Murder In Black Canyon

“Asteria is an adult and has a right to live as she chooses,” Metwater said. “No one who comes to us is held against his or her will.”

Nothing Kayla saw contradicted that, but she just didn’t understand the attraction. The place, and this man, gave her the creeps. “Your father would love to hear from you,” she told Andi. “And if you need anything, call me.” She held out one of her business cards. When the young woman didn’t reach for it, Andi shoved it into her hand. “Goodbye,” she said, and turned to walk away.

She passed Metwater without looking at him, though the goose bumps that stood out on her skin made her pretty sure he was giving her the evil eye—or a pacifist prophet’s version of one. She had made it all the way to the edge of the encampment when raised voices froze her in her tracks. The hue and cry rose not from the camp behind her, but from the trail ahead.

Camo-man appeared around the corner, red-faced and breathless. Behind him came two other men, dragging something heavy between them. Kayla took a few steps toward them and stared in horror at the object on a litter fashioned from a tarp and cut branches. Part of the face was gone, and she was pretty sure all the black stuff with the sticky sheen was blood—but she knew the body of a man when she saw one.

A dead man. And she didn’t think he had been dead for very long.

Chapter Two (#u7a19028b-0337-5afb-b52e-b6359dd5f709)

After ten years away, Lieutenant Dylan Holt had come home. When he had left his family ranch outside Montrose to pursue a career on Colorado’s Front Range with the Colorado State Patrol, he had embraced life in the big city, sure he would never look back. Funny how a few years away could change a person’s perspective. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed the wide-open spaces and more deliberate pace of rural life until he had had the chance to transfer back to his hometown.

It didn’t hurt that he was transferring to a multiagency task force focused on preventing and solving crimes on public lands promised to be the kind of interesting and varied work he had longed for. “For our newer team members, plan on spending a lot of time behind the wheel or even hiking into the backcountry,” FBI Captain Graham Ellison, the leader of the Ranger Brigade, addressed the conference room full of officers. “Despite any impression you might have gotten from the media, the majority of our work is routine and boring. You’re much more likely to bust a poacher or deal with illegal campers than to encounter a terrorist.”

“Don’t tell Congress that. They’ll take away our increased funding.” This quip came from an athletic younger guy with tattooed forearms, Randall Knightbridge. He was one of the Brigade veterans who had been part of a raid that brought down a terrorism organization that had been operating in the area. The case had been very high profile and had resulted in a grant from Homeland Security that allowed the group to expand—and to hire Dylan and two other new recruits, Walt Riley and Ethan Reynolds.

Next to Randall sat Lieutenant Michael Dance, with the Bureau of Land Management, and DEA Agent Marco Cruz. Behind them, Deputy Lance Carpenter from the Montrose Police Department, Simon Woolridge, a computer specialist with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Carmen Redhorse, with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, listened attentively. The veterans had welcomed the rookies to the team with a minimum of good-natured ribbing.

“We do have a couple of areas of special concern,” Captain Ellison continued. He picked up a pointer and indicated a spot on a map of the Rangers’ territory—the more than thirty thousand acres of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, plus more than 106,000 acres in adjacent Curecanti National Recreation Area and Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area. “We’ve got a group camping in Dead Horse Canyon, some sort of back-to-the-land group. Not affiliated with any organized movement that we can identify. They have a legal permit and may be harmless, but let’s keep an eye on them.”

One of the other new hires, Ethan Reynolds, stuck up his hand. Ellison acknowledged him. “Agent Reynolds has some special training in cults, militia groups and terrorist cells,” the captain said. “What can you tell us about this bunch?”

“They call themselves the Family and their leader is Daniel Metwater, son of a man who made a pile in manufacturing plastic bags. He calls himself the Prophet, though he doesn’t identify with any organized religion. There are a lot of women and children out at that camp, so it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye open for signs of abuse or neglect. But so far, they’ve lived up to their reputation as peace-loving isolationists.”

“Right.” Ellison eyed the rest of them. “We don’t have any reason to harass these people, but keep your eyes and ears open. On to other areas of concern...”

The captain continued with a discussion of off-road vehicles trespassing in a roadless area, reports of poaching activity in another area and suspicion of hazardous chemical dumping in a remote watershed.

