Too Sexy for his Stetson (8 page)

Rambo barked, a growl rumbling in his chest. He charged the patio door, then ran toward Blade and sat at alert, awaiting his command. A second later, a flicker of lightning flashed against the darkening sky. Rambo must have sensed the brewing storm.

The next instant, the patio door exploded.
Oh my God, the dog had sensed more than the storm.

Brandy lurched back from a hailstorm of glass that spewed over a small throw rug, over Rambo’s bowl, and over the wood flooring. A rock that had skidded across the satin–finished hickory landed at her feet. She jumped then lunged toward Rambo, dodging the mess, attempting to keep him from walking through the shards of glass. With one hand, Blade grabbed Rambo’s collar and with the other, he nudged Brandy aside.

Through the jagged opening in the center of the glasspane, a fiery cross glowed from the field beyond. It blazed against the ominous, cloud–brimmed sky, burning dangerously close to the small storage barn. Uncomfortably close to the forest of thirsty summer pines and acres of dry tinder.

“Damn it!” Blade yelled on his way out the side door with Rambo at his heels. “Call it in.”

Brandy dialed 911, then rushed outside, following Blade and Rambo.

“It sure as hell didn’t take them long to find out where I live.” Blade grabbed the garden hose that was hooked up to the spigot on the side of the house and shouted, “Crank that faucet, will you?” He ran toward the flaming cross, gripping the nozzle trigger. At the same time, Rambo took off, chasing the taillights of a vehicle, unidentifiable in the shadowy dusk as it bounced down the drive, speeding away.

“Rambo,
nein! Hier!”

At Blade’s command, the dog halted, but his gaze remained locked on the shrinking red dots. Meanwhile, Brandy struggled with the rust–gummed faucet until the aged rubber hose bulged as water burst through. She ran to help Blade, who had dragged the hose its full length—had to be over a hundred and fifty feet. He started spraying. “Grab a shovel from over by the fence.”

When she returned with the shovel, Blade handed her the hose, and he began throwing dirt on flames licking the dry grass that bordered the forest. Brandy squeezed the nozzle of the hose and drenched the ground on the leading edge of the fire.

Soot mixed with sweat on Blade’s back while Brandy’s shirt glued itself to her skin.

At last, Blade smothered the last bit of flame gulping at one lone tuft of half–burnt prairie grass. Brandy ran back to what was left of the cross and aimed the hose, drenching the pile of charred sticks until Blade took the nozzle from her, and she realized the threat was over.

They stood next to the scorched swath of earth, staring at each other, listening to the wail of fire trucks. The drama was over. Thousands of acres of pristine timber had been spared devastation.

The Neo Nazis had issued a warning, and the sheriff’s department wasn’t going to ignore it nor give in to it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A
ll that was left of the fire and the roughly assembled cross were a couple of embers, twinkling in the dusk. The firefighters double–checked the perimeters to make sure there was no sign of flames in the grassy area between Blade’s meadow and the forest, and then left.

The disaster had been averted.

“Hell, these guys are working really hard at pissing me off.” Blade found himself staring at Brandy catching her breath, her face dirty, her forehead sweaty. Now that the imminent threat was over, his thoughts rolled back to what she’d been about to say before that rock had come crashing through his door.

“Yeah, I’m with you on that.”

Their long–awaited conversation loomed like a wraith in the smoky aftermath. What the hell was she going to accuse Coogan of? Dread churned in his stomach. As a cop, he’d seen the worst, and his mind spun with possible scenarios.

In the shadows of night, she stood three feet from him, looking bedraggled but beautiful, strong, maybe defiant, and on edge. She rubbed her arms and shivered despite the warmth of the smoke–tinged air. Part of him wanted to wrap her in his arms and hold on for dear life.

But another part pulled taut and mean across his ribs while his darkest secret hammered his brain. His biological father had molested his mother. Men like his biological father took advantage of young women, not men like Coogan.

“So what do you make of this?” Brandy’s question cut into his thoughts.

“A burning cross is the Neo Nazi’s calling card. Obviously, they’re ramping up their war against the sheriff’s department. More specifically, me.” The son of a pervert.

