Snowblind Justice

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?”

The lines around Travis’s mouth tightened. “She says he participated in a research study she and her colleagues conducted, but they weren’t friends, just acquaintances.”

“What brought him to Eagle Mountain?”

“He and Tim supposedly came here to ice climb over their winter break and got stuck here when blizzards closed the highway. They were staying at an aunt’s vacation cabin until recently.”

“I’ll get right on the search for the car,” Brodie said. As he walked to his SUV, he considered the connection between Alex Woodruff and Emily Walker. His work investigating crimes had taught him to be skeptical of coincidence, but until he had further proof, he wasn’t going to add to Travis’s concerns by voicing the worry that now filled his mind. What if the thing that had brought Alex and Tim to Eagle Mountain wasn’t ice climbing—but Emily?

Chapter Three

“Thank you, Professor. That would be so helpful. I’ll review everything and be ready to discuss it when I see you next week after the wedding.” Emily hung up the phone and mentally checked off one more item on her Tuesday to-do list. All her professors had agreed to excuse her for another week so that she could help with the preparations for Travis and Lacy’s wedding. Though she could have made the six-hour drive back to Fort Collins to attend a few classes and try to catch up on all she had missed while stranded by the snow, the last thing she wanted was for the road to close again, forcing her to miss the wedding.

Instead, someone in her department had volunteered to make the drive out here to deliver files for Emily to review. She had protested that it was ridiculous to make such a long drive, but apparently more than one person had been eager for the excuse to get off campus for a while. The risk of getting stranded in Eagle Mountain if another storm system rolled in had only heightened the appeal.

She moved on to the next item on her list. She needed to check on her horse, Witchy. The mare had developed inflammation in one leg shortly after the first of the year and veterinarian Darcy Marsh had prescribed a course of treatment that appeared to be working, but Emily was supposed to exercise her lightly each day and check that there was no new swelling. Slipping on her barn coat—the same one she had worn as a teenager—she headed out the door and down the drive to the horse barn. Sunlight shimmered on the snow that covered everything like a starched white sheet. Every breath stung her nose, reminding her that temperatures hovered in the twenties. She still marveled that it could be so cold when the sun shone so brightly overhead, giving the air a clean, lemony light.

The barn’s interior presented a sharp contrast to the outside world, its atmosphere warm from the breath of animals and smelling of a not-unpleasant mixture of molasses, hay and manure. A plaintive meow! greeted Emily, and a gray-striped cat trotted toward her, the cat’s belly swollen with kittens soon to be born. “Aww, Tawny.” Emily bent and gently stroked the cat, who started up a rumbling purr and leaned against Emily’s legs. “It won’t be long now, will it?” Emily crooned, feeling the kittens shift beneath her hand. She’d have to make sure Tawny had a warm, comfortable place to give birth.

She straightened and several of the family’s horses poked their heads over the tops of their stalls. Witchy, in an end stall on the left-hand side, whinnied softly and stamped against the concrete floor of her stall.

Emily slipped into the stall and greeted Witchy, patting her neck, then bent to examine the bandaged front pastern. It no longer felt hot or swollen, though Darcy had recommended wrapping it for a few weeks longer to provide extra support. Emily breathed a sigh of relief. For a brief period during her childhood, she had considered studying to be a veterinarian, but had quickly ruled out any job that required dealing with animals’ suffering.

“Are you contemplating climbing down out of your ivory tower and hiring on as the newest ranch hand?”

Emily froze as Brodie’s oh-so-familiar teasing tone and velvety voice flowed around her like salted caramel—both sweet and biting. She was aware of her position, bent over with her backside facing the stall door, where she sensed him standing. She turned her head, and sure enough, Brodie had leaned over the top half of the stall door, grinning, the cat cradled in his arms.

With as much dignity as she could muster, she released her hold on the horse’s leg and straightened. “Brodie, what are you doing here?” she asked.

He stroked the cat under the chin. Tawny closed her eyes and purred even louder. Emily had an uncomfortable memory of Brodie stroking her—eliciting a response not unlike that of the cat. “I was looking for you,” he said. “Someone told me you’re in charge of a bonfire and barbecue here Wednesday.”

“Yes.” She took a lead rope from a peg just outside the stall door and clipped it onto Witchy’s halter. The mare regarded her with big gold-brown eyes like warm honey. “What about it?”

“I was hoping to wrangle an invite, since I’m staying on the ranch. It would be awkward if I felt the need to lock myself in my cabin for the evening.”

She slid back the latch on the door and pushed it open, forcing Brodie to stand aside, then led the mare out. “I have to exercise Witchy,” she said.

He gave the cat a last pat, then set her gently aside and fell into step beside Emily, matching his long strides to her own shorter ones. “I didn’t realize you were staying at the ranch,” she said. He hadn’t been at dinner last night, but then, neither had Travis. The two men had been working on the case. Frankly, she was shocked her parents had invited Brodie to stay. They certainly had no love lost for him, after what had happened between him and Emily.

