Chapter 17 #2
They pushed forward in silence, following the dogs’ lead. The terrain out here near the Navajo lands wasn’t mountainous, but it had its own dangers: washed out gullies hidden by brush, loose rock and the occasional predator.
Though, frankly, he was worried about the human variety more than the animals.
They weren’t the only people to come this way.
Noah automatically cataloged details with the precision that had earned him accolades across the globe. Broken branches. Disturbed ground. Signs of recent vehicle activity where there shouldn’t be any.
Someone had definitely been out here. Recently.
The first hints of smoke teased his nose—just a whisper, but enough to set off warning bells. It was not the friendly kind of smoke that meant someone had a campfire going. This smelled like burning plastic and charred wood, a toxic, acrid aroma of an unnatural, destructive fire.
Dancer’s urgent bark confirmed he’d scented it too.
“You smell that?” Sabrina was already moving faster, Ripley tight on her heels.
“Yeah.” Noah’s pulse revved into overdrive even as his brain snapped into journalist mode.
Remote location. Dawn timing. A whiff of accelerant under the smoke.
Someone did not want their fire discovered until it was too late.
What had Jacob’s cryptic text gotten them into? Noah resisted the urge to shuffle Sabrina behind him, mostly because it would be hard to walk and shield her at the same time, but also because she’d probably just hustle around him again.
Yeah, he knew she could take care of herself. But still. He liked her in one piece and he did not like the way this whole scenario sat in his craw.
“You know what this reminds me of?” he muttered as they pushed deeper into the scrubby vegetation after the dogs. “That time in Yemen when my local contact insisted we follow his ‘reliable source’ into questionable territory.”
“Do I want to know how that ended?”
“Probably not.”
The dogs led them around a white rock ledge big enough to obscure their view, and there it was—a ramshackle cabin that might have been someone’s hunting getaway once upon a time. Now it blazed against the predawn sky like an angry beacon.
Sabrina already had her radio in her hand, bless her.
“Dispatch, Officer West, over.” Sabrina’s voice carried an edge of steel. “I have a visual on a structure fire in sector seven, coordinates—” She rattled off numbers. “Request immediate relay to local emergency services, over.”
As she clicked off, she glanced at him.
“How long?” Noah asked.
“All the way out here? Probably fifteen minutes.”
Okay. Good. That was all they could do for now.
Dancer’s barking shifted into that particular tone that meant only one thing. The sound hit Noah’s bloodstream like ice water.
“What?” Sabrina’s gaze flitted between him and the dog. “Why does your face look like that?”
“Dancer. He only barks like that when he scents a human,” he said, his throat drier than if he’d gargled with a handful of the broken rocks underfoot.
“Friend or foe?” she murmured, her expression suddenly wary. “You think the fire bug might still be around here? Or are we dealing with something more sinister?”
He scrubbed at his face, calling Dancer back to heel.
Honestly, he hadn’t gotten that far, but he wasn’t sacrificing his dog to a criminal’s itchy trigger finger if she was right.
“Getting caught by the arsonist feels pretty high on the sinister scale. I was more worried about finding another Annie Ross.”
“We don’t have a choice. We have to see what he’s indicating.”
Noah nodded, clenching both hands into fists, because the desire to pick up Sabrina and forcibly take her back to her truck had just gotten worse, not better.
Sabrina fell into step beside him as they followed Dancer’s lead, Ripley matching the lab’s focused intensity, clearly wanting in on the action.
The trail led straight through the brush to the burning house. Because of course it did.
Noah’s gut did a swan dive. “Someone’s in there.”
He’d barely gotten the words out when sirens screamed in the distance. But distance was the problem. Judging by the way the flames consumed the weathered wood, they didn’t have that kind of time.
Whoever was in the house could already be struggling with smoke inhalation.
Heavy boots pounded through the underbrush as a team of firefighters in full gear burst into view. The last one stopped short, pulling off his helmet and face shield as he zeroed in on Noah.
