Rachel Lee - Undercover Hunter

“Who is Velma?” DeeJay asked.

“One of our dispatchers. Her coffee is enough to put a hole in your stomach but she’s so much of a fixture no one dares tell her. It’s rumored she’s going to die right at the dispatch desk.”

“Sounds like a character,” Cade remarked.

“She’s been around as long as the mountains.” Sarah sipped coffee, then regarded the two of them over the rim. “What else are you hoping for, after you review the autopsies?”

“Any information at all. The file is kind of sketchy, what we’ve seen so far.”

Sarah nodded. “The whole thing is sketchy. We had five boys disappear over nearly two years the last time. Now there’s lots of ways to go missing around here, and we couldn’t find a clue. We had search parties out, like now, and never found a thing. Kids run away from home, even here. You know that. They also wander off into the mountains and sometimes we don’t find them. Could have been a lot of things until we started to realize they were all the same physical type. Different in age, but physically similar.” She sighed. “That doesn’t hit you at first.”

“It wouldn’t,” DeeJay agreed. “Not at first.”

“Just after it really sank in what we were dealing with, and that it was happening faster, it all stopped. Then nobody was sure it wasn’t all runaways and accidents until a surveyor for the new resort stumbled on the trophy stash the spring before last.”

“Then you knew,” DeeJay said quietly.

“Then we knew,” Sarah agreed. “What we never expected was that it would start up again after all this time. We figured he’d moved on, or gone to jail on some other offense elsewhere. He wraps his victims in plastic to protect them, so we know we found our missing boys. Now this. People want blood. Be careful.”

Cade spoke. “Gage has been good about trying to establish us.”

“He’s working on it,” Sarah agreed. “But folks are still angry and there’s no telling how they might lash out. Of course, I don’t need to tell you that.” She rose and went to get more coffee, a woman who would be familiar anywhere.

When she returned to the table, she leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs. “I assume you guys have some training in profiling?”

“For what it’s worth,” DeeJay answered.

Cade watched a smile walk slowly across Sarah Ironheart’s face. “Yeah, for what it’s worth. Not much to go on at first.”

“Not really,” Cade answered. “Not until we’ve got some evidence. The thing about the training is that it makes you alert to things that others might overlook. It’s not like we can walk in and hand you a sketch and description of our perp.”

“Anybody did that, and I’d question his know-how,” she answered. “Okay then. Only two of us in the department apart from Gage know who you really are. The other is Micah Parish. You’ll know him when you see him. Huge guy with Cherokee written all over his face. Former Special Ops. He may be getting up there, but he’s still damn good. Beyond that, nobody knows.”

She paused. “Gage may also tell the former sheriff, Nate Tate. Nobody sneezes in this county without him hearing about it. But right now, I don’t know if Gage will bring him in. He’s an invaluable source about the people around here, though.”

“Then I hope Gage tells him,” DeeJay said.

“Another good source if you have any need to delve into local history is Gage’s wife, Emmaline Dalton. Miss Emma, everyone calls her. Anyway, she’s the librarian and she’s got roots here back to the earliest days, plus she’s made gathering local history and lore her avocation. I’m not sure how she could be of use, but you never know.”

She drained her coffee and stood. “Oh, and if you need horses, my husband raises and trains them. Gideon. I’m sure he could spare a couple of good mounts if you want to go wandering off the roads.”

She left directly, telling them that she’d probably be the one to bring them any additional information they uncovered. “Less suspicious than the sheriff. Gideon has a business in trail rides I could claim to be trying to promote.” Indeed, she left them with Gideon’s business card. “He always knows how to find me.”

Then she was gone, and the house filled with silence. Neither Cade nor DeeJay moved for a minute, as they both absorbed everything they’d just been told.

“Masters General Contracting,” Cade said presently, and pulled out his notebook. “I hope there’s Wi-Fi around here somewhere.”

“You could always call directory information.”

He cocked a brow at her. “What, go back to the old days?” Then he shook his head. “Might as well. Maybe I can find out how to get us a decent internet connection while I’m tiptoeing through the Yellow Pages.”

A laugh actually escaped DeeJay. “You do that. Meanwhile I’m going to take a look at this file.”

He reached for the wall phone just as she bent the prongs on the envelope and opened it. One way or another, it wasn’t going to be a pleasant day.

* * *

Wyoming was a big state, not heavily populated. The state police often relied on satellite radio because there were so many places, especially in the mountains, with cellular dead zones. It was virtually impossible at times to maintain an internet connection. Things were changing, but the change was far from complete.

By two that afternoon, they were hooked into the local police’s Wi-Fi and able to map out the town and surrounding county. They both saved the maps to files on their computers.

The envelope contents were another matter altogether. Report after report of horror, accompanied by eight photos of boys who were at once strikingly similar and strikingly different. All had dark hair, all weighed less than a hundred pounds, all were short in stature—a definite type. The heartache arose not only for the terror they must have endured, but from the youth staring back at them from those photos. Lives had been stolen and many other lives had been torn apart.

“Slow asphyxiation,” Cade read from the last report. He made a sound of angry disgust and swept everything from the table back into the envelope.

DeeJay simply stared back at him. There were no words for this. None. Her stomach churned, and all the toughness she had donned over the years provided no protection against what she had just read.

She got up from the table, trying to pace off the anger and horror she felt. “It’s not like anything else,” she said, not sure what she meant, not expecting an answer.

“No, it’s not,” Cade agreed. “Damn, I need some fresh air. Do you want to walk to the market? It’s only thirteen degrees out there.”

“I need the walk but I also need my nose. And I don’t want to stiffen up from the cold.” Delayed reaction time could be dangerous, even when you thought you were safe.

“Agreed. We’ll drive. Damn, there’s no hole in hell hot enough or deep enough for this guy.”

She didn’t answer. It seemed pointless. After looking at all those young faces, this had become personal. It was no longer an intellectual detective exercise. “Dangerous,” she remarked a few minutes later as they climbed into their car. “Getting involved.”

“I know. I’ll work it off.”

“I feel the same way.”

He looked at her as he turned over the ignition. At least the car didn’t decide it was too cold to run. He needed to remember to plug the damn block heater in tonight. “You, too.”

“Of course, me, too,” she said hotly. “I’m not made of ice.”

“Didn’t think you were.”

“Then what the hell did you mean?”

“Just trying to make conversation. You’re like a brick wall, Dawkins. Pleasant to strangers when it suits you, but you act like I’m a cow patty you’d like to brush off.”