Mountain Investigation Read online

  CINDI MYERS is the author of more than fifty novels. When she’s not crafting new romance plots, she enjoys skiing, gardening, cooking, crafting and daydreaming. A lover of small-town life, she lives with her husband and two spoiled dogs in the Colorado mountains.

  Also by Cindi Myers

  Investigation in Black Canyon

  Mountain of Evidence

  Ice Cold Killer

  Snowbound Suspicion

  Cold Conspiracy

  Snowblind Justice

  Saved by the Sheriff

  Avalanche of Trouble

  Deputy Defender

  Danger on Dakota Ridge

  Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

  Mountain Investigation

  Cindi Myers

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  ISBN: 978-0-008-91186-7

  MOUNTAIN INVESTIGATION

  © 2021 Cindi Myers

  Published in Great Britain 2021

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

  By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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  For Lucy.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Booklist

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  DEA officer Mark “Hud” Hudson liked his work. He liked having a job he believed in, one that stopped people from doing bad things and protected innocent people. A few times people he had arrested had even turned their lives around, and he liked to think he had had a hand in that.

  But he didn’t like dealing with people like the man in front of him right now. Dallas Wayne Braxton was a big, belligerent man whose bigness and belligerence had been only slightly diminished by the broken arm, two broken ribs, broken nose and two black eyes he had suffered. He stared out of his swollen face with the eyes of an angry animal, but spoke like a whiny child. “He just came out of nowhere and attacked me,” he said, addressing Hud and fellow Ranger Brigade officer Jason Beck. “He’s a dangerous lunatic. You people need to stop him.”

  “Him” was Dane Trask, an environmental engineer who had disappeared in Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park six weeks before, after sending his late-model pickup truck over the canyon rim. Since that time, Trask had been accused of embezzling large sums of money from his former employer, TDC Enterprises; stealing food and other items from campers in the park; and evading capture despite a large-scale manhunt involving officers from every law enforcement agency in the county.

  “What were you doing in the park, Mr. Braxton?” Beck asked.

  “I was hiking. This guy came out of nowhere and attacked me.”

  “You were hiking with a Ruger semiautomatic pistol in a shoulder holster under your jacket,” Hud said. The park rangers who had responded to Braxton’s call for help had relieved the injured man of the weapon.

  “It’s been all over the news how dangerous this Trask character is,” Braxton said. “He’s already murdered that girl hiker. I have a right to protect myself.”

  “Dane Trask did not kill the woman who was murdered in the park last month,” Hud said. “That was another man.” Though Trask may very well have killed, the Rangers had no proof he had committed murder. “And carrying a weapon in a national park is illegal.”

  “You’re going to give me a hard time about that when this man almost killed me?” Braxton tried to sit up in his hospital bed, but fell back with a groan. “I’m not believing this. Whose side are you on?”

  “Tell us again what happened,” Beck said. “Just so we’re sure we have all the details.”

  Braxton stuck out his lower lip, and Hud thought he was going to argue some more, but instead, he said, “I was hiking along, enjoying the nice day, and this guy jumped me. He came at me from the side of the trail, grabbed me around the neck and started whaling on me with a big stick. Kind of a club, you know? He broke my arm and my ribs. I swear, he was trying to kill me.”

  “But he didn’t kill you,” Hud said. “Why not, do you think?”

  “Something must have scared him off,” Braxton said.

  “Did you draw your weapon?” Beck asked.

  “I didn’t have time. I tell you, he came out of nowhere.”

  Hud consulted his notes. “The park ranger said he found your gun lying on the trail.”

  “It must have fallen out in the struggle.” Braxton wouldn’t meet Hud’s gaze.

  Hud nodded to Braxton’s right arm, swathed in a cast. “Are you right-handed?”

  “Yeah. So are a lot of people. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I was just thinking that if Trask wanted to kill you, the fastest way would have been to shoot you,” Hud said. “We have reason to believe he’s armed.”

  “He’s crazy. Who knows why he does what he does?”

  “Or maybe you saw him first,” Beck said. “You drew your weapon and he struck your arm, breaking it and preventing you from shooting him. Then he punched you and broke your nose. You broke
the ribs when you fell back. Then Trask ran away.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” Braxton’s face flushed, a pulse pounding in his temple.

