Page 13 of Mine to Protect

I cut a hard glare at him with a slight shake of my head.

“We don’t know. Without bodies to examine, there’s no way of knowing. Hell, they all might still be alive, held captive somewhere against their will.” My breath caught, that time not from the dangerously hot male, who was still staring, but from actual fear. “But my guess is they’re dead since he’s shifted to the Rockies.”

I tucked my trembling hands into the pockets of my pants—which, of course, Sergeant Mathews noticed. Nervous energy had me pulling both hands back out and clasping them behind my back. “How will we catch him?”

Agent Peters shrugged. “We’re hoping he’s already made a mistake on the two abductions here, or will with the next one—”

“The next one?” I didn’t even try to conceal the shock in my high-pitched tone.

“Yes,” Peters said with a hint of disappointment. “There will be more, I’m sure, until we catch this bastard.”

“What do you need from us?” John asked, clearly not pleased with the turn in conversation. Not surprising. He was over-the-top sensitive to my past and knew conversations like this would drum up bad memories for me. John was a good guy. Sweet, caring, and very attractive in a smothering type of way.

“We landed and drove straight here. We’ll drop our bags off at the cabin, and then I would like to see the first and second scenes, preferably with the officers who were first on scene and spoke to the eyewitnesses.”

Out of a grade-school habit I’ve never been able to break, I raised my hand with a tight smile. “That would be me.”

“But I’ll take you,” John cut in, standing abruptly to his full five-nine height.

Unconsciously, my eyes drifted between the three men, comparing their features and builds. John was my height, but rounder compared to my lean frame. Agent Peters seemed tall with those long legs he had stretched out in front of him, but he was a bit lankier than John and Mathews. However, even without bulging muscles, anyone could tell Peters was capable of handling himself with ease against any threat.

Then there was Cas Mathews. A few inches taller than me but a mix between John’s and Agent Peters’s builds. Lean but muscular in all the places a man fit from doing actual work, not just lifting weights, would be. Strong arms stretched the sleeves of his shirt, and his exposed forearms had large, angry veins running down the thick muscle beneath. A bit of weight sat around his waist, but not enough to call him soft by any means. All that with his unnatural stillness and intense stare made him intimidating as all get-out.

“You weren’t at both scenes.” I said, staring at the floor to keep from gawking at Mathews more than I already had. “I’ll take them. My shift doesn’t start for another few hours.”

“At night?”

Everyone’s attention shifted to Sergeant Mathews. Those two words were all he’d spoken since he’d entered the office.

“Yes,” I said, chewing on the cuticle of my thumb.

Well done, Alta. Solid response. Direct and to the point.

“We have park police available at all times to make sure our guests who decide to camp within the park are safe,” John added.

“And the animals,” I grumbled.

The same corner of Sergeant Mathews’s lips twitched up, just as it had when he first walked in. Seemed I amused him in some way.

A loud clap echoed through the sparse office, making me jump. Agent Peters shoved out of the chair. “It’s settled. Ranger Johnson will come with us to drop off our bags, then direct us to the two scenes.”

Ready to get out of the suffocating office, I pushed off the wall, following the two men as they began to shuffle out.

“Johnson, hold up a second,” John called.

Well snap.I held back an eye roll. “I’ll meet you outside,” I called out as they filed down the hall. I swiveled to face John and crossed both arms across my small chest. “What?”

He rapped a knuckle on the desk, his forehead furrowed. “I don’t like it.”

“Don’t like what, exactly?”

“We don’t know them. Let me go, tell me what the witnesses—”

“No, John. It’s my job, and I trust… I trust them.”

A spark of shock registered across his face before he schooled his features. “What was that between you and that Mathews guy?”

I shrugged a shoulder and turned to the open window, hoping to blame my cheeks’ rosy tint on the cold wind. “Nothing. I wanted to get a read on him. Which I didn’t. But him being with the USPP, he has to check out, right?”

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