Текст книги "Winter Kill "

Автор книги: Josh lanyon

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Even when he wasn’t looking at Adam, Rob knew where he was standing, who he was talking with, what he was watching.

Well, the last one wasn’t hard because Adam was watching everyone and everything—watching with suspicion.

And as little as Rob liked it, he couldn’t help looking at his neighbors and friends through Adam’s eyes. Law enforcement made you cynical. That was the reality of the job. Good people did bad things. And bad people got away with doing bad things.

He had joined the sheriff’s office because he was fit, active, and had a hunger for adventure. He had wanted to spend time in the outdoors, and he had wanted to do some good in the world. And that was pretty much the way things had worked out. Frankie was easy to work for most of the time. Off season, life was quiet. Never monotonous. And during their busy months…well, there were other compensations. He never lacked for company, that was for sure.

They searched until nine that night, and then reluctantly, Rob called a halt. The snow was coming down again, like ghostly leaves glimmering in the gloom. The temperature was falling. It was bad news for Tiffany if she was out there, if she was still alive. Rob hated to think of her frightened and freezing. Nobody wanted to give up, but it was dark, and it was getting dangerous.

“We’ll meet back here at daybreak,” Rob promised. He didn’t like being the guy who had to pull the plug on the search effort. Most of the would-be rescuers were not professionals, not trained, and he was responsible for their safety too.

“What about the cabins by the lake?” Adam said on the drive back to town. “Did anyone search them?”

Rob shook his head. “If she walked back to town why would she hide out in the cabins? Why wouldn’t she come to us for help?”

“I think we should check the cabins.”

It was too dark to read Adam’s face. He didn’t appear to be kidding. “In that case we might as well break into all the vacation homes in the area too. Hell, we might as well do a door-to-door search of every house in Nearby.”

“It may come to that,” Adam said. “You don’t mind me checking out the cabins, do you? I’ll be staying at the campground anyway.”

Rob was cold, hungry, and tired. He hung onto his patience though. “No, I don’t mind. I’ll check with you. But I think we’re wasting our time.”

And yes, they were wasting their time.

But by God they checked out every single one of the thirty-four cabins that weren’t being commandeered for use by Klamath Falls Search and Rescue. They looked behind dusty shower curtains. They checked closets that smelled of mothballs. There was no trace of Tiffany.

Rob resisted the desire to say I told you so. Adam had been tireless in his efforts to help with the search. He could have stayed back at base, warm and comfortable, advising and consulting, which was what Frankie had dragged him up here to do. But he’d been out there hiking up hillsides and digging through brush and bush, cold and wet and weary as the people who actually knew and cared about Tiffany.

“You want to grab something to eat?” Rob asked when they had closed the door on the very last empty cabin.

Adam said regretfully, “I’ve still got a couple of reports to file tonight.”

Rob’s day wasn’t over either, and tomorrow would come early, but they had to eat, and they had to sleep at some point. Or at least lie down. He said, “I have to get back to the office. I could come by later.”

As he threw it out there casually, his heart pounded with a mix of hope and adrenaline. He was startled at how much he wanted to spend the night with Adam.

Adam said slowly, “I’d like to, but I make it a rule not to get involved with work colleagues.”

Rob gave a disbelieving laugh. “Since when?”

“Since I got involved with a work colleague, and it ended badly.” Adam’s smile was wry. He sounded polite and regretful.

It was unexpectedly painful—and it felt unfair. “What the hell was last time?” Rob asked.

Adam hesitated. He said still quiet, still courteous, “We weren’t work colleagues. Your John Doe wasn’t connected to my case. We’re working together on this, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to mix personal with professional.”

“It doesn’t have to be personal,” Rob said. He didn’t want to be a dick, but his ego was definitely smarting. If anything, Adam’s attempt to be tactful made it worse. “It could just be sex. Really good sex. Like last time.”

“That’s very tempting.” Adam sounded less tactful now and more irritated. “No thanks.”

“Okay.” Rob already regretted his previous comment. He said pleasantly, “Maybe next time.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Adam turned away.

Your loss, Rob thought. Mostly, it felt like his own loss.

Chapter Six

He woke to the echo of a scream.

Adam’s eyes flew open, and it took a second to remember where he was. He had been dreaming about Bridget; the familiar confused, frantic scramble to get to her in time. Somehow, knowing how it all ended didn’t change the horror of the race to reach her. Only this time he was arguing with Rob Haskell about his decision to hide in Conway’s car. What the hell Haskell was doing in his nightmares, Adam didn’t know, and he had been starting to question it when the scream woke him.

