“I must have,” Brooke insisted, wondering if she actually had asked for divine help. Certainly she should have, at least when she was struggling with her attacker on the trail the night before.

  Was it really less than twelve hours ago? It seemed impossible to have endured this much angst in such a short span of time. The images of that dead body, that sleeve, the wrinkled, blue hand, were seared into her memory as if they had just happened, yet were also hazy, the way a distant memory might be.

  Reluctantly bidding her mother goodbye, she handed her cell phone back to the sheriff’s deputy standing by to listen to her conversation. He didn’t smile or offer even a small encouragement before he left her alone in the holding cell.

  Alone is right, she mused, fighting back tears. It was one thing to choose independence and stand strong by choice. It was quite another to feel unjustly accused and abandoned by the very people you had called friends. That was what hurt so much. As far as she knew, none of her fellow rangers had stood up for her. The Stevens’s family attorneys would step in, of course. They didn’t have to believe her or even like her. They were being paid to defend her, so they would.

  Brooke sighed, curled into a ball on the narrow cot and closed her eyes. Only God would never abandon her. Only He knew her heart. Only He could be fully trusted.

  “Please, Father,” she whispered in desperation. “Help me.”

  * * *

  Colt was already up and dressed when he got a radio message from his chief, ordering him to report back to the ranger station in Mt. Rainier National Park and make himself available. He fed and walked Sampson, then met Willow outside the lodge. The sun was trying to peek between the clouds, and he hoped that meant it wouldn’t rain again.

  He nodded to Willow. “Morning.”

  “Morning. Sleep well?”

  Colt quirked a smile to mirror hers. “Sampson snores.”

  “Awww. How sad.”

  “I thought so at the time.” He eyed the pointer, Star. “I can see why they’d want your dog but I sure hope mine isn’t deployed again. Last night was enough.”

  “Sampson just did what he’s trained for. I’d think you’d be proud of him.”

  “I am.”

  Colt fell into step with her as they joined a group gathering in the parking lot of the Longmire ranger station, where Georgia Henning was giving instructions and assignments. She gestured at Colt and Willow. “We’ll leave the cabins closest to the murder scene to the K-9 officers and their dogs. I want every dwelling visited, the occupants questioned and full reports made. My assistant will be keeping a log so nothing is missed. Any questions?”

  Failing to get anything other than a murmured response, the head ranger looked to Colt and held out her cell phone to show him a map. “Your boss wants you two to interview the residents of this block of cabins. It’s just to the west of the Stevens place. I don’t have to tell you to make full use of your dogs, I’m sure. If you hear anything specific pertaining to the victim found yesterday I want to know about it so we can coordinate efforts. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal,” Colt said. He brought Sampson to heel and started off down the road with Willow and Star.

  “I hear that ranger’s DNA isn’t back yet,” Willow said.

  “It shouldn’t be much longer. They’ll do the faster testing first and if they think they get a hit they’ll go deeper. Prints were nonconclusive. That’s a good sign,” Colt added.

  “You’re still in Brooke’s corner, aren’t you?”

  “Aren’t you?” he asked.

  Willow hurried to keep pace with his longer strides. “I think we should keep an open mind.”

  “I agree,” Colt replied. “What we need to find is a witness who can clear her or, better yet, ID somebody else for the crime. We also need to hear back about connections and ballistics from the hiker found murdered in the park last month. Maybe the two crimes are linked.”

  Willow nodded. “Let’s get on it.”

  They were approaching the scene of the previous night’s activity, so he brought Samson to a close heel. Movement on one of the small porches nearby caught Colt’s eye. “Looks like we have a possible witness waiting for us.”

  “Hopefully it’s more than morbid curiosity,” Willow said. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to folks who hang around crime scenes for fun.”

  Colt waved to the resident. The older man raised a coffee mug in salute and motioned them over. Stickers on the windows and a personalized license plate on an older SUV parked next to the cabin indicated that the person they were meeting had a law-enforcement background.

  “I’m Officer Colt Maxwell and this is Sampson,” Colt said, smiling a greeting and offering to shake hands. “My colleague is Willow Bates with Star. We’re assisting the park rangers in an investigation and were wondering if you’d mind speaking with us.”

  “’Course not.” The graying yet wiry older man shook hands with them both and Colt noted calluses on his palm. “I’m Dwight Smith, National Park Service, retired. Put in my last years in Idaho and decided to volunteer up here after that. When you’ve lived like this—” he gestured with a sweep of his arm “—you’re spoiled for anything else.”

  “We’re interested in the place next door,” Colt said.

  “’Course you are. It’s not every day we have a murder up here.”

  “There have been several incidences of serious crimes lately,” Willow said. “Did you happen to notice any unusual activity?”

  Smith chuckled, coughed and took a sip from his mug. “Sure did. Can I offer you two a hot cup? I brew it a little strong, but I have plenty of milk to thin it down.”

  “No, thanks,” Colt said. “About the Stevens cabin. What can you tell us?”

  “Not much,” Smith said with a shrug, “except that I watched her drag something out to the back and try to bury it. Seeing the black plastic bags made me think she was takin’ out the trash, but apparently she was disposing of a body.”

