Chapter 7
7
ALTA
A sharp bite of pain registered as I rapped my freezing knuckles on the boys’ front door. What was with this weather? This was when I missed Texas the most, the bitter cold and wind getting to me as the winter dragged on and on. Despite the awful cold temperatures, the winters here were somewhat magical. Snow-covered naked branches, frozen lakes, hot chocolate by the fire at night—everything about it was amazing, except when you had to step out in it and face the brutal elements head-on.
Huffing hot air into my hands, I waited impatiently outside the still-closed door, eager for it to open. Yesterday I told them I would come over late morning, which I guess technically meant around eleven, but to keep up my no-routine routine, I was early. Honestly, the coordinating of my no-routine schedule had become more daunting than ever for some reason. There were days I didn’t care if I did the same as before. But that was a mistake. That’s when someone would notice.
So there I was at a bit after ten in the morning, standing on their front porch instead of warm on the couch watching Netflix with Benny snuggled at my side.
I yawned wide into my cupped hands. Last night’s shift went by without a single incident, which wasn’t unusual but was welcomed. The peace of the night gave me time to think, process all the comments Chandler spouted as we surveyed the first and second crime scenes. The entire case was fascinating. All aspects of it, from the women who were taken in the Smokies to the special agent who was still missing to the two women here. Everything appeared well planned and executed with precision.
No witness. No evidence. No bodies.
‘How’ and ‘why’ were the first questions to find answers to.
I jumped back as the door swung open, revealing a mostly naked Chandler. Standing in nothing but a towel tied around his hips, he gestured inside the cabin. Wide-eyed, I scanned down his muscular chest and defined abs before averting my eyes and stumbling back even farther. A heel caught the first step, tipping my weight backward. The sense of falling flipped my stomach as I swung both arms in an attempt to right myself.
With a loud curse, Chandler lunged out the door and grabbed the waistband of my jeans, preventing my fall.
Heart pounding, both at the mostly naked man and the embarrassing almost-tumble, I pressed a hand to my heart, allowing my eyelids to flutter closed in an effort to regain some equilibrium over the situation.
“Birdie, if you don’t stop overreacting, I’ll start to think you don’t trust me.”
With a huff, I peeled my eyes open and focused past his bare shoulder into the cabin. “Sorry, just wasn’t expecting this.” I waved a shaky hand up and down his naked torso.
I wasn’t a prude. Well okay, maybe I was technically, but not by choice. Well, maybe yes by choice, since I hadn’t been on a date in years or been anywhere someone would have the opportunity to ask me out except for work. No one asked me out there though—not that I wanted them to. Most of the rangers were twice my age, with more hair in their ears than on their head, and the officers… well, they all knew my quirks too well to find me remotely attractive.
Chandler’s light eyes narrowed and flicked to where my index fingers fidgeted with my thumbs’ cuticles.
“Right.” His assessing expression morphed into a cocky smile. “I get it. Not many women get the opportunity to see someone like me up close.” He contracted his abs, making them ripple down his stomach, and flexed his biceps.
Thankful for the humor he inserted into the awkward moment, I offered him a small smile in return. “I’ve seen better.”
Chandler’s smile fell as he stuck out his lower lip in a full-on pout. “No such thing.”
I rub my hands up and down my arms. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Freezing. Pretty sure I’ll never see my nuts again.”
With a half nervous laugh, half giggle, I shuffled around him into the cabin. The empty cabin. Disappointment stifled my earlier nervous energy, taking a bit of excitement out of the day. Searching the room, I eyed the files stacked on top of the small kitchen table.
“Those the files from the Smokies cases?” I jerked my chin toward the table.
Chandler glanced across the room. “Yep. The special agent's notes are there, but the pictures are on the iPad. Go ahead and dig in while I get some clothes on.”
The second his bedroom door clicked closed, I moved back toward the front door. Once, twice, and a third time, I snapped the deadbolt in place. With the cabin secure, I moved to the next order of business—heat.
Kneeling at the fireplace, I tossed a couple more logs on the poorly lit fire and moved the coals around, giving it the attention it needed. After a minute, flames glowed and heat poured into the chilled room.
Shifting to the table, I sat in one of the four wooden chairs and flipped through the various folders until I came to the one labeled with the earliest date. A couple sentences in, a chill raked down my spine. With a huff, I scooped up the files to read by the now-roaring fire.
“You want some coffee?” Chandler asked as he stepped barefoot from his room. Involuntarily my eyes flicked to the other closed bedroom door. “Birdie?”