For a confused instant he thought it was Bridget screaming. The darkness was complete and absolute. The bed was not his, and the room smelled of pine and fire pellets and musty linens. He remembered that he was in Oregon, and that Bridget had been dead for nearly a year.

Had he dreamed that blood-curdling shriek?

It had been so loud. So close.

Adam pushed back the blankets and reached for his pistol on the bed stand. The cabin was cold despite the red glow behind the grate of the potbelly stove, and the wooden floor was chilly beneath his feet. He found his way to the door, unlocked it, opened it, and gasped at the rush of icy air. That blast of frigid night air took his breath away and woke him up completely.

No lights shone behind curtains in any cabin. Snow powdered the ground, shining eerily in the half light.

He listened tensely. Not so much as a pine needle dropped. The stillness was nerve-wracking.

Was that a natural silence? Was it too quiet?

Well, yes, from his perspective it was too quiet. How did people sleep when it was this still? Was he mistaking bad dreams and guilt for the real thing?

Goosebumps sprang out across his arms and shoulders, and he shivered. He hated the cold. He hated the silence.

Maybe he should get dressed anyway.

Nothing moved in the darkness. There was not a whisper of sound.

Adam swore under his breath, closed the door, and dressed quickly. A couple of minutes later he eased open the cabin door and slipped outside. There was no moon. The shimmering snow threw a surprising amount of illumination—except where the wall of tall trees cast deep and disorienting shade.

He had no target destination and no plan. As tired as he was, he knew he was done sleeping for the night, so he might as well put his mind at ease.

Not that anything that happened in the next forty minutes put his mind at ease.

The fact that the surrounding cabins remained dark was surely a promising indicator that the scream had been a product of his nightmares. Even so, he set off toward the Lakehouse restaurant, the thin crust of snow crunching stealthily underfoot.

He did not find the source of the scream, but he did find footprints once he left the shelter of the trees. Lots of footprints. In fact, they seemed to be coming and going in all directions.

“What the hell?”

He couldn’t tell when the footprints had been made—maybe Rob or Zeke would have had better luck with that. The tracks were filling with soft white even as he tried to follow them in what appeared to be circles.

He walked past the boathouse, and then walked back to his cabin and went the other direction. There was no sign of anyone.

Finally, cold and more tired than when he’d gone to bed, Adam returned to his cabin.

The rustic interior was comfortingly warm compared to the snowy night. He threw more pellets into the stove and made coffee.

The footprints meant nothing on their own. And if there had really been a scream, why had no one else heard it?

The truth was this case was triggering bad memories. There were just enough similarities…

There were also key differences, and that’s what he needed to remain focused on.

He studied the room décor. It was a different cabin from the one he’d stayed in back in October. He thought of the broken bed slat and smiled faintly. He wished now he’d let Rob stay.

Rob was right. It didn’t have to mean anything more than shared companionship and sex. Both of which he was in desperate need of. His rejection of Rob made no sense given that he did find Rob very attractive. More attractive than he’d found anyone in a long time.

Or maybe that was the problem?

He glanced at the painting over the bed and remembered Jonnie’s comment about “real art.” This was another landscape, only the lake was front and center rather than the mountains. He rose and examined the brushstrokes.

In the corner of the landscape was a black slash of signature. DK. Dove Koletar? Rob had said Koletar was the son of the original owners of the campground, so it was a possibility that he’d been the artist. If that was the case, if the painter had been an untrained twenty-something, Adam was a bit more impressed by the craftsmanship.

He sat back down on the chair beside the stove and picked up his coffee cup.

Maybe Koletar simply had really bad luck. It was possible. Anyone could be a victim. That was the terrible truth. Sometimes it was just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In Koletar’s case…

Adam had been conjecturing Hate Crime. That was thinking like a gay man versus an investigator. Because if it had been a hate crime, why wait until Koletar was leaving town?

There was a certain type of predator that liked to play with his victim, and it was just barely possible that Koletar had run afoul of one of those. Stalker or psychopath, this offender had seen his victim escaping and acted. Generally, that type of predator existed in film and books. The Chianti-swilling, classical music-listening, omnipotent serial killer was a fictional creation. Mostly, these predators eluded capture because of the inherently random nature of the victim selection process, and a combination of luck and the lack of both manpower and imagination on the part of law enforcement.

