide. “What about Frank?”

“Did you know him?” Dylan asked.

“No!” She shook her head, hands clutching her skirt. “No,” she repeated in a whisper, even as tears ran down her face.

“I think you did know him,” Dylan said. “Frank Asher is the man who was killed—the body Zach and Abe found this morning.”

Andi covered her mouth with her hand. “I told him not to come here,” she said, the words muffled. “I told him not to come and now look what happened.” She collapsed onto the rug and began to sob, the mournful wailing filling the tent and making Dylan’s chest hurt.

Chapter Four

Kayla knelt beside Andi, alarmed by the speed at which the beautiful, defiant young woman had dissolved into this wailing heap of grief. “I’m so sorry,” she said, rubbing Andi’s back. “Please sit up and try to calm down.” She looked back over her shoulder at Dylan, who looked as if he wanted to be anyplace but here at this moment. “Would you get her some water?” She pointed toward a large jug that sat on a stand at the back of the tent.

He retrieved the water and brought it to her. “What was your relationship to Frank Asher?” he asked. “When was the last time you were in contact with him?”

The questions brought a fresh wave of sobs. Kayla glared at him. Did he have to act like such a cop right now, firing official-sounding questions at this obviously distraught woman? “You’re not helping,” she said.

Frowning, he backed away.

“Drink this.” Kayla put the cup of water into Andi’s hands. “Take a deep breath. You’ve had a shock.”

“What’s going on in here? What are you doing to her?”

The outraged questions came from one of the women Kayla had seen with Andi earlier—a slight figure with a mane of brown curly hair and a slightly crooked nose. She rushed over and inserted herself between Andi and Kayla. “Asteria, honey, what have they done to you?”

“What’s your name?” Dylan joined them again.

The brown-haired woman glared at him. “Who are you, and why are you upsetting my friend?”

“Lieutenant Holt.” Dylan showed his badge. “I’m investigating the death of the man whose body was brought into the camp earlier today. What’s your name?”

“Starfall.”

Kayla thought Dylan was about to demand she tell him her real name, but he apparently thought better of it. “Were you here when Abe and Zach brought him in?” he asked.

Starfall wrinkled her nose. “They should have known better than to pull a stunt like that. It was awful.”

“What do you mean, ‘a stunt like that’?” Dylan asked.

“The man was dead. I mean, half his head was gone. We couldn’t do anything for him. They should have left him where they found him and not involved us in whatever happened to him.”

Andi began keening again, rocking back and forth. Starfall wrapped her arms around her friend. “You need to go,” she said. “You’ve upset her enough.”

“Do you know a man named Frank Asher?” Dylan asked.

“No. Now go. You have no right to harass us this way.”

Kayla touched Dylan’s arm. “Give her a chance to calm down a little,” she said softly. “You can question her later.”

He nodded and led the way out of the tent.

The camp was just as deserted as it had been before. “Looks like nobody wants to take a chance on running into a cop,” Dylan observed.

“Or maybe they really are taking a siesta.” She pulled the front of her shirt away from her chest, hoping for a cool breeze. “It’s baking out here.”

He glanced back at her. “You should wear a hat.” He touched the brim of the fawn-colored Stetson that was part of his uniform.

They left the camp, back on the trail to the parking area. “What are you going to do next?” Kayla asked.

“There’s so much that feels wrong here it’s hard to know where to start.” He gave her a hard look. “What’s Andi Matheson’s relationship to Frank Asher?”

“How should I know?”

“Her father hired you to find her. You must have looked into her background, talked to her friends and people who knew her.”

“I did, but none of them ever mentioned a Frank Asher.” No one had mentioned any men in Andi’s life, outside of her father and a few very casual acquaintances. None of the photos and articles Kayla had viewed online linked Andi with a man. At the time, Kayla had thought it was a little unusual that a woman as attractive and seemingly outgoing as Andi didn’t have a boyfriend, or at least an ex-boyfriend.

“Maybe he wasn’t a friend of hers then,” Dylan said. “Maybe her father knew him. It’s not unreasonable to think a senator would know an FBI agent. Maybe you weren’t the only person the senator had tailing his daughter. Maybe he sent the Fed after her, too.”

“Or maybe Asher is the father of Andi’s baby.”

