Hold Your Breath (Search and Rescue) (3 page)

The idea that someone could be murdered and missing for months without anyone noticing struck Lou as sad. “So, this guy never returned to his solitary cabin, and his neighbors just figured he’d developed a serious case of agoraphobia?”

“Could be.” Callum’s eyes narrowed, and Lou followed his gaze to a young-looking deputy carrying a hand weight. He fumbled with it, barely stopping it from falling onto the ice. “Or it could’ve had something to do with the cultists over by White Bear Peak, or that antigovernment group that’s taken over the old Miller compound. There’s an MC outside of Liverton, too.”

“Emcee?” The thought of a murderous master of ceremonies just wasn’t computing.

“Motorcycle Club.”

Sometimes Lou was very glad Callum couldn’t read her thoughts. “Ah.”

“Should’ve kept on my dry suit.”

“What?” She looked at the deputy and winced. Instead of just fumbling, he’d dropped the piece of evidence this time. Glancing around, most likely to see if anyone was watching, he picked up the weight. “Isn’t that only a twenty-pounder? Why is he having such a hard time carrying it?”

“No idea, but that dumbass is going to figure out a way to get himself in the water.”

They both watched as the deputy finally made his way to shore. Once he stepped onto solid ground, Lou exhaled. Only then did she realize she’d been holding her breath.

“Amazing,” Callum muttered, finally turning away from the deputy.

“You know him?”

He snorted. “Unfortunately.”

“I smell a story.”

“You know Walsh? With Fire?”

She thought for a second. “Ian Walsh? Big guy? Looks like he should be every single month on the firemen’s calendar, posing in just his bunker gear without a shirt and showing off those tattoo-covered pecs?”

Callum paused, a muscle ticking at his jaw. “How do you know about his tattoos?” She opened her mouth, but he spoke again before she could answer. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Ask him sometime about Lawrence hitting a bison with a month-old squad car. Going ninety miles an hour.”

After considering that for a second, she said, “That doesn’t make him an idiot. Maybe he was responding to a call and couldn’t stop when he saw the bison. I hit a deer a week after I moved here.” She made a face at the memory. That had been a traumatic day. Not quite as bad as headless-corpse-discovery day, but still, it hadn’t been fun.

His mouth twisting in disgust, Callum shook his head. “He
was
responding to a call. A bison-in-the-road call.”

“Oh.” It was her turn to pause. “Yeah, that was dumb.”

“Just one story of many.”

“Ah.”

They stood in surprisingly tense silence for a few moments, until a full-body shiver made her hug her middle.

Callum eyed her sharply and then jerked his head toward the dive van. “Go check that all our gear is stowed. Grab the puker and Derek to help. We’ll head out soon.”

“Is Rob done talking to everyone on the team?” Great—now that she let herself notice the cold, her teeth were chattering.

He shrugged. “If not, he knows where to find us. Go.”

She trudged toward the opening in the ice, collecting harnesses and ropes. There were ten or so waterlogged…things…that hadn’t been there during training lined up about fifteen feet from the edge of the water. From the manila-colored tags hanging from each piece, she assumed they were what Wilt and Callum had pulled out of the water during their evidence-hunting dives.

After spending months, if not years, in the water, the objects were indistinguishable dark lumps. Trying to look innocent as she coiled a rope, Lou shuffled a few feet closer. The closest one looked like… She tilted her head and squinted. A tackle box, maybe?

“Hey.”

She jerked her head up as she focused on the speaker, a blond deputy standing on the other end of the evidence line. He didn’t look familiar, but she didn’t know many of the cops by name, except for Sheriff Coughlin, and now the unfortunate Lawrence. “Hi.”

“You’re the new girl on the dive team, right?”

She nodded. “Lou Sparks.”

“Chris Jennings.” He took a couple of steps closer, carefully placing his feet to avoid trampling the evidence, and held out his gloved hand. “Heard you were the lucky one who found him.”

She made a face as she shook his hand. “Yeah. Lucky me.”

With a sympathetic smile, he gestured at the line of items. “Well, I’d better get back to hauling the evidence over to the crime-scene vehicle. Doubt any of this crap is actually related to what happened to the floater, but better to bag and tag than miss anything.”