Shaking off the unwelcome thought that Cas was avoiding me by hiding in his room, I shook my head. “No thank you. I’m not a coffee fan.”
“You’re kidding me. You sure? Didn’t you work all night?”
Ignoring his surprise at my disdain for the black oil most people drank in the morning, I fluffed a pillow to offer a bit of cushion against the hearth. “I’m used to running on little sleep.” Leaning back, I raised both knees and laid the file against them like a makeshift desk. “Hope you don’t mind me shifting things around to get comfortable down here by the fire.”
“Not at all, but”—he grimaced as he gave me a once-over—“you know you don’t have to wear your uniform when we’re here, right?”
Through my lashes, I glanced up to find him in the kitchen opening and shutting cabinets. He wore a black, short-sleeve T-shirt and gray athletic shorts. Okay, maybe all guys were hot natured. I was in pants, a jacket, and sitting up close and personal to a fire and was still a bit chilled.
“Next time,” I said, then looked back to the papers resting against my thighs. “I picked up the first case. Have you read through them all?”
“I have. Take your time. We can discuss when you’re done.”
I tried to focus, I really did, but the words blurred as my mind drifted. With a sigh, I shoved the heels of my palms into my eyes and rubbed. “Where’s your partner?”
At his non-response, I glanced up. Chandler had paused whatever he was doing in the kitchen to face me, smiling. “Reading.”
“Reading what?” I snuck another peek at the closed bedroom door.
“Some paperwork I gave him to look over. What, am I not enough?”
Paperwork? What paperwork? Sounded made up. With a long sigh, I shifted my eyes back to the file. “Just wondering,” I mumbled under my breath, hoping that would help hide the lie.
“Right, Birdie. Whatever you need to tell yourself.”
Two hours and four case files later, my eyes burned, my back ached from sitting on the floor too long, and I had absolutely nothing to show for it. Each case had the exact same MO with different names and locations. In each one, the husband and kids had left the wife behind and when they returned, she was gone, vanished into thin air. Not a single person reported seeing anything suspicious, and zero evidence was left behind.
I groaned and lay down on the floor to stretch out my aching back, staring at the ceiling. “There isn’t anything useful in these notes,” I vented while smacking the file folder against my forehead.
“There has to be something we’re missing,” Chandler said from the kitchen table. He was on his second pot of coffee, looking just as frustrated as me. His short blond hair was a mess from running his fingers through it with every turn of the page.
With his happy nature, soft features, and warm blue eyes, he’d be good boyfriend material if you liked the lighthearted, center-of-attention type. And based off my body’s instant reaction to Cas versus Chandler, I seemed to be attracted to the brooding, threatening, dangerous nature.
Yay me.
I didn’t want soft and kind. No, that reminded me too much of him . The man who stripped me of my former self and stole my innocence wasn’t into rough. No, he was timid, kind, and considerate as he took me against my will during the three days he held me captive. In those three days, my revulsion against touch grew with every gentle kiss, every caress along my incapacitated body.
Cas wouldn’t be timid, wouldn’t question every touch or move. The red-hot glint in his dark eyes showed a man who knew what he was doing in all aspects of life. That’s what turned me on, plus his handsome face and hard body. I wanted to be taken, wanted to be touched—I wanted the dark I knew he could offer. With my brokenness, the dark side might be the only place I could ever be free.
Maybe he saw that yesterday and decided I was too much. Our attraction was obvious, but whether it would go anywhere past stolen glances and heated glares was yet to be determined. With him still hiding in his room, it didn’t seem that he’d be offering up a piece of his dark soul anytime soon.
Still inspecting the ceiling from my spot on the floor, I mused, “All the cases are the exact same. Women taken with zero evidence, zero witnesses, and zero reasons to up and leave their families. The only difference between those cases and the two here is the stupid location.”
“That's my conclusion too, but what does that leave us with, huh? Wait until the next woman is taken and say a fucking prayer to every god out there that this bastard makes his first mistake?”
“You keep saying ‘taken,’ not ‘killed’. You think they’re out there somewhere?”
The blunt legs of a chair scraped across the floor. I tilted my head back, viewing Chandler upside down. “I sure as hell hope not.”
“Same,” I said as I chewed down the cuticle around my thumb. “I was wondering, since I haven’t met a lot of FBI agents… how is it? Being in the FBI?” I propped up on my elbows for a better view of the couch where he now sat on the arm, looking down at me.
“The agency does a lot of good. We catch the bad guys, but sometimes the red tape feels more hindering than helping.” He massaged the back of his neck as he rolled his head side to side.
