Chapter 11
11
“W hat is it?” Doug hunkered down beside Maya’s chair. She looked as if someone had smacked her in the face. “Did you find something?”
“Yeah.” She drew in a deep breath. “Appears my ex is friends with Steve Beldon. Which means he knows Beldon is involved in criminal activity and may have hired him to attack me.”
He frowned. “Could be Beldon is a thug for hire and that your ex reached out to him. But maybe that idiot is here in Cody. Your ex could have attacked you.”
“Blaine didn’t hit me over the head,” she said. “I would have recognized him, even with only a quick glance. Back when I first noticed someone lurking nearby, I checked with Blaine’s employer. The manager of the plant claimed he was working. Which makes sense now that I know he likely hired Beldon to do his dirty work.”
“I don’t know about that, Maya. In my experience, men with a personal grudge would rather take care of the issue for themselves rather than hire it out.”
“You don’t know Blaine,” she scoffed. “He’s not very motivated. Plus, he knows I’m a cop and would likely recognize him. Hiring someone to hurt me on his behalf is right up his alley.”
He nodded. She knew her ex-husband the best, and he trusted her judgment. “Why would he want you to be attacked? Was he upset about the divorce?”
“He was upset about not getting any money,” she said. Then she seemed to catch herself. “Never mind, just trust me that Blaine likely hired Beldon to attack me. And if that is the case, Beldon isn’t hiding out with the other bad guys.” Her eyes widened. “Unless they’re close enough that he can drive back and forth.”
As much as he was curious about what money her ex thought he was entitled to, he focused on Emily. “He was in town when he attacked you outside the Elk Lodge. And he must have been the one to pretend to be your brother to get access to the room.”
“Yeah, Blaine must have mentioned my family. The assault was about three thirty in the afternoon. We left an hour later to check out that cabin.”
“Maybe Beldon was told to stay in town to keep an eye on us.” He shrugged. “Maybe attacking you was done for two reasons. To keep you from doing any searches with Zion and to give Blaine some satisfaction.”
“I hope we find him,” she said with a scowl. “He deserves to be arrested.”
“I’m on board with that plan,” he said, striving to keep his tone light. They were making progress, but the deep sense of urgency wouldn’t leave him alone. Between the ticking clock and the impending storm, he sensed they didn’t have much time.
What would happen once Emily’s services were no longer needed? Would they simply leave her behind?
Or kill her to keep her from going to the police?
He tried not to dwell on the worst-case scenario, but it wasn’t easy. He was keenly aware of the ruthlessness of the cartel.
When his phone rang, he gratefully reached for it. “Hey, Ian, please tell me something good.”
“I finally got into the system and was able to identify the last cell tower that pinged Beldon’s phone. It’s in Cody, all right. Unfortunately, that city is so small the tower covers the entire area. I can’t get down to anything more specific than that.”
His heart sank. “Okay, thanks for trying. What about the search warrant? Has that come through?”
“We’re waiting to hear from the judge,” Ian said. “The minute it’s granted, I’ll run those reports.”
He tried to think of another angle to pursue but came up empty. “Okay, keep me in the loop.”
“Will do.” Ian ended the call.
He turned toward Maya. “May I use the computer?” He quickly pulled up Steve Beldon in the DMV database. “Would you call the Cody PD to ask for a BOLO to be issued for this truck?” He turned the screen so she could see the license plate that started with the Park County 11 designation. “You seem to have a better rapport with them.”
“Of course.” He listened as she made the call. When that was finished, he began to pace. There had to be another angle to work. But what?
“The Crooked Wheel,” he said, spinning around to face her. “We need to ask around about Beldon. Maybe someone saw him last night. He may have gone there after searching through our hotel room.”
Maya nodded. “Okay, it can’t hurt to try.” She glanced toward the window. He followed her gaze. It wasn’t snowing.
Yet.
“As long as we’re heading out, we should think about picking up a few pairs of snowshoes,” Maya added. She lifted her chin toward the window. “Those clouds are going to bust a gut sooner or later. If we happen to get a lead on Emily’s location, we need to be prepared to work in less-than-ideal conditions.”
“That’s fine.” He was more than willing to learn how to use snowshoes, but the idea of dragging Maya and Zion into danger did not sit well with him. A glance at his watch indicated it was going on nine forty-five. Emily had been missing for twenty-six hours now and he still had no idea where to find her. “We’ll stop to buy the snowshoes first since the hour is still rather early. What time does the Crooked Wheel open anyway?”
“Hang on.” Maya worked her phone. “They open at nine. But you know it’s not likely the same crowd that was there last night will be there bright and early this morning. When I worked in Cheyenne, it was the third-shift crowd that gravitated to the bars early in the morning.”
