Becoming Three (4 page)

“Damn, Jas,” Ren said, laughing, “if you were a girl, I'd say you were glowing. You've been grinning all morning. What the hell is up with you?”
“Nothin'. Just happy is all.” Jasper lay flat on his stomach and reached his arm down into the frigid water of Willow Stream, filling a vial of water for testing. He collected water at measured intervals while Ren snapped photos of the stream. They regularly tested the water to make sure all its levels were healthy for the fish as well as Hawkins Ranch cattle. The photos Ren took were to keep a visual record of the waterway and would be available should the state ever want to view them.
“I know what brings 'happy' to a man's face.” Ren shifted his camera and snapped a picture of Jasper. He took a look at the display screen and nodded. “Yeah, that's a telling shot. How is Sarah doing lately?”
“Perfect.” Jasper capped a vial full of water and put it in its proper slot in a transport case. He looked at Ren and could feel his face flaming. “That sounds stupid, don't it?”
“It sounds nice.” Ren took the lead of his horse and started walking down the stream, going slowly enough that Jasper quickly fell in beside him with his horse, Shiloh. “It sounds like you like her a lot,” Ren said. “And if anyone deserves it, Sarah does. You do too.”
“Maybe.” Jasper slid a sidelong glance in Ren's direction. “I tell ya, Ren; there's times when I'm with her, it feels like the stuff that happened in my life before I came here don't matter, like maybe I could make enough of myself to offer her somethin' more real than a lot of promises with nothin' to back them up, you know?”
“It feels good to have something to bring to the table,” Ren said. “I will agree with that. But don't mistake having money or
stuff
as being the same as being worthy. You're still the same kind guy you were the day Caleb hired you; you just have a job history behind you, some stability, and some money in your pocket to go with it now.”
They walked the stream at a leisurely pace, letting the warmth of the late-spring day sink into them and the sun shine on their faces and bare arms.
“If you turn into a jackass, though,” Ren added, jabbing at Jasper's shoulder, “Sarah's not going to care that you are now the proud owner of your own truck. She will kick your ass right out of her bed.”
Heat flamed through Jasper. He knew that, finally, Ren's comment was
literally
correct.
I am officially in her bed
. “I know.” Fighting through his natural instinct to cover up and hide, Jasper stuffed down a drugging wave of anxiety and turned, looking directly at Ren. “It's hard to remember all that some days, though, when I hear myself talkin' sometimes, and it makes me cringe. She don't—
doesn't
—correct me, but I know I don't always catch myself and make my words right. She's so much smarter than me, and when she's talkin' to someone, and I'm listenin', she's so fast and she's clever and she makes people laugh, and I get scared she'll get bored with me one day because I can't be that smart, and she'll want someone else.” Images of Jace assaulted Jasper's mind, a guy living right in the same house with Sarah, someone masculine and powerful, who had confidence and authority…and a man Jasper occasionally caught Sarah watching with hunger in her eyes. “I don't know if all the strugglin' to make myself better is gonna be enough to hold someone like Sarah, who is interested in so many different kinds of things and not afraid to try any of them.”
“You don't give Sarah enough credit for being able to recognize and appreciate the great guy you already are.” Ren stopped and gave Jasper a quick once-over. “Who also happens to be damn easy on the eyes, by the way. As a gay man with great taste in men, as evidenced by how fucking sexy Cade is, I can say that with some authority.”
Jasper's blood raced with Ren's praise, and he prayed it didn't show in his face. “Thanks.”
“No problem. I bet Sarah only cares that you try,” Ren said. “She sees you making an effort, in a lot of big and little ways, and I'm sure she's proud of you for that, more than the actual result. Besides which, proper grammar and intelligence don't necessarily go hand in hand. Neither of which, if you were a jerk, would matter one bit to a woman like Sarah. It's no crime that your family couldn't help you with school and homework and that financially you had to make a choice to get a full-time job rather than graduate. You don't have any reason to be ashamed. You never did, but particularly not with the life you've created for yourself here in Quinten.”
“Thanks.” Jasper dipped his head. “That's nice of you to say.”
An animal yowled right then, and the sharp cry rent through the air.
“Cat!” Jasper immediately hoisted himself into his saddle and swung his horse as the cougar yowled again. A flock of birds burst out of the trees covering the base of the mountains to the west, flapping their wings and flying in all directions.
“Damn it.” Ren stuffed his camera in a saddlebag and was astride his horse in mere seconds. “I hope none of the calves broke free from their mommas.” He made a clicking noise and put his horse into a fast gallop. “Come on,” he called back. “Let's go check it out.”
Jasper put his horse in motion at a good clip, following a few paces behind Ren's sprint toward the thickly covered mountains. They pushed hard in silence for a few minutes that felt like forever. Then Ren suddenly pulled his horse to a stop, rearing his animal in a rough manner, something completely foreign to Ren's normal care of his horse.
Ren yanked his rifle out of his scabbard and fired a shot into the air, shouting, “Get away! Get away! Get away!” He cocked his weapon, fired again, the repeated sound so loud, Jasper's ears rang, and his horse shied back, rolling its eyes and braying.
Jasper dug his heels and knees into Shiloh's body, fighting to stay on the horse's back. Shiloh spun and shimmied in the direction of Ren and his horse, both of whom remained steady despite Ren's firing his rifle.
Calming his horse with the tone of his commands, Jasper trailed off as he saw what had captured the interest of the birds and cougar. He held on to his horse with nothing more than the natural squeeze of his legs as the sight before him curdled his stomach and nearly made him vomit.
“Holy mother.” Jasper crossed himself even though he hadn't been to church since his grandmother died.
Ren slid off his horse and pulled his cell phone off his belt. “Keep the horses back,” he ordered. “I'm going to call the station and then take some pictures in case we can't keep the animals away.” His lips and face had gone completely pale. Jasper knew he probably looked equally sick. “You call Caleb and Jake. They need to know about this too.”
Jasper's hands shook as he unclipped his walkie-talkie, and his legs didn't feel entirely steady when his feet hit the ground. He put the device to his mouth and made a call to home base. Jasper steadied his voice enough to ask to speak to one of the bosses, but he could not keep his eyes off the horrifying sight some dozen feet away.
In the center of a copse of oaks, three or four feet off the ground, a naked woman with long auburn hair hung nailed to a tree. Someone had stretched her arms wide across a long slat of wood, making her resemble Christ on the cross, and had secured her hands to the piece of wood with long nails or spikes. The wood holding her arms open had been attached to the tall, bare trunk of the tree, and it looked like her ankles were nailed to the thick base. One ankle anyway. Her left leg ended at the knee, and Jasper could only guess the cougar Ren had frightened off with his gunshots had taken the lower half of her limb with him. Birds—and God knew what else—had picked at her face and body, and she had large chunks of skin missing.
The crackle of static ripped Jasper out of his trancelike state. “Jake here.” The complete authority in Jake's familiar voice immediately focused Jasper. “What's up?”
“Boss—” God, Jasper didn't want to say anything too explicit over the walkie-talkies, no matter that others working the ranch would not hear this channel. “You need to get Caleb and come to the mountain edge of the high north grazing land, right now. It's something really bad.”
“We'll be right there. Jake out.”
Jasper clipped the walkie-talkie back to his belt, swallowing bile as his gaze automatically went back to the girl nailed to the tree. Ren snapped picture after picture all around them, capturing the entire scene as well as the surrounding land. Jasper forced himself to take his eyes off the horror of the slain woman and look around the area, studying, just in case he could be of some help.

