Bear Claw Conspiracy

Then his gaze had shifted as he took in the rest of her, and his expression had tightened, killing the light of interest. Zap. Gone.

She didn’t know what he had or hadn’t seen in her, or what it had meant to him. She only knew that he’d touched the brim of the black felt hat he wore over his dark hair, and kept going. And the next time they’d crossed paths, when she’d done a briefing on a rash of parking-lot break-ins at several trailheads leading to the backcountry, Blackthorn had cut the conversation short enough to earn them a couple of raised eyebrows from the other cops and rangers involved in the meeting.

After that, she had avoided him. Not because he made her uncomfortable—she didn’t give anyone that power—but because it didn’t matter whether or not the head ranger of Station Fourteen liked her. She was there to work evidence for the Bear Claw City P.D. and prove to her bosses back home that she could fit herself seamlessly into an existing team like the BCCPD’s crime lab. Blackthorn wasn’t part of that world.

Unless there was a crime scene up at Station Fourteen. Then he was very much a part of her world—at least for the duration of the case.

Alyssa frowned. “Cassie’s going to be tied up for the next few hours and there’s no way I’m driving up to the middle of nowhere, never mind hiking to the site. Gigi can—” She broke off and glanced in Gigi’s direction. “Okay. I can switch some stuff around and send Cassie, I guess. Tell him she’ll be coming in behind the officers, and will need really good directions or a lead-in. We’re shorthanded as it is. It won’t do us any good to lose an analyst to the Forgotten.”

Gigi barely heard the last part. She was too busy seething at the realization that Blackthorn had told Tucker—a former member of the Denver P.D. who had a direct pipeline to her bosses—that he didn’t want her on the case.

“That backstabbing—” She bit off the snarl as Alyssa clicked her phone shut and regarded her curiously.

“What on earth is the problem between you and Matt?”

Taking a deep breath, Gigi slapped a layer of professionalism over her other emotions. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no problem. We met a couple of times, I was pleasant, he wasn’t. End of story.” At least it had been. Now she wanted a piece of him for trying to torpedo her. What had she ever done to him?

Nothing, that was what. Judgmental idiot.

“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Alyssa said. “It’s not like him to be a jerk to anyone, especially a woman, never mind leaning on Tucker for something like this.”

Gigi said through her teeth, “I’ve barely spoken to the man. If he took one look at me and decided he didn’t like what he saw, that’s his problem.”

Alyssa’s look went speculative, but she said only, “He told Tucker he didn’t think you could handle the backcountry, that he’d rather wait for someone he didn’t have to babysit.”

“He …” Gigi counted to ten and reminded herself that it didn’t matter what Blackthorn thought of her. Tucker was a fair guy and a top-notch cop, which meant he cared about results. “Fine, let’s give Ranger Surly what he wants. I’ll take over for Cassie and she can deal with his parking lot smash-and-grab.”

But Alyssa shook her head, expression clouding. “It’s way more than that. A few hours ago, two men attacked and injured one of his rangers—a woman named Tanya Dawes. They just airlifted her out.”

“Oh.” Oh, damn. Gigi exhaled in a rush, knowing full well that aggravated assault trumped any personal issues that might or might not exist between her and Blackthorn. “Is she going to be okay?”

“It looks like she took a serious blow to the head and may have some internal injuries. I guess she came around just long enough to tell Matt that two men had ambushed her.”

“Sexual assault?”

“No sign of it, which is good. But the head injury … that’s not good.”

“Did she give Blackthorn any sort of description?” “Nothing.”

“Damn.” Which meant that the crime scene analysis could be critical. “How do you want to handle it?”

Alyssa thought for a few seconds, then said, “I want you to head out to Station Fourteen. According to Matt, the scene took a beating when they airlifted her out, which makes you the better choice. Cassie is hell on wheels with the tech stuff, but you’ve got more experience with contaminated scenes. And if the problem between you and Matt is strictly an oil-and-water sort of thing, you’ll deal with it. Right?”

Gigi nodded, already mentally reviewing the field kit she had with her, looking for gaps. “Of course. I’ve taken static on crime scenes before. I can handle myself.”

More importantly, this wasn’t about her and it sure wasn’t about Blackthorn. She was there to do a job and she didn’t intend to let anyone get in her way … especially not a park ranger with a great body and a nasty judgmental streak.

WHEN THE FIRST BCCPD vehicle churned into view in a cloud of dust, Matt was surprised to see Jack Williams at the wheel.