Dylan stopped so abruptly she almost plowed into him. “She has a baby?”

“She’s pregnant. Didn’t you notice?” Kayla gestured toward her own stomach.

He flushed. “I thought maybe she was just a little too fond of cheeseburgers or beer or something.” He patted his own flat belly.

She stared at him. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“What did you expect? I’m a cop and a rancher—two professions known for plain speaking.” He started walking again, long strides covering ground quickly so that she had to trot to catch up with him.

“You’re a rancher?” she asked.

“My family has a ranch near here. In Ouray County.” He pulled out his keys and hit the button to unlock the FJ Cruiser.

That explained a lot—from the way he seemed so at home in this rugged landscape, to the swagger in his walk that was more cowboy than cop.

He climbed in and started the engine even before she had her door closed. “If Asher is the father of Andi’s baby, it would explain why she was so torn up over the news of his death,” he said as he put the vehicle in gear and guided it onto the washboard road. “But why would she have told him to stay away from the camp?”

“I thought she joined the Family to get away from her father and his lifestyle,” Kayla said. “But maybe she was trying to get away from Asher. Maybe he was the one who wanted her to get rid of the baby. Or maybe he was abusive.”

“Would she carry on like that over a man who had abused her?”

“I don’t know. Love can make people do crazy things, I guess.” After all, her own mother had followed Kayla’s father across the United States and back, sticking with him even when he cheated on her and lied to her.

“Are you speaking from personal experience?”

The question jolted her. “Why would you even ask something like that?”

“I’m just curious.” He kept his gaze focused on the road, but she sensed most of his attention was fixed on her. “Something in the way you said that made me think you don’t have too high an opinion of love.”

She hugged her arms across her chest. This was not a conversation she wanted to be having. “I’m no expert on the subject. Are you?”

“Far from it. I’ve managed to avoid falling in love—serious love—so far.”

“You make it sound like an accomplishment.”

“I don’t know. Some people might consider it a failing. My job doesn’t really leave a lot of room for close relationships.”

“Yet you have time to help run your family’s ranch.”

“Family is important to me. Which is why I don’t get why Andi Matheson wanted to leave hers to live out in the wilderness with a bunch of people she hardly knows.”

“Not everyone has a family they care to be close to—and yes, I say that from personal experience.”

“Right—your con-artist dad. What about your mom? Brothers and sisters?”

“My mom is dead. I didn’t have any siblings.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I don’t want your pity.”

He glanced at her, surprising warmth in his brown eyes. “Sympathy and pity aren’t the same things.”

She turned away, conversation over. She didn’t like not being in control of a conversation. One of the advantages of being a private investigator was that she usually got to ask all the questions. Situations like this one always made her feel like a freak. She didn’t do relationships. Not close ones. She couldn’t relate to people like Dylan, with his warm family feelings and determination to figure her out.

He apparently got the message and stopped talking. She focused on breathing deeply and getting her emotions under control. They passed through a brown sea of sagebrush and rock, beneath an achingly blue sky, unbroken by a single cloud. She would never get used to how vast the emptiness was out here. The wilderness made her feel small, lost even when she knew where she was.

He stopped the Cruiser and shifted into Park. “Why are you stopping?” she asked.

“I’ve got a phone signal.” He dragged his finger across the screen on his phone. “I’m going to call in to headquarters.”

He gave whoever answered the particulars of the situation at the camp and asked them to send crime scene techs and a medical examiner, along with more Rangers to interview people at the camp. “Simon is waiting,” Dylan said. “I’m going to see if I can locate Asher’s vehicle.”

He ended the call and pocketed the phone, then put the Cruiser in gear once more. Neither of them said anything for several minutes as they bumped over increasingly rugged terrain. Finally, Dylan spoke. “I apologize if my questions were out of line,” he said. “It’s another cop thing. I want to know everything about people I’m with. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

His words touched her, and made her feel a little vulnerable. In her experience, people rarely apologized. “I didn’t mean to snap,” she said. “I’m just—on edge. Seeing that body, and then Andi falling apart like that—I guess it hit me harder than I realized.”

“You’re a very empathetic person,” he said. “You feel other people’s pain. You absorb their emotions. It probably makes you a good investigator, but it’s tough.”

