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  He asked, “Is this the woman you saw?”

  “I think so. It’s hard to say for sure from this little picture. Who is she?”

  “Her name is Lauren Robbins. One of the other deputies has been doing research on her but hasn’t found much. She lives alone in the Cherry Creek area in Denver.”

  “Those are pricey houses,” Sasha said.

  “She’s a self-employed real-estate agent who works out of her home office, so we can’t talk to her employer to get more information. We also know she doesn’t have a police record.”

  “I could check with my office,” she offered. “We do a lot of real-estate work, and she looks like somebody who handles high-end properties.”

  “That’s not your job.”

  That was exactly what Damien would have told her. “I want to help.”

  “I promise to keep you updated. For now, let’s get lunch.”

  She really wished there was a valid reason to spend more time with him. She liked watching him in action and especially liked the way she felt when she was with him. For now, she’d just have to settle for a juicy cheeseburger.

  Chapter Eight

  At the Kettle Diner on Arcadia’s main street, Sasha dunked a golden crispy onion ring into a glob of ketchup and took a bite. There was probably enough gluten and trans fat in this one morsel to put Sam Moreno into a coma, but she wasn’t hypervigilant about her diet. Moreno and his minions considered their bodies to be their temples. Hers was more like a carnival fun house.

  Across the booth from her, Brady watched as she mounted a two-handed assault on her cheeseburger. “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Starved.” She glanced down at the onion rings. “Want one?”

  “I’ve got fries of my own,” he said. “When was the last time you ate?”

  “I grabbed some munchies during the meeting.” But she hadn’t had a decent meal all day. “As you know, there’s not much food in the condo.”

  “We’ll stop at the grocery before I take you home. Is your boss going to be joining you this afternoon?”

  “He hasn’t told me.” She hesitated and set her amazing cheeseburger down on her plate. Though there was no need for further explanation, she wanted Brady to understand the arrangement at the condo. “When Damien gets here, he’ll stay in his bedroom and I’ll stay in mine. There’s nothing going on between us.”

  “I didn’t think there was.”

  She was a little bit surprised. Everybody else seemed quick to assume that she was sleeping with the boss. “Well, you’re right. How did you come to that conclusion?”

  “You’re easy to read.” He washed down a bite of burger with a sip of cola. “When you look at your boss on the computer screen, your expression is guarded and tense. There’s no passion. It’s not like the way you look at those onion rings.”

  Or the way she looked at him. “So, bodyguard, will you be staying with me for the rest of the day?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Me, too.”

  “But I’d better take you back to the condo. It’s got a security system. You’ll be safe there.”

  He was right. The smart thing would be to go back to the condo and review the files for tomorrow’s meeting. Hanging out with Brady wouldn’t be professional, and Damien had specifically told her not to get involved with the police. But she wanted to get involved—in a more personal way—with Brady.

  “After lunch,” she said, “what are we going to do?”

  “We’ll get you some groceries, then I want to take you by the hotel. Jacobson put together some surveillance footage of the front-desk area during the time when you felt like someone was watching you.”

  “And you think I might see the killer on the tapes.”

  “Does that scare you?”

  “I don’t think so.” When she was with him, she felt safe. “If there’s anything else I can do, I’m up for it. It’s such a gorgeous day. I want to be outside. Even though I’m working, this trip to Arcadia is kind of a vacation for me.”

  “Is that so?” He swallowed a bite of burger. “I’ve never thought of my job as a vacation.”

  “If I come with you, I promise not to get in the way.”

  “We’ll see.”

  His gaze met hers and, for a moment, he dropped his identity as a cop. He looked at her the way a man looked at a woman, with unguarded warmth and interest. She could tell that he wanted to spend time with her, too.

  By bringing her to the local diner in Arcadia rather than going back to the hotel or the condo, he was sharing what his life was like in this small community. Half the people who came through the door of the Kettle Diner greeted him with a smile or a friendly nod. These were the locals—the ranchers and the skiers and the mountain folk. The laid-back atmosphere fit her like an old moccasin and was a hundred times more comfortable than the thigh-high designer boots worn by the guests at the Gateway Hotel.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing Dooley’s ranch tomorrow,” she said.

  “I don’t know what he’s got up his sleeve, but it’ll be nothing like Katie Cook’s presentation at the ice rink.”

  “No Boléro? No cowboys in matching sequin shirts?”

  “All he wants is for his fellow investors to understand the needs of the community.”

  Dooley’s viewpoint had been consistent throughout the planning and negotiations. Of course, he’d jumped into the development for the money, but he also wanted to protect the environment and to make sure the locals weren’t misused. “I don’t think he likes Moreno’s idea of building an ashram where his followers could live.”

  “Dooley won’t mind. We’ve got a long tradition of weird groups seeking shelter in the mountains.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Back-to-nature communes, artist groups, witch covens.” He shrugged. “You never know what you’re going to find when you go off the beaten path. There’s room in these mountains for a lot of different opinions, as long as everybody respects each other.”

