The man lay on the floor behind an empty cake stand. He was tall, blond, casually dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and dead from a gunshot wound to the chest.
“Down!” Brody said. The toddler wriggled in Kyle’s arms and waved his hands toward the scampering baby goats as Kyle stepped through the gate to the Cherish Ranch Petting Zoo’s goat pen and closed the gate behind them. “Want pat!”
Kyle chuckled.
“Me, too, buddy.” He knelt down, set the little boy on the ground and held him steady with one arm strong around his waist, knowing that otherwise he’d run off and try to climb on the very same wooden climbing frame the tiny hooves now balanced on. “But I’m not sure any of them are going to stay still long enough for that.”
It had been a long afternoon at the petting zoo. They’d finished their picnic dinner and the sun had begun to set. But still, Brody’s energy level hadn’t even begun to flag. Keeping up with his nephew had been an adjustment since he’d been unexpectedly thrust into single fatherhood after his brother and sister-in-law had passed. With green eyes and a mop of curly dark hair, Brody was the spitting image of his father, Kevin. Kyle’s heart ached with the thought of how Brody’s parents would miss seeing the little boy grow up. Thankfully, he had the help of his widowed mother, Alice West, who had moved in to help raise Brody. Together, the three remaining Wests had formed a small, fractured family.
Kyle’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Jostling around the squirming toddler, Kyle reached in, fished it out and glanced at the screen. It was his Mountain Country K-9 Team Leader, Chase Rawlston. Kyle sent it through to voice mail and made a mental note to check it later. Chase had promised Kyle a week off to spend with his family, and Kyle had been determined not to let anything get in the way of spending time with Brody.
It had barely been two weeks since Kyle had gotten back from assisting Selena Smith, a sheriff’s deputy in Sagebrush, Idaho, and a member of the Mountain Country K-9 Task Force, in protecting a targeted convict. And while, thankfully, the case had been closed and the convict found to be innocent, the entire MCK9 Task Force was still working flat out to catch a pernicious serial killer—dubbed the Rocky Mountain Killer—who’d murdered six people so far across Wyoming, Montana and Colorado. The RMK had also managed to evade them.
“I can pat!” Brody declared confidently. He stretched his tiny fingers out toward a small kid with black-and-white fur and tiny curling gray horns. “Come here, pat!”
“He definitely doesn’t lack confidence, does he, Kyle?” Alice West chuckled.
Kyle turned and looked through the fence, to where Brody’s grandmother stood, holding the dogs’ leashes. With her long gray hair in twin braids and clad in blue jeans and cowboy boots, his sixty-two-year-old mother had a deep faith and perpetual joy that belied the tragedy of having been married to an abusive man and then losing her eldest son. To Alice’s right sat Kyle’s K-9 partner, Rocky, a magnificent black-and-tan hunting hound who specialized in cadaver detection, especially in the rough and hilly terrain of the Rocky Mountains. Rocky watched the goats, with his head cocked and his long, velvety ears attuned to any sign of trouble. Rocky’s half sister, Taffy—a three-month-old puppy who was the spitting image of her big brother—was tangled up in the leash as she tried to run in multiple directions at once. Kyle had adopted her as a family dog when the puppy’s sweet but goofy temperament had been deemed to be unsuitable for the rigors of K-9 training. Truth was that most days he felt more like Taffy than Rocky.
It had been over a year since Brody’s parents—Kyle’s brother Kevin and wife, Caitlyn—had died when their small helicopter had suddenly gotten caught in a treacherous thunderstorm in the Rocky Mountains. To Kyle’s surprise, Brody’s parents had specifically mentioned in their will that their hope was Kyle would adopt Brody and become his father if anything ever happened to them.
“He reminds me of Kevin,” Alice added. His mother’s smile faded as the words froze on her lips. An old familiar ache turned in Kyle’s chest.
“Me, too,” Kyle said wistfully. His fraternal twin might’ve only been six minutes older, but he’d been Kyle’s hero and filled with a strength and confidence Kyle could only hope to find.
Lord, I feel like I’m never going to be able to fill the hole left in this little boy’s life. Please guide me in Your path.
His phone buzzed again. Kyle frowned. Chase was calling back.