It was his cousin Ryan. Thank goodness.
“You called this in?” Ryan’s voice carried that edge of command that had laced a million Thanksgiving and Christmas conversations. “What’s the situation?”
Noah grabbed Ryan’s arm, his fingers barely able to grip the heavy fire-resistant fabric of his cousin’s turnout coat. “Someone’s inside the shack. Dancer’s sure.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed as he jammed his helmet on his head and peered at the burning shack through his face shield. “Location?”
“Near the front door, based on his alert pattern.”
Ryan didn’t hesitate. Just adjusted his oxygen mask and charged the building like he did this every day. Which he probably did. Coltons always seemed to be headed toward danger instead of away from it.
Time ceased to have meaning as they watched Ryan disappear into the smoke. Noah’s muscles flexed to follow; after all, he was a Colton too. But he forced himself to stay put. This was Ryan’s territory, just like SAR was his, and Jacob owned the Annie Ross investigation.
Though he’d managed to break off a chunk and hand it to Noah and Sabrina, hadn’t he?
Noah’s mind spun through the facts they had. Remote location. Deliberate fire. Suspicious timing. He had a feeling this story was about to break wide open.
When Ryan emerged from the smoke several pulse-pounding moments later, he was carrying something. An unconscious woman. Hopefully she was unconscious. The alternative meant they’d been too late and Noah refused to accept that.
She was barefoot and wearing a thin shirt and pants. No coat. The similarities to Annie Ross were remarkable.
That’s when he noticed her bound wrists and ankles.
This was no accident. Someone had tied up this woman and left her to die in that fire.
“Medical, now!” Ryan’s voice carried an edge Noah had never heard before, and that was saying something for a guy who bled confidence and authority. “And law enforcement. This is way more than solely a structural fire.”
Right on cue, a vehicle marked with the insignia of the Navajo Nation Police rolled up as if they’d been waiting in the wings. The lone officer emerged with the kind of fluid efficiency that said he routinely inserted himself in active emergencies.
Great. Because jurisdictional squabbles were exactly what this situation needed.
The officer’s shoulder bore the distinctive yellow, red and forest-green patch of the tribal police, and pinned to his uniform shirt was a name plate that read C. Benally.
“This scene requires tribal involvement.” Benally’s quiet voice somehow cut through the chaos. “Given the proximity to Navajo lands and the nature of the incident, we have concurrent jurisdiction.”
The local uniforms who’d shown up with the firefighters bristled. Noah recognized the tension—jurisdictional disputes were never simple when multiple agencies had legitimate claims.
One of the officers waved off the Navajo cop. “This is county land—”
“With clear connections to an ongoing investigation in my department.” Benally’s tone could have frozen lava.
Noah glanced at Sabrina and he could tell she’d picked up on the careful wording too. This fire and the unconscious woman may be connected to a Navajo Nation PD investigation. Which meant it could actually connect to the Annie Ross case as well.
“I’ll need statements from everyone.” Benally’s sharp gaze landed on Noah and Sabrina. “Starting with you two since you’re the only civilians here. What are you doing out this close to Navajo land at dawn?”
Oh, this was going to be fun to explain. Well, you see, my brother at IBS gave me a tip and we decided to come tromp all over your crime scene.
Before Officer Benally could make good on his threat to force them to make statements, the scene devolved into the usual jurisdictional dance as more vehicles arrived.
Tribal police, the San Juan County sheriff, crime scene units, additional medical support.
Everyone wanted a piece of the action, and no one wanted to give ground.
Politics. Some things never changed, no matter what continent you were on.
But Noah’s focus had narrowed to the woman being loaded into the ambulance. To the rope marks on her wrists. To the growing certainty that they’d stumbled onto something bigger than a simple rescue.
There was something to discover here, no doubt. He’d unearth the truth. Meanwhile, there was an unconscious woman who hadn’t gone the way of Annie Ross, thanks to them. Her story—the part they knew—deserved to be told.