BIG SKY SECRETS 03: End Game (5 page)

The absurdity of the situation hit him like a sucker punch to the gut as he turned for the cabin.

Six months ago he’d been working sixteen-hour days as a seasoned homicide detective. And now he was in the middle of nowhere. Living alone. He hadn’t seen another human being for five days, and he was talking to a
donkey
. Not that being alone was all that bad. Some of the alternatives were worse.

Like running into that cute little deputy, time after time—when the last thing he wanted was to feel that level of attraction ever again for a woman wearing a badge.

Or the situation with his ex-fiancée, who had pretty much cured him of any desire for commitment at any rate.

Just the fact that Olivia had broken their engagement would’ve stunned him, but her announcement that she’d eloped with her partner had been like acid on an open wound.

He’d immersed himself in his work after that. Avoided the two of them whenever possible, maintained an air of cool detachment when he couldn’t. As a beat cop, she didn’t work out of the same part of the building, but there were chance encounters in stairwells and the parking lot…and then three months ago things had taken a far deadlier turn.

As he turned for the house, his cell phone vibrated at his belt.

Calls were rare these days, between the poor reception in the area and his efforts at complete isolation from his past, and he preferred it that way. He ignored the caller for a moment before unclipping the phone with a sigh of resignation. Whoever it was, it probably wasn’t about anything good.

A glance at the screen confirmed his assumption. Bob. A retirement-age detective, he’d been one of the many in the department who had faded into the background when the accusations against Scott started surfacing. Apparently still uncomfortable with his spineless defection and trying to make amends, this was the second time he’d called.

“Yeah?”

“Hey.” After an awkward pause, Bob cleared his throat. “How’s medical leave going? You doing okay?”

Rubbing the still-tender surgical scars on his shoulder, Scott forced himself to relax his grip on the phone. “Great.”

“I…well, I thought you should know how things are going here.” Another pause. “And again, I wanted to tell you that I’m real sorry. It shouldn’t have happened. Not to a guy like you…”

Scott tuned him out.

One day he’d been trying to forget Olivia’s romantic departure for a cocky young rookie cop whose ego was only exceeded by his bodybuilder brawn. The next—thanks to an anonymous tip—Scott had faced accusations about evidence that disappeared during a murder investigation.

Ten grand in unmarked bills and five kilos of prime White Widow, to be exact. Evidence that Scott had logged in himself, following procedure to the letter.

The dope disappeared, but the unexpected night deposit of ten grand into his checking account that followed, and the “stray” bullet that hit him a month later during the pursuit of a homicide suspect, had sure changed his life in a hurry.

He was on medical leave now, and had no intention of going back. He shook his head and returned to the present.

“The news isn’t so good,” Bob muttered.

Scott clenched his jaw. “It doesn’t matter anymore, as far as I’m concerned. The Internal Affairs investigation cleared me and the last I heard, they’d hit a brick wall trying to determine who was responsible.”

“A drug dealer was brought in last week.” Bob made a sound of disgust. “Real upstanding citizen once he got arrested, if you know what I mean. He wanted to deal. Said you kept that stolen dope on ice, then offered it to him for half the street value.”

Scott’s heart took an extra hard thud. “Not possible. I’m here, remember? In Montana.”

“People travel. You got witnesses, who can prove you’ve been out there nonstop?”

No one, other than Attila and Jasper, and neither of them could talk. “Has this guy been interrogated?”

A long silence stretched over the miles. “It won’t be happening.”

“But if the guy is accusing me of a felony—”

“He made bail. Less than twenty-four hours later, he turned up dead.”

“What?”

“Looked like a professional job.” Bob cleared his throat. “I know he was lying about you, trying to save his own skin. The chief thinks so, too. Just thought I’d mention that you might get a call about what you’ve been up to lately. There’s been some talk about how convenient it was that this guy was iced right after offering testimony.”

Scott mentally sorted through his past cases. Any one of the perps he’d put behind bars could’ve ordered a pal to exact revenge. Someone fresh out could’ve dwelled on it every hour he was behind bars. Executed a plan for retribution. “He have a name?”

“Mendez. Rico Mendez.”

Scott flashed back to the murders of several gang members. Homicide—with Scott leading the case—had traced the crime to two men working under Mendez in south Chicago…and ultimately, that had led to one of the biggest drug busts on record for the department.

Those two were in the midst of appeals, but would undoubtedly end up on death row. Mendez, insulated by several levels of minions, hadn’t been touched. Only now he was dead.

“The chief is still behind you, buddy…even with all the evidence against you. Just thought you should know.”

“There
was
no real evidence.” Reining in his rising frustration, Scott lifted his gaze to the towering mountains, now washed in soft amber early morning light. He considered his words carefully. “I know this case has been fuel for a lot of locker room gossip. But I kept a carbon copy of my log-in documentation in the evidence room. Joe was at the window and testified about seeing me.”

“Though he didn’t actually
examine
the contents of the packages.”

“True. That was my one mistake. I should’ve stayed to make sure he did, but I was called out on a case and had to leave in a hurry.” Joe, a forty-year veteran in the department with an exemplary record, had passed an intensive interrogation and lie detector test about that night. And though Scott had done so as well, the suspicion had still shifted back to him.

“It was just a bad deal, all around,” Bob muttered. “Makes you wonder about who you can trust.”

“And those surveillance tapes of someone making an ATM deposit into my account weren’t of me.” Scott heard the edge in his own voice and took a steadying breath. “Even in the poor lighting, it was clear the guy was at least three inches shorter and fifty pounds heavier. Like I said, Internal Affairs closed the investigation. End of story.”

