Mountainside Murder
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Nicole Helm
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Chapter One
Sabrina Killian was finally free. The cast she’d been in for six weeks was off, and though she’d been ordered to take it easy, she had no plans to do so.
Not when there was finally an assignment to be accomplished.
Sabrina walked through the sprawling house that acted as North Star Group’s headquarters. She knew Shay, the head of the group, and Elsie, lead on IT, had been working overtime to trace the dangerous weapons involved in their last successful mission. She expected this meeting to mean they’d made some progress.
She met Holden in the hallway to the conference room.
“You know it’ll be me next. Shay’s not sending you out on a mission when you’re still banged up,” Holden said, obnoxiously as always. It didn’t matter that Holden was the reason she was here, and that she owed him...possibly her life, and surely her soul. She still liked to bicker with him.
After all, it was a bar fight that had led him to invite her to join North Star, instead of letting her wallow her failed life away on bar fights and bad elements. She’d helped bring down the gang she’d been considering joining up with. Because of Holden Parker.
She still gave him crap about his unwillingness to hit a girl, even when she could take it.
And boy, could Sabrina take it. She’d been this close to being one of the first female navy SEALs when a freak injury had ended her military career.
It might have ended her life if she hadn’t happened to find fault with Holden Parker in a seedy bar in the middle of South Dakota. These days, she loved him like the big brother she’d never had, and she would never, ever admit that to him.
“We’ll see,” she muttered with a scowl.
“Hey, remember when I saved your butt a few weeks ago?” He slung his arm around her shoulder companionably.
She shrugged off the arm before giving him a fake saccharine sweet smile. “Hey, remember when I kicked your butt a few years ago? Besides, if you’d given me a little more time, I could have taken those guys on my own. Fractured arm and all.” And she would have if Holden hadn’t swept in trying to be a superhero.
She’d been ambushed by three brainless goons, and she’d been this close to taking all three of them when one had tripped her and she’d fallen wrong on her arm. It had incapacitated her, briefly, but she would have kicked their butts one-handed anyway. She knew it. Instead, Holden had taken care of it.
It still grated.
“Must be losing your touch. Want to try me now?” Holden offered, spreading his arms as if to offer her a free punch.
She tossed her long, dark ponytail over her shoulder. “When you’ve hung up your warped moral code about hitting women who were this close to being navy SEALs, I’ll fight you.”
Before he could respond to that, someone cleared their throat.
“Children,” Shay said blandly, standing in the entrance of the conference room, arms crossed. “If you’d enter so we could get this started?”
Sabrina sent Holden a haughty look, then sailed into the room in front of him. She took her usual chair and waited for Shay to come around to the front of the room. It was only her and Holden as field operatives in the meeting. Elsie sat at her computer in the corner tapping away.
It was weird without Reece. For two years now, it had been the three of them as the leads on all major missions. Shay always brought all three of them in to consult before she decided who to send.
Now, it was just Sabrina and Holden. Shay was going to have to promote one of the younger field operatives to take Reece’s supervisory position so there was a trio again. But she hadn’t yet.
Sabrina couldn’t really blame her. There were some good options, but no one who’d been around nearly as long as Holden and her. Or Shay herself, who’d dedicated her life to North Star longer than any of them.
Sabrina really hoped she got this assignment. She was edgy and tired of being cooped up rehabilitating and thinking about all the changes North Star had been going through. She was a woman who needed to move, needed to act. Being injured and sitting around thinking suited her not at all.
“What we have in the wake of the whole situation from a few weeks ago is two highly dangerous weapons, in the hands of two highly dangerous individuals.”
“So, let’s go,” Holden said.
“As if anything is that simple. From what our friends at the FBI can figure, we’ve just tangled with a highly specialized, complicated death machine.”
“I thought it was a weapons dealer,” Sabrina said with a frown. They’d taken down a group selling black market weapons to the wrong kind of people six weeks ago. She tested her arm. It felt weak, and she was still pissed a group of muscle-bound thugs had gotten the better of her, even if she would have been able to get herself out of that mess eventually.
It wouldn’t happen again.
“Turns out, the weapons being supplied were only a small, tiny cog of a much bigger machine. Which means they’ll just replace their weapons dealer. The FBI is putting a team on finding out more about this machine, but our job is much more urgent. While the FBI is trying to smoke out the head of the big group, we’ve got to stop two different hit men. Before we fully took down the weapons dealer group, they shipped off two untraceable, highly powered guns—and distributed them to two ghosts. And I do mean ghosts.”
