Paula Graves - Blood on Copperhead Trail

“I can be ready at sunup.”

He smiled. “I’ll be there.”

Laney slipped back into the room, her heart catching as she saw her mother sitting with her head on Janelle’s leg, tears staining her cheeks.

She sat up quickly, giving Laney a sheepish smile. “My baby,” she said simply, fresh tears slipping down her cheeks.

Laney bent and gave her mother a fierce hug. “I’m going up the mountain to join the search for Joy in the morning, so I have to leave soon to get some sleep. Are you going to stay here tonight?”

Alice nodded, patting her cheek. “I’ll be fine. Go find that girl. The Adderlys have lost enough already, don’t you think?”

Laney kissed her mother’s damp cheek. “Take care of our girl.”

Remembering she’d driven her mother to the hospital, she pulled the car key from her key ring and handed it to Alice. “I’ll see if I can catch the chief and get a ride with him. If you need anything, take my car.”

Laney left her sister’s room and hurried down the corridor toward the elevator bank. Doyle was still there, she saw with surprise. “Chief, wait up.”

He turned to face her, a bleak look in his eyes. He was holding his phone with a tight-fingered grip.

Fear shot through her. “What’s wrong?”

“The searchers found another body.”

Chapter Four

Laney’s face blanched at his blunt words, and Doyle quickly closed his hand over her arm, bending to level his gaze with hers. “It wasn’t Joy Adderly. It’s a male, and it looks like he’s been up there awhile.”

He saw a flicker of relief in those baby blues, quickly eclipsed by grim curiosity. “How long?”

“Weeks at least.”

“Any ID?”

“Didn’t have any on him. The searchers have cordoned off the spot and one of my deputies is on the way up there.”

“There are only a couple of missing-persons cases outstanding in the county,” she said, looking less pale and more in charge. She would know, he realized, being part of the county prosecutor’s team.

“That part of the mountain is under Bitterwood’s jurisdiction,” he said firmly, in case she was thinking of starting a jurisdiction fight.

One side of her mouth curved. “I’m not sure the county sheriff will agree.”

“Bitterwood is still autonomous at the moment,” Doyle shot back, trying to keep his voice both light and firm. He didn’t want to antagonize her, but he didn’t want to let her walk all over him, either. Even though she had a way of getting under his skin without even seeming to try.

He’d always been a sucker for a pair of blue eyes and a Southern drawl. And her mountain twang was just different enough from the girls he’d known back home in south Alabama to add a hint of the exotic to her appeal. It was a potent combination, especially added to her obviously quick mind. He was going to have to be on his guard around Laney Hanvey.

The job ahead of him was difficult enough as it was. The last thing he could afford was another complication. Especially a complication who could cost him his job with one word to her bosses.

“I need to leave the car for my mother,” she told him as they stepped into the elevator together. “Think you could give me a ride?”

“To Barrowville?”

The look she sent blazing his way packed a punch. “To the crime scene.”

* * *

“YOU’RENOTACOP, you know.” Doyle sounded somewhere between frustrated and amused.

Laney kept her voice even and, she hoped, nonconfrontational. “The county government’s policies regarding public integrity investigations give me a great deal of leeway in police matters while your department is under scrutiny.”

“Even ride alongs under duress?”

“I’m not sure I’d term this ‘duress’—”

“You told me to shut up and drive,” he drawled.

“I did no such—” She stopped short when she spotted the slight curve of his mouth. “You’re a funny guy, Chief Massey. Real funny.”

He turned up that hint of a smile to full wattage. If she were a lesser woman, she might find herself utterly dazzled by that grin. “Here’s what I’ve learned about police work, Public Integrity Officer Hanvey. There ain’t much to smile about, so you have to create your own opportunities.”

He was right about one thing. There hadn’t been much to smile about since she’d returned to Bitterwood to look into police corruption. Maybe the county administrator was wrong to think she was the best person for the job. There just might be too much history between her and this town for her to ever be fully objective.

“Think this body belongs to that missing P.I. from Virginia?” Massey asked a moment later, his grin having faded with her silence.

She didn’t have to ask whom he meant. Peter Bell’s disappearance was all tangled up with the police-corruption case she was investigating. “Depends on how long the body’s been up there. Do you know?”

“At least a month, but probably not much more than three or four.”

She nodded. “That fits the timeline for Peter Bell’s disappearance. He was last seen in this area in late October of last year.”

“Shortly after he observed Wayne Cortland meeting with Paul Bailey.”

She slanted a look at him. “You know a lot about the Cortland case.”

He met her gaze with a quirked eyebrow. “You think I’d take this job without doing my homework?”

Actually, she had figured him as the sort of guy who avoided homework every chance he got. But maybe she’d assumed too much about him based on his outward appearance and his laid-back attitude.

The road ended at the trailhead about halfway up Copperhead Ridge. Doyle parked his truck and turned to look at her. “I’m not a mountain goat. So go easy on me. Get me safely up that mountain and back.”

She bit back a smile. “I’ll do what I can. But those sea-level lungs may have a little trouble with the change in altitude.”

At least he was appropriately dressed, in a fleece-lined weatherproof jacket and heavy-duty hiking boots. Her own attire was similar, as she’d changed clothes at Ledbetter’s Diner before she and Ivy headed up the mountain earlier that day. Her travel bag was still in her car in the hospital parking deck.

With nightfall, the temperatures on the mountain had plunged below freezing, making the hike up the ridge trail a headlong struggle into a biting wind. Up this high, the tendrils of mist that shrouded the peaks turned into a freezing fog that stung the skin and made eyes water. Laney tugged the collar of her jacket up to protect her throat and lower face, squinting through tears.

“Damn, it’s cold,” Doyle muttered.

“Just wait till it snows again.”

One of the search parties scouring the ridge had found the body about thirty yards east of the second trail shelter, about eight miles from where they’d found Missy Adderly’s body. Since Laney was the native, Doyle let her lead the way. Despite his occasional self-deprecating comments about the hike, he didn’t have any trouble keeping up, and his sea-level lungs seemed to be doing just fine at nearly five thousand feet. He seemed to be adapting quickly to his new surroundings.

They found some of the search-party members had remained on the mountain, huddled together under the shelter for warmth and a little respite from the freezing fog. Laney recognized a few of them, including Carol Brandywine and her husband, James, who ran a trail-riding stable. No horses out here tonight, Laney noted with grim amusement. The Brandywines wouldn’t subject their precious four-legged babies to conditions like these.

“Delilah and Antoine are with the body.” James pointed east, where blobs of light moved in the woods.

“Stay here if you like,” Doyle told Laney, giving the sleeve of her jacket a light tug—a variation on his arm-touching habit, she thought. “That body’s not likely to be pretty.”