Page 9 of Mountain Murder

“It wasn’t.” Her voice lost some of the edge he’d attuned to over the past few minutes. He knew that shift, had familiarized himself with it over the course of the past three years since coming home from tour. She wasn’t just retelling a story. She was feeling it. “He asked me to dinner. I declined, of course, but that didn’t deter him from sending flowers to my office the next day. I had them returned, but another bouquet showed up at my apartment.”

“He knew where you lived?” Lance hadn’t meant to ask, but the words were there. In the open and exposing the pressure lodged in his chest.

“I don’t know how he found my information. I’m not listed. He would’ve had to gain access to my office’s personnel records, or…”

“Or he followed you home.” Lance fought back the instant surge of anger. This wasn’t the time, and it sure as hell wasn’t the place.

Audrey failed to contain a shiver chasing across her spine, and it took everything in Lance not to close the distance between them. To give her a bit of comfort as she relieved her own personal terror. “During our next session, I made it clear our relationship would retain a professional distance. Me, as his therapist, him as my client, and nothing more.”

“I take it that wasn’t the answer he was looking for.” Ford’s words reflected a flood of protectiveness twisting through Lance.

He’d already known this part of the story. She’d told him as much, but there was still a lingering urge to beat the shit out of any man who didn’t take no for an answer.

“Jake destroyed my office. All of my personal belongings. I told him from that moment forward I was no longer his therapist, and I’d call the police if he returned for his next appointment.” Her voice shook. “He told me he’d find me. That no matter where I ran, he’d be there to show me exactly how it felt to be stabbed in the heart.”

“Jake Dugan doesn’t have a jacket.” Ford rounded behind his desk and hit a couple keys on the keyboard shoved off to one side. The guy certainly wasn’t a desk jockey. “You never filed a police report about the threats, the attack, any of it.”

“No. There was nothing in his history and what I’d learned about him during our sessions that said he’d make good on his threat. I let it go. In all honesty, I just wanted to forget it’d ever happened.” She smoothed her palms along her jeans and leaned her upper body forward as though she’d rather be any where but in Ford’s office. Lance didn’t blame her. He’d come to Whispering Pines Ranch to put the past behind him, to figure out how to move on. Just like she had. “Only now…”

“Only now a man broke into a building he shouldn’t have been able to get into, threatened your life, put the rest of my residents in danger, and killed Inez McGarthy.” Ford leveraged both hands against his desk.

Lance didn’t miss the accusation laced behind every word. “Audrey isn’t responsible for whatever this guy is doing out of hurt feelings. She’s the victim here. You remember that part, right, Ford? That the guy with the knife was going to kill her if she hadn’t fought back?”

“Of course.” The ranch founder lost the bite in his expression. “I’m sorry if I implied you could’ve done anything to stop this, Audrey. No matter what happened between you and this Jake Dugan, it’s possible he’s the one who killed Inez. We’re going to find him. He’ll pay for what he’s done.”

Lance let his hand slip over the back of the chair she occupied, pressing his palm into her spine. “Anything from the coroner?”

Ford rounded back behind his desk. “Autopsy is done. No signs of toxins in Inez’s bloodstream. Dr. Miles and witness accounts of the last time residents saw Inez alive determined she was killed approximately an hour before Audrey raised the alarm. Inez suffered defensive wounds on her hands and forearms. From the look of it, she didn’t give up easily. We’ve done nail scrapings. Hoping there’s something there that can give us a positive ID, but it will take time. Battle Mountain doesn’t have its own crime lab. Everything has to be sent to Denver, which could take weeks to get an answer.”

“Wait. He killed her before he broke into my room?” Audrey shoved to her feet, turning to face them both head on. “This doesn’t make sense. Inez was from out of state. Assuming Jake is the one behind this, there’s no reason she and Jake would’ve had contact.”

“Unless she got in his way. Or…” The answer solidified as Lance locked his gaze with Ford’s. “He used Inez to break into the building.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Her heart hurt at the idea of Inez being forced to give her killer access to a place she’d felt safe. It didn’t take Easton Ford long to decide he and Battle Mountain PD needed to follow this lead, but Jake Dugan wasn’t going to cooperate.