“Sounds like a challenge,” Holden said, kicking back in his chair and balancing it on two legs. Like Sabrina, Holden was always ready for a challenge.
“Two hit men. Two guns that can make a joke out of Kevlar. We don’t know who the hit men are. We don’t know who the targets are. We don’t even know how much time we have before they act. We know nothing. Except the guns themselves. The first lead we’ve gotten, thanks to Elsie’s tireless work, is the delivery of ammunition for our weapon to two different PO boxes. Each equally untraceable as the owners don’t exist and security footage gives next to nothing away.”
“So there’s video of the ammunition being picked up?” Sabrina asked.
“Elsie’s hacked what she can, and I’ll show you that in a moment. Either way, you’re going to split up and scout each address out. Our first target is Wilson, Wyoming. This is the only video we have of our suspect retrieving the package from the PO box.”
A grainy security feed showed up on the big screen in front of them. A man dressed head to toe for the winter weather walked over to one of the boxes. He kept his head completely turned away from the camera, and he was wearing too many clothes to make any sort of defining characteristic out.
“A bit overdressed, isn’t he?” Holden murmured.
“It’s still cold enough at the upper elevations, but you’re right. Seems odd. Especially since we know what’s in the package. And what makes it more shady...” Shay nodded to Elsie and another grainy video clicked on thanks to her manning the computers in the corner.
This video was similarly set up to the first, but definitely a different post office. “Evening, Nebraska.”
Another person, dressed a bit heavy for May, came in in much the same way the man from the earlier video had.
“That gives us two targets. I want you both on it. You can take a team if you want, but the first stages might be best done alone until you actually find the target. Though I’d want a team close by for backup. And a full team completely in place before you take action.”
“Define full team,” Holden replied with a wide grin.
“We’ve got two people, at least, about to be killed, for reasons unknown to us. That might only be the tip of the iceberg based on what I’m getting from the Feds. Either way, we have very little to go on. It’s important. But it’s not more important than your own lives.”
“Don’t you think that depends?” Sabrina asked, without fully thinking the words through.
Shay fixed her with a hard look. “This is a dangerous mission. You’re risking your life by taking it on, but that doesn’t mean you have to play hero.”
“How would we live with ourselves if we didn’t?” Holden asked, with none of his usual humor or joking.
Shay blinked, and Sabrina knew that something about Reece getting seriously shot last month, then leaving North Star to go live his happily-ever-after, had left Shay...altered. Sabrina would never call her boss timid, but there was something about her that seemed to think they were all more fragile.
Sabrina refused to be or feel fragile. She turned to Holden, bypassing Shay all together. “You take Nebraska,” they told each other simultaneously.
“Not a snowball’s chance in flat prairie hell,” Holden replied.
She dug a penny out of her pocket. “Flip for it?”
“Who carries change around?”
“I found it yesterday.” Find a penny, pick it up, and all day long you’ll have good luck. Silly saying, but she hadn’t been able to ignore the fact she needed some luck. “Thought it’d be good luck. Come on. Call it in the air. You win, you choose where you want to go.”
Holden shrugged and grinned. “Sure. You should know luck always falls down on my side.”
She flipped the coin, and Holden called heads. When it landed tails, she feigned humble surprise. “Oh, dear. It looks like I get to pick, doesn’t it?”
“All right. Sabrina, you’re headed to the Tetons,” Shay said, clearly trying to head off any arguing. “Holden, that means Nebraska for you.”
The look on Holden’s face was darn near comical. Confusion dawning into horror and denial.
Sabrina reached over and slapped him on the back. “Don’t worry. I’ll send you pictures of the mountains.”
SHE DID IN fact text Holden pictures. Repeatedly. It brought her great joy as she canvassed the area where the ammunition had been shipped. She posed as a police officer and questioned the post office employees. She got a few leads, and the current one had her taking a good ten-mile hike up the side of a mountain.
She didn’t mind. Better here than sitting in a car at a dead end on Main Street, USA. She chuckled to herself, took a gorgeous picture of the sun rising over the mountains, purposefully cropping out the clouds that were quickly moving in. She sent it to Holden and added a wish you were here. Oh, wait. No, I don’t.
She’d gone another mile or so when she got the text back.
I got a lead. $10 says I get my guy first.
We’ll talk when you’re confident enough to raise it to 50.
