Worth the Trouble (25 page)

"10-4," came several replies over the airwaves.

Rocky pulled up beside him and griped, "You're not in charge here, Ethan.  I think they're smart enough to know that."

"Stop being prickly, Rocky, or this is gonna be a helluva long mission," he told her then clicked to Diamond to get her moving toward the campsite.

Rocky
grunted behind him, and he glanced back to make sure she was following.  They rode in silence to the campground, then through it.  Police personnel were everywhere interviewing campers when they passed through.  Moving into the woods, the voices faded after a minute, and Ethan pulled out his cell phone to try Inspector Gilley again before he lost service.

The man answered on the second ring, "This is Ethan, Inspector Gilley.  Have you interviewed Brad's father yet?" he asked hopefully. 

Ethan still hadn't seen him, but if Brad said he was here, the man was here somewhere.  Brad's words replayed in his mind too, and Ethan's memories verified them. 

You know dad when he gets his mind wrapped around something.

It was true.  Ethan remembered when he and Brad were on the football team together and his dad got it in his mind that the coach was out to get his son, overlooking him to start because of some imagined vendetta. 

That had gone on through their senior year, and the more
Mr. Thomas grumbled, the more pissed off the coach became, until finally Brad got benched for good.  There wasn't a vendetta that Ethan knew of, until he started that crap. 

Even though he was big, Brad had just not been as fast as the cornerback playing in front of him.  The coach knew Brad had heart though, and
he would have played him more if his dad had just kept his mouth shut.

When
his younger brother Jimmy tried out for the team, understandably he had never made the team, even though he was good,
very
good.

"Uh no, I haven't been able to pin him down yet.  I've called a couple of times and Mrs. Thomas said he wasn't in.  I even went down to Henrietta again and knocked on their door this morning,
but he wasn't there."

"He's here," Ethan informed.

"Where?" Gilley said with excitement in his tone.

"
Palo Duro Canyon," Ethan told him then added.  "There's a missing kid and I'm helping search, Brad and his daddy are both here too.  I haven't seen him though."

"Ethan you should probably leave," he advised with concern in his tone.

"I can't, I'm already on the search.  We left base camp a few minutes ago," Ethan told him.

"Well you better be careful.  I did go look at your truck, and had one of my evidence people go with me.  We got a print from the fender weld, and it doesn't match yours
," Inspector Gilley told him. 

"You got a print from
my truck?"

"
A partial one yes.  I haven't told you, but we also got one from the valve at the fire scene, and a good one from your faulty regulator too.  They all match, but we don't know whose they are. There was blood on the valve too, the person who cut that propane line cut himself too in the process.  I need to get a DNA sample from Mr. Thomas and a fingerprint.  I hope he will give them to us voluntarily, if not I'm going to have to have more evidence to get a court order."

Ethan knew that Mr. Thomas had been in the service, and they always took fingerprints.  "Did you check his service record?  I think he was in the army when he was younger
, they could have his prints."

"Oh, I didn't know that.  I'
ll check that angle," he told Ethan with excitement in his voice.  "If the prints match his, I can get the order for a DNA sample."

"Do you have any other suspects?" Ethan asked hoping against hope the inspector was just focusing on Brad's dad, because he didn't have any other suspects.

"No, we've weeded everyone out except him.  If he doesn't pan out, then we'll have to start over again at zero."

Ethan barely held back a groan.  "Well, I'll be out of pocket soon.  The cell phone service
out here isn't good.  When I get signal, I'll call you back," Ethan told him then hung up the phone and stuffed it into his pocket.

A snort behind him reminded him that he wasn't alone.  A fact that had slipped Ethan's mind while talking to Inspector Gilley.  Ethan could only hope she hadn't heard the conversation. 

That hope was dashed though when Rocky asked, "What the hell was all that about?" with curiosity and concern in her tone, then followed up with other rapid fire questions.  "Who the hell is Brad, and why is his daddy being investigated?"

"None of your business," he replied gruffly
and kneed Diamond to a faster pace, because they'd just reached an open trail.  Maybe if he was as abrasive to her as she'd been to him, she would let it drop.  He wasn't ready to tell her anything about the killer right now. 

For one, they needed to focus on the job at hand, finding that little girl.  Secondly, they still hadn't pinned down the culprit
.  Even though Brad's daddy was a suspect, he was innocent until proven guilty.  Telling Rocky about the situation, that the potential suspect was here, would just distract her from the search and make her afraid for their safety. 

Worrying about th
at was going to be his job. 

Besides if he told her,
Rocky would tell Terri when she got back to town, and that was the main reason he hadn't told her the other night.  It was why he had taken his lumps and let her think what she thought about him.

His sister had enough on her plate with running the ranch, and being pregnant
, without that added stress, so did his mom.  Ethan had cornered Joel and after extracting a promise to keep it to himself, Ethan filled him in about the situation, then told him to watch out for Terri.  His dad would watch out for his mother.

Besides,
spreading the fact that Mr. Thomas was a suspect around wasn't fair to him, until they had definitive proof it was him.

Diamond, getting a little skittish beneath him, must have picked up on his tension.  Ethan eased his posture in the saddle and loosened up his grip on the reins and she settled. 

He sucked in a deep breath of the dry air of the canyon and let his eyes soak in the beauty around him.  Palo Duro Canyon was one of the most beautiful places on Earth. 

It was rugged and wild, rocky and rough,
but in contrast it was a breathtaking visual experience.  Vibrant color shifts from red to terracotta and white made the landscape appear to almost be painted by God.  Sparse green vegetation and brown wheat grass softened the hard angles of the rock faces and provided shelter for the abundant wildlife in the area. 

