Wild Montana Page 3

  “There,” she said, pointing toward a reddish patch on the snow. “Look...”

  There, half-buried in the snow, was a yellow patch of bone. On its surface were smears of blood. His stomach dropped. Hopefully he’d been wrong about this being a murder. Hopefully this was nothing more than a mauling. A death was always a terrible thing, but if this was a murder the ramifications would play out until the case was solved, and the deeper the investigation would go, the deeper he would be forced to go into his former world—a world he had promised to leave behind.

  Alexis carefully snapped a picture and documented the scene. She pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and reached down and picked up the bone that was buried in the snow. The bone was round and, where it wasn’t tacky with blood, it was oily from fat.

  It could have been his years of seeing the dead, but as he watched her work to gently move the heavy, wet remains from the ice that had formed around it, he wasn’t thinking about the life that this bit of flesh had once belonged to; rather, all he could think about was Lex and the way her face had paled the second her fingers had touched the bone.

  “You don’t have to stay, Lex. You can go get the guys,” he offered. “I can handle this.”

  She shook her head and wiped the back of her sleeve over her forehead.

  “Seriously, Lex. You don’t have to do this.”

  “No. I’m fine,” she said, but her voice was weaker than what he was sure she had intended it to be. “This is my job. I got it.”

  Ever so gently, he reached over and took the bone from her.

  She gave an appreciative sigh. “Do you think...it is him?”

  “It could be,” he said. He slowly turned the bone.

  Lex gasped.

  In his hands, barely discernible thanks to the jagged holes and chew marks, was the partial face of what had once been a man.

  Chapter Three

  The coroner laid the skull down on the black body bag. There was a patch of hair, dark with dried blood and grease, and an ear that hung limp, tethered by only a thin strip of pale skin. “Look at this mark right here,” he said, pointing to a jagged, round wound at the base of the man’s skull. “If this was the entrance of a bullet wound, it would be smooth around the edges, and depending on the angle, there would be a large exit wound.”

  “So this wasn’t a homicide?” Casper asked as he leaned in closer to look at the mark on the bone.

  “If you look right here,” Hal said, “the margins of the wound are jagged. It’s the type you normally see associated with a high-pressure compression wound, consistent with that of a bite. However, without the rest of the body, it’s hard to say if this wound was the cause of death or was caused antemortem, perimortem or postmortem.”

  She looked away. To get through this she had to think of him as just another man. A random being. A victim of the fates. It was nature.

  “Are you okay?” Casper asked, putting his hand on the small of her back.

  She swallowed a bit of bile that had managed to sneak through her resolve. “I’m fine,” she said, her voice hoarse.

  Hal zipped up the bag, hiding the gruesome head from view. “I’ll get this to the medical examiner. Maybe he can tell us a little more, but for now I’m going to rule the cause of death as undetermined. Don’t be surprised if this comes back as being likely due to unintentional injuries. This bite,” he said, motioning toward the bag at his feet, “would have been fatal.” He stood up and wiped off the knees of his pants.

  Travis tapped Hal on the shoulder, drawing his attention. “You ready? The pilot is starting to get antsy.”

  Hal nodded. “You guys need a ride out?”

  Casper took a step toward the copter, but Lex stopped him as she looked over at Travis. The last place she wanted to be was sitting next to her ex-husband in a flying death machine. “Thanks, but we’ll hike out.”

  “Are you sure? Alexis, I think you should get back to the station—” Travis started to protest, but stopped as if he had realized, a moment too late, that he no longer had control over her. “Or do whatever. You never listened to me anyway.”

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t listened, it was simply that she wasn’t the kind of woman who was ever going to have her actions dictated to her—especially not by someone who had once said that he loved her. “Would you and John let the other rangers know that we have a possible dangerous bear?” She carefully sidestepped his jab. “We’re going to need to send up the biologists and a ranger in the morning to track this bear down. We don’t need any more tourists getting hurt.”

  “Maybe you should worry about yourself,” Travis grumbled, glancing over toward Casper.

  Casper smiled, the motion so wide that it made her wonder if he had misunderstood Travis’s tone. “Don’t worry about Alexis,” he said, motioning toward her. “She’ll be safe with me.”

  Travis gave a tight nod and turned away, muttering unintelligibly under his breath.

  Watching him walk away, she was filled with mixed emotions. She thought of the first time she’d met Travis. It had been her first day at work, he had been so kind in showing her around and when she’d gotten a headache, he’d driven three hours to get her Tylenol. At first he had been so good at the little things, the love notes and wildflowers left on the counter. Yet after a couple of years, things progressively got worse and she hated him and what he had done to her, the way he had always put her down and treated her like she was less-than. Then again, such hate could only come at the cost of having once loved.