  “You saw a woman?” Willow asked.

  “Not just any woman,” the witness said flatly. “Brooke Stevens. She had her uniform on and I could see that dark red hair stickin’ out under her hat.”

  Colt was astounded. “Are you sure it was her?”

  “Yup. Couldn’t mistake her, freckles and all. No question. I’m positive.”

  FIVE

  News that her DNA matched what was found on the murder weapon floored Brooke. She felt even worse when her uniform was collected for evidence and she was forced to don an orange jumpsuit.

  Seeing Colt Maxwell waiting for her when she was ushered into an interview room was almost as big a surprise. She raised her hands, palms toward him, and stopped dead in her tracks. “Whoa. What are you doing here?”

  “Same as you. Waiting for your attorney.”

  “I don’t need a lawyer to tell you I’m innocent.”

  “Evidence says otherwise. So does your closest neighbor.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Not according to a decorated, respected, retired park ranger. Dwight Smith saw you dragging black trash bags out behind your woodpile. He watched you go get a shovel and start digging. I imagine the ground was frozen so you settled for covering the remains with mud and snow.”

  “I. Did. Not.” She couldn’t help pacing the small, bare room. “I was at work all day. There were nature walks at ten and two and I patrolled some of the trails when I had free time. Lunch, I ate at one of the unoccupied picnic tables in the campground.”

  “Who saw you?”

  “A family of four—mom, dad and two boys—took my two-o’clock tour. I really don’t remember much about the earlier one.”

  “I’ll need names.”

  “That would be a lot easier if the campgrounds were open for the season and they’d had to reserve a site. I don’t ask for personal information when it’s just day-trippers on a nature walk.”

  His phone rang. She watched him consulting it, then he frowned before he looked back at her. “Let me see your hands.”

  “My hands? What for?”

  “Spread your fingers.” She did. “Now show me the other side,” he ordered.

  Although Brooke obeyed, she was at a loss about the reasons. When he stepped forward and cupped her hands, one at a time, examining them closely, she almost pulled away. “What are you looking for?”

  “Something that should be there and isn’t,” Colt said. “Are you right-or left-handed?”

  “Right.” Indignant, she fisted both hands on her hips. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or make me guess?”

  “Calm down. One more thing.” He removed his sidearm from its holster, then dropped the clip out, cleared the action and handed the empty gun to her, butt first. “Show me how you’d handle this if you were preparing to shoot someone.”

  “I would never...”

  “Humor me. Take a shooter’s stance and aim.”

  Brooke noticed a tremor as she pointed the gun at the blank wall. Colt circled her, peering at her hands as they gripped his gun. Finally, he nodded and reclaimed his weapon.

  “Okay,” he said. “That demo potentially indicates you didn’t shoot this victim. What I don’t get is how your blood and DNA got on the rear of the slide when there’s no sign of injury to your hand and you use the proper grip. The only way you’d lose a piece of skin or bleed from firing an automatic is if you held it wrong and the ejection of the spent shell pinched the skin between your thumb and forefinger.”

  Examining both her hands, Brooke was relieved to see how right he was. “I told you.”

  “So you did.”

  “What now?”

  “We’ll give this information to your attorney, who is already here, by the way, and if your alibi about the nature walk is substantiated, chances are very good he’ll be able to get you released.”

  “Really?”

  To her delight, Colt smiled. “Yes, really.”

  She wanted to shout, to jump up and down, to throw her arms around his neck in celebration. She did none of those things. She did, however, start to grin so broadly that her cheeks hurt.

  Eyeing her from head to toe, Colt also grinned. “Orange is definitely not your color. I hope they give you back your uniform once they’ve swabbed it for gunpowder residue.”

  “Me, too. I’d hate to have to go back to the park dressed like this even if I’m not on duty.”

  Chuckling, he turned to leave the interrogation room. “I’ll speak to your attorney and talk to my chief. I’m sure they can work something out. Nobody goes home in a jail uniform.” Pausing at the door, he knocked, and a local police officer opened it for him. “Be sure to mention that you weren’t actually under arrest when we spoke just now and that you did so voluntarily, okay?”

  Brooke was so relieved she chanced a wry comment. “Just be sure you wipe my fingerprints off your gun before you rob any banks with it so I don’t get in more trouble.”

  A look of astonishment flashed across Colt’s face. “Jokes? Now? Do you realize how much trouble you’re in? The evidence against you is strong, Brooke.”

  “Oh, I get it. I just figure I can either imagine the worst and cry over it or find a way to smile in spite of it. I prefer to save my tears for true tragedy. There’s plenty of that in life already. I don’t have to look for it.”

  Colt made a face and rolled his eyes. “Have it your way. I’ll have Sampson lick it clean when I get back to the car.”

  “Ewww. Yuck,” she countered, chancing a slight smile before sobering and sighing. “Just get me out of here and find somebody to drive me home ASAP? Please?”

  “If my chief gives the okay, I’ll take you myself,” Colt said.

  “You aren’t afraid to ride with me?” She was only half joking this time.

