Chapter 5
Brooke
The Basin County Sheriff’s Department SUV kicked up a small cloud of dust as it rolled to a stop. Brooke wasn’t looking forward to what would come next. Statements. Questions. Hours of reliving what she’d found in the woods. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push away the image of the waxy leg.
The driver’s door opened, and a woman stepped out, hair pulled back in a low bun, sunglasses hiding her eyes until she pulled them off and hooked them on her shirt collar.
Brooke recognized her.
“Edi,” she said, relief washing through her. At least it was someone she knew.
Deputy Edi Reeves had gone to Irma High School, graduating a couple of years ahead of Brooke, which meant Edi had been one of those intimidating upperclassmen when Brooke was still figuring out how lockers worked.
She came into the coffee shop sometimes and always ordered the same thing—large dark roast, black, and whatever sweet muffin they had left. She was friendly but professional, the kind of regular who knew your name but didn’t overstay their welcome.
Brooke wasn’t even sure if Edi remembered her from school. If she did, she never said so. She never brought up those teenage years and never attended the multi-class reunions held every summer over Irma Days.
Brooke asked her about it a couple of years ago when she saw her in the coffee shop the day before the event. Edi simply said she usually ended up on the duty roster and never felt comfortable requesting time off for something like that.
Seeing her here felt very different from seeing her in the coffee shop. Everything seemed so much more official. More real.
Brilliant, Brooke, she thought to herself. It is real. That was a real dead body you found. A real person. The thought stung her nose.
“Brooke.” Edi’s greeting was warm, but her eyes were already scanning the scene, taking in the four people gathered, the trailhead, the entire space. “You okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
“I bet.” Edi turned to Robert and Sue. “I don’t think we’ve met officially, but you bought Morgan’s auto shop, right?”
“That’s us,” Robert said, stepping forward to shake her hand. “Sue and Robert Toles.”
Brooke noticed that Edi was not just taller than Sue but taller than Robert as well. She had always been tall, even in school, towering over the other girls and some of the boys. Being overweight didn’t help, and it had earned her cruel nicknames like “Sasquatch” and “Brontosaurus.”
“My condo is on the other end of your neighborhood,” Edi said, her tone smooth, almost comforting. “Looks like you’ve been doing a lot of work on your place.”
Sue smiled despite the circumstances. “Slowly but surely. We saw pictures of what it used to look like. Stunning. We hope we can bring it back to that someday.”
Edi’s expression softened briefly before her cop face returned. She turned toward where Tyler stood near the trailhead marker, and Brooke saw something shift in the deputy’s demeanor. Not unfriendly exactly, but definitely more guarded.
“Tyler,” Edi said, and there was a wealth of history in that single word.
“Edi.” Tyler’s response was equally loaded. His shoulders had gone rigid, his jaw tight.
There was weight in their exchange, something unspoken that made the air feel charged.
Brooke assumed Tyler was hanging back because he didn’t know the deputy.
That made sense—he was new to the area, or at least new enough that Brooke didn’t know him.
But watching them now, watching the way Edi’s expression shuttered and Tyler’s whole body language changed, Brooke realized she’d been wrong.
They definitely knew each other.
And whatever their history was, it wasn’t comfortable.
“You’re hiking again,” Edi said.
“Yeah.”
“Glad to see you out. I know you always loved the woods.”
“Thanks.”
Brooke looked from Edi to Tyler. She’d been attracted to this man. Maybe she still was, despite her reservations over the terrible timing for a new relationship.
But watching him now, tense and guarded around a local deputy, red flags were starting to wave.
Brooke knew better than to ignore red flags, especially after what happened at Bearwater.
What had started as a simple training run in the Absaroka Mountains with friends had turned into a life-and-death situation.
All because she’d ignored warning signals that she should’ve recognized.
They’d been subtle, sure, but in hindsight, they were so obvious.
Kelsey had been her friend. Someone Brooke had run with so many times and trusted completely. Sweet, nervous Kelsey, who always brought extra energy bars and asked if anyone needed anything.
And she’d also been stealing files from her law firm and making illegal drops under the cover of the running club, putting all of them in danger because she’d been too scared to ask for help. Because she’d made choices that seemed reasonable to her at the time but had nearly gotten them all killed.