“I feel the same way about the park services. We do a lot of good, but sometimes our hands are tied when an opportunity arises to make a bigger impact. Can I ask you something else?”
“I’m intrigued.” Releasing his neck, he motioned for me to go ahead.
My vision blurred as I zoned out, staring at the red coals of the dwindling fire. “Were you assigned this case, or did you take it?”
“Why? Does it matter?”
I raised one shoulder in a noncommittal half shrug. “I don’t know. Just wondering, I guess. We don’t have a lot to go on, no evidence and zero media coverage, so why would someone take it willingly, you know? More than likely the guy will disappear again, leaving all these cases cold, nothing to build one’s career on.” Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him, waiting for his reaction.
“I took it.” He paused. “You’re right, it’s a tough-as-hell case, but… don’t judge me on what I’m about to say.”
With my full attention, I situated to face him straight on.
“I’m the only male on our team—surprising, I know—and I didn’t want any of my team to get hurt. The special agent who went missing….”
“You didn’t want any of your team members to take the case because they’d be a target, not you.”
He nodded. “Does that make me a sexist bastard?”
“No, it confirms what I already thought about you.”
Chandler’s shy smile cracked the solid walls that protected my anonymity. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Birdie, you don’t have to be here. You could’ve walked the scenes with Mathews and me yesterday and gone back to your normal life.”
I huffed a dry laugh. “What’s normal again?”
“Why did you choose to work this case with me, knowing you could pin a target on your back?”
“I don’t know. I guess?—”
The closed bedroom door swung open, severing my train of thought. Like yesterday, the air evaporated from the room and the heat boiled in my veins the second he stepped out, his narrowed eyes immediately locking with mine. Wearing mesh shorts and a gray T-shirt, he fell onto the couch and propped his bare feet up on the coffee table, not bothering with words.
Crap. Even his feet were sexy. Manly. I needed to work on finding a quality about him I wasn’t attracted to.
“Find anything interesting?” Chandler asked, turning to face Cas.
“Tons,” Cas responded, but kept his dark eyes on me instead of turning to his friend.
Awkward seconds ticked by in silence. To avoid the building unease, I focused on studying the file in my hand.
“He has to have resources,” I mused as I scanned the words I’d already read twice. “As in a truck or van to get these women out of the park. And….” I turned to stare into the fire. “The women have to be drugged or knocked unconscious somehow, right? The one thing that has stood out is they were all capable of fighting off an attack. But what if they couldn’t?” Memories and details of the cases muddled together until they seemed to be one and the same. “It doesn’t explain how he got them alone, but it could explain how he got them out of the park, unless he was staying in the park already.”
I glanced to Chandler, searching for confirmation. “Have you guys run who stayed in the park then and who’s staying here now? Maybe even surrounding cities? Estes Park isn’t that big, and several remote areas would be ideal for this guy.”
“We did for the Smokies, but not here. Great idea, Birdie.”
“Birdie?” Cas questioned.
My eyes shifted from Chandler to Cas, who hadn’t dropped his attention from me since he walked out of his room.
“It’s what her friends call her,” Chandler said, humor lacing his light tone. “Isn’t that right, Birdie?”
I nodded and swallowed against a dry throat. Why did he keep staring?
“What else?” Chandler asked me directly.
“Sucks that we don’t have the bodies. Then we could determine if he’s controlled them with drugs, or maybe a stun gun.” I grimaced when my worrying nail snagged on a loose cuticle, ripping it lengthwise along my thumbnail. “But how does he get them to walk into the woods alone?”
“Maybe someone they trusted?” Chandler suggested.
“But that would be a consistency we’d see if it were one person. I mean, all those women having one person in common?”
“What if it's not a certain person but someone in uniform?” Cas offered. His assessing eyes flicked down my chest, over my hips, and along my legs.
An intense heat bloomed between my thighs. Clenching them together to help ease the increasing throb, I watched, mesmerized, as the tip of his tongue darted out, wetting his lower lip.
Wow, it looked like he wanted to eat me.
Oh, how I wish he would.
Where did that come from?
“You mean like a ranger.” My heart pounded against my chest, both from him and his subtle accusation.
“Or someone else wearing a uniform: maintenance, park employee, and yeah, a ranger.”
“Can you track the online purchases of that kind of stuff?” I asked Chandler.
One hip pressed against the couch, glancing between me and Cas, Chandler rubbed his chin as he considered the new theory.
“You’re one smart Birdie.” With that as a parting remark, he stalked to his room, phone already pressed to his ear, and closed the door behind him.