Rocky Mountain Mystery
highlight_author
Cassie Miles
highlight_reads
18.1K
highlight_chapters
17
Chapter One
David Crawford had been on airplanes since noon—seven hours ago—with nothing to eat but a bag of peanuts. He was tired and hungry. Worse than that, the person who picked him up at the airport was a guy instead of a warm, welcoming, beautiful woman. Even worse, the May weather was rainy, and David couldn’t see the rugged outline of the Rocky Mountains west of town.
But he wasn’t complaining. He settled back in the passenger seat of his friend’s sporty Miata and allowed a wave of nostalgia to wash over him. Home again. Here in Denver, he went to high school, kissed his first girlfriend, bought his first car, got his first job. It was here, in a well-groomed cemetery, that his sister was buried.
The Miata swerved in the rain on the airport road, dodging around an SUV, and David braced his arm against the dashboard. “Slow down, Jake.”
“Don’t want to be late for my date tonight.”
“You’ve already got a new woman lined up?”
“Already?” Jake scoffed. “It’s been ten days since what’s-her-face kicked me out.”
Jake Zitti, a news photographer for The Denver Post, never wasted time regretting relationships gone bad. Each time he was thrown, he dusted himself off and got right back on the horse, so to speak. “I don’t know how you do it,” David said.
“Nothing hard about dating, pal. You ought to give it a try.”
“I date,” David said. “I’m more selective than you are.” A fruit fly was more selective than Jake.
“You’d do well playing the field. The ladies like your type. You’re practically one of the Baldwin brothers with your blue eyes and black hair, which looks to me like it’s getting a little gray around the edges.”
“At least I’ve got hair.” David stared pointedly at his friend’s clean-shaved skull. “This new woman of yours. Is it serious?”
“Why do you care?” Jake asked.
“I want to know when you’re moving your sorry butt out of my guest bedroom.”
“You love it when I’m staying at your town house,” Jake said. “I’m a fun guy.”
David cringed as the Miata plunged forward, throwing up a backwash that splashed as high as the windows. “Yeah, real fun.”
“So, David, how long are you in town this time?”
“It depends.”
David’s job took him all over the country. As an investigative crime reporter, he flew to wherever the breaking news was. It wasn’t a career path he’d consciously planned.
Five years ago, when he was a sports reporter at The Denver Post, the closest he got to criminal activity was reporting on scandals with the local high school football team. Those were the good old days. Lots of skiing. Beer drinking. Hanging out with friends like Jake. Then David’s world turned upside down.
His kid sister, Danielle, became the fourth victim of a serial killer who drowned his victims and left their bodies near water with their feet tied together like a mermaid’s tail. He was nicknamed the Fisherman, and he killed twice more after Danielle.
David hadn’t coped well with the tragedy. Even after the Fisherman was apprehended and convicted, David couldn’t assuage the pain of losing his sister. Instead of following the sports news, he wrote impassioned editorials and columns on victims’ rights and the court system. He was obsessed.
When another serial killer struck in Nevada, he took a leave of absence from his job at The Post and went there. His interviews with witnesses, suspects and cops resulted in a series of articles which he sold to a national magazine. They liked his work and paid his way to the next crime scene in Florida. His reporting on serial killers, mass murderers and unsolved crimes turned into a regular feature, and he developed a reputation, even appearing on television news shows as an expert.
His reporting was respected. He was well paid and highly visible. But not satisfied. Racing from one brutal crime scene to the next, he never found the answers that would ease his own uncompromising grief and rage. How could such violence happen? Why? And why to Danielle?
To Jake he said, “Actually, I’m planning to stay in Denver for a while.”
“Yeah? Is this a story I ought to know about?”
“Old news. The Fisherman.”
Jake frowned. “Why rake up the past?”
“Because he’s dying.” The convicted murderer of David’s sister had liver cancer. He was dying in prison where he waited for the process of appeals on his death sentence. “And I need to know the truth. What if it wasn’t him?”
“He confessed,” Jake said. “His DNA was found on the last victim.”
“But not on my sister.”
“You’re wasting your time. The cops are never going to reopen that investigation.”