“This is serious. They could have burned thousands of acres of forest,” Brandy said, talking around the subject eating at Blade’s gut. His stomach continued to churn. He knew in his head that he was projecting his own issues onto Brandy’s situation, but he couldn’t shake the dread that settled over him every time he thought back to… He’d spent too many years agonizing over a man who preyed on young girls. A man who was still out there someplace. The man who had sent his mother into hiding and made life miserable for Blade. The longer Blade chewed on memories of that bastard and what he’d done to his mother, the more his resolve hardened. He’d find him. The creep couldn’t hide forever.

But Skip? No way was Skip like that piece of low–life scum.

He fisted, then flexed his hands.

Abrupt or not, he spit out the question that had taunted him since Brandy’s comments about Skip. “So, Brandy, what about Skip Coogan?”

Her eyes widened.

“Did he… you know… hurt you?”

Somehow she read his anguish. “No, it’s not anything… sexual…”

The lump in his throat dissolved and left space for cutting words to edge past. “Jesus, then what’s your big revelation? You can’t go around demeaning a man’s character, implying things—especially about a man like Coogan.”

“He testified against my mother. There was never any solid proof against her, but Skip’s statements cast enough doubt to ultimately convict her of murder on circumstantial evidence.”

“That’s it?” Blade didn’t mean to come off flippant. But he was so filled with relief, knowing her problem with Skip had nothing to do with the man’s character or integrity, that he didn’t care if his remark upset her.

She heaved a sigh of exasperation.

He heaved it back. “Sometimes a man’s got to do what’s right, no matter the consequences.” And no matter how much Brandy wanted to clear her mother’s name, Blade wasn’t going to allow her to do so by defaming the man who was the closest thing he’d ever had to a real father.

“There’s more.”

Blade crossed his arms over his chest and silently waited for her to continue.

“I think he could have… been part of the frame–up against her.”

You
think?
“And you came up with this theory when?” The words came out more calmly than he’d thought possible after an accusation like that.

Her glance fell away. “When I was eleven.”

He scrubbed his hand across his face and almost laughed. Ridiculous. Remaining silent, he waited for her to build her case. She didn’t. And the longer Blade chewed on her accusation, the more it agitated him. Likewise, the longer he gazed into her eyes, the more he realized she was dead serious. The stench of the allegation was so potent it smothered the remaining tinge of smoke in the air.

Even so, Blade refused to turn this into an angry debate.

“Jesus…” What eleven year old
would
believe their mother was guilty of murder? “And have you uncovered anything that would justify reopening the case?”/

“I’m working on it.”

“But a jury convicted your mother on evidence presented in a court of law. That means twelve men and women had no reasonable doubt about her guilt.”

“Because Skip lied. He lied about so many things. He lied about misplacing his gun.”

“And you know
that
because…?”

“For one thing, I know my mother. I know she would never have murdered anyone.” She stood, pinning him with a look of pure determination. “Evidence was mishandled during the trail. And there were questions about the actual whereabouts of Skip’s friend Joey Secada, his alibi, that night. Someone claimed they saw Secada in Madison, seventy–five miles away from the murder scene in Milwaukee.”

When he didn’t reply, she huffed away, hiked to the faucet, and gave it an angry twist. She silently startled when the pipes retaliated with a noisy thud.

Blade took a couple more beats to sort his thoughts. As he studied the sun–bleached curls scattered across Brandy’s damp uniform shirt, he saw in his mind the very young girl she’d been at the time. A girl who had lived through immeasurable heartache. She’d witnessed her mother’s murder trial and heard a judge sentence her to prison. And apparently she’d become determined to take the world on her eleven–year–old shoulders.

Since finding that article on the computer the other night, Blade had read everything he could get his hands on about the Marilyn Abbott murder. Skip had been involved with the victim. Brandy’s mother, Skip’s wife, had discovered the affair. Even though Brandy didn’t want to believe her mother could commit murder, Blade knew human beings were capable of out–of–character violence when pushed to their limits.

He looked into the toughened yet tortured expression on her face, and his heart twisted. He had to help her find the truth, and he’d bet his life she was wrong about Skip.

