Snowblind Justice Read online

  “As it happens, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation sent me here to help your brother with a case,” he said. “I hear you’ve got a serial murderer problem.”

  “Does Travis know you’re coming?” Her brother hadn’t said anything to her. Then again, he was probably trying to spare her feelings.

  “He requested assistance from the CBI, though he doesn’t know it’s me. Is that going to be a problem?”

  She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s been five years, Emily,” he said.

  Right. But it might have been five minutes for all the pain that was twisting her stomach. She hadn’t expected to react like this. She was supposed to be over Brodie. “You never answered my letter,” she said.

  The crease across his brow deepened. “You sent me a letter?”

  “You mean you don’t even remember?” The words came out louder than she had intended, and she forced herself to lower her voice. “I tried calling, but your number had been changed. Travis found out you’d been transferred to Pueblo, so I wrote to you there.”

  He shook his head. “I never received your letter. Why did you write?”

  Did he really not know? She pressed her hand to her stomach, hoping she wasn’t going to be sick. This was too awful. “It doesn’t matter now.” She turned away and tried to make her voice light. “Like you said, it was five years ago. I’m sure Travis will appreciate your help with the case.” Her brother was nothing if not a professional.

  Brodie was silent, though she could feel his eyes boring into her. She began looking through the stack of packages. “I’ll ask again,” he said after a moment. “What is that you’re wearing?”

  “It’s a prom dress,” she managed.

  “Isn’t it the wrong time of year for prom? And aren’t you in graduate school?”

  Her eyes widened and she froze in the act of reaching for a package. “How did you know I’m in graduate school?”

  “I might have checked up on you a time or two. They don’t have proms in graduate school, do they?”

  He’d checked up on her. Should she be flattered, or creeped out? “It’s the new thing. Haven’t you heard?” She continued scanning the labels on the boxes. She picked up the one that surely held her bridesmaid’s dress. Maybe instead of stuffing the prom dress back into her closet, she’d burn it at Wednesday night’s bonfire. That would be appropriate, wouldn’t it?

  “What is all this?” Brodie swept his hand to indicate the piles of boxes, bits of tulle, sewing supplies, silk flowers and other flotsam piled around the room. “Are you getting ready for a big party?”

  “Travis is getting married on Sunday,” Emily said. “I guess you didn’t know.” Then again, why would he? He and Travis had stopped being friends five years ago.

  “No, I didn’t know. Good for him. Who’s the lucky woman?”

  “Her name is Lacy Milligan. I’m sure you don’t know her.”

  “No, but I know of her. Now it’s coming back to me.” He grinned. “Lacy is the woman Travis arrested for murder—then after new evidence came to light, he worked to clear her name. I remember the story now, though I didn’t know a wedding was in the offing.”

  It hadn’t taken long for the media to latch onto the story of a wrongly accused woman falling in love with the law enforcement officer who had sent her to prison in the first place, then worked to clear her name. Most of the state was probably familiar with the story by now, but Emily didn’t want to discuss it with Brodie. “Travis is at his office in town,” she said, deciding it was past time to send Brodie on his way. “It’s on Main. You can’t miss it.”

  Before he could answer, her cell phone buzzed and she grabbed it off a nearby table. “Hello?”

  “Hey.” Travis’s greeting was casual, but his voice carried the tension that never left him these days. “I was trying to get hold of Lacy, but I can’t get through on her phone.”

  “I think she’s talking to Paige, letting her know the highway is open.”

  “She’s terrible about checking her messages, so do me a favor and tell her I’m not going to be able to take her to dinner today. I’m sorry, but we’ve had a break in the case.”

  Emily’s heart leaped. “Have you made an arrest?”

  “Not exactly, but we know who the killers are. One of them is dead, but the other is still on the loose.”

  “A second murderer?” Travis had long suspected the Ice Cold Killer might be more than one man. If he had caught one of the killers, surely that meant he was closing in on the second. Maybe the case would be solved before the wedding after all. “Lacy will be glad to hear it,” Emily said.