“I’m not going through the police.” A week ago David had contacted Colorado Crime Consultants, a nonprofit network of private citizens who used their skills to investigate crime. CCC’s experts included entomologists, doctors, lawyers, chemists and psychologists who volunteered their time to find the truth. They’d agreed to look into the Fisherman serial murders.
Jake’s cell phone played the opening notes to “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling,” and he answered. As he engaged in a loud, one-sided conversation, the Miata careered wildly along I-70, and David couldn’t help remembering that Jake already had one near-death driving accident.
David snapped, “Watch the road.”
“The road’s not going anywhere.” The Miata swooped toward the exit ramp. “That call was from the city desk. I need to make a stop to take some photos. Do you mind?”
“Hell, yes. I’m starving.”
“Too bad. There is a crime scene at City Park and we happen to be five minutes away.” If anyone else had been driving, they’d have been fifteen minutes away. “It’s a woman. Her body’s near the lake.”
Found near water. Like the victims of the Fisherman. David’s hunger pangs tightened into a hard knot in his gut.
Inside City Park, the Miata squealed to a stop. Jake leaped from the car and grabbed his camera equipment from the trunk.
Stepping out into the fading drizzle, David turned up his collar. A sense of foreboding weighted his stride through the wet grass. Though he’d been to dozens of crime scenes, he’d never gotten accustomed to the horror. In every victim, he saw his sister.
Halogen police lights illuminated the area near the lake, turning dusk into harsh daylight. Yellow crime-scene tape draped over leafy shrubs. The hum of tense conversation mingled with static from police radios.
David slipped around the edge of the police cordon where uniforms and other forensic investigators converged on the body. He caught a glimpse of her delicate white feet, tied with cord at the ankles.
Impotent rage crashed against his forehead with the impact of a jackhammer. This couldn’t be happening again. His muscles clenched. Please, God, not again.
SWIMMING LAPS was a form of therapeutic exercise for Blair Weston. In the accident, she’d shattered her wrist. Her right leg had been broken in four places, including a compound fracture of the right tibia and fibula. For a long time, the only place she’d been able to move without pain was in the pool.
Now, five years later, she was mostly recuperated, but she still swam a hundred laps a day in the seventy-five-foot-long pool in the garden level of her high-rise condo building. The pale-turquoise water—a color that someone once told Blair matched her greenish-blue eyes—felt like a cool liquid caress, gently embracing her body as she stroked back and forth. An excellent morning workout. The exertion got her blood circulating and her heart pumping. Not unlike sex.
What a pleasant idea! Sex! Blair could hardly remember the last time she’d been to bed with a man. Was five years ago long enough to recertify her as a virgin at age thirty-four? Rather a depressing thought.
At the deep end, she rolled under the water and pushed away from the edge, gliding half the length of the pool underwater. Silence surrounded her. Through her goggles, she gazed at the flowing pattern of light and shadow in soothing ripples. When she broke the surface and caught a breath, she heard her name being called.
“Hey, Blair!”
Her first instinct was to dive, to ignore the intrusion. She preferred to keep swimming in lithe contemplation. But she paddled to the shallow end and looked up at the two men who awaited her. One was Adam Briggs, the head of Colorado Crime Consultants. Good! Adam was probably bringing her a project—something more to occupy her mind than contemplation of her status as a re-born virgin.
Before the accident, Dr. Blair Weston had been a medical examiner in the Denver Coroner’s Office. She still wasn’t able to go back to full-time work—didn’t have the stamina to stand for a long time without moving. Also, her head injuries caused uncontrollable dizzy spells. And her wrist, though healed, was still too shaky for detail work. Doing part-time consultation on medical forensics for CCC was all she could handle in spite of an ever-increasing need to bring in more income than she received from insurance disability.
When she glanced toward the other man, she felt a pleasant spark of recognition. She peeled off her goggles and grinned. “David.”
The last time she’d seen David Crawford was over a year ago when they’d bumped into each other in the grocery store. They’d exchanged phone numbers. He’d never called, and she’d assumed there was nothing more to talk about.
He squatted at the edge of the pool. “How’re you doing, Blair?”