Skip represented everything Blade was not, a respectable man who came from generations of honorable men who’d worn the badge before him. Running his hand across his nape, Blade slicked the damp hair curling against his neck.

“Maybe you don’t really know Skip as well as you think you do,” he said quietly, with more compassion than he knew he possessed. Long moments later, he added, “There’s a banquet in his honor Thursday night. Maybe you should come along as my guest? And renew old acquaintances?” In his heart, Blade believed that once the mature Brandy met Skip, she’d realize she was wrong about him.

He moved closer, and with one finger pressed to her lips, he kept her from refusing his invitation. “Will you do it for me?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Blade’s pager sounded.

He responded to the dispatcher on his cell phone. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“What’s up?” Brandy asked.

“Tour d’Alene’s reported a missing person. A client failed to return a raft. He’s a couple hours past due, and with the storm moving in…” Blade ran inside and grabbed his holster.

Brandy’s adrenaline kicked in as she chased after Blade. She pushed aside her inner turmoil. “I’ll go with you. I know the rapids and all the most dangerous spots.”

As they ran toward the cruiser, Rambo stood waiting for an invitation.

“Can he help with the search?” Brandy asked.

Blade nodded. “Come on, boy, let’s see what we can find.”

****

En route, Brandy mulled over Blade’s refusal to consider Skip capable of doing any wrong. Unless her attorney and the PI came up with concrete evidence, her chances of getting the stubborn but loyal lieutenant to side with her were about a million in one. That shouldn’t matter– the only thing that mattered was clearing her mother’s name–but her heart still sank at the knowledge that Blade didn’t believe in her enough to even consider that he might be wrong.

Her nerves brittle, she pushed away personal thoughts and focused on the rescue mission. A missing person. A chance to save a life.

Blade navigated the curvy mountain roads, the headlights cutting into the darkness as the storm stole the last of the evening twilight. Brandy maintained radio contact with the dispatcher. “It’ll take the dive team at least twenty minutes to get out here once they reach the office and load up,” she told Blade. “And with the storm, the chopper’s on hold.” No heavenly searchlight. Apprehension kicked her in the ribs.

Blade puffed out a breath and asked, “How much further?”

“About five minutes. Watch for pull–off A–12.”

The road continued to snake through Deadman’s Gulch, the highway ribboning through the timber–covered mountainside, sharp–edged drop–offs sometimes looming to the left and other times plunging to the right.

Four and a half tense minutes later, the headlights reflected off the A–12 sign. The Tahoe skidded to a stop on loose gravel in the pull–off next to Todd Christiansen’s cruiser.

Brandy and Blade jumped out, dashed to the rear of the Tahoe, and ripped open the back doors. Less than a hundred yards away, the wild waters of the Shoshone roared, a daytime thrill ride that was twice as dangerous in the cloak of darkness.

After grabbing high–powered flashlights, ropes, life–jackets, and rain gear, they headed toward the river, Blade leading, Rambo next in line, and Brandy following.

Christiansen stood surveying the river at the top of an incline where the waters widened and cascaded over a boulder field. “The missing raft is red, and the guy was wearing a yellow helmet and vest,” he reported. “A lot of good that’s going to do in the dark.”

A flash of lightning scrawled the black sky with a craggy message. The resulting thunderclap affirmed the warning. There was precious little time before Mother Nature would likely close down the operation. And every minute in cold water lessened the odds of a successful recovery.

“Do we have an ID?” Brandy asked.

“No, he registered with Tour d’Alene under the name of Bob Jones, which doesn’t jive with the ID he gave the car rental company. Steve Smith. Both turned out to be bogus.” Christiansen scratched his head. “The rental vehicle is parked at Tour d’Alene’s launch site.”

“Is that his sweatshirt?” Blade asked, nodding to the garment in the deputy’s hand.

Todd nodded and tossed him a gray hoodie. Blade held it for Rambo to sniff. Once the canine picked up the scent, he waited for Blade’s command.

Thunder chased another flash of light, reverberating and echoing across the valley. Goosebumps dotted Brandy’s arms as she pulled on a raincoat and adjusted her flashlight. “This way to the trail. It follows the river alongside the rapids.”