Like a horrific Monty Python skit; nobody ever expects a serial killer.

Which didn’t change the fact that Koletar had been killed after he made the decision to leave.

Why?

Because someone didn’t want him to go?

Looking at it from that perspective…well, it changed everything.

It cracked open the can of possible suspects, and now everyone from parents to peers had to be considered equally. If he was correct, instead of looking for Koletar’s enemies, Rob should be looking for Koletar’s friends.

Adam considered this and swallowed another mouthful of bitter coffee.

* * * * *

“If you’ve not been assigned a grid location, come see me.” Frankie was shouting through a bullhorn from the stage of the gazebo in the small park at the center of town. “Remember, this is a team effort. Don’t go wandering off on your own. And if you do find something, anything, contact your team leader immediately. Team leaders, mark it and call it in.”

“This is going to be chaos.” Russell did up his blue jacket in irritable snaps. He had returned to Nearby at first light along with reinforcements from Medford and Klamath Falls. “Too much ground to cover. Too many civilians. Too much time since the girl disappeared.”

Adam nodded. Russell was probably right, but the situation couldn’t be helped. The terrain was what it was—and there was a lot of it. And because there was so much ground to cover, they needed every volunteer they could get. The team leaders were park rangers, state troopers, and law enforcement from neighboring towns, but they couldn’t be everywhere at one time, and no matter how often you instructed people to touch nothing, someone always did.

“He could have escaped before the perimeter was ever set up.”

“I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”

Russell either didn’t hear him or wasn’t interested in what Adam thought. “Has anyone mentioned bringing in Portland?”

“So far we’ve got a homicide and a missing girl,” Adam said. “Not exactly a case for the FBI.”

“Yet here we are,” Russell said. “And like you said, it’s murder on federal land.” His blue gaze was challenging. That was Russell’s default with Adam. In Russell’s opinion—in a lot of people’s opinion—Adam’s career was on a downward trajectory, and Russell seemed to feel that being partnered with Adam was a reflection on him. So he did his best at every opportunity to challenge or distance himself.

Adam didn’t care. He was relieved to be off morgue duty and happy to actually be investigating something, anything again. He was intrigued by the situation at Nearby. And there was—well, stick to the case.

He was hoping that Russell might come up with an urgent reason for returning to L.A. That was unlikely. If Russell was recalled, Adam would likely be recalled too.

He met Russell’s critical look and said, “This is the sheriff department’s turf. We’re here in a support capacity. It’s not our case.”

Russell opened his mouth, no doubt ready to argue this point, but Rob, looking unreasonably well-rested and energetic, came up to speak to them.

“You two can work alongside me or Zeke,” he said briskly. He glanced briefly at Adam and directed the rest of his comments to Russell. “Up to you. I’d stick with someone who knows the area. It’s easy to get lost in these woods, and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

“I’ll work with you,” Adam said. Rob’s brown gaze veered back to him. He nodded curtly.

Russell said, “In that case, I’ll assist Deputy Lang.”

“Good enough.” Rob turned away.

Apparently he hadn’t forgiven Adam for turning him down the night before—which was the very reason Adam didn’t like to get involved with coworkers. When it went wrong, it went really wrong.

Anyway, they were here to do a job. Anything else was just too bad.

Except he liked Rob. And perhaps in the back of his mind he had been hoping that after this case wound up, once he had his plane ticket home, maybe… But it looked like no.

That was really better anyway.

Russell moved over to join Zeke’s team, and Zeke looked about as thrilled as Adam figured he would, which was about as thrilled as Rob had looked. Maybe the two of them would bond over bitching about their senior officers.

Volunteers and law enforcement moved to the edge of the search radius, formed search lines, the final round of instructions were given, and the hunt for Tiffany resumed, bolstered by the reinforcements from neighboring counties. There was nothing like a pretty, teenaged girl gone missing to mobilize the troops, and the weather was on their side. It was a bright, sunny February day. The night’s snowfall had been light and was already starting to melt in patches.

The difficulty of course was they did not know for sure whether they were looking for a victim or an offender. Did Tiffany want to be found? That remained a question.

The air was thin and sharp as they left the grassy lowland and began to climb through the trees and hillsides. It had been warm in the sunlight, but that changed fast. The snow was pristine and pillowy beneath the trees and in the crevices and creases of landscape. The temperature dropped sharply as they worked their slow way up the mountainside. The clear air was invigorating, and it felt good to stretch his muscles and really push himself.