Which she wasn’t. The plan had been to interview any hikers she found along the way to see if they’d seen the man she thought might be the suspect who’d gotten the ammunition from the PO box.
But the trail was mostly empty. Odd for spring, she thought. Then again she hadn’t checked the weather forecast today as she had no plans of delaying following this guy. Maybe there was snow coming. She looked at the clouds quickly covering what little sunlight she had.
Maybe she’d get caught in a thunderstorm. She’d prefer the snow, but she’d deal with either. Weather wasn’t going to stop her when she finally had a lead.
So, she hiked, and felt mildly comforted by the fact Holden hadn’t texted back. Whatever his lead was, he was no more confident in it than she was in hers.
She was about halfway up the trail when she finally saw some people. A trio gathered around the edge of the cliff the trail currently skirted. Sabrina wondered if they saw wildlife or a pretty vista below.
They probably hadn’t seen the man she was after if they were still on their way up, but on the off chance they were on their way down...
The faint sound of helicopter blades began to punctuate the air. Sabrina frowned up at the sky and then the people at the cliff. She moved toward them as the helicopter came into view, then was hidden behind trees and rock again.
Sabrina stood at the edge and looked down at where the people had their attention. A man was lying a good twenty feet below. He intermittently moaned and grabbed at his leg.
She couldn’t decide if this was a boon or terrible timing that she was about ninety percent certain the man below was the man she was after. She’d have to wait for the SAR team to get him up here, then somehow convince the search and rescue guys she should get custody of the injured man. That was a challenge.
But she’d caught up to him.
“Everything all right?” Sabrina asked.
The woman next to her turned in surprise. She took her measure quickly. “We were hiking and heard someone moaning. We saw him down there and called the emergency number. Search and rescue is coming.” She eyed Sabrina’s pack. “Are you going up or coming down?”
“Up. You?”
“Same, or we were. Once the SAR team gets here, we’re headed back. We just got word from our friends back at the resort that a nasty storm is coming through. Winds and snow. Avalanche warning, I guess. Isn’t safe to hike here right now.”
Sabrina didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. Bad weather was going to cause her some problems.
She could tell the SAR helicopter had landed. There wasn’t enough room on this part of the trail, but based on sheer noise, she’d say they had a spot not much farther up. She didn’t know a thing about search and rescue, or how they’d get to the man below, but that wasn’t her concern.
“Well, you and your friends should head back,” Sabrina said, adopting a tone of authority.
The woman glanced worriedly at the two people she was with, older and not in as good shape. “We should, but I thought maybe the search and rescue team might need to talk to us.”
“Did you see it? The fall, I mean.”
“No, but—”
“Then you’re good. But if you’re worried you can leave your contact information with me.” Sabrina flashed her fake badge. “I’m with the local PD. Off duty,” she said pretending to be disappointed her time off was interrupted. “But I can handle it from here on your behalf. Wouldn’t do having tourists stuck up here.” Sabrina offered a friendly smile.
The woman’s face lit up. “Oh, isn’t that handy? Well, here.” She showed Sabrina her phone and Sabrina took a picture of the number on it. “We’re staying together in Jackson Hole. We’ll be there through the week. Longer if the weather is as bad as they’re predicting.”
“We’ll be in touch if we need to ask you any questions. Otherwise, you hurry back and enjoy the rest of your vacation.”
“Oh, that’s so great. Thank you.”
The trio discussed then tramped off, disappearing around the curve of the trail just as a man and a woman with search and rescue gear appeared on the opposite side of the trail. Sabrina waved them over, and pointed to the man below.
“You made the call?” said the man, a tall, broad-shouldered...god was the word that came to Sabrina’s mind, but no matter how good anyone looked, no man was a god. Most were barely human.
He had thick, light brown hair slightly poking out of a bright orange ski cap. He wore layers, but she could tell he was in just fine shape underneath. His eyes were the color of the sky, and his mouth...well, it was hard not to get a little fluttery over a soft mouth pressed into a grim line when a guy had a jaw like that.
“Uh, yeah, I made the call,” Sabrina offered, looking away from the mouth and the jaw back to the man moaning below them. “I didn’t see him fall. Don’t know the guy. Just heard him moaning and saw he’d fallen. So I called the emergency number.” Sabrina figured using the other woman’s story as her own was good enough.
He got to work with his female partner. Ropes and pulleys and all sorts of things Sabrina didn’t have much experience with. It was interesting though how it could all work together so that the man could rappel down the sheer face of a mountain certain all would hold his weight.