  Brady’s cell phone rang, and he picked up. After a few seconds of conversation, his easygoing attitude changed. Tension invaded his body. His hazel eyes darkened. She could tell that something had happened, something important.

  Sasha finished off the last onion ring and watched him expectantly as he ended the call.

  “We have to go,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “They’ve found a body.”

  * * *

  BRADY SHOULD HAVE taken her back to her condo, but it was the opposite direction from the canyon where they were headed. Also, he couldn’t drop Sasha off without entering the condo and making sure the space was secure. This would take time they didn’t have, and he wanted to be among the first at the crime scene.

  Beside him in the passenger seat, Sasha cleared her throat and asked, “Are you sure this is our victim?”

  “The 911 dispatcher seemed to think so.” The report had mentioned a woman with black hair. “We don’t get a lot of murders up here.”

  “What happens next? Are you still in charge?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  The sheriff had been happy to send him on a fool’s errand, but finding a body meant that this was a legitimate murder investigation. No doubt the state police would be involved. The body had to be sent to Denver or Grand Junction for autopsy since the local coroner was an elected official who didn’t have the training or facilities for that type of work. Brady had the feeling that everything was about to go straight to hell.

  “I wonder,” Sasha said, “if there’s anything I can do to minimize the negative publicity for the resort.”

  As he guided the SUV onto a two-lane mountain road, he glanced over at her. “You’re doing some corporate thinking.”

&nbs
p; “I know.” Her grin contradicted the image of a cool professional. She held up her pink cell phone. “Is it okay if I call my boss and tell him that a body has been found?”

  “You’d better wait until we have confirmation on her identity.”

  She dropped the phone. “Just tell me when.”

  He drove his SUV onto a wide shoulder on the dirt road and parked behind a state patrolman’s vehicle. On the passenger side, a steep drop-off led into a forest where nearly half the trees had been destroyed by pine beetles and stood as dry, gray ghosts watching over the new growth. There wasn’t much room on the narrow road. When more law enforcement showed up, it was going to get crowded.

  He turned to Sasha. “You have to stay in the car.”

  “Let me come with you. I won’t get in the way.”

  He’d seen how deeply traumatized she’d been by witnessing the attack, and he didn’t want to give her cause for future nightmares. “This isn’t something you should have to see.”

  “I’ll look away.”

  “A curious person like you?” He didn’t believe that for a minute. “This is my first murder investigation, but I’ve seen the bodies of people who died a violent death. It’s not like on TV or in the movies, where the corpse has a neat round hole in their forehead and otherwise looks fine. Death isn’t pretty.”

  “Are you trying to protect me?”

  “I guess I am.” He added, “And I don’t want to be distracted by worrying about what’s happening to you.”

  “Aha! That’s the real reason. You think I’ll get into trouble.”

  She did have a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “This is a crime scene. Just stay in the car.”

  Reluctantly, she nodded. “Okay.”

  “With the doors locked,” he said.

  “Can I crack a window?” she muttered. “If I was a golden retriever, you’d let me crack a window.”

  “I’ll be back soon.”

  He exited his vehicle and strode through the accumulated snow at the edge of the road to where two uniformed patrolmen were talking to an older couple dressed in parkas, waterproof snow pants and matching knit wool caps with earflaps. Their faces were as darkly tanned as walnuts.

  After a quick introduction, the woman explained, “We only live a couple of miles from here and we cross-country ski along that path almost every day.”

  She pointed down the slope to a path that ran roughly parallel to the road. Though this single-file route through the forest wasn’t part of an organized system of trails, the path showed signs of being used by other skiers.

  Just down the hill from the path, he saw a gray steamer trunk with silver trim leaning against a pine tree. The subdued colors blended neatly with the surroundings. If these cross-country skiers hadn’t been close, they might not have noticed the trunk.

  “That’s a nice piece of luggage,” the woman said. “It looks brand-new.”

  “So you went to take a closer look,” Brady prompted.

  “That’s right,” her partner said. He was almost the same height as she was. Though they had introduced themselves as husband and wife, they could have been siblings. “We figured the steamer trunk had fallen off the back of a truck. You can see the marks in the snow where it skidded down the hill.”

  His observation was accurate, but Brady added his own interpretation. He imagined that the killer had pulled off the road, removed the luggage from the trunk of his vehicle and shoved it over the edge. This wasn’t a heavily populated area, and there was very little traffic. If it hadn’t been for the cross-country trail, the trunk could have gone undiscovered for a very long time.

  “Did you open it?” he asked.

  “We did,” the man said. “The only way we could hope to find the owners was to see what was inside. I used my Swiss Army knife to pop the locks.”

  His wife clasped his hand. “I wish I hadn’t seen what was in there. That poor woman.”

  “Can we go?” the man asked. “We did our civic duty and called 911. Now I want to get back to our cabin, chop some firewood and try to forget this ever happened.”

