Chapter Thirty-Nine
Leaving the Bradfords and Coltens, Maya headed back to her vehicle.
Laura had seemed like she was helping Natalia calm down.
Maybe she wasn’t so bad. It just bothered Maya that the whole Bradford family kept showing up.
She wanted to find out more about them, but right now, she had to find Josh first.
Indignant barks switched to excited barks as Maya approached her vehicle. She put on Juniper’s Kevlar vest and GPS tracker and put her booties in a pocket just in case they got into an environment where Juniper would need them, like another broken window.
Pops had sent her a text saying he was letting Lucas take control of the scene of the van accident and Doc was still technically the acting sheriff. Pops thought it was best to stay out of the way with his trial and the department undersheriff missing from a crashed jail transport.
“What a mess,” Maya muttered as Juniper, ready to go, danced around next to her. “Okay, girly. Your wish is coming true. Let’s go down and see what you can find.”
The pair went to an area where she could tell other law enforcement and first responders had trekked to the crash site.
The path was steep, but this trail wasn’t too bad to follow.
Juniper and Maya carefully navigated their way down.
She didn’t need to slip and fall or twist an ankle.
That would only make it harder to do her job.
Closer to the rolled van, the terrain finally flattened out, making it easier to get to the crash.
Maya sucked in her breath. She’d seen accidents, but this one was bad.
It was amazing that anyone had lived, much less walked away from this.
Or at least, she hoped Josh had walked away from it.
Doc was working on bagging one of the victims while Deputy Wilson, who seemed a little pale at the sight, helped him.
“Hi, Doc,” Maya said.
He stopped what he was doing and gave a quick wave.
“Still no sign of Josh?” she asked.
Doc finished what he was doing and then asked some search-and-rescue volunteers to carry the body up to his van. He came over to Maya. “My little morgue is getting full. I may need to take a couple of these victims to the funeral home.”
“I’m sure that’ll be fine,” Maya said. “Pops said Lucas would be in charge. He should be here soon. You can always ask him.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I need your grandfather to be found not guilty and take back over. I never imagined that I would be a sheriff when I became coroner.”
Maya nodded. “It’s a weird Colorado law, that’s for sure.”
“It’s outdated,” Doc said. “Kind of like me.”
“You’re still young at heart,” Maya said with a smile. Juniper gave a little yip. “See? Even Juniper agrees.”
Doc smiled and shook his head. “Well, I am older and I’m tired after these past few days, so I’ll take these victims back to town and figure out somewhere to hold the remains.
Then I’ll work on identification and Lucas can have someone notify the families.
I’ll do autopsies tomorrow after my living clients leave.
Although I don’t think it’ll be hard to come up with cause and manner of death. ”
“Did they die from the accident?” Maya asked. “Blunt-force trauma?”
“Maybe one of them did, but they were also all shot. Looks like a shotgun, but it’s nighttime. I’ll know more when I can properly examine them.”
Shotgun. Not good. What if that person who shot them all had found Josh? Was he still alive? Maya pushed the thought away and focused on what she knew. “Okay, thanks, Doc. I know Pops appreciates all you do, and I do too.”
Doc reached down and scratched Juniper’s ears. “Thanks. I have one more victim to get out of here and then the tow truck driver can start to figure out how the heck they’re going to get this van back up the slope.”
“Yeah, I’m glad I don’t have that job,” Maya said.
Doc waved goodbye and went back to his work as Lucas and Miranda made their way down to where she and Juniper were waiting.
Miranda had her crime-scene kit, ready to work.
Although, by this point, Maya knew they were all tired.
Except for Juniper, whose tail wagged and scattered dirt around Maya’s feet.
“Juniper is happy to see you both,” Maya said.
“And we’re glad to see her,” Miranda answered. “But we do need to quit meeting like this. How are you doing?”
Miranda’s intense eyes took in Maya. They had become friends over the past few months working together, and Maya was glad to have her working this case.
She felt like Miranda would believe in Josh too, no matter what the evidence said.
“I’m doing okay, but I’ll be better when we know who shot the prison guards and driver. ”
Lucas didn’t say anything. His hands were on his hips and Maya noticed he didn’t want to look at her again.
“Well, we’ll figure this out.” Miranda gave her arm a quick squeeze. “I better get to work, but we’ll find Josh and there has to be answers for everything. Right, Lucas?”
Lucas grunted in response and Miranda headed over to start figuring out where to begin with processing the scene.
“Are you going to look at me?” Maya asked Lucas. “I mean, we’re friends. We’ve had each other’s back for a long time. Ever since we were deployed. You’ve never acted like this.”
“We both know why,” Lucas said, finally looking at Maya eye to eye. “You shouldn’t even be here. Not with Josh’s involvement. I mean, I understand. If it were Miranda, I wouldn’t be able to be unbiased either, but the fact is there’s three dead officers and Josh is gone. What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know,” Maya said, rubbing her temples.
Lucas was right. She had tunnel vision, but no matter what, she could not imagine that the man she loved had done this.
She worked to hold her temper in check, because she knew Lucas had a good point.
“I get what you’re saying, but Josh wouldn’t crash a van and then kill three prison guards.