  Casper looked over at her, and she tightened her jaw in an attempt to hide her thoughts from leaking into her expression. She didn’t need him asking her any questions about her past. “Thanks for everything, Hal. And please let me know how it all turns out,” she said, giving the coroner a quick wave.

  “No problem. But wait, what about the drugs?” Hal asked, motioning toward the backpack at Casper’s feet.

  “This whole thing’s going into evidence once we get down,” Casper said.

  “You sure you don’t want me to take them with us? I can drop them off in evidence for you. Would save you a couple pounds carrying it out,” Travis said.

  She would carry a thousand pounds just so long as she never had to ask for Travis’s help. “Nope. We got it,” she clipped.

  “My team’s at your disposal if you need,” Hal added and then quickly made his way to the helicopter, disappearing behind its doors. She reached down and took Casper’s hand and pulled him, urging him to follow. His hand was hot in hers and she let go, the touch a jolt to her cold, exposed skin. Casper looked at her, a shocked expression on his face like he was surprised that she had touched him, but she pretended not to notice.

  Hopefully Travis was watching and could see that no matter how they had left things, she was moving on with her life.

  The helicopter lifted off the ground, the wash sending bits of dust and debris in every direction. Travis sent her a look through the copter’s window as he said something on his radio.

  Casper turned toward her. “You do realize that now we’re going to have to hike out...in the dark.”

  “That’s the easy part,” she said with a wicked smile.

  He raised an eyebrow in question.

  “The hard part,” she teased, “is that you won’t be able to beat me.” She took off with a laugh, relieved that once again she was alone with the cowboy.

  * * *

  THE CBP’S CHEVY always seemed to list to the left when he drove down the road, and it squealed when he applied the brakes, but as they got to the bottom of the trail, he had never been happier to see his old, beat-up, Fed-issued truck.

  “You’re crazy. You know that, right?” Casper said between heaving breaths.

  He’d thought five miles uphill going in was bad, but basically jogging five mil
es down steep terrain carrying not only his go-bag, but also the missing hiker’s drugs, had nearly killed him.

  Even in the light of his flashlight he could make out the beads of sweat that were dripping down Lex’s temples. Her hair was damp and her cheeks were red, but she laughed like her body couldn’t be aching as badly as his. “Come on, that was fun.”

  “Having a heart attack is never fun. You could’ve killed me. I’m getting old, you know.”

  She lifted her brow, giving him a sexy “come on now” look. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out two protein bars and handed him one. “Here. Eat this, old man. It’ll make you feel better.”

  He took it, dropping his bags on the tailgate of his truck parked at the trailhead. She lifted her bag up and set it beside his.

  He looked over at her and tried to guess at her age. She was young; the lines on her face were barely defined in the thin light, but she had the eyes of a woman who had had her heart broken more times than once. “How old are you?”

  “Young enough to be okay with it, but old enough to know not to answer,” she said, her sexy smirk returning.

  He laughed, and some of his tiredness disappeared. “You wanna ride back to Apgar with me or do you want me to drop you off at the nearest station?”

  She dropped her hand down on her backpack. “Apgar would be great. I don’t want to have to wait for another ranger so I can catch a ride.” She looked down at her watch.

  “You don’t want to have to wait for another ranger, or is it that you don’t want to run into Travis?”

  Her face puckered at the man’s name and he instantly regretted asking her the question.

  “Sorry. Don’t answer that. It’s none of my business. Let’s go.” He slammed closed the tailgate and the topper. He jumped into the truck before she had a chance to answer.

  After a minute she dropped into the seat beside him. They drove in silence for what seemed like an hour.

  “How’d you know about Travis?” she finally asked.

  “I was in the FBI for five years. Let’s just say I’ve learned how to read people.”

  “If you’re so good at reading people, then how did you end up working at Goat Haunt? I thought only loners and outcasts liked that station. Last year it was manned by some lady...Gertrude or something. I swear the only word that woman ever said to me was, ‘Passport?’” Lex’s voice was soft, like she was trying to avoid hurting his feelings, but the blade had already sliced.

  She was right. Goat Haunt was his own private version of Alcatraz.

  “What can I say, I guess I’m just lucky,” he said, trying to make light of the situation.