About ninety minutes in, Rob joined Adam. “You doing okay?”

“Fine.” He was. He was in good shape—he’d passed his biannual fitness exam with flying colors in January—and he was enjoying pushing himself. Even so, this was one hell of a workout. They were going to start losing volunteers in another mile or so.

He shoved his damp hair back, and Rob said, “Your nose is red. I hope you’re wearing sunscreen.”

Adam wrinkled his nose. “That’s from the cold not the sun.”

“Cold!” Rob scoffed at the idea that this was cold weather, although the way his breath hung in the air didn’t exactly support his argument. Nor did the fact that he was wearing his heavy uniform jacket and gloves. Adam wasn’t sure he even owned a pair of gloves. His entire winter wardrobe consisted of a couple of wool sweaters, one of which he was wearing now under his FBI jacket. Thank God he’d remembered to pack jeans and boots. This was not a trek he’d want to make clad in Business Casual.

Rob nodded toward Adam’s left. “That’s Billy—Bill—Constantine. And over to his left, near that stand of sugar pine, is his dad.” Rob added neutrally, “You should be aware that Buck Constantine is a big man around these parts.”

Buck Constantine looked vaguely familiar, though it took Adam a few seconds to remember where he’d seen him before. The lakeside restaurant. Constantine had been wearing the same ridiculous fringe coat the night Adam had dined there.

“How big a man?” he inquired.

“Most of the undeveloped land around here that isn’t national forest belongs to Constantine.”

“I see.”

“Which means we need to be careful when we interview Bill about Tiffany.”

“Are we interviewing him?” Adam hadn’t missed that we.

Rob nodded. “It’s looking that way. Anyway, we have to start somewhere. I did some checking last night. Bill used to tutor Tiffany.”

“In what?”

“Science. She flunked biology her freshman year.”

“Interesting.”

“I figured you’d think so.”

“There’s obviously a connection. Nobody keeps a photo that doesn’t mean anything.” Adam glanced sideways. Rob was smiling. It was a grim smile. “I’ve been thinking though. It’s an odd photo.”

“What is?” Rob asked.

“The photo of Bill Constantine and the other kid. The one who drowned. Watterson. It’s not the kind of photo you give someone.”

“So?”

“So Bill probably didn’t give that picture to Tiffany. She probably found it somewhere and appropriated it for her own use.”

Rob was frowning. “Appropriated it? What are you getting at?”

“I’m not sure exactly.”

They were silent as they reached a spill of rocks.

“You think Tiffany had a crush on Bill, and maybe Bill didn’t know about it?” Rob was watching Bill. As though feeling the weight of Rob’s gaze, Bill glanced over at them. Rob nodded at him in greeting.

Self-consciously, Bill nodded back.

“He may or may not have known about it,” Adam said. “I don’t think he gave her that photograph. You have a scenario where she wants a photo of him—assuming it wasn’t the Watterson kid she was interested in—but doesn’t have access through the normal channels.”

“Access through the normal channels,” Rob said wonderingly. “Is that FBI-speak? Whatever happened to simple English? You mean she couldn’t ask him so she snagged it from somewhere else?”

“Correct.”

“Possibly the target of her emotional interest was not equally engaged and experiencing reciprocity?” Rob suggested.

“Oh, shut up,” Adam said.

Rob laughed. He patted Adam on the back and dropped behind to speak to a couple of volunteers who were starting to lag.

Bill was looking his way again. Adam nodded politely. He didn’t blame Constantine for feeling uncomfortable. Even innocent people started acting paranoid when they came under the scrutiny of law enforcement.

“Do you think we’ll find her?” Bill called.

“We’ll do the best we can,” Adam replied. Equivocation was a big part of the job description. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. That was one of the lessons they didn’t teach you at the Academy. You learned it facing the bereaved families of the victims you failed to save.

“We’ll find her,” Buck Constantine said grimly.

His son didn’t look reassured.

“Let’s try and keep this line together,” Rob directed. “We want to be sure that we’ve covered every inch of ground in our sector.”

Everyone assented. They were starting to lose volunteers from their eight-member team. The terrain was too rough, and people were starting to say aloud what Adam privately thought: that there was no way Tiffany had come this far. Not at night. Not in the pitch dark.

Regretfully, apologetically, some of the older and less fit searchers started to turn back. Rob’s radio crackled into life and he stopped to answer it.

He whistled sharply. Adam glanced back and Rob waved to him.