“I’m fine.” If he really cared, he would have telephoned her the last time they met. Therefore she assumed David was here for another reason. “What can I do for you?”
“You look great,” he said.
Pushing away from the edge of the pool, she ducked her head under the water so her bangs would plaster over her forehead, covering the scar near her hairline. She assumed that David would revise his opinion of how “great” she looked if he could see the Frankenstein scars on her right leg.
“You’re the one who’s looking good,” she said. He’d aged well. The hint of silver in his thick, black hair added a touch of mature elegance. Though he was smiling, his grin was incomplete—lifting only on the left side in a way that made his face seem asymmetrical and interesting. She wondered if he had ever truly smiled after the death of his sister. “I saw you on TV. Some program about serial murders in Texas.”
Her voice echoed in the tiled pool room, giving this meeting a surreal, dreamlike quality—as if she were imagining these two men at the edge of the pool.
Adam didn’t stoop to talk to her. Though he’d left the military years ago, he maintained a rigid posture. He said, “Blair, I have a project for you.”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s about the Fisherman.”
She bobbed under the water again. I don’t want to hear this! Five years ago, before her life came undone, the Fisherman serial murders had been her case. She’d autopsied all six of the victims. “I really don’t think I want to—”
“Get out of the damn pool,” Adam said. “We can’t have a sensible conversation while you’re splashing around like a dolphin.”
She looked away from Adam, turning her attention toward David. If she left the sheltering waters, he’d see her poor, battered leg. He’d notice her clumsy stride; he was a reporter and noticed everything.
“Blair.” Adam repeated her name as if she should snap to attention. “This consultation has important ramifications.”
“Like what?”
“There was a murder last night in City Park. Some of the particulars resemble the Fisherman crimes.”
She shuddered. Though she’d heard a news flash on the radio, she had no idea about the connection. “But it can’t be the Fisherman. He’s in jail.”
“Maybe not,” David said. “What if the wrong guy was convicted?”
“No way.” She couldn’t accept that possibility; it was too scary. During the earlier investigation, there had been threats aimed directly at her. The Fisherman knew who she was, knew her preferences and habits. “Eddy Adderly was convicted. After he was put in jail, there were no more murders.”
“Until now,” David said.
“That doesn’t fit any kind of psychological profile. Serial killers don’t take five years off before striking again.”
“Out of the pool,” Adam ordered. He held her towel. “Come on, Blair.”
“What’s the big rush?”
“I’ve arranged for you to observe the autopsy on this victim. This afternoon at 1530.”
“What time is that in civilian terms?”
Adam rolled his eyes. “Three-thirty this afternoon. At the Coroner’s Office.”
An autopsy? At her old office? A bevy of emotions charged through her brain: excitement at once again being part of a complex forensic investigation; satisfaction at the idea that she might be able to help; fear of plunging back into the fray.
“Let’s go,” Adam snapped.
Here came another emotion. She felt intensely self-conscious about climbing out of the pool. Don’t be silly! She wasn’t a giddy teenager who fretted about her body image. Blair was a grown woman, an adult. It shouldn’t matter to her what David thought.
Her thigh muscles flexed, and she stood up in the shallow water. A veil of droplets slid off her electric-blue, one-piece swimsuit with the French-cut legs that always seemed too high. She strode through the water and hoisted herself onto the concrete ledge.
Her first instinct was to grab the towel from Adam and cover the grotesque scarring on her leg, but she forced herself to follow her regular routine. She rubbed the moisture from her short brown hair, draped the towel over her shoulders and stood, revealing all five feet, eight inches of her body. Her angular shoulders. Her jutting hipbones. Her minimal breasts. And her right leg that was seven-eighths of an inch shorter than the left.
She felt David’s gaze upon her and avoided looking back at him, embarrassed by what she might read in his expression. Walking slowly to minimize her limp, she went to a hook at poolside where she grabbed her full-length terry cloth robe and wrapped it around her, tying the sash tightly at her waist. Her feet slipped into a pair of rubber thongs with a bright yellow daisy at the juncture of her first and second toes.
“Your answer?” Adam asked. “Will you attend the autopsy?”