He wondered if Emily had ever gone there with some coworkers after work. Not that it mattered. He understood Maya was pointing out the limitations in his plan to interview the locals at the Crooked Wheel, but he couldn’t bear the thought of waiting until later that night to do the job.
He wanted Emily to have been found safely by then.
“Doug?” Maya said, interrupting his thoughts.
“I know, different crowd,” he agreed. “But we need to try.”
Maya reached for her coat. “There’s a large store that sells sporting goods; they’ll have snowshoes.” She held his gaze for a moment. “Or we can drive to the Sullivan ranch. I have plenty there we can borrow.”
“Too far,” he said, shaking his head. In truth, he’d have loved to see the ranch. But not while Emily was missing. “I don’t care about the cost. I’ll pay for the snowshoes.”
“I figured as much.” Her smile was wry. “But just wanted to let you know there were options. Come, Zion.”
The dog lifted her head, stretched, then padded toward Maya. He shrugged into his coat, then grabbed the laptop, shoving it into the case. He hadn’t bothered to take his suitcase out of the SUV. “I think we should keep the room another day,” he said as they headed down the hall to the lobby. “Emily will need a place to rest and recover once we find her.”
Maya nodded in agreement.
He waited as she stopped at the desk to make the arrangements, then they headed outside. The thick layer of clouds swirled over the city. They hung so low they obscured his view of the snowcapped Bighorn Mountains.
Where are you, Emily? He stared out the window as Maya drove to the sporting goods store. Was his sister being held somewhere in the city? Or out in the snowy countryside?
His gut leaned toward the latter, but he didn’t want to overlook the obvious.
Less than ten minutes later, Maya pulled up to the sporting goods store. The place was huge, and he realized it was likely the only store in the city. Maya didn’t hesitate to bring Zion inside. It seemed that the locals didn’t mind having dogs trailing after their owners.
Or maybe it was just that Maya and her family were well known in the region.
“This way,” Maya said, gesturing for him to follow. He eyed the gun counter with interest, seeing rifles and shotguns along with a wide variety of handguns available for sale.
In some ways, Wyoming was the epitome of the wild, wild west.
He found Maya inspecting rows of rectangle-shaped snowshoes. He’d heard of them and knew some people used them for fun. But he eyed them warily now, wondering how they worked.
“We’ll probably want the package,” Maya was saying. When she noticed his confusion, she added, “Snowshoes and poles. If you’re not used to walking in them, you’ll want the poles to help keep you steady.”
They looked too much like the cane his grandmother had used after her hip surgery, but he held his tongue. “Whatever you think is best.”
“Okay.” She picked out a pair of men’s-sized snowshoes for him and a smaller size for herself. She had gotten the package, too, which made him feel better.
The cost was higher than he’d anticipated, but he paid without complaint. If they helped him reach Emily, then it was well worth the price.
When they were back outside, Maya gestured toward a park. “Let’s give them a try so you can see how they work.”
“Now? We need to get to the Crooked Wheel.”
She arched a brow. “Better to learn how to walk in them now than waiting until after we get a lead on Emily.”
He chafed at the delay but nodded. She was right. If they found a lead on Emily’s whereabouts, he needed to be able to move without difficulty. “Fine. Let’s do this.”
“Don’t sound so excited,” she chided. “It’s not hard, but it’s also not as easy as it looks.”
He followed her to the park. She explained how they worked, the base of the shoe providing a way to distribute a person’s body weight over a wide area to prevent him from sinking into the snow.
She secured the straps, then handed him the poles. “Have you ever gone cross-country skiing? It’s similar to that, but without the gliding motion.”
“No, sorry.” His wife had a point about his life being all work and very little play. “But I have gone downhill skiing.”
“This is different.” She took a minute to put her own snowshoes on. Zion pranced around in the snow as if she loved this weather. “Okay, follow me.”
Maya walked across the snow with short strides. She was right, it wasn’t as easy as it looked. But soon he was able to find the groove.
“People do this for fun, huh?” he asked as they paused to rest. Despite the cold, he was working up a sweat.
“Out here, we use them out of necessity, not entertainment. But yes, some do this as a form of working out.”
He grunted. Give him an indoor gym any day. He stayed in shape because of his job, but this was something only a die-hard snow lover would do. Leaning on his pole, he turned to see how far they’d come. Then winced when he realized they’d barely gone a hundred yards.
“Okay, we can head back now,” Maya said. “Turning can be a challenge, don’t cut it too close or you’ll trip yourself up.”
Her warning came too late. He was face down in the snow before he could blink. The sound of Maya’s laughter made him groan.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.” She bent and retrieved his pole so he could stand.
“It’s fine.” He couldn’t blame her for seeing the humor of the situation. He managed to rise to his feet by leaning heavily on the pole. The one he’d almost refused to use. “Thanks.”
He realized Maya was staring past him, and he quickly glanced over his shoulder.