  “Maybe not so glad when you tell her I have to miss dinner. I need to focus on tracking down the second man.”

  Which meant he probably wouldn’t be home to sleep, either. “Travis, you can’t keep working around the clock like this.”

  “We’re going to get some help. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has agreed to loan us one of their investigators. Now that the road is open, he—or she—should be showing up anytime.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at Brodie, who was looking out the window. The past five years had been kind to him, filling out his shoulders, adding a few fine lines around his eyes. He wore his hair a little longer than when she’d last seen him, and sunlight through the window picked out the gold streaks in the brown. Add in chiseled cheekbones, a dimpled chin and a straight nose and it was no wonder he could be mistaken for a model or a movie star.

  As if sensing her staring at him, he turned and met her gaze, then cocked one eyebrow, lips half-curved in a mocking smile.

  “Emily? Are you still there?” Travis asked.

  “Um, your help from the CBI is here,” she said. “It’s Brodie Langtry.” Not waiting to hear Travis’s reaction, she thrust the phone at Brodie. It’s Travis, she mouthed.

  Brodie took the phone. “Travis! It’s been a long time. I’m looking forward to working with you on this case...Yes, I volunteered for the job. To tell you the truth, I thought it was past time we mended fences. I know we didn’t part under the best of circumstances five years ago and I’d like to clear the air. I’ve been catching up with Emily.”

  She cringed at the words. She and Brodie didn’t need to “catch up.” They had had a fun time together once, and if it had ended badly, she took most of the blame for that. She’d been young and naive and had expected things from him that he had never promised to give. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  While he and Travis continued to talk about the case, she turned away and began opening the boxes, enjoying the way the scissors ripped through the tape, letting the sound drown out their conversation. As an investigator with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Brodie would no doubt bring a welcome extra pair of eyes to the hunt for the Ice Cold Killer. She needed to remember that he was here to help Travis and probably didn’t have the least interest in her. So there was no need for her to feel awkward around him.

  Brodie tapped her on the shoulder and held out her phone. “Travis didn’t sound very happy to hear from me. Why is that, do you think?”

  “You’ll have to ask him.” But she would make sure Travis didn’t tell Brodie anything he didn’t need to know. Best to leave the past in the past.

  “I’m going to meet him in town and get caught up on this case,” he said. “But I’m hoping to see more of you later.”

  Before she could think of an answer to this, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “It’s great to see you again, Emily,” he murmured, and she cursed the way her knees wobbled in response.

  Then he strode from the room, the door shutting firmly behind him.

  Emily groaned and snatched a pillow off the sofa. She hurled it at the door, half wishing Brodie was still standing there and she was aiming at his head. Brodie Langtry was the last person
in the world she wanted to see right now. This next week with him was going to be her own version of hell.

  Chapter Two

  Brodie drove through a world so blindingly white it hurt even with sunglasses shading his eyes. Only the scarred trunks of aspen and the bottle-brush silhouettes of pine trees broke the expanse of glittering porcelain. If not for the walls of plowed snow on either side of the road, it would be difficult in places to distinguish the road from the surrounding fields. After five hours of similar landscape between here and Denver, Emily, in her crazy ruffled pink dress, had stood out like a bird of paradise, a welcome shock to the senses.

  Shocking also was how much Travis’s little sister had matured. She’d been pretty before—or maybe cute was the better word—vivacious and sweet and attractive in a lithe, youthful way. She had filled out since then, her curves more pronounced, her features sharpened into real beauty.

  She seemed more serious, but then so was he. Life—and especially a life spent working in law enforcement—did that to people. He’d seen a dark side to people he couldn’t forget. It was the kind of thing that left a mark. He couldn’t say what had marked Emily, but he saw a new depth and gravity in her expression that hadn’t been there before.

