Jenna Ryan - Cold Case Cowboy

“We collected samples and sent them to the county lab for analysis. Should have the report in a day or two. Be great if it matched up with the DNA samples you got from the guy who attacked that woman in Aspen.” Pyle searched for stir sticks in his desk drawer. “How long you been working this case, Nick?”

“Nine months.”

“On one cold case. Don’t you find that kind of police work frustrating?”

“Yeah, it’s frustrating, but someone has to make sure the victims and their families don’t slip through the cracks. They deserve justice, Will, to say nothing of the perps who deserve to be locked up.”

“Point taken, but a job like yours’d drive me to drink. Strand of hair here—no match. Drop of blood there—useless DNA. No witnesses, no way to place a suspect at the scene. You must have an endless supply of patience to go over a file from a thousand different angles.”

“Think of me as a dog looking for a bone to chew on. He’ll sink his teeth into the smallest one and stick until something juicer comes along.”

Pyle chuckled. “Dana says you could’ve been a cowboy. You have a ranch waiting for you when your daddy retires. Instead you’re riding herd on a bunch of dusty corpses. I’m sure the families are grateful, Nicky, but in your boots I’d have taken the cattle, hands down.”

“Give me ten more years and I might agree with you.”

Pyle handed him a chipped mug. “Here you go, sweetheart, two sugars. Now let’s take a break, and you can fill me in on this architect my deputy’s been babbling about all night. He spotted her checking into Skye’s hotel. She as DDG as he claims?”

“Drop-dead gorgeous?” Nick caught his bottom lip briefly between his teeth. He could still feel the way she’d nipped him earlier. “Yeah, you could say that. She’s definitely a beauty—long legs, long blond hair, blue eyes…”

“Blue like the lake up at Painter’s Lodge, swears my deputy. Or the ocean around a tropical island.”

“Your deputy watches too many travel shows.”

“Nah, his mom writes poetry. When he acted up as a kid, she’d sit him in a corner with a book and make him read.”

Nick used his laptop to enlarge a section of the imprint near the victim’s head. “He set something down here, Will. From the impression and the displaced snow around it, I’d say it was knocked over.”

“Snow globe, you figure?”

“That’d be my guess.” Nick glanced up. “Do the Sickerbie boys spend much time at Painter’s Rock?”

“No reason for them to in the winter. Besides, they’d have screamed like girls if they’d seen a dead body. They’ll swipe their mom’s bank card and do it up at McDonald’s, but they’d have reported this, Nick, not left her there for Hank Milligan to find. Poor old guy nearly had a coronary, and he doesn’t carry a cell phone. He had to hike all the way back to town to report it.”

Nick highlighted the patches of blood only a few inches from the imprint. He suspected the drop on the rock might be the key. “Did Milligan disturb the site?”

“Hank might be old but his eyesight’s better than mine. Knew what he was looking at twenty feet away. Didn’t have to get close to know she was dead.”

“What’s the ETD?”

“Anywhere from 11:00 to 3:00. Sorry, Nick, that’s as good as our doc could do. The country medical examiner might be able to shave a few hours off either way.” Slurping coffee, Will picked up a clipboard. “We’re running the out-of-towners now. So far, they’re clean.”

“He won’t be into other crimes. We’ll have to link him either to the victim or to the scene in another way. When did Kristiana Felgard arrive in the States?”

“Seven days ago. Her passport says she flew into JFK. We’ve asked the New York police to look for relatives, but that’ll take time.”

Nick brought up a map of Sweden. “She came from Hallstavik. That’s near Stockholm.” Where Sasha had lived for a year with her grandmother. “Where did she go after New York?”

“You’ll have to give us a bit of time. We’re checking out the airlines, railroads and bus companies.”

“How did she get to Painter’s Bluff?”

“Rental car from Denver.”

“Backtrack from Denver. Find out how long she was there. Contact her next of kin in Sweden.”

“Yes, sir,” Pyle mocked, and Nick’s lips moved into a smile. The sheriff slurped more coffee. “You staying with Dana?”

Nick switched to an old file. “I’ve been invited. I’ll see. Fawn’s parents are in town. They already have a full house.” Sitting back, he regarded the screen. “If this guy sees Sasha, we’re screwed.”

Pyle grunted. “Man, I gotta get a look at this woman. How old do you figure she is?”

Nick didn’t have to figure, he knew—her age and probably a number of other details she’d prefer to keep private. “Twenty-nine. She’s the youngest one-third of a partnership that got rolling just under three years ago. They’re building a clientele and a reputation, but architecture’s a tough business. This job for Skye Painter is important. I doubt if dynamite could blow Sasha off it.”

The outer door opened and closed while Nick contemplated Sasha Myer’s face.

Pyle’s all-pro deputy rushed in ruddy-cheeked. “We got it, sir.” He looked from the sheriff to Nick and back. “The snow globe. We found it smashed in a trash can behind Annie’s Barn.”

Someone was using a jackhammer in the hotel hallway. Sasha lifted her face from the pillow and tried to remember if April had mentioned any construction work in the hotel.

The hammering became a series of thumps, and she realized someone was banging on her door. That was never a good thing in the middle of the night.

“Okay, I’m coming.” She pushed herself upright. “Stop pounding holes in my door.” Her robe had slipped to the floor. She had to search for it in the dark because she couldn’t remember where the light switches were.

The pounding stopped when she twisted the knob and yanked. “What?” she demanded. Then groaned. “Oh, God, not you. No offense, Detective Law, but go away.”

He brushed past her and began to prowl the room. “Don’t you use your viewer?”

“My what?” She turned, noticed the small peephole in the door. “If I had, I’d have added the security chain, not opened up. Why are you here?” She hunted for a clock. “What time is it?”

“Six o’clock.”

Not as early as she’d thought. Combing her fingers through her hair, she forced her mind into function mode. “There’s no one under my bed or in the bathroom, as you can see. I had the dead bolt on all night, and I didn’t hear a thing.”

He paused by the window, surveyed the building across the street. “Do you always sleep with the curtains open?”

Not usually, but she’d been too exhausted to notice. She ignored his piercing gaze and tightened the belt of her white terry robe. She needed coffee badly. However, since there was only a mini fridge in the room, she settled for orange juice.

“Look, Nick, I know who you’re searching for, but why are you doing it in my room?”

He left the window. “The murder didn’t go according to plan, Sasha. We found the snow globe.”

So things were going from bad to worse. “Where?”

“Behind Annie’s Barn. It was broken.”

“And that means…?”

“Something screwed up.”

“Mostly for Kristiana Felgard, as far as I can see. Maybe she fought him and broke the globe.”

“I doubt it.” His gaze swept the room from corner to corner, halted on her leather backpack. “Is that all the luggage you brought?”

Even half-asleep and lacking caffeine, she could laugh. “No wonder you’re not married anymore. How many women do you know who travel with only a single backpack?”