“I guess so.” She didn’t really think of herself that way. If anything, she would have said she was too cynical most of the time.

He braked and pointed ahead of them. “What’s that, up there?”

She caught the glint of sunlight off metal. “Maybe it’s a car.”

Dylan shut off the engine. “We’ll walk from here.”

He led the way toward the white sedan, which was partially hidden behind a clump of scrub oak. A small sticker on the bumper identified it as a rental car. When they were approximately ten feet away, Dylan held out his arm. “Stay here while I check it out,” he ordered.

She waited while he approached the car. He peered in the front driver’s-side window, which had been left open a few inches. Then he pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. He opened the driver’s-side door, which wasn’t locked, and peered into the car. Then he withdrew his head and looked back toward Kayla. “You can come up here if you promise not to touch anything.”

She joined him beside the car. He had leaned in and was looking through a handful of papers on the front passenger seat. “There’s a couple of maps here and a Montrose visitor’s guide,” he said.

“The parking pass on the dash is from a motel in Montrose,” she said. “That’s probably where he was staying.”

Dylan examined the pass, then pulled out his notebook and began making notes. “I don’t see anything out of the ordinary, do you?” he asked.

The only other thing in the car was a half-empty water bottle in the cup holder between the seats. “It doesn’t look like he planned to be out here long,” she said. “There are no snacks or lunch, no pack or change of clothes.”

“So he either figured on a quick trip or he headed out here on impulse, not taking the time to prepare.” Dylan opened the glove box, which was empty except for registration papers and the vehicle service manual. He flipped down both visors. The passenger side revealed nothing, but next to the mirror on the driver’s side was a photograph.

Or rather, half a photograph. A tear was evident on the left side of the picture, a color snapshot of a man in jeans and a button-down shirt. Daniel Metwater’s smiling face stared out at them.

“Maybe Andi wasn’t the person Agent Asher came here to see,” Dylan said.

Chapter Five

Dylan retrieved an evidence envelope from his Cruiser and sealed the photograph of Metwater in it. He took a few pictures of the vehicle and wrote down the plate number and the GPS location. “Let’s go,” he told Kayla as he pocketed his notebook. “I’ll take you back to your car. You’ll need to give us a statement about what happened at the camp this morning, then you can go. I’ll probably have more questions for you later.” He wanted to dig deeper into what she knew about Andi Matheson and the Family. And he wanted to see her again. Her mix of cold distance and warm empathy intrigued him.

“Do you do this kind of thing often?” he asked.

“What kind of thing?”

“Finding missing persons. Tracking down wayward children.”

“Andi wasn’t a lot of trouble to find. She just didn’t want to talk to her father. Senator Matheson thought I might be able to get through to her.”

“Seems an uncomfortable position to be in—caught in the middle of a family quarrel.”

He wondered if she looked at everyone so intently, as if trying to decipher the hidden meaning behind every word he said. He wanted to protest that he didn’t have an ulterior motive in talking with her, but that wasn’t exactly true. He was trying to figure out what made her tick. Maybe she was doing the same to him. “A lot of my work involves dealing with people in one kind of pain or another,” she said. “Whether it’s a divorce or estranged families, or investigating some kind of fraud. Isn’t it the same for cops?”

“Yeah.” Too much pain sometimes. “You learn pretty quickly to distance yourself.”

“My father made his living by preying on people’s emotions. He was an expert at making people afraid of something and then offering himself as the way out of their trouble—for a price. I think seeing him in action made me wary of letting others get too close.” Her eyes met his, dark and searching.

“Is that a warning?” he asked.

“Take it however you like.”

Neither of them said anything on the rest of the drive back to Ranger headquarters. Carmen met them at the door to the offices. “A crime scene team is on its way out to meet Simon,” she said.

“I found the victim’s car, parked not too far away.” Dylan read off the plate number and location.

“I’ll call it in,” Carmen said. “Some of the team might still be in cell phone range.”

“I’ll call them,” he said. “I’d like you to take Kayla’s statement.”

“All right.” Carmen sent him a questioning look. He knew she wondered why he didn’t take Kayla’s statement himself. He wasn’t ready to admit that the dynamic between him and the pretty private detective was too charged. He couldn’t be as objective about her as he liked and that bothered him. He wasn’t one to let a woman get under his skin. “I’ll be in touch later,” he told Kayla, and turned away.

