Blood on Copperhead Trail

Her inward squirming nearly made it to the surface, but she held herself rigidly still.

“Duke,” he said finally. “Vandy’s too close. Virginia’s not close enough to a big city. Durham’s just right. Small-town–like in some ways, so you don’t feel too much like a fish out of water. But those trips into Raleigh for the clubs and bars made you feel downright cosmopolitan.”

She didn’t know whether to be angry or impressed. She went with anger, because it was safer. “Nice parlor trick.”

“I prefer to call it ‘profiling.’”

“I chose Duke because they offered a scholarship. And I didn’t go to clubs in Raleigh because I had to work two jobs at night to help pay for the rest.”

“Avoiding the big school loans? Even smarter than I thought.”

He sounded sincerely impressed, damn him. Just when she was working up a little righteous outrage, he had to go and say something nice about her.

“Sunrise is, what? Around eight?” He changed the subject with whiplash speed as he put the truck in gear.

“Thereabouts,” she agreed. “But there’ll be enough light for the search earlier. Maybe around a quarter till seven.”

“There’s a chance of bad weather tomorrow.”

She knew. The local weathermen had been tracking something called a “cold core upper low” that had the potential to dump a lot of snow in the southern Appalachian mountains. “Hard to predict where it’ll fall. All the more reason to get up on the mountain early and see if we can find Joy Adderly.”

He nodded. “Wear your long johns.”

* * *

THECROWDGATHEREDat the foot of Copperhead Ridge was larger than Doyle had expected, given the increasing probability of snowfall that had greeted him that morning when he turned on the local news. He’d made the call to assign all but a skeleton staff of patrol officers to the search, a decision that had seemed a no-brainer to him but had proved controversial among some of the staffers who were gathered for the search assignments. He made mental note of the grumblers for later; he wasn’t going to put up with people who thought the job beneath them.

He’d put the Brandywines in charge of mapping out the search grids, based on a suggestion from Antoine Parsons the night before when he’d called the detective from home to get his input on the next day’s task. “The Brandywines take people up and down this mountain all the time on horseback. They know just about all the nooks and crannies. They can tell you the best places to look and the best ways to do it.”

“Twenty-two people,” Carol Brandywine said after a quick head count. “Let’s split into groups of four where we can. I want an experienced mountaineer in each group.”

James, her husband, went through the group quickly, pulling out the people he considered capable of leading a search team. He ended up with six people, including, Doyle noted with interest, Laney Hanvey. “The rest of you, pick a leader and team up. No more than four on a team.”

Doyle went straight to Laney’s side. Her blue eyes reflected the gray gloom of the clouds overhead. “Chief.”

“Public Integrity Officer.”

Her lips curved the tiniest bit, sending a little ripple of pleasure darting through his gut. She was just too damned cute for her own good.

Or for his.

He shouldn’t have been surprised when the other searchers joined other leaders, leaving him and Laney in a group by themselves. Nobody, it seemed, was inclined to join a group that included the new chief of police.

“I took a bath this morning,” he muttered to Laney, who wore a look of consternation. “Used deodorant and everything.”

She looked up at him, her lips curving in a smile. “Maybe they figure, you being a flatlander and all, you’ll hold ’em back.”

He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Poor you, stuck with the beach bum.”

Her eyes flickered open a little wider, as if surprised to hear him use the term that just about everyone in town was using to describe him. Did she think he was oblivious to the whispers?

“I know what they call me,” he added softly. “I don’t mind. I’d probably call you a mountain goat if you’d been voted sheriff of Ridley County. Nobody likes change.”

“And yet it’s inevitable.” Laney turned away, taking a loosely sketched map from Carol Brandywine, who was handing out the search assignments. “Oh, goody. We get the boneyard.”

He looked at the map. He could make little of the squiggles and lines drawn there, but she seemed to know exactly where they were supposed to go. He picked up his pack of supplies and caught up with her as she started toward the trailhead.

“What’s the boneyard?” he asked, falling in step with her.

The look she darted his way was full of barely veiled amusement. “I thought you were the guy who did his homework.”

“It’s a graveyard?” he asked doubtfully.

“Well, sure, you could get that much from the name.” Her voice lowered to a half whisper, an almost dead-on impression of his own teasing style of speech. “But not just any graveyard.”

He played along. “Are we likely to run into haints?”

She grinned then, mostly at his less-than-successful attempt at a mountain twang. “Not just any haints. Cherokee haints. This land was their land first. They have a lot to be upset about.”

“What should I expect from this boneyard?”

She lifted her flashlight, putting the beam just under her chin to light up her face in spooky shades of dark and light. “Terror,” she intoned.

He grinned at her. “You got a good report from the hospital this morning.”

Her grin morphed into consternation. “How do you do that?”

“Like you’d be playing haunted trail guide with me if things weren’t better with your sister?”

She smiled. “If her vitals continue looking good, she’ll go home tomorrow.”

“Any progress on her memory?”

“Not so far. But my mom says she’s a lot clearer about the things she does remember.” Her smile faded as she looked up the mountain. “Uh-oh.”

He followed her gaze, seeing only a pervasive mist that swallowed the top of the ridge. “What?”

“See that cloud?” She pointed toward the mist.

“Yeah?”

“It’s not a cloud.” She pulled her jacket more tightly around her. “Hope you like hiking in the snow.”

Chapter Five

“Should I call off this search until the weather improves?”

Laney looked behind her. Doyle had been smart enough to bring a cap with him in his pack. It was keeping the snow off his head, though his uncovered ears blazed bright red from the raw cold. His weatherproof coat was covered with snow, and he looked cold, miserable and worried.