There was only one end to this story her former patient had created in his head: confronting the person he believed had betrayed him. So here she was. The only person capable of talking him down.

Ford and the police would focus on searching the house. She’d be relegated to staying in the vehicle until Jake was secure. They wouldn’t get any argument from her. But Lance refused to let her sit on the sidelines without protection after she’d insisted on accompanying the police to Jake’s home. His promise stuck with her. She’d spent so many years fighting for and supporting her patients, she’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone stand up for her.

Audrey visually followed the ridge line of cliffs protecting Battle Mountain as the truck cut across the uneven landscape down the mountain and into town. Born and raised within its borders, she loved everything about this place. The unending greenery acting as a shield from outsiders, the flat spread of farmland and cattle, the closeness of the people who lived here. The mining companies that’d once had control of jobs had up and left years ago, leaving her hometown on the brink of collapse, but they’d managed to keep it together somehow. Well, other than the flood of crime determined to rip this town apart. Still, the people of Battle Mountain fought back. Shouldered the grief and loss, sharing it with one another. Unwilling to give in. There was something honorable and poetic about that.

She memorized the homes and yards sliding out of her vision as Lance tried to keep up with Ford’s truck in front of them. A patrol car angled across the road up ahead, severing access from both sides of the small neighborhood.

Battle Mountain PD was already at the house.

The homes here were older in this part of town, some renovated, some left to rot as the residents got older and couldn’t take on the work themselves. Split-levels took up most of the street, sidewalks crumbling under the lost fight against fifty-year-old trees that’d gotten too big over the years. Audrey leaned back against the momentum of the truck coming to a stop a couple of doors down from Jake’s home. Streetlights flickered on as the sun dipped behind the cliffs. Soon they wouldn’t have a view at all. “This doesn’t feel right.”

She couldn’t explain the feeling tightening behind her sternum, but she couldn’t ignore it either.

Two officers—each dressed in their ugly black uniforms—evacuated the patrol vehicle and hit the asphalt. Audrey caught a mere glimpse of a long, blonde ponytail telling her the female officer was the same one who’d responded to the ranch last night, the state investigator who’d been sent to prove corruption in Battle Mountain PD without anything coming of it. Which meant the partner at her side was the former ATF agent she’d read about. Officer Hudson. The whole story had been in the papers after the fact. These officers risked their lives every day to counter the evil that’d closed in over the past year. Warmth slid through her as she caught Hudson’s hand on his partner’s low back. No matter how hard it’d gotten, how devastating it’d been to lose their daughter, they were still a team. She couldn’t help but admire that. Want that.

“You don’t have to talk to him, Audrey.” Lance shoved the truck into Park. It fit him. The pickup. A couple years old, probably purchased when he’d hit stateside after his last tour. Not a speck of dust or a streak of mud in sight. Though there was no hint of cleaning products burning her senses. He obviously took great care of his possessions and himself—in all areas of his life—and she couldn’t help trust that facet of his personality now. “I can take you back to the ranch right now. The police are more than qualified to handle Jake Dugan . You don’t have to be here.”

“I’m the reason he came to Whispering Pines Ranch.” She tried to counter the dryness in her mouth, but there was no point. She was dehydrated, hadn’t eaten since last night, and she was on the verge of losing it. She just wanted this to be over. Without any more death. “I’m the one he’ll talk to.”

The officers filed along the walkway leading straight to the front door of a rambler that hadn’t seen a hint of renovation since it’d been built, weapons unholstered. The garage protruded out farther than the rest of the house, with the front door on the other side out of sight. She couldn’t see anything from here, and that suddenly felt worse than facing off with a man who’d tried to stab her. From what she could see, the back of the home opened to nothing but wilderness. If Jake really was responsible for Inez’s death, for getting in and out of Whispering Pines Ranch without being seen, he would have that whole area mapped out. The perfect escape plan.

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