  Hud met and held his gaze. “Did you go to the park today looking for Dane Trask?” he asked.

  “What if I did? There’s no law against that. And there’s a $25,000 reward for his capture. Why shouldn’t I get that money?”

  Hud bit back a groan. That reward had caused nothing but trouble for law enforcement since TDC Enterprises had offered it. TDC had bombarded the media with announcements about the reward and plastered the town with posters, bringing every would-be bounty hunter to the park to stalk the trails and campgrounds, causing at least as much trouble as Trask ever had. TDC ostensibly wanted Trask found because he had embezzled $50,000 from them, but it seemed a lot of time and effort to expend when TDC made millions, or even billions, in profits every year.

  “We don’t have any other records of Trask attacking hikers, or campers, or anyone in the park or out of it,” Hud said. “So I’m asking you again—what happened on that trail?”

  Braxton looked away. “I had him dead to rights. I was on the trail and he stepped out in front of me.”

  “How do you know it was him?” Beck asked.

  “I asked him! I drew my Ruger, told him to stop right there and I asked him. ‘Are you Dane Trask?’ He fit the description and the pictures on the posters, but I wanted to be sure. I’m not stupid.”

  Doubtful, Hud thought, but kept that opinion to himself. “What did he say?”

  “He said ‘Yes, and you need to go away and leave me alone.’ Like that was going to happen. I told him he needed to come with me, then he took the big walking stick he had and went after me. It’s lucky I’m still alive.”

  If Dane Trask, a former army ranger, had wanted to kill this man, he would be dead, Hud thought. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?” he asked.

  “When you find him, you charge him with assault and attempted murder and grievous bodily harm. And I’m going to sue him for everything he’s got.”

  “In the meantime, you’ll be charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a permit and possession of a firearm within a national park.”

  Braxton’s shouts of rage followed them down the hall and out of the hospital. Hud stopped beside the Ranger Brigade cruiser to inhale the non-antiseptic smells of hot asphalt and blooming lilacs. “If this keeps up, someone is going to end up dead,” Beck said. “What does Trask think he’s doing, running around in the park like Sasquatch or something?”

  That was the question they’d been asking ever since park rangers had discovered Trask’s late-model pickup at the bottom of the canyon, without Trask in it. A man with a good job, a good reputation, family and friends, had abandoned it all to hide in the wilderness, reappearing sporadically to send cryptic clues that seemed to implicate his former employer, TDC Enterprises, in some kind of shady goings on. But none of the clues were very clear, and the game had long since gotten old for everyone, it seemed, but Trask.

  BAD THINGS COULD happen any day of the week, but when they happened on Mondays, somehow that made them worse. Audra Trask thought this when she saw the woman waiting outside her office that Monday morning, the first of June. A parent, though Audra couldn’t put a name to the face this early in the day, and not a happy one, judging by the stiff posture and deep frown lines on the woman’s otherwise attractive face.

  It could be worse, Audra reminded herself, gathering herself for whatever confrontation was to come. Instead of a parent waiting for her, it could have been police, with more bad news about her father. Dane Trask had been missing—and wanted by the police—since mid-April. Every day Audra dreaded hearing he had either been found or was dead. Sometimes, she didn’t know which would be worse.

  “Good morning,” Audra said as she moved past the woman to unlock her door. “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s what you need to be doing for my little girl,” the woman said. She followed Audra into her office. “I enrolled her in this school because my friends raved about you. I had my doubts when I saw how young you were, but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now I see you clearly don’t have any idea how to manage young children.”

  “Mrs. Patrick, please sit down and tell me what’s wrong.” Thank goodness, the woman’s name had popped into Audra’s head. “Has something happened with April?” April Patrick was in the four-year-old class with Jana Kepler as her teacher. Jana was new to the preschool, but she had come highly recommended.

  “April is being bullied!” The word burst from Mrs. Patrick like a bullet from a rifle. She pressed her lips together, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I knew she’d been acting a little different these past two weeks, but I thought she was still recovering from the cold she had over Easter break. But when I picked her up Friday evening, she was crying. It took me two days to get her to tell me what was wrong.”

  “I promise you, we take bullying very seriously,” Audra said, struggling to keep her voice calm. “I want you to tell me everything you know and I will get to the bottom of this.”

