Cold Conspiracy

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“Maybe,” Travis said. “It would be easy enough for him to wait for her in the parking lot or on the sidewalk and stop her before she went into the bank.” He turned to Tom. “Did anything about him look familiar to you—like someone who had come into the bank before?”

Tom shook his head. “I’m sorry, no.”

“What about the name Al? Does that make you think of anyone in particular?”

“I know an Allen and an Alvin, but both of them are in their fifties or sixties. And that wasn’t them we saw on the video just now.”

“I’m going to need all your security footage from the past week, including what we looked at today. It’s possible this guy came in earlier, checking things out.”

“Of course. Susan will get it for you.”

“Can you tell us what kind of transaction he was making here Thursday?” Travis asked. “The time stamp on the security footage showed he walked up to the teller window at two sixteen.”

Tom walked to a computer farther down the counter and began typing. A few moments later, he groaned. “Looks like it was a cash transaction.”

“Such as?” Jamie asked.

“Breaking a large bill or cashing in rolled coins,” Tom said.

“Here are the security discs for the time period you wanted.” Susan handed Travis an envelope. Travis wrote out a receipt for her, then he and Jamie left.

“I got chills when Tom said it was a cash transaction,” Jamie said when they were in Travis’s cruiser. “Al had to know we couldn’t trace that.”

“Or maybe he was using the transaction as an excuse to hit on the cute teller,” Travis said. He rubbed his hands along the steering wheel. “Not that I really believe that. I think we’re on to something.”

“This might be the killer.” A shiver ran through Jamie as she said the words.

“Maybe.” He shifted the cruiser into gear and began backing out of the parking spot. “In any case, this feels like the closest we’ve gotten.”

NATE AND GAGE returned to the sheriff’s department and waylaid Travis and Jamie as soon as they returned. “We got something from Abel Crutchfield that might be useful,” Gage said as they followed Travis into his office. Jamie hung back, then followed, too, squeezing in to stand next to Nate. The soft, herbal scent of her hair made his heart race with a sudden memory of the two of them making out in the old Ford pickup he had driven at the time. Hastily, he shoved the memory away and focused on the conversation between the sheriff and his brother.

“Abel says he saw a woman—tall, thin, blonde—walking along Forest Service Road 1410 this morning,” Gage said. “She was alone, no car around. He said he didn’t get a real good look at her, because she had her head bent, talking on her phone.”

“Except there isn’t a phone signal out there,” Nate said. “For any carrier.”

“That does seem suspicious,” Travis said.

Beside Nate, Jamie shifted. “Maybe it isn’t really suspicious,” she said.

She flushed when all three men turned to look at her but continued, her voice even. “Maybe she was nervous, being out there alone. She heard the guy’s truck and pulled out her phone and pretended to be talking to someone so whoever was driving past would get the idea she could summon help if she needed to.”

“Do women really do things like that?” Nate asked and wished he could take the words back as soon as he said them.

“Yeah, they do,” she said, the expression in her eyes making him feel about three feet tall. “Because you know—men.”

None of them had a good response to this. The silence stretched. Finally, Travis said, “Let’s see if we can find anyone else who saw this woman. I also have a list of bank employees. Let’s talk to them and see if any of them remember ‘Al.’ Jamie, I want you to help with that. Most of the employees are young women—they might be more willing to open up to you.” He clicked a few keys on his laptop. “I just forwarded the list to you.”

“I’ll get right on it,” she said, then slipped out the door.

“I’ll see if I can find any campers or snowshoers or skiers or fishermen who might have seen a woman who fits the description Abel gave us,” Nate said.

“Let’s not drop the ball on his,” Travis said.

“Right,” Nate said. He wasn’t going to drop the ball on Jamie, either. He’d do whatever it took to make her see he wasn’t the boy who had hurt her seven years ago. She might never feel close to him again, but at least they could be friends.

Chapter Five (#u0ad51da8-d660-55ec-81d9-afc0a55bc029)

Jamie left the sheriff’s department at nine o’clock, after working her way through half the bank employees on the list Travis had forwarded to her. So far, none of the people she’d spoken to remembered Michaela talking to anyone special, and they had no recollection of a single man who stood out for them.

She picked up a sleepy Donna from Mrs. Simmons’s house. Donna had already taken a bath and changed into a pair of flannel pajamas with large, colorful dogs all over them. Jamie had a pair just like them. Over the past couple of years, Donna had gotten into the habit of keeping a number of clothes at the caregiver’s house, which made things easier for everyone. As Jamie put an arm around Donna and escorted her into their house, she caught the smell of the coconut shampoo her sister used. The scent and the feel of the soft flannel beneath her hand transported her back to the days when Donna was little and Jamie, seven years older, often helped her get ready for bed. Once Donna was bathed and dressed in pajamas, the sisters would snuggle together in Donna’s bed, and Jamie would read to her until she fell asleep.

Tonight, she led her upstairs to the room across the hall from Jamie’s own and tucked her in. Donna turned on her side and studied the big whiteboard on her bedroom wall, where Jamie drew in a calendar every month and noted both sisters’ schedules. Donna liked knowing what was supposed to happen each day. “Work tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll see Henry.”

Right, Jamie thought as she kissed her sister, then switched out the light. Sometime tomorrow she’d have to find time to stop by the grocery store and check out Henry. He was probably harmless, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.