Adam turned to start back down the slope. The combination of snow on pine needles didn’t provide much purchase for the soles of his hiking boots. His right foot slipped, the rocks under his left foot crumbled away, and the next thing he knew, he was crashing face first down a ravine.

Somewhere in the distance he could hear Rob yelling. It happened so fast Adam didn’t have time for much more than a gasp—mostly of disbelief.

“Shit!” His landing knocked the wind out of his lungs and cut short his protest. Brush and snow softened the collision, but he saw stars. His ears and nose seemed stuffed with snow, and for a few dazed seconds he feared he was going to smother.

“Adam? Adam!” Rob’s voice floated down to him. He sounded as short of breath as Adam.

Adam rolled onto his side, heaving in a mighty lungful of oxygen. Pain flashed along his ribs, and his gloved hand hurt where he had smacked it hard on a rock.

He wiped snow off his face. A few glittering flakes stuck to his eyelashes. “I’m okay,” he croaked.

“Are you okay?” Rob yelled.

“Great!” Adam yelled with more force. Fucking fantastic. Why do you ask?

He looked up. The ravine was not nearly as deep as it had felt like when he’d fallen down it. Maybe twelve feet. At most. Rob was kneeling at the edge, gazing down at him, his eyes wide in his alarmed face.

“Don’t try to move. I’m coming down.”

Someone ought to tell Rob how great he looked in that vaguely western style sheriff’s deputy hat. Then again, he probably knew.

“No. I’m okay. Stay there,” Adam called. In fact, he felt okay enough to be mostly incensed with the whole situation. What the hell was it that people loved so much about the great outdoors? It was just one fatal accident after another waiting to happen.

Other heads were popping up alongside Rob as the rest of their search team arrived. He began to receive unsolicited advice on how to climb, out even as Rob cautioned everyone to stay clear of the edge.

Adam sat up, and the brush and snow that he had mistaken for the floor of the ravine gave way. He dropped another foot, landing on his tailbone in a pile of rocks and rubble.

That hurt and he swore loudly.

“Adam?”

“Still here,” Adam yelled.

And he wasn’t the only one.

He sucked in a sharp breath. Not rocks and rubble. Or not only rocks and rubble. He had landed on the rotting remnants of an old backpack.

“Haskell, you better get down here,” he called. He got to his knees and crawled forward.

The outcrop of boulders and tree roots and brush made a nice dry, sheltered recess, and in that recess was another pile of rags. Rags and scattered bones. A skeleton.

Heart thumping, he sat back on his heels. Hollow, empty eye sockets met his own.

Rocks and snow rained down, followed by Rob who half jumped, half slid down to join him.

“Where the hell—?”

“Right here,” Adam said.

Rob shoved aside the brush and dropped down beside Adam. He put his hand on Adam’s shoulder. “I told you not to try to move.”

Rob was a toucher. A hands-on kind of guy. But Adam realized he didn’t mind Rob touching him. In fact, that brief, warm clasp was kind of comforting. He said briskly, “What was the name of the hiker who disappeared back in 1998? The college kid with the hip replacement?”

“Something Jordan. No. Jordan Gaura.”

Adam indicated an article that looked like a bent metal and plastic mushroom amidst the strewn stones and bones. “I think we just found him.”

Rob followed Adam’s line of sight to the remains beneath the boulder overhang.

“God damn it,” he said. He sounded more weary than shocked. But then there were only so many possible outcomes for hikers missing for very long in these woods. He added after a minute, “The good news is, it’s not Tiffany.”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “The bad news is you need a crime scene team up here. Including a forensic anthropologist.”

Rob stared at him.

Adam said, “Come on, Rob. One body maybe. Two bodies? Your forest is turning into a bone orchard.”

Rob frowned. “You can’t think this has anything to do with Dove Koletar.”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

“What’s happening down there?” Silver hair and fringe jacket. Bill’s father looked down at them, frowning. “Anybody hurt?”

“Hang on, Buck. We’ve got a situation here,” Rob called. To Adam, he said, “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. This could have been an accident.”

“Rob.”

“We have no idea how this kid died. He could have fallen and cracked his skull. At that time of year he wouldn’t have had snow to cushion his tumble.”

“Maybe. His skull looks okay from here,” Adam said. “I’m no expert. And neither are you. Which is why you want to get one up here. ASAP.” He held Rob’s troubled gaze with his own.

After a moment, Rob nodded. “Agreed.” He rose.