And the injured man below.
The partner and the man on the ropes spoke into little comm units much like the ones Sabrina might use with her team if they were moving in together on a target.
Sabrina watched from the edge of the mountain as the rescue guy strapped the injured man to a board. Sabrina still wasn’t sure that was the man she was after, but it was the only lead she had.
She couldn’t let this SAR team whisk the injured guy off to a helicopter and then to a hospital. Especially with a storm coming in. She had to stop this somehow.
By the time the SAR partners had pulled the man up to the trail, Sabrina had her plan.
“Not as injured as he seems to think,” the SAR man was muttering to his partner as he started to unstrap the injured man.
But Sabrina watched the victim. He kept his gaze on the bonds on his legs and arms. There was calculation in his expression as one leg was freed. Like he had some kind of plan.
This was her guy. She didn’t know it, but she felt it, and that was good enough for Sabrina. She marched forward, pulling out the fake badge again. “Excuse me.” Sabrina stopped the SAR guy from unstrapping another restraint. “Police.” She flashed the badge quickly in his face, hastily returning it to her pocket so he couldn’t examine it. “I’m going to have to take it from—”
“Well, that’s fake,” the rescuer said, gesturing at her pocket.
Even though it was, Sabrina couldn’t ignore the spurt of outrage that he’d seen through her quick flash of the badge. “Excuse me, I think—”
“Out of the way, miss.”
But she would not get out of the way. She stood firm. “I’m afraid I can’t let you transport him anywhere, mister. This man is a danger to society, and I’m in charge of—”
He stood, and though she was a tall woman, this SAR guy had a good few inches on her. And was all well-packed, excellently honed muscle. “You can take that up with him once we’ve transported him to the hospital.”
“Can I see your badge?” the rescue woman asked, politely.
Sabrina glared at the dark-haired woman, noticed her partner was doing the same.
“It’s fake,” the guy said between clenched teeth. “I don’t know why, and I don’t care. You take whatever up with him once we’ve done our job and dropped him at the hospital.”
“How do you know the badge is fake?” the woman whispered to the man.
SAR god held Sabrina’s gaze, eyes cold and assessing. He crossed his very impressive arms across his chest. Seriously, Sabrina was going to have to get herself in need of being searched and rescued once this was all over.
But for now, she had a job to do. Whether he believed her fake badge or not. “The guy’s mine. Thanks for rescuing him and all, but your job is done.” Sabrina moved forward, sure the man wouldn’t put up a fight.
But he stopped her. Bodily.
Sabrina’s jaw dropped. “Did you just touch me?” She’d been spending too much time with Holden if that surprised her.
“I rescued him, as I was called to do. I’ll continue to rescue him until I’ve finished the job. Again, I’ll invite you to visit him at the hospital if you have some sort of actual official business. But as of now? I’d recommend getting the hell off this mountain before the storm blows in and I have to come and search and rescue you.”
She had a half thought to grin at him and offer a far more enjoyable suggestion, but again, the assignment came first. If she got to the potential hit man now, she’d bet Holden that $50 for sure.
So, she’d just have to take the rescue dude out. Judging by the nervous woman next to him, she wasn’t going to fight back. And they didn’t have weapons, so Sabrina gave no warning, she struck out.
The man dodged her punch, immediately followed up with a grab that Sabrina ducked. They grappled like that, neither landing blows, and predicting the other’s move right before the other did it.
They had the same moves. The same style.
Sabrina blew out an irritated breath and dropped her hands. “Oh, God, you’re military, aren’t you?”
He didn’t relax or drop out of the fighting stance. “Same goes, huh?”
“You guys?” the woman said, her voice a little timid. “The fighting is a real meet cute and all, but our guy is gone.”
Sabrina whirled at the same time the man did. The board was empty.
The SAR guy swore, furious blue eyes meeting her own furious ones. “You let him get away!” they shouted at each other.
“Iona,” he barked to the woman he worked with. “Get in the helicopter and search. I’m taking it by foot.” The woman immediately jogged away, but Sabrina wasn’t done with this guy.
“I’m a police officer, and I—”
“And I’m Bigfoot, lady. I’m SAR, so I’ll search and rescue and you can go off and lie to someone else.”
He strode off, a big, broad-shouldered man with a foul temper. Yeah, he was hot.
But there was no way he was going to find her quarry first.