“Need some help?” she asked, trying for nonchalance. If she carried them, she could see some of the potential evidence up close. Plus, the deputy seemed like a chatty one. More information straight from the sheriff’s office wouldn’t hurt. She felt a strange connection to the anonymous headless guy, an urgent need to give him back his name and identity. No one should be dumped like garbage and forgotten.

“Nah.” He grinned at her again. He was an attractive guy, but he didn’t wake up any butterflies in her belly. Maybe she only went for the surly type. “Thanks, but it’s better if I do it. Chain of evidence and all that.”

“Sure. It was nice to meet you.”

“You too.” With another smile, he carefully hoisted the tackle box and headed toward the shore.

She watched him walk carefully away. “Huh.”

“What are you looking at?” At Derek’s voice behind her, Lou turned and slipped. Flailing her arms, she tried to catch her balance, dropping the neatly coiled ropes to the ground. As soon as she had her feet under her again, she punched him in the midsection.

“Ass!”

“What?” He covered his stomach with one arm, although she knew she hadn’t hit him that hard.

“Don’t sneak up behind me like that,” she growled, giving him an openhanded smack on his shoulder before reaching for the scattered ropes. “Especially not on headless-dead-guy-discovery day.”

“You’ve made it into a
day
?” he asked. “Nice. Can we get it off of work?”

She recoiled the rope. “No day off, but there is one good thing about HDGD day. Callum was civil, actually civil, for about six minutes. Straight.”

“Really? That’s impressive. I think the previous record was twelve seconds. Nice subject change, by the way.”

“What?”

“I saw you checking out Deputy Chris.” He grinned. “Your eyes were firmly on that cop’s ass. Don’t deny it.”

She gave him a lofty and glacial stare. “I was thinking.”

“About what? Deputy Chris’s bitable backside?”

“You know, I’m telling Artie you’ve been ogling deputies behind her back,” Lou teased. Derek got the same sappy smile he always did whenever Artie was mentioned. The two were sickeningly and adorably devoted to each other. Lou tucked the coils of rope over her shoulder. “Actually, I was thinking about statistics.”

“Boring. And doubtful.”

“But true.” She gave a final glance at the remaining objects and headed for the shore, although not before getting a good look at the evidence lined up next to her. “I was considering the likelihood of having such a high number of improbably attractive people in the Field County Emergency Services.”

“I
knew
you were thinking about his ass!” Derek puffed out his chest. “And thank you. I agree.”

“Yeah…” She drew out the word, looking him up and down. “I’m thinking you’re an outlier.”

“Hey!”

Ignoring his protests, she headed toward the ambulance to collect the newly emptied Stokes basket from the EMTs.

* * *

Headless-dead-guy-discovery day just kept getting better and better.

Lou stared at the flat tire on her Chevy pickup—her second flat in the past week—and felt her shoulders droop.

“Haven’t you gotten ten-ply tires yet?”

She didn’t look at Callum but continued glaring at the deflated tire, as if she could fix it with the power of her sullen gaze. “No. It’s on the wrong list.”

“Wrong list?”

She sighed. “I have my must-have list and my want-to-have list. Load E tires are on my want-to-have list.”

“What’s on your must-have list?”

“Food. Propane. Firewood.” She resisted the urge to kick the flat tire. “Tire patch kit.”

“Did you get your tire patched after last time?”

“Of course,” she huffed. After a long moment of silence, she gave in and kicked the deflated rubber after all. It didn’t make her feel better. In fact, it hurt her toes. “I just haven’t picked it up from Donnie’s yet.”

“So no spare.”

She flexed her aching toes. “Yes, just…not here. I’ll, uh, figure something out. No problem.”

Callum stalked toward his own truck. Biting her lip, she watched him open the driver’s side door, wishing she had the courage to ask for help. The other guys had scattered as soon as they’d arrived at Fire Station One, where the dive team was based. She and Callum had rinsed the dive suits and equipment, then hung them to dry before coming out to the parking lot and discovering her flat.

After climbing into his truck, he didn’t shut the door. Instead, he shot her an expectant look. “You coming?”

“Oh, thank you, baby Jesus.” She hurried over to climb in the passenger side. “Can you give me a ride home?”

“No. Donnie stays open ’til six, so we should make it in time to pick up your tire.”

With a frown, she buckled her seat belt. It was a good dozen miles from the fire station to Donnie’s Auto Shop. “You don’t have to take me all the way there. Home’s fine.”