Saying a silent prayer under his breath, Jace looked to Cade. “Do you have any early thoughts about her?” He and Cade stood on ladders on either side of the murder victim, waiting for the sheriff's okay to remove her for transport to the crime lab in Bozeman.

“Dead before she was nailed to the slat of wood and the tree,” Cade answered, his voice muffled. His eyes shone dark above the safety mask covering the lower half of his face. Jace wore protection over his mouth and nose too. They also wore latex gloves.

“I'd say so too,” Jace agreed. Since they saw no blood flow from the puncture wounds, nor from areas picked at by animals, they could take some comfort that her death had preceded her killer attaching her to this tree. The body was unmistakably that of a female, but with the damage done to her face by birds and other critters, Jace didn't think even her family members would be able to identify her. “I'm not seeing any real signs of violence.” He shared a grim look with Cade. “From what's left of her anyway. No obvious knife trauma or bullet wounds.”

“I have some bruising on her wrist here,” Cade said, pointing as he looked at Jace. “Maybe the perp held her by the arms at some point and dragged her. If we're lucky, we might get some prints.”

“Here.” Jace handed Cade a camera so he could take a picture. They already had hundreds of photos, but it never hurt to take one more. He shifted and looked at the woman again, trying to see past the carnage to the clues. “Wait a minute.” Jace took another step up the ladder, as a hint of bizarre
perfection
lived in the mess. “Look at her hair. See how it's all precisely styled at the edges? Kind of curled forward?” It reminded Jace of how Sarah sometimes did her hair, and he shuddered.