“I know, buddy. I know.” Bob heaved a sigh. “I just wanted to give you a heads-up, so you’d know that things back here aren’t exactly over.”

Great.

Long after the call ended, Scott paced the aisle of the barn, cleaning stalls, lost in thought, feeling an overpowering urge to drive back to Chicago and face those rumors head-on. He’d been cleared once before, and still someone felt the need to stir things up.
Why?

His nerves on edge, he glanced at his watch, then whistled to Jasper.

It was a four-hour drive to Billings. Home Depot should be open late on a Saturday night, and he could easily make it there in time to pick up a generator for all the times when the howling wind and fierce Montana storms knocked out his electrical service. Going somewhere—anywhere—was better than staying out here, alone with his thoughts. He could get back by midnight, if everything went well.

The old dog bounded toward him from a distant point in the meadow beyond the barn. “Come on, Jasper, let’s hit the road.”

Megan reached up to shift her wig of brunette hair and ran a fingertip over her crimson lipstick, then took a deep breath and rapped on the door to Hal Porter’s office. This was a good idea. She knew it was—but convincing the brass was a whole different thing.

When he barked, “Come in,” she strolled into his office and planted a hand on her hip, waiting for him to look up from his laptop.

He glanced up, still tapping on the keys. His hands stilled as his brows drew together, his smile of welcome fading. He quickly masked the flicker of distaste in his eyes. “You’ll have to stop at the secretary’s desk, ma’am.”
Yes!
She tipped her chin up and gave her hair a sultry toss, not taking her eyes from his until she saw recognition dawn in his expression.

He tipped back in his chair, his hands braced on the armrests. “I thought we already talked about this, Megan.”

“You said you didn’t want me to go out on my own.”

He leveled a long, steely look at her. “I just don’t like it. This isn’t some big city department with a team of undercover agents. We’re short three full-time officers right now, and we don’t have the manpower for backup. And if our suspect is a local, he’ll recognize you.”

She compressed her lips, holding back a snort of disbelief. “I don’t cover the part of the county where the last victim lived, so few of those residents would recognize me. And even you didn’t recognize me at first, right?”

“It took a minute, because you were silhouetted in the doorway,” he growled.

“So in some dark, smoky bar, what are the chances?”

“Even if the killer doesn’t recognize you, someone else might—and could inadvertently blow your cover right there. Worse, your credibility would be shot.”

“Better that than another innocent woman, in the most literal sense,” she retorted. “Think about it, boss.”

“I have. The answer is still no.”

“There’s
nothing
I want more than to take this guy down. Give me one night…just one. Tonight. Ewan Baker says he’ll be my backup.”

Hal sighed. “Ewan.”

Ewan wasn’t her first choice, either, but she could handle herself and didn’t expect trouble at any rate. “That’s his part of the county. I’ll troll out at the Halfway House—the place Dee Kirby visited last. She went there a number of times before she was killed, and always on Saturday nights. Give me midnight to two, then I’ll be out of there, I promise.” She saw the flicker of hesitation in Hal’s eyes and took a deep breath before driving her point home. “Even if someone makes my identity, it’s still all for the good. Word will spread that we’re upping our efforts. It might make the killer think twice before trying anything more in Marshall County.”

“Well…”

“I figure this guy scouts his victims in advance. Targets his quarry—maybe even follows them home. He wants to make sure he’s ready when the next full moon rises. And I figure that gives us until June fifth. Twenty days.”

“Maybe that timing has been a coincidence. If he’s local, maybe he’s already aware of the investigation, got cold feet and moved on.”

“Or not. But I’m not willing to sit back and take that risk. Are you?”

Hal’s face, folded into heavy wrinkles on the best of days, seemed to age before her eyes. “You won’t take any chances?”

Curbing her rising impatience, she shook her head. He had always been a good boss. Honest, fair. Hardworking to a fault. But she’d been the first female deputy in the county, and he’d adopted a thinly veiled protective, grandfatherly air toward her from the first day she’d come on the job—one that had brought no end of subtle ribbing from her fellow deputies.

Still, though the line had never been crossed between appropriate, professional distance and true friendship, a small part of her heart—one that never experienced a father’s attention—still took pleasure in his older-generation courtliness.

Before he could change his mind, she headed out the door. “Thanks.”

He wasn’t going to be sorry.

She was a lot better at her job than he gave her credit for, but this wasn’t about proving her worth.

It was about the ghosts of her childhood that still haunted her thoughts. Ghosts that she still needed to put to rest. Maybe the vicious killer who’d murdered her cousin Laura fifteen years ago was long dead, but her overwhelming feelings of anger and helplessness remained—still roiling at the edges of her thoughts during every murder investigation.

Only now, it was far more personal.

An animal was preying on women. Picking them off, one by one. But this time, she was an experienced deputy, not a child. A crack shot. A woman ready to focus her fury and need for justice on the man who dared spread that same kind of terror through the county.

And if it was the last thing she ever did, she was going to take him down.

A
fter checking in with Ewan by cell phone, Megan tipped down the visor to study the stranger facing her in the dimly lit mirror, then applied another coat of lipstick and fluffed the thick bangs of her dark wig.

Even in the chilly night air, the wig was hot, and her false eyelashes—applied after studying a YouTube instructional video—felt like twin spiders perched on her eyelids.

With all the big hair, makeup, flashy red sweater and crimson fingertips, she was probably more ready for a costume party than a night on the town, even if Ewan
had
whistled in appreciation.