  One of the patrolmen stepped forward. “Come with me, folks. I’d like for you to sit in the back of my vehicle and write out a statement for us. Then I can drive you home.”

  Brady appreciated the willingness of the state patrol to help out. He knew both of these guys, had worked with them before and didn’t expect any kind of jurisdictional problems. Truth be told, he doubted that any of the local law enforcement people would be anxious to take on a murder investigation.

  His cell phone rang, and he checked the caller ID. Sasha was calling, probably bored from sitting alone. Ignoring the call, he turned to the patrolman who was still standing at the side of the road beside him. “How’d you get here so fast?”

  “Me and Perkins happened to be in the area when the alert went out. You’re the deputy who searched the Gateway Hotel for a missing dead body. Brady Ellis, right?”

  Brady nodded and scraped through his memory for the patrolman’s name. “And you’re Tad Whitestone. Weren’t you about to get married?”

  “We did the deed two months ago, and she’s already pregnant.”

  “Congrats,” Brady said.

  “Yeah, lucky me.”

  “Have you climbed down to take a look inside the trunk?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  Officer Whitestone pursed his lips. “We were kind of waiting for you, Brady. I’ve done a training session on homicide investigation, but I don’t know all the procedures and didn’t want to get in trouble for doing it wrong.”

  Brady didn’t make the mistake of thinking that the state patrol guys respected his expertise. When it came to homicide procedure, he was as clueless as they were. But he wasn’t afraid to take action. A cold-blooded murder had been committed, and he intended to find the killer.

  “Let’s get moving. Do you have any kind of special camera for taking crime-scene photos?”

  Whitestone shook his head. “All I’ve got is my cell phone.”

  “We’ll use that.” Brady grabbed the phone from his fellow officer.

  As they descended the slope, he took a photo of the skid marks from the road and another of the track made by the cross-country people. Halfway down the hill, they were even with the steamer trunk. It was large, probably three feet long and two feet deep. The lid was closed but both of the silver latches on the front showed signs of being pried open.

  Brady snapped another photo. Using his gloved hand, he lifted the lid. A woman dressed in white was curled inside with her legs pulled up to her chin. Her wrist turned at an unnatural angle. Her fingers were like talons. Dried blood smeared the front of her pantsuit, streaked across her arm and splattered on the gold necklace encircling her throat. Her black hair was matted and dull. Her blood-smeared face was a grotesque mask. Her lips were ashy gray. Her eyes were vacant and milky above her sunken cheeks.

  There were broken plates thrown in with her, and also a fork and globs of Chinese food and wineglasses with broken stems. The killer had cleaned up the hotel room and dumped everything in here. He was disposing of the trash, treating a human life like garbage.

  “Damn,” Whitestone said, “that’s a lot of blood.”

  “She must have bled out while she was in the trunk.” For some reason, he recalled that the average woman had six to seven pints of blood in her body. He couldn’t help but shudder.

  “Do you think she was still alive when he locked her in there?”

  “I hope not.”

  If the murder had happened the way Brady imagined, the killer had stabbed her and stuffed her in this trunk immediately afterward so he wouldn’t leave any bloodstains behind. The steamer trunk must have been standing by, ready
to use, which meant the crime was premeditated.

  He looked away from the dead woman and up at the road. Two more police vehicles had arrived. This situation was about to get even more complicated. After Brady snapped several photos from several different angles, he closed the lid.

  “I’m going back to the road,” he said. “I’ll wait until the sheriff gets here before I do anything else.”

  “No need to call an ambulance,” the state patrolman said.

  But there was a need, a serious need, to get this investigation moving forward. This killer was brutal, callous. The sooner they caught him, the sooner Sasha would be out of danger.

  When he reached the road, he went directly to his SUV to check on her. He yanked open the driver’s-side door.

  Sasha was gone.

  Chapter Nine

  Cradling her cell phone against her breast, Sasha crept along the twisting two-lane road. If she took two giant steps to the right and looked over her shoulder, she could see Brady’s SUV and the police vehicles. Standing where she was, beside a stand of pine trees, they couldn’t see her and vice versa.

  In spite of the noise from that group, she felt as if she was alone, separated, following her own path. Maybe she should turn around and go back. Maybe she’d already gone too far.

  A gust of wind rattled the bare branches of a chokecherry bush at the edge of the forest to her left. The pale afternoon sun melted the snow on the graded gravel road, and the rocks crunched under her boots when she took another step forward.

  Was she making a huge mistake?

  When Brady had left her in the SUV, she had fully intended to stay inside with the doors locked, but she’d been staring through the windshield and noticed movement in the forest. She’d wriggled around in her seat and craned her neck to see beyond the state patrol vehicle parked in front of them. From that angle, she’d seen what looked like a man dressed in black. He had moved in quick, darting steps as though he was dodging from shadow to shadow in the trees.