  He had been such a rascal when they were together five years ago. He had thought Emily was just another fling. He had felt a little guilty about seducing one of his best friend’s sisters, but she had been more than willing. And then he had fallen for her—hard. He hadn’t been able to imagine a future without her, so he had laid his heart on the line and asked her to spend the rest of her life with him. And she had stomped his heart flat. The memory still hurt. He had offered her everything he had, but that hadn’t been enough.

  So yeah, that was in the past. He wasn’t here to rehash any of it, though he hoped he was man enough to treat her with the respect and kindness she deserved. He owed that to her because she was Travis’s sister, and because she had given him some good memories, even if things hadn’t worked out.

  And now there was this case—a serial killer in Eagle Mountain, of all places. Remote tourist towns weren’t the usual hunting grounds for serial killers. They tended to favor big cities, where it was easy to hide and they had a wide choice of prey, or else they moved around a lot, making it tougher for law enforcement to find them. Yet this guy—this Ice Cold Killer—had targeted women in a limited population, during a time when the weather kept him trapped in a small geographic area.

  Then again, maybe the killer had taken advantage of the road reopening today and was even now headed out of town.

  Brodie steered his Toyota Tundra around an S-curve in the road and had to hit the brakes to avoid rear-ending a vehicle that was half-buried in the plowed snowbank on the right-hand side of the county road. Skid marks on the snow-packed surface of the road told the tale of the driver losing control while rounding the curve and sliding into the drift.

  Brodie set his emergency brake, turned on his flashers and hurried out of his vehicle. The car in the snow was a white Jeep Wrangler with Colorado plates. Brodie couldn’t see a driver from this angle. Maybe whoever this was had already flagged down another driver and was on the way into town. Boots crunching in the snow, Brodie climbed over a churned-up pile of ice and peered down into the driver’s seat.

  The woman didn’t look like a woman anymore, sprawled across the seat, arms pinned beneath her, blood from the wound at her throat staining the front of her white fur coat. Brodie was reminded of going trapping with an uncle when he was a teenager. They’d come upon a trapped weasel in the snow, its winter-white coat splashed with crimson. Brodie hadn’t had the stomach for trapping after that, and he hadn’t thought of that moment in twenty years.

  Taking a deep, steadying breath, he stepped away from the vehicle and marshaled his composure, then called Travis. “I’m on County Road Seven,” he said. “On the way from the ranch into town. I pulled over to check on a car in a ditch. The driver is a woman, her throat’s cut. I think we’ve got another victim.”

  * * *

  BRODIE KNEW BETTER than to tell Travis that he looked ten years older since the two had last seen each other. Working a long case would do that to a man, and Travis was the kind who took things to heart more than most. Brodie was here to lift some of that burden. Not everyone liked the CBI interfering with local cases, but Travis had a small department and needed all the help he could get. “It’s good to see you again,” Brodie said, offering his hand.

  Travis ignored the hand and focused on the vehicle in the ditch, avoiding Brodie’s gaze. A chill settled somewhere in the pit of Brodie’s stomach. So this really was going to be tougher than he had imagined. His old friend resented the way things had ended five years ago. They’d have to clear that up sooner or later, but for now, he’d take his cue from the sheriff and focus on the case.

  “I called in the plate number,” Brodie said as Travis approached the stranded Jeep. “It’s registered to a Jonathan Radford.”

  Travis nodded. “I know the vehicle. It was stolen two days ago. It was driven by the killers.”

  “Killers? As in more than one?”

  “We’ve learned the Ice Cold Killer isn’t one man, but two. One of them, Tim Dawson, died last night, after kidnapping one of my deputies and her sister. The other—most likely Alex Woodruff—is still at large.”

  “And still killing.” Brodie glanced toward the Jeep. “Most of that blood is still bright red. I think she wasn’t killed that long ago.”

  Travis walked around the Jeep, studying it closely. “Before, Alex and Tim—the killers—always left the victims in their own vehicles.”