Adam felt for him. He really did. For all his lackadaisical attitude, Rob cared about the people he was entrusted with serving and protecting. And though this crime—if it was a crime—had not happened on Rob’s watch, he would take this to heart. He said, “And you’ve got to protect this site.”

Rob nodded wearily.

Adam got to his feet, wincing, and Rob said, “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. I landed on my pride.”

Rob smiled faintly. “I’ve gotta say, I’ve never seen anyone look so dignified in midair.”

Adam snorted and hastily wiped his nose. Rob laughed.

That was the only humor in the situation, and neither of them was smiling as they scrambled back to the top of the ravine. It wasn’t a difficult climb, but Adam was starting to think longingly of a long, hot bath and a comfortable mattress—neither of which was waiting for him at the campground cabin.

Rob walked a way down the hillside to radio for reinforcements.

“You were lucky,” Bill said. “What did you find down there?” He leaned over the edge, and his father grabbed his jacket.

“What the hell are you doing? Did you not just see what happened here?”

Bill freed himself, throwing his father a resentful look. He looked at Adam. “Is it Tiffany?”

“No.”

Everyone’s relief seemed genuine. Of course some people were better actors than others. Adam had plenty of experience with that.

“You and Tiffany were friends?” Adam asked. He kept his expression and tone sympathetic. Even so Bill looked vaguely alarmed.

“I mean, I know her,” he said. “I used to tutor her.”

“Can you think of anyone she’d run to if she was in trouble?”

“I don’t know her that well.”

Bill’s haste to distance himself from Tiffany was understandable in the circumstances. His defensive posture and inability to hold Adam’s gaze might indicate deception, or might indicate extreme discomfort at being questioned by the FBI. And in any case, this wasn’t the time or place to try and interview him.

“Are we still headed up toward the peak?” One of the other searchers asked.

“I don’t know,” Adam answered.

“The climb is a lot harder from here on out. I don’t believe that girl could have made it this far.”

“She could have,” said the only woman on their search team. “If she had to.”

“Why would she have to?” Buck Constantine said.

Nobody had an answer for that. In fact, no one said much of anything at all. Mostly they were watching Rob. He had his back toward them, so there wasn’t much to see. A couple of searchers found resting places on fallen timber. Canteens were handed back and forth.

After a minute or two, Rob hiked back up to where they waited.

“We’re going to start back down,” he announced. “What I was about to tell you before Agent Darling decided to pursue his own line of inquiry is that one of the teams searching to the south found what appears to be Tiffany’s cell phone.”

This information sent a ripple through the circle of remaining searchers.

“I’ve been saying that from the first,” the older Constantine said. “What are we doing up here when sure as hell he’d have dragged her down to the highway? Nobody would stick around waiting to get caught.”

“If we knew exactly where to search, we wouldn’t need all of you,” Rob said crisply. “Let’s get moving. We need everyone focused on that quadrant.” He met Adam’s questioning gaze and nodded affirmative.

Rob stayed behind to mark the ravine and log its coordinates, while Adam and the rest of their party started back down. They were all moving a lot more quickly now that they were sure—rightly or wrongly—that Tiffany had never been up there. The problem with a search like this was both predator and prey were trying to outthink possible pursuit, which very often meant doing the last thing anyone would expect. Stupid things. Dangerous things.

When Rob caught up to Adam, he said, “We should have a crime scene team up here within a couple of hours.

“Good.”

“Constantine is right. The most likely scenario is she was dragged to the highway.”

“She wasn’t dragged to the highway. She wasn’t dragged anywhere,” Adam said. “Whoever cut Cynthia Joseph’s throat would have been covered in blood. There’s no blood in the Joseph house. We both agreed that nobody came inside after her. She may have fled and later been caught and abducted. Or she may have been an accomplice.”

Rob threw him a grim look. “You really do think she was in on it.”

“I don’t know. I think her sudden decision to come home that night doesn’t look good.”

“That’s completely circumstantial.”

“Yes. But you and I both know circumstantial evidence is every bit as valid as direct evidence.”

Rob grunted.

They continued in silence marred only by the thud of their boots and the wind in the pines. From up here the view of the valley was spectacular, and it gave Adam a better understanding of how scattered most of the houses and dwellings were. In this land of snow and pine trees “neighbor” was more concept than reality.

Rob said grudgingly, “You’re not doing too bad for a city boy.”

“Thanks.” Adam grinned, and after a second Rob grinned too. Their smiles faded at the sudden crack of gunshots.