“I’m not leaving you in the middle of nowhere without a vehicle.”

“Um…okay. Thanks.” She squirmed a little, playing with the seat belt strap. Dusk had fallen quickly as usual, the sun dropping behind the mountain peaks to the west and turning the undersides of the clouds a dull red. The flat expanse of the high plains stretched out to their right, while a vertical cliff paralleled the left side of the road. Smaller rocks were scattered along the snow-packed shoulder, reminding Lou that rockslide season was approaching. The dramatic scenery couldn’t keep her mind off of the grisly discovery at the reservoir, though. “Think the sheriff is still out on the ice?”

He shrugged. “Probably. Doubt he’ll bring in the state investigators until tomorrow, though.”

“State investigators?”

“Colorado BCA.” At her blank look, he elaborated, “Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. They help out the smaller law enforcement agencies with forensics, investigations, that sort of thing.”

“Oh.” She thought about that for a moment. “Rob seems pretty competent.”

“He is, but it’s been a few years since there’s been a murder in Field County—one like this, at least.”

“You mean because of the headlessness?”

“That, and, if there is a murder, it’s usually obvious who did it. Domestics, drunken arguments, things like that.”

“Right.”

After a few minutes of quiet, Callum looked at her, opened his mouth as if he were going to speak, and then closed it again with a shake of his head.

“What?” she asked, curious. It wasn’t like him to be twitchy or uncertain.

He didn’t answer for what felt like a long time. Then suddenly, he said, “You did well today, Sparks.”

“Thanks.” She blew out a breath, surprised when it came out shaky. She thought she’d worked through the shakes and had arrived at sheer exhaustion. “I didn’t feel like I did well. I kicked the poor, dead bastard.”

“It got him to the surface, didn’t it? The killer was probably hoping he wouldn’t be found for another three months.” He paused before continuing. “You handled yourself well. Didn’t get hysterical or even puke like Chad.”

“Poor Chad.”

Callum gave a short shake of his head. “Needs to toughen up before summer season.”

She winced but had to ask. “Lots of bodies?”

“Some.” He glanced at her. “You’ll do fine. Just get good tires on your truck so you can get to calls.”

“I’ll move it up on my list.” Obviously, those ten-ply tires were the bone Callum was not going to stop chewing. She was a little proud of herself for her calm, nonsnarky response. It was best not to aggravate the man driving twenty-five miles to pick up her patched tire and, hopefully, help her change it.

“Do that.”

As they approached a county road intersection, the lone streetlight briefly illuminated the interior of the truck cab. Lou’s casual glance at Callum turned into a stare. He was actually smiling! It did strange things to her insides, turning the unpleasant churning from the day’s events into something lighter and warmer.

Darkness overtook the truck again, and that fleeting smile was gone. Callum remained silent, so Lou rested her head back and closed her eyes. She’d been right when she’d thought it was going to be a hell of a day—and it wasn’t over yet.

* * *

Donnie had heard about the body and really wanted to talk about it. Lou just wanted to pick up her tire and go home, so she let Callum handle the conversation. It was nice to use his surliness for good instead of evil. After ten minutes of receiving grunts and monosyllabic replies to his questions, Donnie gave up and led them to her tire. Her still-flat tire.

“Couldn’t fix it, Lou. Sorry.” He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “It had a slice, a big one, about four inches. Almost looked like someone cut it with a knife.”

“After the grader evens out the gravel road by my house, sometimes the blade sharpens the edges of the embedded rocks.” She poked at the cut that had killed her tire. “Could it have been from that?”

“Maybe.” Donnie looked skeptical. “Doubt the grader’s been by recently, though. I don’t know about your road, but mine’s still pretty snow-covered. There’s a chance the plow blade could’ve sharpened a rock, I guess.” By his tone, it seemed he thought that chance was a very small one.

“Huh.” Examining the slash again, she felt her whole body droop. God, she was tired. “I have another flat. Any chance you have a tire on hand that would fit?”

“I ordered you one last week after looking at this. Tried calling you, but your phone wouldn’t let me leave a message.”

She resisted the urge to bang her head against the auto shop wall. “Sorry, Donnie. Voice mail stops working every so often on my phone. I need a new one. It’s on my list.”