“Do you need to get that?” his mother asked.
“Yeah, I probably should.” He scooped Brody up into his arms and stood, despite the boy’s wails of protest, and carried him back out of the goat pen. “He knows it’s my week off, so hopefully nothing’s wrong.”
Deftly Alice handed him Rocky’s leash with one hand, while taking her still-protesting grandson into her arms. “We’re going to go get ice cream. Come find us when you’re done or give me a shout if you’ve got to run.”
“Will do. Thanks, Mom.”
She waved a hand for him to go, and he silently thanked God for her.
Kyle glanced down at his partner. Rocky’s serious dark eyes looked up at him, silently asking him what was going on. Yeah, he wondered that, too.
He started toward the privacy of the parking lot, with his partner at his side, and answered the phone.
“Kyle here,” he said. “Hey, Chase, what’s up?”
“Hey,” Chase said. His boss sounded a bit tired, but with every ounce of the same determined grit Kyle had come to appreciate from the task force leader. A supervisory special agent with the FBI, Chase had lost his wife and child in a revenge bombing in DC five years ago. A lesser man might’ve packed up his badge and given up his faith along with it. Chase had moved back to Elk Valley to work in the Wyoming bureau, before heading up the task force Kyle was so proud to be a part of. “Sorry to bother you on your week off, but there’s been a report from Santa Fe PD about an incident at the Cherish Ranch wedding venue in Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Guests reported hearing gunshots. Victim was found in the barn, male in his twenties, with a single gunshot to the chest.”
That was the Rocky Mountain Killer’s MO.
“But the crime scene investigator, who was first on-site, told dispatch that you were in the area and requested you by name,” Chase added.
“I’m at the petting zoo next door.” But he had no idea how anyone would know that. He and Rocky jogged toward his truck. The cell signal crackled and he hoped it wouldn’t cut out. Phone reception wasn’t the best here in the mountains and made worse by the fact that he was on the move. “I’m on my way and two minutes out. Who requested me?”
“A CSI Clarke.”
An unexpected wave of relief washed over him. “Oh, she’s excellent.”
In the year or so since he’d come into contact with Ophelia Clarke, Kyle had quickly pegged her as the very best investigator he’d ever worked with. Her work was both thorough and meticulous. Not that Kyle thought they’d ever exchanged two words. Or, come to think of it, even knew what Ophelia looked like under her full-body protective gear, booties and mask. But between the old-fashioned name and her excellent work, he’d always envisioned her as being around the same age as his mom, with curly gray hair, a sharp gaze and well-disciplined grandchildren.
Kyle knew nothing would be missed whenever he saw Ophelia Clarke’s name on a case.
“Got it.” Kyle opened the back door of his SUV for Rocky. The dog leaped into the back seat and lay down. Kyle hopped in the front and plugged his phone into the vehicle’s hands-free system.
“Do we know if it’s connected to the RMK?” he asked.
“That’s what I’m hoping you’ll be able to find out,” Chase said.
It had been a decade since three young men had been found shot dead in Elk Valley, Wyoming, on Valentine’s Day night. The three friends had all been members of the Young Rancher’s Club, known to local police as troublemakers and lured to a barn by a flirtatious text from a burner phone. They’d been shot—each with a gunshot wound to the chest. The murder weapon had never been found, but ballistics had matched the 9mm slugs. The case had gone cold for ten years until, four months ago, two more men were found shot the same way, one in Colorado and another in Montana. Then recently a sixth victim was found in Idaho. Every weapon left its own unique pattern of ridges and marks on each bullet it fired. CSI had determined the three bullets found at the new crime scenes, and those from the original murders, had not only been fired from the same type of gun, but the exact same gun.
Could this new shooting be connected?
“Santa Fe PD and paramedics are fourteen minutes out,” Chase added. “You and CSI Clarke are the first on the scene.”
“Understood.”
Thank You, Lord, that CSI Clarke was there. Please help us get the evidence we need to stop the RMK and crack his case.
“Let’s meet up via video call tomorrow morning at eight,” Chase went on. “I’m going to ask Isla to join us, too, and maybe others. If this does turn out to be related to the RMK, I want to make sure you have the backup you need.”