“What’s my role in this?” Though her pulse raced, she kept her voice level and businesslike. “Why has CCC been called in? We usually don’t get involved in ongoing crime investigations.”
“Because of me,” David said. “About a week ago I asked CCC to take another look at my sister’s murder.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Eddy Adderly is dying, and it made me think. I want to know—without a shadow of doubt—that the right man was arrested and convicted, that the Fisherman will never harm another woman.”
She could hear the frustration in his voice. When she finally looked at David, she saw a troubled man who wanted the truth and didn’t care what she looked like. He didn’t think of her in terms of her appearance. And why not?
Her ping-pong shift in emotions was rather annoying. Only a moment ago she wanted to hide from David. Now, contrarily, she wanted him to notice her. Why shouldn’t David Crawford be interested in her as a woman?
“Listen, Blair, I don’t have any right to ask for your help. You don’t owe me anything. But I know—”
“How’s Jake?” Her tone was brittle.
“He’s fine,” David said warily.
“Still playing the field?”
“With a vengeance.”
She’d met David through his friend, Jake Zitti, whom she’d been dating at the time of the Fisherman murders. Jake was driving the car at the time of the accident. Jake the Snake dumped her before she was out of the hospital.
David was a whole different story. He’d made a dozen hospital visits, bringing flowers and magazines she couldn’t read because she was out of her mind on pain medication and didn’t care what she looked like. Other issues loomed larger. Would she ever walk again? Would she regain the use of her arm? David had been kind and encouraging. In some ways, she thought, he’d treated her with the tenderness and attention he was unable to lavish upon his murdered sister.
The memory of Danielle Crawford returned Blair’s attention to the Fisherman. Should she observe the autopsy? She turned to Adam. “I need to think about whether I want to be involved in this consultation. I’ll call you back at one o’clock. That would be, um, 1300 hours.”
“I know you’ll make the right decision.” Adam gave a brisk nod. “Call me on the cell.”
He pivoted and went out the door. She was left alone with David.
“Mind if I stick around?” he asked.
“You won’t influence my decision one way or the other,” she warned.
“Not even a little?”
“I don’t like looking backward. The Fisherman serial murders got real personal.” She shrugged off the remembered fear. “It’s a time in my life that I’d rather forget.”
“I understand.”
She rather doubted that. His response to those tragedies had been the extreme opposite of hers. Instead of trying to forget, David had obsessed over his sister’s murder. He’d plunged deeper and deeper into the horrifying world of serial killers and snipers and mass murderers. He’d travelled all around the country, searching for…what? “Why do you do it?” she asked. “Why do you keep digging into these crimes?”
He glanced at the pool. “Why do you swim?”
“A typical reporter.” She grinned. “Answering one question with another.”
“It’s my nature,” he said.
“You know, David, even though you’re a hotshot TV consultant, you still dress like a beat reporter.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re not quite put together. Khaki trousers with a belt that doesn’t match your loafers. Wrinkled blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Loosely knotted necktie. I bet you’re still wearing the same brown tweed sports jacket you had five years ago.”
“It’s in the car,” he said. “And you didn’t answer my question about swimming. Why do you do it?”
“Because it’s good for me.”
“But it’s not necessary physical therapy.”
“Not anymore,” she said.
“You’re pretty much recovered from your injuries,” he said. “Tell me, Dr. Blair Weston, why haven’t you gone back to work as a medical examiner?”
She held up her wrist, displaying the pale scars from two operations. “My hand is still too shaky.”
“For working on dead people?”
“For your information, there’s a certain degree of precision required in an autopsy.”
“Let me see that wrist.”
He caught hold of her forearm and pushed up the sleeve of her robe. With his thumb, he traced the line of scars along the tender flesh at the inside of her forearm. Though his hands were warmer than hers, his light caress sent shivers through her body.
She lifted her gaze to meet his and found herself fully engaged in a study of his intense, compelling eyes. A darker rim circled multifacets of blue, nearly as splintered and complicated as the man himself. As she stared at him, the tiled pool room and the rippling expanse of turquoise water faded into a soft, pleasant blur.
