Sudden Second Chance

“What were you doing crawling around on the ground?” He pointed to the cover over the mine.

“Prep work.” She sealed her lips. “Where are you staying while you’re here?”

“Timberline Hotel.”

She raised her hand. “Me, too.”

He pasted on his best poker face. “Makes no difference to me.”

“Do you have a partner with you or are you working alone?”

A partner? The FBI would have a hard time trying to find someone to partner up with him after Tony. He shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at a gnarled root coming up from the earth.

“Oh, come on, Duke. Whether or not you’re working with a partner is not giving up any classified info.”

He shrugged. He had no intention of giving this woman one morsel of information. She should know that working a cold case was like being exiled to Siberia—for him, anyway. This was punishment and he didn’t want to discuss his failure with her.

“I guess you’ll follow your leads and I’ll follow mine.” He circled his finger in the air. “How long have you been here?”

“Just a couple of days. I’m trying to get a feel for the place. I even brought my own video cam.”

A flock of birds shrieked and rose from a canopy of trees and the hair on the back of Duke’s neck stood up. Hunching forward, he crept toward the tree line.

“What are you doing?” Beth’s voice sounded like a shout and he put his finger to his lips.

Voices carried in the outdoors and those birds had taken off because something—or someone—had disturbed them. The abandoned mine was in a clearing, but dense forest and heavy underbrush hemmed it in on all sides.

The trail from the road had wound past an abandoned construction site to the clearing, and it continued on the other side. The birds had come from the other side.

He reached the beginning of the trail and took a few steps onto the path, his head cocked to one side. Leaves rustled and twigs snapped, but that could be animals going about their business. His gaze tracked through the blur of green, but he didn’t spot any movement or different colors.

City life had his senses on high alert, but a rural setting could pose just as much danger—of a different kind.

He exhaled slowly and returned to the clearing, where Beth waited for him, hands on her hips.

“What was all that about?”

He pointed to the sky. “Those birds took off like something startled them.”

“I told you I saw a rough-looking guy out here on a bike. Maybe it was him.”

“Doesn’t explain why he was hanging around. I don’t know that you should be traipsing around the forest by yourself.” He snorted. “You’re hardly an outdoor girl.”

She kicked a foot out. “I have the boots.”

He opened his mouth for a smart-ass reply but someone or something crashed through the bushes and they both jumped this time. Duke reached for the weapon tucked in the shoulder holster beneath his jacket and tensed his muscles.

He dropped his shoulders when three teenage boys came staggering into the clearing, laughing and pushing each other. The roughhousing came to an abrupt halt when they spotted Duke and Beth.

The tallest of the three boys stepped forward, holding a can of beer behind his back. “Is this, uh, official business or something?”

The other two edged back to the tree line, trying to hide their own beers.

“Nope. I was just leaving.” Duke leveled his finger at the boy. “But you’d better not be operating a motor vehicle.”

“Driving? No way, sir.”

Beth flashed her megawatt smile at the trio of teens. “Do you boys live here? I’m from the TV show Cold Case Chronicles, and we’re doing a show on the old Timberline Trio case.”

“Oh, hey, yeah. My mom watches that show all the time.”

One of the other boys, a pimple-faced kid with a shock of black hair, mimicked the tagline of the show in a deep voice. “Cold Case Chronicles...justice for all time.”

“That’s us.” Beth nodded. “So, how about it? Any of you know anything about that case? Parents around at the time?”

The one who’d spoken up first said, “Nah, we just moved here a few years ago when my mom got a job with Evergreen Software.”

The kid with the acne answered. “Same here.”

The dark-haired boy with the mocha skin who’d been quiet up to now ran a hand through his short hair. “My family was here, but they don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about it.”

“We?”

Duke rolled his eyes as Beth tilted her head, that one word implying a million questions if the boy wanted to pick one up. The teen had better run now if he wanted to avoid that steam train.

The tall, skinny boy answered for his friend. “Levon is Quileute. They believe in voodoo magic and boogeymen.”

Levon punched his friend in the arm and the tall kid dropped his beer where it fizzed out in the dirt. “Hey, man.”

All three boys picked up where they’d left off, crashing back into the woods, cursing at each other and laughing, startling a flock of birds with their raucousness.

“Well, that’s interesting.” Beth tapped the toe of her boot. “I wonder what that boy meant about the Quileute not talking about the crime. Did law enforcement ever question anyone from the tribe?”

“Not that I know of, but I’ll leave that to your superior investigative talents.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s been real, but I gotta go.”

“I guess I’ll see you around, Duke. We are in the same hotel, same small town, same case.”

“Don’t remind me.” He waved over his shoulder and hit the trail back to his rented SUV, putting as much space as possible between him and Beth St. Regis, his mind as jumbled as the carpet of mulch he was plowing through.

She looked the same, except for the clothes. Beth had always been a girlie-girl—high heels, dresses, manicured nails, perfect hair and makeup. The jeans, boots and down vest suited her. Hell, a burlap sack would suit Beth. She had the kind of delicate beauty that shifted his libido into overdrive.

He’d fantasized about those girls when he was a teen growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Philly—the rich girls with the expensive clothes and cars, the kind of girl that wouldn’t give him the time of day unless she wanted to tick off her parents by running with a bad boy.

He’d been drawn to Beth like a magnet for all the wrong reasons. You couldn’t use a living, breathing person to fix whatever you’d missed in your childhood. But, man, it had felt good trying.

When he’d had Beth in bed, he couldn’t get enough of her soft porcelain skin, the way her breast fit neatly into the palm of his hand and the feel of her fine, silky hair running down his body.

The thought of those nights with Beth’s slim legs wrapped around his hips got him hard all over again, and he broke into a jog to work off the steam.