He knew that this was rattlesnake heaven, but at this time of the year, they probably weren't too bad.  He hoped so at least.  There was also cougars, mountain lions, bobcats and coyotes they would have to worry about. 

Because there were so many people in the canyon most times, they usually stayed away from the populated areas, but he and Rocky were going offroad here, so they would have to keep their eyes open. 

"It's pretty out here, isn't it?" he said trying to soften the mood between them
and fill the silence that had descended.

"Yeah, it is," Rocky agreed grudgingly.  It was obvious she was still bristling
, because he refused to answer her questions.

"I used to come r
ock climbing out here," he told her longingly.  He wouldn't ever be rock climbing again anywhere, Ethan knew that.  His climbing days were over.  These days he'd have to settle for walking.

After a minute she told him,
"I've been trail riding out here with Dylan before.  The horse camping facilities are great." Her tone wasn't quite as sharp, when she added, "I'll probably go over there tonight and sleep in the cab of the trailer.  There's a bunk in there."

"I'll probably sleep in my truck, or pitch a tent beside it," he replied.

Silence fell between them again, then he suggested, "We should probably get off the trail, because if the kid was on it, someone would have seen her by now.  I say we go that way," he pointed east toward an overgrown trail.  It was passable, but not by much.

At her nod, he led the way through mesquite trees and brush, over the uneven rocky ground. 
After they were a little ways into the scrub, Ethan cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled loudly, "Amelia!"

H
is voice bounced off the rock walls then ricocheted through the area.  They waited for a second, but there was no response, so they moved on through a stand of trees, which opened to a creek.  Ethan followed the creek bank, stopping to call her name again every once and a while. 

At one point, they had to enter the creek because the bank narrowed to nothing. 
About a mile down, it widened again, and Ethan led Diamond up onto the bank then told her, "Let's stop for a few minutes and get a drink.  We don't want to get dehydrated."

"
Okay," she agreed then followed him through a stand of trees to a wide open field covered in brush grass. 

With a glance at the sky,
Rocky noticed two things.  The sun was a lot lower now, almost ready to fade behind the mesas, its warm orange light almost made the rocks appear to be glowing.  The second thing she noticed was the dark angry looking clouds that were moving in from the west.

"Looks like it's gonna rain soon," she commented as she dismounted, then pulled a bottle of water out of her saddle bag.  Just then distant thunder rumbled as if punctuating her words.

Uncapping the bottle, she took a long drink and it soothed her parched throat.  This canyon was very dry, there wasn't much humidity in the air at all.  With the threatening rain, she was sure that would change very soon though.

"Yeah, Wes said rain was forecast, but not until later tonight," Ethan told her
, leaning on the saddle horn with a slight grimace. 

Rocky told him with another look at the sky, "We probably should head back soon to make it back to
camp before dark."

"We've probably got a little more daylight, so I think we should keep going for a mile or two more.  I'd like to cover as much ground as we can, so they can narrow the search
area tomorrow," Ethan argued.  "We might even find her yet this evening, if we look a little more."

"Aren't you going to get down?" she asked him when he still hadn't dismounted.

She caught his slight flinch, but he covered it with a tight smile.  "Nah, I'm good.  Let's just get going," he told her and gathered up his reins.

"Get down and take a
break," she insisted.  Rocky had ridden enough, especially on trails, to know that if he didn't get down and stretch his legs, he wasn't going to be able to walk when he did dismount tonight.  They had ridden down to the creek at the R & R a couple of times, but that was the most time he'd ever spent on a horse in one stretch.  Right now they were going on three hours riding, so it was time.

"Seriously, Ethan, I think--" she started, but he held up a hand.

"I'm fine," he grated then sat up straighter in the saddle trying to hide his grimace.

Rocky dropped Reed's reins to ground tie him
then walked over to Diamond.  "You might be okay, but she needs a break.  You're not a lightweight, and she isn't used to men riding her."

"Oh," he said and his eyebrows
lifted in surprise, but he still didn't make a move to get off the horse.  "Um, I might need help getting down," he finally admitted.

"Sore?" she asked with a smile
.

"I think I'm fused to the saddle," he told her with a chuckle.

It served him right if his ass was on fire, but Rocky did have some compassion.  The man had a bum back, he wasn't a long distance rider, and hell in all honesty he wasn't a rider at all.  He had just learned, even though he had done well. 

She stood beside Diamond
and met his eyes to tell him, "Bring your right leg over the saddle and sit on top of her, then roll over on your belly and I'll help you slide down."  When he managed to get his leg over, she encouraged, "That's it, easy now, hold the horn and roll on your hip then lay on your belly."  He did as she instructed, then Rocky grabbed his hips to help him slide to the ground.

When his feet touched solid ground, he groaned and leaned his head against the saddle. 

Rocky stepped back and chuckled.  "Not as easy as it looks in those old westerns, is it?"

"Those guys probably have saddle leather for asses," he replied with a short laugh.

"Or they rode in ten minute stretches for a scene, then went to their air-conditioned trailers to rest between scenes."

"Why the hell didn't I think to do that?" he asked
while easing up to stand, then turned to her with a wide grin.  That smile hit her square in the chest, making her heart wiggle, before it melted and dripped southward to other parts of her body. 

Why the hell did Ethan Cassidy have to turn out to be such a jerkwad
, she wondered for the hundredth time since their showdown the other night.  The first man she had let her defenses down with since Ashton Pence, and he had to turn out to be an asshole too.