  “No. I don’t understand what happened or how, but you don’t seem guilty to me.”

  “Let’s hope and pray you aren’t the only one who thinks that,” Brooke said. “This whole mess has not been fun.”

  Her gaze left Colt to focus on a distinguished-looking gentleman waiting outside the door to the interview room. She recognized him from meetings in her father’s office and a few dinner parties she’d attended before leaving for college. He’d been fairly young then and the last seven or eight years had been kind to him.

  He shouldered past Colt and opened his arms to her. Brooke was so glad to see someone else who was on her side that she accepted the hug without hesitation. It wasn’t until she stepped away a few seconds later that she noticed how quickly and totally Colt Maxwell’s grin had vanished.

  * * *

  “It’s her hands that convinced me,” Colt told the PNK9 Unit chief, Donovan Fanelli, on a video call. “She’d have had to show signs of injury for a piece of skin to be stuck in the action of the murder weapon.”

  “Probably, although that’s not conclusive.”

  Colt was adamant. “She claims a solid alibi for the time she was supposedly seen burying the body in the snow.”

  “Then explain how her DNA got on the gun.”

  “It was obviously stolen. She doesn’t deny it was hers.”

  Fanelli’s blue eyes narrowed as he countered, “You drive her back to the park after she’s released so you’ll have a good opportunity to question her in a relaxed atmosphere.”

  “I already suggested that.”

  “Good. Get her talking. Make friends with her. Whatever you need to do to uncover the truth, do it.”

  “I believe I already know as much of the truth as Stevens does. She’s as baffled as we are.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Nobody is that good at pretense. Brooke didn’t kill anybody.” Colt saw his boss’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows rise.

  “Brooke?”

  Colt had to smile. “Hey, you told me to make friends.”

  “Just now I did. Sounds like you got a head start.”

  “She’s easy to like,” Colt admitted. “There’s a quality about her that makes people want to know her better.”

  “People, or you?”

  “Everybody. The rangers I asked weren’t able to give her an alibi but they did say they thought she was innocent.” He paused. “Except for the retired one who happens to live next door to her.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I haven’t signed off on it yet but it should be in Willow Bates’s preliminary report. When we interviewed Dwight Smith, he was positive he saw Stevens dragging a body outside and burying it.”

  “You just let that go?”

  “Not at all. There was something suspect about the way he told his story. Willow and I agreed. He seemed delighted to be accusing a fellow ranger and that didn’t sit right with us. I mean, why would a decorated retired ranger report seeing Brooke, right down to her freckles, if it wasn’t true? I would have expected him to defend her.”

  “Not if he was convinced she was guilty.”

  “True.” Colt sighed. “Look, she’s not going anywhere as long as I’m with her and unless I’m called away on another assignment, I think you should inform Superintendent Henning that you’ve ordered me to shadow Brooke.”

  “I suppose a few days won’t hurt,” Fanelli said. “Just keep me in the loop. The sooner we can check the ballistics on that previous killing of the first hiker and nail down the facts, the closer we’ll be to figuring this out.”

  “No argument there,” Colt replied.

  “Just watch your step, okay? You won’t be the first man who let his emotions rule his good sense.”

  Colt huffed. “You’ve known me long enough to know that’s not in my DNA.”

  “So you say. Remember, you’re not your father. You don’t have to let his mistakes rule your life.”

  Rebuttal would have been futile so Colt held his peace. He had grown up with a man whose outward appearance was so normal he could have been used to represent the perfect dad. Underneath that polished facade, however, lurked a cruelty that could erupt at a moment’s notice and wreak havoc on anyone he came in contact with. To look at his father, nobody would believe he was anything but a great guy.

  Shaking off bad memories, Colt nodded. “Right, so we’re on the same page about Stevens? You’ll let me keep her company for the next few days?”

  “Yes. Just be careful.”

  “I will. Thanks, boss.”

  Colt ended the call and pocketed his phone. Sampson waited patiently at his feet, panting, drooling and looking up at him with eyes that were filled with intelligence despite the droop that gave him a perpetually sad expression. “You don’t think she’s one of the bad guys, either, do you old boy? Well, I agree, although it beats me how her DNA showed up the way it did.”

  As he returned Sampson to the rear of the silver SUV, Colt kept pondering the puzzle. He knew enough about forensics to know how immense the odds were against finding anybody whose DNA was similar to that of another person, let alone enough alike to cause mistakes. Unless...

  Climbing behind the wheel, Colt contacted ranger headquarters in Mount Rainier to ask for assistance. “I have a personnel question,” he told Georgia Henning. “I need to know if Brooke Stevens is an only child.”

  “She is,” the ranger replied. “I don’t have to look it up. We’ve talked about it. Why?”

  “Just trying to eliminate all possibilities. Thanks.”

  “I’ve been told you’ll be picking her up in Ashford. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. I’m in Ashford now. I’ll get her as soon as she’s released. Have you heard if that will be soon?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Henning said. “Bring her directly to my office when you get back to the park.”

  “I don’t think she’s guilty.”

  “Yes, well, I didn’t ask you that, did I? You do your job and I’ll do mine, all right?”