He would try to help them. We don’t know what happened, but I would like to track Josh and see if we can figure out where he went. ”
Lucas stared back down. “I don’t know. As lead investigator, I should be asking you to leave. And what would your boss say? Would he be okay with it?”
“Probably not,” Maya admitted. “But you have the option of two dogs that can help you out right now. Rory is bringing Finn. Juniper is ready to go. You can back me up, and at any point, I can step aside. Or you could wait for Finn and Rory to arrive. You know right now, the scent is still hot. There’s no wind and Juniper will have no problem figuring out where Josh went.
Yes, there’s a conflict, but by the time you get any other K-9 up here, who knows what the weather will be doing—especially with this storm moving in. ”
Lucas shook his head. “You are one tough cookie, Tree Cop. And stubborn. But you make some good points.”
“You also know I’m right,” Maya said.
“I know. Okay, give me a minute. Let me tell Miranda where I’m going. There’s some other crime-scene techs joining her from the CBI. I’ll tell her to tell them what to do and she can be in charge here until I get back.”
Lucas turned to speak to Miranda. Juniper stood by Maya’s side, ready to go. She took in the area around them. The easy part had been convincing Lucas to let her and Juniper work. The hard part would be figuring out where to start casting Juniper out to catch the scent.
Josh would check everyone first. He’s that kind of guy.
But that area has been trampled on by all the first responders.
Think, Maya. What would he do if the guards were dead and there was someone else shooting?
He’d try to get somewhere to get help or to change and arm himself.
What are the odds he’d try to make it to Larry and Debra’s place?
Maya started talking to Juniper in a high-pitched voice, getting her ready and prepped to start tracking.
She normally didn’t bring up Juniper’s drive like that—the Mal had plenty of energy.
In fact, usually it was the opposite and Maya had to bring her drive back down.
Sometimes Juniper was so excited that she went too fast and lost a scent.
But right now, Juniper was almost at a normal dog energy level, which meant she was tired.
Maya needed to get her excited to find the track.
“You ready, girly? Let’s go. Let’s go find ’em,” Maya said in her high-pitched voice as she cast her out in an area that would lead to their friends’ house.
Juniper responded by putting her nose on the ground, but her tail wasn’t up yet.
And her body was too low to the ground—more like a dog sniffing an animal scent. She hadn’t caught an odor yet.
Maya created a grid-like area in her mind and kept casting Juniper out, trying to cover different sections.
They were far enough away from the crash scene that Maya could no longer hear anyone other than Lucas following her.
The moon was bright and provided a decent amount of light for them to track.
She also had a headlamp just in case, but right now, as long as clouds didn’t move in, they were good.
Suddenly, Juniper’s sniffing changed, her body tensed, and her tail poked straight up in the air. Then she took off.
“I don’t know how you keep up with her when she starts,” Lucas yelled from behind them.
“I know, she goes fast,” Maya answered, trying to keep up with her dog. “She’ll settle down into a solid pace here in a second.”
“Good.”
Juniper continued on a path and it went exactly where Maya thought it would—their friends’ house.
“Any idea where Josh would go?” Lucas asked.
“Yes.”
“You care to elaborate?”
“Not at the moment. I need to watch Juniper,” Maya yelled back over her shoulder. “But I think you’ll get your answer soon.”
Sure enough, as they zigzagged around, Maya could tell Josh had headed to where she suspected.
It didn’t take long with the pace Juniper had going to see the house in the distance.
It was dark and there were no signs of life, but then Juniper stopped.
A low, guttural growl came from her throat.
Maya shortened the leash and waited for Lucas.
She trusted her dog and there was something wrong.
“You think someone other than Josh is here?” Lucas asked as he stared at Juniper.
Maya knew he was reading her dog too. He might not be a handler, but he’d worked with her long enough to know that Juniper was warning them. “I think so. Juniper wouldn’t growl at Josh. We need to proceed with caution.”
Lucas unholstered his gun, finger off the trigger but on the side, just in case. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Glad that she’d put on Juniper’s Kevlar vest, Maya asked her to go back out and track again. Juniper picked up the scent and started toward the house, but then the Mal stopped, air scented and growled.
“Let’s go get ’em. Find the bad guy,” Maya said.
This time, rather than put her nose down and track, Juniper had zeroed in on the back deck. Maya followed her, letting her dog lead the way. Approaching the deck, moonlight lit up the area. Juniper went around to the master bedroom doors. One was standing open.
Juniper was locked in on the doors and started another low growl.
“Forest Service law enforcement. Come out with your hands up,” Maya announced as she, Juniper, and Lucas took cover near some trees.
“Colorado Bureau of Investigation,” Lucas joined in announcing. “If someone is there, they need to come out with their hands up.”
Maya kept Juniper by her side and felt the tremble up the leash—not from fear, but rather excitement at the thought of biting someone. Besides tracking, Juniper loved nothing more than to help apprehend a criminal.
No one came out. Maya didn’t expect them to.
But then Juniper turned to the side. Maya unpinned her leash. The Mal took off as a person stepped out from a grove of trees, shotgun aimed at them.