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Was it possible that Ashcroft could somehow be involved in this?
The thought seemed ridiculous, but Logan couldn’t shake it.
The buzzing of his phone pulled Logan from his thoughts.
“Logan, we just got a tip,” Yazzie rushed. “Someone called about twenty minutes ago with information about the case.”
He sat up straighter. “What kind of information?”
“The caller says they saw someone at the old Chatanika mining site yesterday evening—someone moving equipment after dark.”
Logan’s pulse quickened. The Chatanika site was remote and isolated.
It was exactly the kind of place someone might use for . . . Logan didn’t want to finish that thought.
But what about Chena Lake? Was the killer breaking his MO?
“Did this person leave a name?” Logan asked.
“No, he called from a pay phone downtown. But Logan, there’s something else. The caller specifically mentioned seeing photography equipment. Lights, cameras, the whole setup.”
His mind continued to race. “What about Ashcroft? Does he know?”
There was a pause. “He’s still at his press conference. I figured we’d brief him when he gets back.”
“You’re going to get yourself in hot water.”
“Just get here, Logan. If this tip pans out, we might finally be ahead of this guy instead of behind him.”
As Logan drove toward his outpost, his thoughts raced.
Someone was orchestrating this. The question was whether that someone was their killer—or someone much closer to home.
Logan pushed through the doors of the outpost, his mind still churning over the anonymous tip and its implications about Ashcroft.
He found Detective Yazzie hunched over a computer terminal, several files spread across the desk beside him.
“What do we have on the Chatanika tip?” Logan asked without preamble.
Yazzie looked up, his dark eyes reflecting the computer screen’s glow. “Anonymous call came in forty-three minutes ago from the payphone outside Miller’s Gas Station downtown. Male voice, probably middle-aged, very calm and articulate.”
He pulled up a transcript on his screen.
“He claimed to have seen suspicious activity at the old mining site yesterday evening around dusk,” he continued.
Logan leaned over his shoulder to read the details. “Photography equipment, you said?”
“Professional setup, according to the caller. Lights, cameras, tripods. Said it looked like someone was staging some kind of shoot in the old processing building.” Yazzie scrolled down. “But here’s the interesting part—when dispatch asked for his name, he specifically said he would only speak to investigators other than Captain Ashcroft.”
“Did he say why?”
“Said Ashcroft was asking the wrong questions, looking in the wrong directions. Then he said?—”
“What are you doing here?”
Logan spun around to find Ashcroft standing in the doorway, his face flushed from the cold and his expression thunderous.
The captain’s presence seemed to fill the small room, and Logan saw Yazzie instinctively straightening in his chair.