“Look! A truck!” Maya snowshoed past him with a speed and agility he envied. “That might be Beldon’s truck!”
Sure enough, he caught a glimpse of a blue Ford pickup. He carefully turned around to follow her. Clearly, she’d been right about his need to practice. She looked as if she was flying over the snow with Zion leaping gracefully beside her. The dog reached the truck first, sniffing with interest.
Then to his surprise, the dog turned to stare at Maya. The husky didn’t alert the way she usually did upon finding Emily’s scent, but the dog seemed to be telling them something was amiss.
His gut tightened as he approached. There was frost on the windows, making him think the vehicle had been there for a while. At least a couple of hours.
Maybe even all night.
He headed around to the driver’s side, while Maya peered through the narrow gap of the passenger-side window.
He swallowed hard when he noticed something dark was pressed up against the driver’s side window. A man’s head? With a sick feeling, he tugged on the driver’s door handle. The vehicle wasn’t locked, and the door creaked in protest as if the joints had rusted while it was sitting there as he wrenched it open.
Steve Beldon’s body fell out. A dark bullet hole marred the right side of his temple.
They had hit another dead end.
Literally.
* * *
“Stay back,” Maya warned, knowing Doug was smart enough not to mess with evidence but wary of his new penchant for crossing the line to get what he wanted. “I’ll call it in.”
Doug ignored her, bending down to examine the body. “Hard to tell if it’s murder or suicide.”
“We have a dead body on the north side of Lion’s Park,” she told the Cody dispatcher. “Victim is believed to be Steve Beldon, and he has suffered a gunshot wound to his right temple.”
“A gunshot wound?” the dispatcher echoed in shock.
“Yes. Unclear if the injury is self-inflicted or the result of foul play.” Knowing the role Beldon played in the kidnapping case, she was leaning toward homicide. But this wasn’t her case. “Please hurry.”
“Both units are on the way,” the dispatcher assured her.
“Thanks.” She stuffed the phone back into her pocket and quickly drew on her gloves. The wail of sirens was reassuring.
“I don’t like this,” Doug said, rising to a standing position. He held her gaze for a moment. “It feels like they’re tying off loose ends.”
“I don’t like it either.” She sighed, knowing he was concerned that Emily would be another loose end. She didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. All they could do was keep searching.
She glanced down at Zion who stared up at her with those bright-blue eyes. Her K9 wasn’t trained to find cadavers like Alexis’s dog, Denali, but the husky had known something was wrong.
Maya bent and stroked her gloved hand over Zion’s fur. “Good girl. You knew he was in there, didn’t you? Good girl.”
Doug grimaced. “I noticed how she reacted to the truck. Her nose is amazing. It’s so cold I didn’t catch the scent of decay until I opened the door.”
“I’m sure he was out here most of the night. Likely froze solid from the way he dropped to the ground like that.” She glanced around the area. “No cameras around here either.” Her eyes widened. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Looking for his phone.” Doug patted Beldon’s pockets, then stood to peer into the truck. “I don’t see it. The killer likely took it with him.”
“You need to let the crime scene techs do their thing,” she said with annoyance. “They’ll search for clues as to what happened.”
“We’re running out of time.” Doug’s green eyes flared with a mixture of anger and frustration. Not with her, she realized, but the situation. “Emily could be the next one left in a car with a bullet wound to the head. We need to find her before they decide she’s outlived her usefulness.”
“I know that. I do.” She blew out a breath, a puff of steam forming in the air. “As soon as the squad arrives, we’ll head to the Crooked Wheel.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. “Thanks.”
The wail of sirens could be heard well before the two officers arrived. She wasn’t surprised to see they were the same two that had been on duty yesterday.
“Maya, Agent Bridges.” Burt Jones nodded in greeting. “How did you happen to stumble into this crime scene?”
“Thanks for coming.” Maya shared Doug’s impatience but couldn’t bring herself to shortcut the investigation. “I called earlier about issuing a BOLO for Steve Beldon’s truck. He is—or rather was—a person of interest in the kidnapping case.” She gestured at the truck. “We were practicing using snowshoes when I spotted it. Zion indicated there was something strange inside, and when Doug opened the driver’s side door, Beldon fell out.”
“Who gave you the information regarding Beldon’s involvement?” Sergeant Tom Howell demanded. “I was going to follow up with you about that.”
“We were able to convince Craig Olsen to come clean,” Doug said. “He was paid five hundred bucks to claim the Silverado was stolen. He saw Emily but claimed she wasn’t hurt. He identified one of the men as Steve Beldon. The other was a Hispanic we believe could be Manuel Cartega, who was recently released from jail back in Wisconsin. Cartega has known ties to the Mexican drug cartel.”
Maya could see the news had stunned both officers. Sergeant Howell’s face turned red, but Jones said, “You really think members of a Mexican drug cartel are way out here?”