Williams, who topped six feet and had early salt in his chestnut hair though he was just on the downside of thirty, was one of the top detectives in Homicide. Born and raised in Bear Claw, Jack was the latest in a long line of Williamses to serve the BCCPD, and Matt’s gut had long ago put the guy in the “solid cop” category.

As Williams climbed from the SUV, Matt headed over, hands in his pockets, still wearing his shotgun and knapsack over his shoulder. “I’ll have to thank Tucker,” he said to Williams. “This isn’t exactly a case for Homicide, but I’m damn glad to see you.”

The detective gave him a nod. “We take care of our own.”

Matt didn’t think he was talking about the close connection that had evolved between the P.D. and park service in Bear Claw, but didn’t want to go down that road, so he said simply, “Thanks.” He glanced over as a second cop got out of the SUV—a younger uniformed officer with a startling shock of white-blond hair and pale eyes that together made him look washed out beneath the late-summer sun. “New partner?”

“Billy Doran,” Williams said by way of introduction. “Thanks to Mayor Cheapskate’s latest round of cuts, we’re down to under a dozen detectives trying to cover the whole damn city. Rather than partnering detectives, Tucker’s got some of us teaming up with uniforms.”

Despite his one-time interest in politics, Matt had stayed well clear of Bear Claw’s issues, just as he largely avoided the city itself. He hadn’t moved to Station Fourteen to get involved in city stuff, after all. Even so, he knew that Mayor Percy Proudfoot had been taking some serious hacks at the budget in an effort to turn around a huge budget deficit. The P.D. in particular was having to get creative.

He sent the kid a nod. “Doran.” Turning back to Williams, he said, “I’ll lead you guys in, then come back down for Cassie when she gets here.” He hesitated. “There’s something I didn’t get a chance to tell Tucker.” He told them about the feather, patted his buttoned pocket. “You guys want it?”

“Keep it until Cass gets here,” Williams said. “It’s probably better not to move it around more than necessary. But don’t be surprised if she wants your shirt, too, in case there’s transfer.” He grinned. “Just watch what you say if she does. Last guy who made a sexist joke about the crime scene girls got the rough side of Alyssa’s tongue, and then spent some quality time directing traffic for a sewer repair crew, courtesy of Chief Mendoza.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Actually, it didn’t matter to him whether the Bear Claw analysts were women or Martians, as long as they got the job done.

“Grab the gear,” Williams said to Doran. To Matt, he said, “Lead on and let’s see what these bastards left us.”

“Not much that I could see. The scene is pretty torn up.”

Sure enough, once he got them up there, Williams shook his head. “You weren’t kidding. What isn’t bare rock is a frigging mess.” He sent Doran to take pictures and notes, but didn’t look optimistic. “I have a feeling our best bet is going to be talking to Tanya when she wakes up.”

Matt nodded, partly in thanks for the word choice. When she woke up. Not if. When.

The detective said, “Want to run me through what you saw? Maybe being up here will kick loose something new.”

“Of course.” Matt started right from the moment he heard Cochran’s first shout, but it was becoming rote. And, really, he hadn’t been there when it counted.

By the time Doran was done, Williams was ready to head back down to the station and question the Cochrans, so Matt led them back to the vehicles.

On the way, he radioed Bert for an update and got confirmation that Tanya’s injuries were from an attack rather than a fall, along with the grim news that she was still unconscious and the early scan results weren’t good. Damn it.

Forcing his emotions down where they belonged, Matt asked, “How about the CSI? Did she come through the station yet?” If Tanya wasn’t waking up, they needed to get moving on the scene. Every minute they wasted was another minute the perps were using to get away … or plan another attack.

“Yeah. She should be there any minute.”

Sure enough, the cops were loading up their SUV when the radio on his hip squalled a broken transmission. All he caught was a woman’s voice and the words “almost there.”

The dust kicked up by Williams’s departing SUV was just clearing when a new cloud took shape and a nearly identical vehicle appeared coming the other way.

Matt checked his watch and was surprised to see that even though it felt like days had passed, it had only been five or six hours of real time. That meant they had a couple of hours of daylight left.

They would need it, too. It wouldn’t be easy to truck in lights, and there wasn’t much chance of an airdrop. Tucker had already given him the heads up that the P.D. was getting pressure from higher up the food chain—aka Mayor Proudfoot’s office—to keep Tanya’s assault on the down low and not over-commit resources.

The official line was that the attack wasn’t all that different from an in-city mugging, and while Tanya would get some preference as a ranger, the P.D. shouldn’t go overboard. The real rationale, though, was even simpler: Bear Claw City was hurting for money and couldn’t afford to lose any tourists.

Matt hated the equation, the politics.