  “Except Fiona Winslow, who was killed at the scavenger hunt on your family’s ranch.” Brodie had familiarized himself with all the information Travis had sent to the CBI.

  “They broke their pattern with Fiona because they were sending a message,” Travis said. “Taunting me. I think Alex is doing the same thing with this Jeep. He knows that we know it’s the vehicle he was driving until recently.”

  “Do you think he’s driving this woman’s car now?” Brodie asked.

  Travis shook his head. “That seems too obvious to me, but maybe, if he hasn’t found another vehicle. He thinks he’s smarter than we are, always one step ahead, but we know who he is now. It won’t be as easy to hide. And it will be harder for him to kill alone, too. He’s going to make mistakes. I can see it with this woman.”

  “What do you see?” Reading the case files Travis had emailed was no substitute for eyewitness experience.

  “The woman’s feet aren’t bound. The others were. Maybe that’s because he didn’t have time, or without Tim’s help he couldn’t manage it.” He moved closer to look into the car once more. “The collar of her fur coat is torn. I think she struggled and tried to fight him off. Maybe she marked him.”

  “The others didn’t have time to put up a fight,” Brodie said, recalling the case notes.

  Travis opened the door and leaned into the car, being careful not to touch anything. With gloved hands, he felt gingerly around the edge of the seat and along the dash. When he withdrew and straightened, he held a small rectangle of card stock in his hand, the words ICE COLD printed across the front. “He’s following his pattern of leaving the card,” Brodie said.

  “He doesn’t want there to be any doubt about who’s responsible,” Travis said. He pulled out an evidence envelope and sealed the card inside. “It’s another way to thumb his nose at us.”

  They turned at the sound of an approaching vehicle, or rather, a caravan of two sheriff’s department SUVs and a black Jeep, traveling slowly up the snow-packed road. The vehicles parked on the opposite side of the road and two deputies and an older man bundled in a heavy coat got out.

  “Hello, Gage,” Brodie greeted one of the deputies, Travis’s brother, Gage Walker.

  “You’re about the last person I expected to
see here,” Gage said. He seemed puzzled, but not unfriendly, and, unlike his brother, was willing to shake Brodie’s hand. “Typical of CBI to show up when we have the case half-solved.”

  “Dwight Prentice.” The second deputy, a tall, rangy blond, offered his hand and Brodie shook it.

  “And this is Butch Collins, the county medical examiner.” Travis introduced the older man, who nodded and moved on to the car. His face paled when he looked into the vehicle.

  “Something wrong?” Travis asked, hurrying to the older man’s side.

  Collins shook his head. “I know her, that’s all.” He cleared his throat. “Lynn Wallace. She sings in the choir at my church.”

  “Do you know what kind of car she drives?” Brodie asked, joining them.

  Collins stared at him, then back at the Jeep. “This isn’t her car?”

  “It was stolen from a local vacation home two days ago,” Travis said. “We think the killer might have been driving it.”

  “I don’t know what kind of car Lynn drove,” Collins said. “Only that she was a lovely woman with a beautiful soprano voice. She didn’t deserve this. But then, none of them did.” He straightened his shoulders. “Are you ready for me to look at her?”

  “Give us a few seconds to process the outside of the car, then you can have a look.” Travis motioned to Gage and Dwight, who moved forward.

  Travis indicated Brodie should follow him. “I need you to get to work on identifying Lynn Wallace’s vehicle,” he said. “I think Alex will ditch it as soon as he can, but he might not have had a chance yet. You can use my office.”

  “Tell me what you know about Alex,” Brodie said.

  “Alex Woodruff. A college student at the Colorado State University—or he was until recently. He doesn’t have any priors, at least under that name, and that’s the only name I’ve found for him.”

  “Emily goes to the Colorado State University, doesn’t she?” Brodie asked. Knowing he was coming to Eagle Mountain, he’d checked her Facebook page. “Do they know each other?”