“Yes.” Doug shrugged. “I have Cartega’s cell phone records. He made several calls to numbers with a 307 area code.”
The two officers glanced from her to Doug, then down at Beldon’s dead body. “Guess we should consider this a homicide,” Howell said grimly.
“Yes, you should.” Doug sighed. “Look, do you have a detective or someone that does these investigations? I’m happy to send the phone records over. But my sister is still missing, so if you don’t mind, we need to go.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Maya added, trying to soften Doug’s hard edges. “We want to find the person responsible as much as you do.”
“We work with the state Criminal Investigation Unit,” Jones said. “If you send me the data, I can make sure it gets up the chain of command.”
“Okay.” Doug took a moment to send the information he’d gotten via the search warrant to Jones’s email. Then he remembered Olsen’s phone and pulled it from his pocket. “This needs to get back to Craig Olsen. If you find anything more, I’d appreciate a call.” When Sergeant Howell looked as if he might argue, Doug hastily added, “I promise I will do the same. We called you for this, and if I find anything else related to Emily’s disappearance, I’ll fill you in on that too.”
“Yeah, okay.” Jones took Doug’s offer at face value, although Maya sensed Howell wasn’t convinced even though he accepted Olsen’s phone without saying a word.
She appreciated Doug’s efforts to smooth things over with the local cops, and added, “We’ll keep you in the loop.”
“Thanks again to both of you.” Doug turned to her. “Ready?”
She nodded. “Come, Zion.” The husky bounded to her side and kept pace as they snowshoed back across the park where they’d left her SUV.
Doug’s expression was grim as he removed the straps around his boots. “Thanks for the lesson. I won’t slow you down if we need to use them.”
“I know you won’t.” As she said the words snowflakes fell from the sky. Lightly at first, but soon they filled the air. “And yeah, we’re going to need them.”
She started the car and opened the rear hatch for Zion. Doug placed his snowshoes and poles in the back passenger seat, then came over to grab hers.
“I was hoping the snow would hold off,” he said as they settled in the front seat. Snowflakes coated his eyelashes, and she had to stop herself from reaching over to brush them away.
“Me too.” She sat letting the warmth from the heated seats sink deep. Then she put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. “I hope we find someone at the Crooked Wheel that will talk.”
“They’ll talk,” Doug said with a dark frown. “I’m not in the mood for anything less than full cooperation.”
She thought about Steve’s death as she drove to the Crooked Wheel. Maybe she was wrong about Steve being hired by Blaine to attack her. For all his faults, she couldn’t imagine Blaine committing cold-blooded murder.
Granted, she hadn’t seen him in five years. Could her ex-husband have changed that much? Being a cheater was one thing.
Murder was on a whole different level.
She made a mental note to double-check that Blaine was still working at the manufacturing plant in Cheyenne. If he was, she could deal with his hired thug later.
If he wasn’t? Her stomach rolled. Could Blaine really be involved in something like this? Kidnapping and murder?
She thrust the possibility away as she pulled into the Crooked Wheel parking lot. It was only yesterday that she and Zion had searched for gold and found the shell casing.
Yet it seemed as if she’d known Doug for weeks rather than hours. Weird, because she hadn’t experienced that phenomenon with any of her previous cases.
She was letting her attraction for him cloud her senses. The guy was skating on the edge, fear for his sister’s safety overriding his obligation to play by the rules.
“I’ll take the lead,” he said gruffly, before opening his door and climbing out.
“Yeah, yeah.” She shot him a narrow glare. “Don’t push it, Doug.”
He grimaced, gave a terse nod, and slammed his door shut. She retrieved Zion and followed him up to the front door. He held it open, so she stepped inside with Zion.
It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior. Snow coated the windows, eliminating some of the natural light.
Doug headed straight for the bar where two older men sat in front of two glasses of beer. It was barely ten forty, and their mugs were half full. She hung back, listening as Doug addressed them.
“Excuse me, which of you knows Steve Beldon?” He asked as if their knowledge was a foregone conclusion.
“Who wants to know?” the balder of the two asked.
Doug flipped open his badge. “Agent Bridges, I’m investigating a kidnapping and a murder. If you don’t want to cooperate, I’ll toss you in jail and find someone who will. I’m running out of time. So start talking.”
She took a step forward. This was his idea of not pushing it?
Then to her surprise, the guy with dirty gray hair said, “Yeah, we know him. But he ain’t here. Left last night. Said he had to meet an old friend.”
An old friend? The knot in her stomach tightened painfully. Blaine? Battling a wave of nausea, she pulled out her phone and went back to her earlier social media search. This time she wasn’t looking for her ex-husband’s friends, but for his mother’s maiden name.
Swanson. Tanya Swanson. Blaine had once mentioned his grandfather had a cabin outside of Cody. He’d gone there as a kid.
And that could very well be where Emily was being held now.