  Thus unfolded a story of another girl, Mia Ramsey, who had begun teasing April. At first it was simple mimicry, repeating everything April said in a whining tone. Then Mia began calling April names, and taunting when April cried. This progressed to pinching and hair-pulling—but only when no one else was around to see.

  “Did April tell Mrs. Keplar about this?” Audra asked.

  “She says she did, but Mrs. Keplar accused her of tattling and of being too sensitive.”

  Audra sat up straighter. If she had been a cartoon character, smoke would have come from her ears. “I will talk to Mrs. Keplar, and I will talk to Mia and her parents,” she said. “I’m appalled that April had to endure something like this, and I’m also upset that this is the first I’m hearing of it. No child should ever have to experience something like that—especially under my care.”

  Mrs. Patrick’s shoulders had relaxed, though she continued to frown. “I hope so. I decided to keep April home today. She’s with my neighbor, who used to sit for me before we enrolled in day care. I do think it’s good for her to be around other children, but not if she’s bullied.”

  “I promise I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Audra said.

  She escorted Mrs. Patrick out of the office, but Audra’s hands were still shaking when she sat behind her desk again. She pictured April, a pale, timid little girl who was smaller and quieter than most of her other classmates, exactly the sort who made an easy target for bullies. Audra had been a child like that, the girl who never fit in, who was teased and called names and made the butt of every joke. She had been older than April during the worst of it, but the scars had shaped her. She had had to fight for every bit of self-confidence she now possessed, but the conversation with Mrs. Patrick brought the old inner demons roaring back. Of course she wasn’t capable of running this preschool, if she couldn’t see a situation like this when it was right under her nose. Who did she think she was?

  She took a deep breath and silenced those old tapes. She was capable of running this school, and she was exactly the person to handle this problem. She picked up her phone and called her assistant. “Brenda? Go to Mrs. Keplar’s class and tell her I need to speak to her immediately. You can watch her class while she’s with me.”

  “Sure,” Brenda said, drawing out the word in a way that conveyed her curiosity over this unusual summons, but Audra didn’t offer any details.

  A few minutes later, Jana Keplar stood in Audra’s open doorway. A tall, strong-featured woman in her early forties with short dark hair streaked with gray, Jana had started working for the school in January, replacing a teacher who had decided to remain home with her newborn twins. Audra had been impressed with Jana’s experience and with her enthusiastic teaching style, which students—and parents—seemed to
love.

  “This couldn’t have waited until lunch?” Jana asked before Audra could speak. “It’s very disruptive to my class to ask me to leave in the middle of a lesson.”

  “I didn’t feel this could wait. Please, shut the door behind you and have a seat.”

  Jana shut the door, but she remained standing, “What’s the problem?” she demanded.

  “April Patrick’s mother came to see me this morning,” Audra said. “She told me April is being bullied. Naturally, she was very upset.”

  “April is entirely too sensitive,” Jana said. “If she didn’t cry every time anyone looked at her sideways, the other children wouldn’t pick on her so. I’ve told her she should stand up to them, or at least ignore them, but she doesn’t listen.”

  “Sit down.” Audra was firm. “Please.”

  Jana hesitated, then sat, perched on the edge of the chair, back stiff, hands on her knees as if she was prepared to leap up again at any second.

  “Mrs. Patrick said Mia Ramsey in particular targets April,” Audra said.

  “Mia is a very bright, outgoing girl who is very popular with the other children,” Jana said. “I think April is jealous of her. She exaggerates the things Mia says and takes offense where none is intended.”

  “Mrs. Patrick says April told her Mia pinches her and pulls her hair. You know that is strictly against the rules.”

  Jana did not roll her eyes, but Audra had the sense she wanted to. “I’ve examined April and questioned Mia several times,” she said. “But she swears she never touched April, and I couldn’t find a mark on the child. If Mia really pinched her, it would leave a mark, don’t you think?”

  “It’s important to take accusations like these seriously,” Audra said. “We have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to bullying.”

  “And it’s just as important not to brand an innocent, perfectly pleasant child as a bully simply because some sniveling ninny is trying to get attention.” Jana’s voice rose and her knuckles blanched white as she gripped her knees.