She walked across the hall to her room and exchanged her uniform for yoga pants and an oversize sweatshirt. Taking off the heavy utility belt and body armor was the definite signal that she was off duty. Time to relax. Except she was too restless to settle. She went downstairs and wandered through the familiar rooms—the kitchen, with its white-painted cabinets and blue Formica countertops; the formal dining room she had turned into a home office; and the wood-paneled living room with its comfortable tweed-covered sofa and chairs and heavy wood tables. The house was out of style but comfortable and familiar.

She and Donna had grown up in this house and had lived here together until Jamie had gone off to college. She hadn’t gone far—only across the mountains to Boulder, and the University of Colorado. She had studied business, thinking she would look for a job in Junction, so that she could be close to Donna and her parents. Then, her parents had been killed in a car accident, plowed into by a tourist who was texting while driving. The tourist had walked away with only a few bruises, while her parents had both been pronounced dead at the scene.

So much for a business career in Junction. Jamie needed to be in Eagle Mountain, with Donna. She might have sold the family home and moved with her sister to Junction or Denver or somewhere else, but the thought made her heart ache. Eagle Mountain was home. And Donna didn’t do well with change. She needed familiar things—her home, the neighbors she knew, her job at the grocery store—to keep her firmly grounded.

Jamie had moved back to Eagle Mountain for good four years ago. After a series of low-paying clerical jobs, the opportunity at the sheriff’s department had been a welcome relief—a way for Jamie to stay in Eagle Mountain and earn a living that would support her and her sister. But it had also been a lifesaver because it gave Jamie a focus and purpose. She had discovered, somewhat to her surprise, that she loved the work. She liked looking out for her hometown and the people in it, and she liked being part of a team that was trying to protect everyone here.

Oh, it wasn’t all good feelings and easy times. She had been sworn at by people she stopped for traffic violations, kicked and punched by a shoplifter she had chased down on Main Street, with half a dozen locals and tourists standing around watching the battle and no one lifting a finger to help her. And she had looked on the bodies of those murdered women and felt a mixture of sickness and anger—and a fierce desire to stop the man before he hurt anyone else.

The loud trill of an old-fashioned phone startled her. She raced to grab her cell phone off the hall table, and frowned at the screen, which showed Unknown Number. A sales call? A scammer? Or maybe one of the bank employees, calling her back because he or she had remembered something. She answered, cautious. “Hello?”

“It’s Nate. I called to see how you’re doing.”

The deep voice vibrated through her, making her heart flutter, but she steeled herself against the sensation. The question—coming from him—annoyed her. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Finding a dead woman shakes up most people. It shook me up.”

She settled onto the sofa, a pillow hugged to her stomach. “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s part of the job. I knew that going in.”

“From what I saw today, you’re good at your job.”

Was he flattering her, trying to persuade her to forgive him? She sighed. “Nate, I don’t want to do this.”

“Do what?”

“I don’t want to pretend we’re friends. We’re not. We can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not.”

A long pause. She began to wonder if he had hung up on her. Then he said. “So, because we were once lovers—each other’s first lovers—we can’t be friends now? Jamie, that was seven years ago. We were kids.”

“And now we’re adults, and we don’t have to pretend we’re two old pals.”

“I don’t know why not,” he said. “There was a time I knew you better than anyone—and you knew me better.”

“Like you said, that was seven years ago.” A lot had happened since then. She wasn’t the same woman anymore.

“We’re going to be working together on this case,” he said. “We shouldn’t be enemies.”

“You’re not my enemy.” Did he really think that? “But we can’t be…close…anymore.”

“Why not?”

Because if she let him too close, she knew she would fall for him again. And she couldn’t trust him to not leave her again—at the next promotion, or if someone better came along. He had proved before that he looked out for his own interests and he wasn’t one to stick with a relationship if things got tough. “It would be too complicated,” she said. “I know you don’t like that.” He had said that when he broke up with her before. There’s no sense us staying together. It would be too complicated.

Was that sound him grinding his teeth together? “You’ve got a lot of wrong ideas about me,” he said.

“You’re the one who gave them to me.”

“Fine. Have it your way. We won’t be ‘close’—whatever that means to you. But we can be civil. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Now I’d better go. We’ll have another long day tomorrow. Good night.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer but hung up. She’d handled that well, she thought. No sense starting something that was bound to end badly. She’d been very mature and matter-of-fact. She ought to be proud of herself.

She knew a lot about grief now. The pain never went away, but with time, it always got better.

NATE SCANNED THE sheltered meadow at the base of Mount Wilson with his binoculars, counting the number of elk in the small herd gathered there. Most of them still looked to be in good shape, but this would be a good place to put one of the feeding stations the Department of Wildlife had decided to set up starting this weekend. Local ranchers and hunters had volunteered to help distribute the hay and pellets to the three main feeding sites in the area. The supplies were being delivered by helicopter, which meant the project wouldn’t be hampered by the still-closed highway.

He entered the information about the herd into a database on his phone, then snowshoed back to the trailhead where he had left his truck. Once inside the cab, with the heater turned up high, he headed down the road, his speed at a crawl, alert for signs of anything unusual. As he passed the turnout toward a closed campground, he caught a flash of color through the trees and stopped. The binoculars came out and he zeroed in on a dark gray SUV parked up against an icy expanse of exposed rock. He scanned the area and focused in on two climbers halfway up the ice.