“When the CBI agreed to send an investigator to help with the Ice Cold Killer case, Travis asked your parents if they could provide a place for the officer to stay. They were kind enough to offer up one of their guest cabins.”

“Wouldn’t it be more convenient for you in town?” she asked.

“There aren’t any rooms in town,” Brodie said. “They’re all full of people stranded here by the road closure. I imagine that will change now that the avalanches have been cleared and it’s safe to travel again, but in the meantime, your folks were gracious enough to let me stay.” He fell silent, but she could feel his eyes on her, heating her neck and sending prickles of awareness along her arms. “Does it bother you, having me here?” he asked.

“Of course not.”

She led Witchy out of the barn, along a fenced passage to a covered arena. Brodie moved forward to open the gate for her. “Are you going to ride her?” he asked.

Emily shook her head. “She’s still recovering from an injury. But I need to walk her around the arena for a few laps.”

“I’ll walk with you.” He didn’t bother asking permission—men like Brodie didn’t ask. He wasn’t cruel or demanding or even particularly arrogant. He just accepted what people—women—had always given him—attention, time, sex. All he had to do was smile and flash those sea-blue eyes and most women would give him anything he wanted.

She had been like that, too, so she understood the magnetism of the man. But she wasn’t that adoring girl anymore, and she knew to be wary. “Of course you can come to the bonfire,” she said. “It’s really no big deal.”

She began leading the mare around the arena, watching the horse for any sign of pain or weakness, but very aware of the man beside her. “Tell me about Alex Woodruff,” he said.

The question startled her, so much that she stumbled. She caught herself and continued on as if nothing had happened. “Why are you asking me about Alex?”

“I’ve been reviewing all the case notes. He was here, at the scavenger hunt the day Fiona Winslow was killed.”

“Yes. He and his friend Tim were here. I invited them.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I knew the road closure had stranded them here and I felt sorry for them, stuck in a small town where they didn’t know many people. I figured the party would be something fun for them to do, and a way to meet some local people near their age.” She cut her gaze over to him. “Why are you asking me about Alex?”

He did that annoying thing Travis sometimes did, answering a question with a question. “You knew Alex and Tim from the university?”

“I didn’t really know them.” She stopped and bent to run her hand down Witchy’s leg, feeling for any warmth or swelling or sign of inflammation. “They both signed up as volunteers for research we were doing. Lots of students do. Most of the studies only pay five to ten dollars, but the work isn’t hard and cash is cash to a broke student.”

“What kind of research?” Brodie asked.

She straightened and looked him in the eye. She loved her work and could talk about it with almost anyone. If she talked long enough, maybe he’d get bored and leave. “I’m studying behavioral economics. It’s sort of a melding of traditional psychology and economics. We look at how people make the buying decisions they make and why. Almost every choice has a price attached to it, and it can be interesting what motivates people to act one way versus another.”

“How did Alex and Tim hear about your experiments?”

“We have flyers all over campus, and on social media.” She shrugged. “They were both psychology majors, so I think the research appealed to them. I ran into Alex in a coffee shop on campus two days later and he had a lot of intelligent questions about what we were doing.”

“Maybe he had studied so he’d have questions prepared so he could keep you talking,” Brodie said. “Maybe he was flirting with you.”

“Oh, please.” She didn’t hide her scorn for this idea. “He was not flirting. If anything, he was showing off.”

One eyebrow rose a scant quarter inch—enough to make him look even cockier than usual. “Showing off is some men’s idea of flirting.”

“You would know about that, wouldn’t you?”

His wicked grin sent a current of heat through her. “When you’re good, it’s not showing off,” he said.

She wished she was the kind of woman who had a snappy comeback for a line like that, but it was taking all her concentration to avoid letting him see he was getting to her. So instead of continuing to flirt, she started forward with the horse once more and changed the subject. “Are you going to be able to help Travis catch the Ice Cold Killer?” she asked.

Brodie’s expression sobered. Yes, nothing like a serial murderer to dampen the libido. “I’m going to do my best,” he said. “We know who we’re looking for now—we just have to find him.”

She managed not to stumble this time, but she did turn to look at him. “You know who the killer is?”

He frowned. “Travis didn’t tell you?”

“I haven’t seen Travis in several days. He’s either working or spending time with Lacy. He told me on the phone that one of the men he thought was involved is dead, but that there was another one he was after.”

Brodie said nothing.

She stopped and faced him. “Tell me who it is,” she said. “You know I won’t go talking to the press.”

“The man who died was Tim Dawson,” Brodie said.

All the breath went out of her as this news registered. “Then the other man is Alex Woodruff.” She grabbed his arm. “That’s why you were asking me about him. But he and Tim left town when the road opened briefly a couple of weeks ago. Travis said so.”