“I think there’s another reason you haven’t gone back to work,” he said gently. “I don’t know the label. Trauma. Fear. Sorrow. All of the above.”
“Maybe.” Blair had tried psychological therapy and quit when she didn’t make measureable headway.
“Were you ever able to recall what happened in the accident?”
She shook her head. She remembered driving with Jake. The windows on the car were down, and there was a breeze. Riding in a car with Jake behind the steering wheel was always a harrowing experience. Too fast. He always drove too fast. “I don’t remember the crash. My mind is a blank until I woke up in the hospital. I assume I was in shock.”
“Me, too,” he said. “After Danielle was killed, I went into emotional shock. The way I coped was writing about it. So there’s the answer to your question. I keep writing, keep digging into serial killings because I need to make sense of it. For my sister. And for myself.”
He might have undertaken an impossible task. “Do serial killings ever make sense?”
“Not in a rational way.”
She couldn’t quite believe that they were standing here, holding hands and talking about heinous crimes. “I should get going. Adam needs my decision in less than two hours.”
“I’d like to see you again,” David said. “Can I take you to lunch sometime?”
“How about now? Come upstairs with me, and I’ll make you a terrific tuna salad sandwich.”
“You’re on.”
Side by side, they left the swimming pool, crossed the lobby and boarded the elevator. Though Blair suspected that David was coming upstairs to convince her to investigate the Fisherman, his attention pleased her. He’d asked her to lunch. He wanted to spend time with her.
At her condo on the fifth floor, she unlocked the door. “Make yourself at home. I’ll just run into the bedroom and get changed.”
“Do you have to change?” David followed her into the living room. “I like the blue bathing suit. It shows off your curves.”
Her curves? Apparently, David had noticed more about her than her damaged leg. “Were you ogling me?”
“I’m a reporter. A trained observer.”
“And what have you observed?”
“Curves. Nice curves.”
His blue-eyed gaze rested warmly upon her. His masculine appreciation was unmistakable.
Blair didn’t know what to think of this attention from David Crawford, whom she’d always placed in the category of friend rather than boyfriend. Of course, she’d considered the possibility of dating him. With his black hair and blue eyes, he was handsome. And he was funny. And kind. Could there be something more between them than friendship?
“Come on, Blair.” His eyebrows lifted, teasing. “Let me see that bathing suit again.”
“If you want curves, take a drive down the Pikes Peak.”
“Are you scared to give me another glimpse?”
He was definitely flirting with her. It had been ages since she’d played this kind of game with a man. “Scared of you? No way.”
“Then do it.”
“Open my robe?”
“Or forever be branded a coward,” he said.
“I’m no chicken.” She untied the terry cloth sash. She literally put her best leg forward as she slowly parted the material and offered him a view.
“Very nice.” The corner of his mouth curved in a half-grin, and he reached toward her. His hands slipped inside her robe and rested on either side of her rib cage. “You’re perfectly proportioned.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
“Lady, you’re close.”
She ought to object to his overture. Blair wasn’t the kind of woman who tumbled easily. She had more self-control in her little finger than most people had in their whole body. But, instead of pulling away, she leaned toward him.
She wanted to be held—wanted her electric-blue swimsuit to leave a damp impression on his rumpled shirt and khaki trousers. And she offered no objection when his lips touched hers. The pressure of his mouth was firm but tentative. This wasn’t a passionate kiss but more of an exploration, a testing of boundaries.
Then his hands encircled her torso, and he pulled her closer, crushing her against him.
His kiss became more demanding. His tongue forced her lips to part.
A sudden, pleasant heat shimmered through her body like a mirage. Her boundaries crumbled as she swooned against him. It had been so long. She’d missed this tenderness, this passion, this intimacy. She wanted to let go of all inhibitions and tear away their clothes.
But that would be crazy. Foolish. She would never risk her heart again. Awkwardly she separated from him, taking a clumsy step backward, ending their delicious embrace. “How did that happen?”
“I could show you again,” he offered.
“I think not.” When she turned away from him, a secret smile of pure delight played across her lips. “Now, I’m going to change clothes.”