“Randall, you and Walt check out the chemical dump,” the captain ordered. “Carmen, take Ethan with you to look into the roadless violation. Dylan, you go with—”

The door burst open, letting in a gust of hot wind that stirred the papers on the table. “I want to report a body,” a woman said.

She was dressed like a hiker, in jeans and boots, a day pack on her back. Her shoulder-length brown hair was in a windblown tangle about her head and her eyes were wide with horror, her face chalk-white. “A dead man,” she continued, her voice quavering, but her expression determined. “I think he was shot. Part of his face was gone and there was a lot of blood and—”

“Why don’t you sit over here and tell us about it.” Carmen Redhorse, the only female on the Ranger team, stepped forward and took the woman’s hand. “Let’s start with your name.”

“Kayla Larimer.” The woman accepted the glass of water Carmen pushed into her hands and drained half of it. When she lowered the glass, some of the terror had gone out of her eyes. Hazel eyes, Dylan noted. Gold and green, like some exotic cat’s.

“All right, Kayla,” Carmen said. “Where did you see this body?”

“I can show you. It’s in a canyon on Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, land. The Family is camping there.”

“Your family is camping there?”

“Not my family.” She gave an impatient shake of her head. “That hippie group or whatever you want to call them.”

“The peace-loving isolationists,” Dylan said.

Kayla looked at him. She wasn’t desperate or hysterical or any of the other emotions he might have expected. She looked—angry. At the injustice of the man’s death? At being forced to witness the scene? He felt a definite zing of attraction. He had always liked puzzles and figuring things out. He wanted to figure out this not-so-typical woman.

“Are you a member of the Family?” Ethan asked.

“No!” The disdain in her tone dropped the temperature in the room a couple degrees. She slid a hand into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a business card. “I’m a private detective.”

“What were you doing in Dead Horse Canyon?” Graham Ellison asked.

She took another drink of water, then set the glass aside. “A client of mine has a daughter who cut off contact with him. He hired me to find her, and I located her living with the group. Then he asked me to check on her and make sure she was okay, and to ask her to get in touch with him.”

“He had to hire a PI for that?” Dylan asked.

That hot, angry gaze again. “He hired me to find her, first. He didn’t know where she was. After I located her, he thought she might listen to me if I approached her initially.”

“Most parents wouldn’t be too thrilled about their kid running off to join a group some people might see as a cult,” Ethan said.

“Exactly.” Kayla nodded. “Anyway, I found the young woman, gave her the message from her father and was leaving when three men rushed into the camp, shouting. Two of them were dragging a body behind them. The body of a man. He was covered in blood and...” Her lips trembled, but she pressed them together, her nostrils flaring as she inhaled. “Part of his head was gone.”

“What were they shouting?” Graham asked.

“They said they were walking out in the desert and saw him lying there.”

“Saw him lying where?” Carmen asked.

Kayla shook her head. “I don’t know. And before you ask, I don’t know why they thought they needed to bring him back to the camp. I told the leader—some guy who calls himself the Prophet—that his men shouldn’t have touched the body, and that they needed to call the police, but he ignored me and ordered the men to take the dead man back to where they had found him, then report to him for a cleansing ritual.”

“He refused to report the incident?” Graham’s voice was calm, but his expression was one of outrage.

“He said they didn’t have cell phones. Maybe they don’t believe in them.”

“Phones don’t work in that area, anyway.” Simon Woolridge, the team’s tech expert, spoke for the first time. “They don’t work on most of the public land around here. No towers.”

“That’s why I didn’t call you, either,” Kayla said. “By the time I got a signal on my phone, I was almost here.”

“Did anyone say anything about who the dead man might be?” Graham asked. “Did you recognize him?”

“No. Everyone looked as horrified as I did.”

“Did the men do as the Prophet asked and take the body away?” Dylan asked.

“I don’t know. I left before they did anything. No one tried to stop me. I wanted to get away from there and I headed straight here.”

“What time was this?” Graham asked.

“I don’t know. But it’s a long drive. So...maybe an hour ago?”

“More like an hour and a half,” Carmen said. “Dead Horse Canyon is pretty remote.”

“Lieutenant Holt, I want you and Simon to check this out,” Captain Ellison said. “Ms. Larimer, you ride with Lieutenant Holt and show him exactly where you were.”