Brooke had completely missed it. All of it. The signs that something was wrong, the tension that must have been there, the lies Kelsey had been telling. Brooke trusted her judgment, and her judgment had been catastrophically wrong.
She couldn’t make that mistake again. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
The problem was Brooke knew herself, knew her patterns. When she focused on something, whether it was a training plan, a race, or a person, she fixated. Obsessed. She couldn’t let go even when she should.
It nearly destroyed her last year when she’d been forced to drop out while running the Moose Range Run 100. She’d spiraled, unable to see past that one failure, letting it consume her until she’d driven herself and everyone around her a little crazy.
Then, earlier this year, when training for a second try at the race, she’d put together an insanely aggressive training plan, planning every run down to the nth degree and refusing to back off when her body or her mind had had enough.
She’d come close to making herself sick and then almost getting herself and others killed.
She’d promised herself she’d work on that—on giving herself grace, on not letting single data points define everything, on recognizing when her brain was sliding into unhealthy territory, and on keeping herself safe, as well as those who mattered to her.
Getting involved with someone she couldn’t trust would be exactly the kind of thing she’d obsess over, the kind of thing that would consume her.
And right now, watching Tyler’s interaction with Edi, alarm bells were going off.
The kind she wished she’d had with Kelsey.
The kind she planned on paying attention to now.
Whatever was between Tyler and this deputy, it wasn’t good.
The strain was obvious in the careful way they spoke to each other and in the things not being said.
And Tyler’s whole demeanor had changed. The reliable, confident man who’d talked her down from panic on the trail was now replaced by someone guarded and closed off.
She didn’t know what it meant. But she knew it meant something.
“You all were together when the bodies were found?”
Brooke shook her head.
Sue and Robert both pointed at her as Robert said, “She found them.”
“I think it might be one body in two caches,” Sue added.
“What makes you say that?” Edi turned to face Sue directly.
“The way the remains were positioned. The, um . . . the separation point.” Sue’s face went pale. “I used to be an EMT, a volunteer. I’ve seen trauma before. That didn’t look like two separate people to me.”
Edi made a note. “We’ll know for sure once we get the team out there. I was hoping they’d be here by now. But that’s helpful context. Thank you.” She glanced at her watch and made a face. “All right, I’m going to need statements from all of you. Who wants to go first?”
“I’ll go,” Brooke said. Might as well get it over with and get off this mountain, away from the man who unsettled her in ways she didn’t trust. Away from the man who had danger written all over him.
Edi nodded and gestured toward her vehicle. They walked over together, leaving the others by the trailhead.
“This is pretty far out for a solo hike,” Edi said once they were out of earshot.
“I know. My friends canceled at the last minute. I should’ve canceled too.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I needed to be out here.” Brooke heard the defensiveness in her own voice and tried to soften it. “I know it was stupid. But I needed it.”
Edi’s expression softened. “I know what happened with Kelsey and that man. Tough business.”
That man. The one who was hired to retrieve the documents from Kelsey and who intended to kill not only Kelsey but also Gina, Nick, Joe, and Brooke because they were there. He’d called them collateral damage. Like they were nothing. Like they didn’t matter. “Yeah.”
“And now this. It can’t be easy.”
“No.” Brooke wrapped her arms around herself. “It really isn’t.”
Edi took her through the statement step-by-step. Who was supposed to be with her today, and why did they cancel? What time did Brooke arrive? What route had she taken? The sound that had spooked her, the way she’d run off trail, the moment she’d realized what she was looking at.
Tears were flowing freely, and Edi paused a moment to fish out a box of tissues, handing it to Brooke.
“Thank you. I’m . . . it’s just so awful.”
“Death is never easy. Take a minute, then we’ll start again.”
Brooke worked to collect herself while Edi made soothing sounds.
After a few minutes, Brooke said, “I’m ready. Let’s just get this over with.”
Brooke forced herself to keep her answers factual and to avoid embellishing.
It wasn’t easy, though, and she’d catch herself rambling, adding things that didn’t matter.
She stopped and started again, but soon discovered she was doing the same thing.
It was a total word vomit. Edi seemed to understand.
“And you marked the location with paracord,” Edi said, making notes.