“I like black lingerie,” David said.
“Dream on.”
“I will.”
As he watched her leave the room, David exhaled the breath he’d been holding. He felt like a very lucky man. Three times lucky.
Once lucky because when he contacted CCC, the first name Adam mentioned was his old friend, Blair.
Twice lucky because Blair was glad to see him.
Lucky times three, because she kissed him back. He’d felt her body yearning toward him, and he could tell that she was as hot as he was. Maybe even hotter.
He strolled across the carpet and sank into a recliner chair. Why hadn’t he kissed her sooner? Years sooner?
Leaning back in the chair, he checked out her condo. The recliner where he sat was the only comfortable piece of furniture. The rest of the room was exercise equipment: a treadmill, a stationary bicycle and a mat for floor exercises. There was a small table with two chairs in the dining area—not a space that was large enough for entertaining. The blinds were drawn.
David recognized the no-frills decor. This was a purely functional space for a single person. In that way it reminded him of his own town house, which was nicely furnished but unused except for the desk and the bed.
In just a few minutes she returned to the living room. She wore jeans and a purple jersey shirt with a white collar. Her gait was different. He assumed that her black shoes were fitted with lifts that made walking easier. She’d blown dry her short brown hair in a cute tousled style that made him want to run his fingers through it.
“I have a question,” she said. “About the woman who was killed yesterday, what was her profession?”
David knew exactly where she was going. The Fisherman chose his victims carefully. Though he was subtle, there was evidence that he stalked these women before he abducted and killed them. His six victims came from three workplaces: hospital, newspaper and law enforcement. “She was a cop.”
Blair cringed. “I assume she wasn’t on duty.”
“She was retired,” he said. “A former homicide detective. She quit the force last year to stay home with her family.”
“Oh, no. She had kids?”
“Two boys. They’re both grown and in college. The victim spent most of her time taking care of her aging parents.” There was one more piece of information he needed to tell her. “This latest victim was one of the investigators on the Fisherman murders five years ago.”
“Her name?”
“Pamela Comforti.”
Blair gasped. “I knew her.”
David was beginning to regret his request that Blair get involved in the investigation. She’d been through enough. She didn’t need to be dragged back into this tragedy. “I’m sorry.”
She glanced at her wristwatch. “There’s not much time before I need to call Adam. What do you think I should do?”
“I’m torn,” he said honestly.
“Why?”
“Of course I want your input. You were the medical examiner in charge of the prior murders. You’re smart. You know how to interpret the data. And you know the Fisherman’s modus operandi.”
However, as she’d mentioned before, the prior investigation had become personal. At the time, Blair had been assigned a bodyguard. “Why did the police consider you a target?”
“Godiva chocolate.” She went toward the kitchen. “Come in here with me while I make sandwiches.”
He followed her to the small galley kitchen. Though David knew most of the details on the Fisherman murders, her reference wasn’t familiar. “What about Godiva chocolate?”
“It was a detail that the police kept secret,” she said as she went to the fridge and took out the makings for sandwiches.
“Are you going to tell me?” he asked.
She turned and faced him. Her green eyes, surrounded by thick black lashes, shone bright. “Because I did the autopsy on the first victim, the Fisherman serial murders became my case.”
He nodded. Standard procedure for the Coroner’s Office was to maintain consistency on related murders. “Go on.”
“My autopsy results on the contents of the stomach and upper GI showed that every victim, after the first one, had eaten chocolate a few hours before her death.”
“So?”
“Specifically, it was Godiva chocolate.”
David still didn’t get it. “What does this have to do with you?”
She pointed to a gold foil box on the kitchen counter. “I’ve always had a passion for Godiva chocolate. Some of the forensics people even called me Lady Godiva. The police deduced that the Fisherman was feeding his victims my favorite chocolate before he killed them.”
“As a sick threat to you.”
“Very sick,” she said.
David’s jaw tightened. “Call Adam right now. Tell him to forget about the autopsy. I don’t want this psycho coming after you again.”
“Neither do I.” Pensively she frowned. “But it’s not my choice. It’s up to the Fisherman. He makes the decision about who’s next.”
