Murder In Black Canyon

“What did you expect? I’m a cop and a rancher—two professions known for plain speaking.” He started walking again, long strides covering ground quickly so that she had to trot to catch up with him.

“You’re a rancher?” she asked.

“My family has a ranch near here. In Ouray County.” He pulled out his keys and hit the button to unlock the FJ Cruiser.

That explained a lot—from the way he seemed so at home in this rugged landscape, to the swagger in his walk that was more cowboy than cop.

He climbed in and started the engine even before she had her door closed. “If Asher is the father of Andi’s baby, it would explain why she was so torn up over the news of his death,” he said as he put the vehicle in gear and guided it onto the washboard road. “But why would she have told him to stay away from the camp?”

“I thought she joined the Family to get away from her father and his lifestyle,” Kayla said. “But maybe she was trying to get away from Asher. Maybe he was the one who wanted her to get rid of the baby. Or maybe he was abusive.”

“Would she carry on like that over a man who had abused her?”

“I don’t know. Love can make people do crazy things, I guess.” After all, her own mother had followed Kayla’s father across the United States and back, sticking with him even when he cheated on her and lied to her.

“Are you speaking from personal experience?”

The question jolted her. “Why would you even ask something like that?”

“I’m just curious.” He kept his gaze focused on the road, but she sensed most of his attention was fixed on her. “Something in the way you said that made me think you don’t have too high an opinion of love.”

She hugged her arms across her chest. This was not a conversation she wanted to be having. “I’m no expert on the subject. Are you?”

“Far from it. I’ve managed to avoid falling in love—serious love—so far.”

“You make it sound like an accomplishment.”

“I don’t know. Some people might consider it a failing. My job doesn’t really leave a lot of room for close relationships.”

“Yet you have time to help run your family’s ranch.”

“Family is important to me. Which is why I don’t get why Andi Matheson wanted to leave hers to live out in the wilderness with a bunch of people she hardly knows.”

“Not everyone has a family they care to be close to—and yes, I say that from personal experience.”

“Right—your con-artist dad. What about your mom? Brothers and sisters?”

“My mom is dead. I didn’t have any siblings.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I don’t want your pity.”

He glanced at her, surprising warmth in his brown eyes. “Sympathy and pity aren’t the same things.”

She turned away, conversation over. She didn’t like not being in control of a conversation. One of the advantages of being a private investigator was that she usually got to ask all the questions. Situations like this one always made her feel like a freak. She didn’t do relationships. Not close ones. She couldn’t relate to people like Dylan, with his warm family feelings and determination to figure her out.

He apparently got the message and stopped talking. She focused on breathing deeply and getting her emotions under control. They passed through a brown sea of sagebrush and rock, beneath an achingly blue sky, unbroken by a single cloud. She would never get used to how vast the emptiness was out here. The wilderness made her feel small, lost even when she knew where she was.

He stopped the Cruiser and shifted into Park. “Why are you stopping?” she asked.

“I’ve got a phone signal.” He dragged his finger across the screen on his phone. “I’m going to call in to headquarters.”

He gave whoever answered the particulars of the situation at the camp and asked them to send crime scene techs and a medical examiner, along with more Rangers to interview people at the camp. “Simon is waiting,” Dylan said. “I’m going to see if I can locate Asher’s vehicle.”

He ended the call and pocketed the phone, then put the Cruiser in gear once more. Neither of them said anything for several minutes as they bumped over increasingly rugged terrain. Finally, Dylan spoke. “I apologize if my questions were out of line,” he said. “It’s another cop thing. I want to know everything about people I’m with. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

His words touched her, and made her feel a little vulnerable. In her experience, people rarely apologized. “I didn’t mean to snap,” she said. “I’m just—on edge. Seeing that body, and then Andi falling apart like that—I guess it hit me harder than I realized.”

“You’re a very empathetic person,” he said. “You feel other people’s pain. You absorb their emotions. It probably makes you a good investigator, but it’s tough.”

“I guess so.” She didn’t really think of herself that way. If anything, she would have said she was too cynical most of the time.

He braked and pointed ahead of them. “What’s that, up there?”

She caught the glint of sunlight off metal. “Maybe it’s a car.”

Dylan shut off the engine. “We’ll walk from here.”

He led the way toward the white sedan, which was partially hidden behind a clump of scrub oak. A small sticker on the bumper identified it as a rental car. When they were approximately ten feet away, Dylan held out his arm. “Stay here while I check it out,” he ordered.

She waited while he approached the car. He peered in the front driver’s-side window, which had been left open a few inches. Then he pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. He opened the driver’s-side door, which wasn’t locked, and peered into the car. Then he withdrew his head and looked back toward Kayla. “You can come up here if you promise not to touch anything.”

She joined him beside the car. He had leaned in and was looking through a handful of papers on the front passenger seat. “There’s a couple of maps here and a Montrose visitor’s guide,” he said.

“The parking pass on the dash is from a motel in Montrose,” she said. “That’s probably where he was staying.”

Dylan examined the pass, then pulled out his notebook and began making notes. “I don’t see anything out of the ordinary, do you?” he asked.

The only other thing in the car was a half-empty water bottle in the cup holder between the seats. “It doesn’t look like he planned to be out here long,” she said. “There are no snacks or lunch, no pack or change of clothes.”

“So he either figured on a quick trip or he headed out here on impulse, not taking the time to prepare.” Dylan opened the glove box, which was empty except for registration papers and the vehicle service manual. He flipped down both visors. The passenger side revealed nothing, but next to the mirror on the driver’s side was a photograph.

Or rather, half a photograph. A tear was evident on the left side of the picture, a color snapshot of a man in jeans and a button-down shirt. Daniel Metwater’s smiling face stared out at them.

“Maybe Andi wasn’t the person Agent Asher came here to see,” Dylan said.

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

Dylan retrieved an evidence envelope from his Cruiser and sealed the photograph of Metwater in it. He took a few pictures of the vehicle and wrote down the plate number and the GPS location. “Let’s go,” he told Kayla as he pocketed his notebook. “I’ll take you back to your car. You’ll need to give us a statement about what happened at the camp this morning, then you can go. I’ll probably have more questions for you later.” He wanted to dig deeper into what she knew about Andi Matheson and the Family. And he wanted to see her again. Her mix of cold distance and warm empathy intrigued him.

“Do you do this kind of thing often?” he asked.

“What kind of thing?”

“Finding missing persons. Tracking down wayward children.”

“Andi wasn’t a lot of trouble to find. She just didn’t want to talk to her father. Senator Matheson thought I might be able to get through to her.”