Christ, I would not survive if I lost her. In any way, let alone like this.
Shaking himself mentally, he returned his attention to the job. “The top part is wrecked, probably by the birds, but I wonder if someone styled her before they put her up here? Or maybe after but didn't anticipate animals so quickly damaging the picture he was trying to create.”
“Posing and styling her, beyond the obvious religious conclusions we're supposed to draw with the Christlike position of the body?”
“Maybe.” Jace appreciated the ability to share ideas with an experienced law-enforcement officer like Cade, who had worked a lot of big-city crime when he lived in Texas. “Caleb and

Jake have cattle grazing in this area right now, so if it was someone local, they would have known a cowboy would find the body at some point today when checking on the fence and animals.”

“Wherever she was killed,” Jace added, “the perp then had to bring her here and somehow get her attached to this tree. If she went out last night, I'd think any primping she might have done at home would be nonexistent by now. I think our killer had to do it, whether here or somewhere else.”

“Good point.” Cade's brow furrowed, and he looked off into the distance. “There hasn't been anyone reported missing in Quinten lately, so if she's local, she lived alone or didn't have anyone expecting her home last night.” Cade turned back to Jace, and Jace could see the wheels turning in his mind. “You figure you give the guy time to grab her, kill her somewhere else, transport her here—let's assume under the cover of darkness for the fact that it makes the most sense—and then Ren and Jasper don't find her until nearly noon… She has to have been gone from her life for ten to twelve hours, I'd say. Probably more than that. It's doubtful she would have gone out at midnight.”

“Yeah. More than likely, she went out dancing or to see a movie, considering yesterday was Friday. Maybe she had a date.”
“That's assuming he took her yesterday.”
“That's why we're not going to assume anything.” The sheriff, Duke Boone, broke into the conversation. He climbed up a third ladder, joining Jace, Cade, and the body. “Robyn can't get here, and she can't send anyone over fast enough to be of help right now.” Robyn Fallon was the head of forensics at the crime lab in Bozeman, Quinten's resource for lab work and assistance on crime scenes such as this one. “They're working that quadruple homicide we heard about earlier today, and she needs all hands on deck over there. I gave Robyn everything I could and sent some pictures to her laptop. She has instructed me to pry our Jane Doe's ankle and the slat of wood away from the tree, but to leave her attached to the wood itself. You two keep hold of her and the slat, and I'll pry her off.”
Duke climbed down, and another deputy handed him a large crowbar. Duke looked to Cade, then Jace, and then a dozen feet away to where Jasper, Ren, Jake, and Caleb remained. Grimacing, Duke asked, “Everybody ready?”
Everyone nodded, and Duke, quietly and efficiently, worked the metal behind the victim's ankle and detached her from the tree. Silence reigned all around them, and the absence of sound—even that of animals—whispered a shiver through Jace.
Duke climbed up the third ladder again and, as with the ankle, worked without words and pried the nails driven through the slat of wood from the tree. Jace held tight to the body and wood, determined not to let their victim fall as her weight slowly shifted from the tree to Jace and Cade. Men below held the ladders in place, making sure Jace, Cade, and Duke didn't topple under their task.
“Steady.” Cade gritted his teeth, giving the tight-lipped instruction as the job of holding the dead woman transferred completely to him and Jace. Both men strained under the weight but steadily worked their way down the ladders until they hit a point where deputies waiting on the ground could reach up and offer assistance.
“All right, we have her.” Deputy Max Stuart gave Jace and Cade verbal instructions from below. “Slowly, everyone, we're going to lower her facedown onto the board.” When Jace didn't feel any pressure on his arms, he released his hold on the body, let the others take over the task of settling her on the makeshift gurney, and jumped to the ground.
“Okay.” Max's voice remained authoritative. “That's good. Carson!” she called out, gaining the attention of their newest deputy. “We're going to shift the board, and I need you to strap her down for me.”
Jace was in the process of removing his gloves when Carson said, “Hey, look at this,” and immediately gained everyone's attention. “She has a tattoo on her left buttock.” Carson looked to the sheriff. “A cowboy hat and a boot. That should help in making a positive ID on her, right?”
Everyone in uniform swooped in on the body to get a closer look. A commotion erupted behind them, and suddenly Jasper pushed his way past Cade, right up to the dead woman, whispering, “Oh my God.”
Swearing, Jace pushed in front of Jasper and strong-armed him back. “Get away from the scene.”
“But wait.” Jasper wiggled around Jace's hold. “It's important.” His Adam's apple bobbed as he looked at everyone in the group. “I know her.”
Jace grabbed Jasper by the upper arms and swung him around, putting them chest to chest. “What did you say?”
Jasper looked at Jace; his lips were pale, and his eyes were wide. “Her name is Ginger Carlton. I used to date her.”