* * *

KAYLA WATCHED DYLAN leave the room, annoyed that his dismissal of her bothered her so much. So much for the detachment she’d bragged about. This cowboy cop, with his probing questions and dogged pursuit of information, drew her in.

“There’s an empty office back here we can use.” Officer Redhorse led the way to a room crowded with two desks and a filing cabinet. She sat behind one desk and indicated that Kayla should sit across from her. “Have you been a private investigator long?” Carmen asked.

“A couple of years.”

Carmen opened up a file on the computer, then set a recorder between them. “Why don’t you tell me everything that happened, from the time you arrived at the Family’s camp this morning,” she said. “I’ll ask questions if I need you to clarify anything for me.”

Kayla nodded, and took a moment to organize her thoughts. Then she told her story, about approaching the camp, and the two men bringing in the body. Carmen asked a couple questions, then typed for a few minutes more. “I’ll print this out and you can read it over and sign it,” she said, and swiveled away from the computer. “What happened when you and Dylan went back out there?” she asked.

“Are you going to compare my story to his?” Kayla asked.

“I’m curious to get your take on things,” she replied. “Women sometimes notice things men don’t—emotions and details men don’t always pick up on.”

“I don’t think Lieutenant Holt misses much,” Kayla said.

“He’s new here, so I don’t know him well,” Carmen said. “Though he must be good at his job or he wouldn’t have been assigned to the task force.”

“He told me his family has a ranch in the area.”

“The Holt Cattle Company. It’s a big spread south of town. Knowing the country and the people here could be an advantage in this kind of work. Are you from the area?”

Kayla nodded. “But not knowing everyone can be an advantage, too. You don’t come into a job with any preconceived notions.”

“So what’s your impression of the lieutenant?”

Kayla stiffened. “Why are you asking me?”

“I thought I sensed a few sparks between the two of you—though maybe not the good kind. Did you two have some kind of disagreement?”

“No disagreement.” The two of them had worked well together, even though he sometimes made her feel prickly and on edge—too aware of him as a man who read her a little too well for comfort.

Carmen stood. “I’ll get your statement off the printer and you can read through it.”

When she was alone in the room, Kayla sagged back against the chair. Only a little longer and she would be free to leave. She wanted to do some investigating of her own, to try to make sense of what had happened this afternoon.

* * *

“I WANT A warrant to search Asher’s hotel room,” Dylan told Captain Ellison. The two stood outside Graham’s office, Dylan having filled him in on his findings at the camp. “That might give us a clue what he was doing out there.”

Graham nodded. “What about this PI? Kayla Larimer? Does she have any connection to Asher?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll talk to Senator Matheson to verify her story, but I think she was doing what she said—delivering a message to the senator’s daughter.”

“Did you learn anything else from her while you were at the camp?” Graham asked.

He had learned a lot—mainly that Kayla Larimer wasn’t the type of woman to get close to anyone very easily. “She’s good at her job, I think,” he said. “Observant. She pointed out right away that Asher had to have a car nearby, after noting that his boots were new, the soles barely scuffed. And she was good with the women at the camp. She thinks Andi Matheson was so distraught over Asher’s death because they had a close relationship. He may even be the father of her baby.”

“What do you think?” Graham asked.

“Maybe. But Andi might have been distraught because of what she’d seen when the body was dragged into camp. It was enough to upset anyone. And the picture I found in Asher’s car was of Metwater, not Andi. Asher may have had something on the Prophet that got him into trouble.”

“I’ve got a call in to the Bureau, asking if Asher was here working on a case,” Graham said. “Meanwhile, maybe his hotel room will turn up something.”

“Are you going to Agent Asher’s hotel?” Kayla asked.

Dylan turned to find the private detective, followed by Carmen, emerging from an office at the back of the building. “I want to go with you to the hotel,” Kayla said, joining him and the captain.

“This is a police matter,” he said. “You don’t have any business being there. You know that.”

She opened her mouth as if to argue, but apparently changed her mind. “Fine. Obviously, you don’t have a need for me any longer, so I’ll say goodbye.” She nodded to Carmen and the captain, but didn’t look at Dylan.