  He steered the truck around the sharp corners and down the narrow road of the Going-to-the-Sun Highway. The moon had risen and made it just bright enough that he could make out the snowcapped peaks of the jagged mountains around them. To their left was a steep drop-off; the only thing standing in the way of a car going over and plummeting hundreds of feet to the bottom of the mountain was a short rock wall.

  He forced himself to focus on the road and ignore the tight knot of fear that always filled his gut when he came this way. At least the park was closed for the night, so there were only a few other cars—those that dared to spend the night in the park, or were hurrying to get out.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” Alexis started. “I...I’m just a little touchy when it comes to Travis. He’s my ex-husband. Lately things haven’t been going well between us.”

  He knew all about exes. He’d had more than his fair share, but after the events that had transpired with the FBI, he’d taken the last two years off from dating. It was his way of protecting another person from getting hurt. Yet when he looked at Alexis, he was tempted to break his self-imposed vow of celibacy. There was just something about the tomboy next to him. She wasn’t the type of woman who worried about a broken nail. She was the type who would be happy hanging out, reading a book, maybe going for a hike—and no matter how he counted it, spontaneous and real were always a turn-on. No matter how badly he didn’t want them to be.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asked, trying to avoid looking at her hand resting between them on the bench seat.

  She shook her head. “What about you? I noticed you don’t have a ring.”

  “It’s a long story,” he said, casting a look at her.

  “I heard that kind of thing has been going around.” She smiled. “Relationships are tricky—when you think you have a good one, it’s easy to get complacent and take things for granted, and with bad ones you are always struggling to find an escape.”

  His thoughts moved to his parents and how tricky their relationship had been. They hated one another and had fought every day when he’d been growing up. Though they were still married, the thought of the relationship they had made the word marriage sour on his tongue.

  Though he didn’t like the thought of marriage—at least the type of marriage he’d seen as a child—he still held hope that one day he’d find something different. Yet from the way Lex spoke, he wasn’t sure if she was attempting to make him feel better, or if it was a way of telling him she wasn’t interested. Either way, whatever residual hopes he had held in making something out of their clandestine meeting were gone.

  A roar grew loud behind them. In the rearview mirror was a single headlight.

  Alexis leaned forward and peered into the side mirror. “Who’d be crazy enough to drive a motorcycle down this thing at night?”

  Besides the cliffs and the sheer drop-offs, Glacier was known for the goats and random assortments of animals that loved to use the highway as their own personal travel system, avoiding the steep embankments and treacherous climbs.

  “Maybe that’s why they want to hug my bumper,” he said, checking the mirror. The bike was now so close to their tailgate that he could no longer see the headlight—it was nothing more than a reflective glow.

  He moved to slow down, but as he did, so did the biker, moving back so far that he lost track of the headlight around a corner.

  “What’s that guy doing?” Alexis asked, a whisper of fear creeping into her voice.

  “Who knows, but don’t worry. We’re fine. The guy’s probably just drunk or something.” Casper had driven this road a few times over the summer, but normally when he got off work he’d just avoid the park and drive home to the tiny town of Babb outside the park, where he had a little apartment on the second floor of a local auto mechanics shop. “Where’s the next pullout?”

  Alexis shook her head. “Not for a mile or two.”

  He was blinded as a car turned the corner ahead. It was moving fast and hugging the center line of the narrow road. He gripped the steering wheel, his fingers digging into the hard vinyl.

  At the last moment, the car swerved into their lane. He jerked the wheel, running the truck off the road and toward the rock wall.

  He reached across the truck, trying to stop Lex from lurching forward, but there was nothing he could do. The old Chevy’s tires squealed as the steel body ran against an outcrop of unyielding stone in a mess of metal and sparks.

  The truck’s tire caught and, almost in slow motion, it twisted. The world shifted and what had once been up was now down. As they slid to a stop, the truck was lying on its roof. Lex was held in place by her seat belt, her body slumped against the straps and her eyes closed. Blood dripped down her hair and fell onto the gray roof.

  “Alexis? Lex?” he called frantically, hoping she was still alive. “Lex, are you okay?”

  He started to move, but his strap held him in place upside down. The blood started to rush to his head, making his face feel heavy and bloated. Reaching up, he tried to unclasp his belt, but his fingers fumbled as he tried to make them work.

  The deafening beat of his heart started to slow and as he looked at Lex his vision
distorted, making her look as though she were a picture going out of focus. His vision tunneled until he could only see her face. A wave of peace filled him.

  If this was it, the last thing he was going to see—her long hair and full lips—he could think of no greater goodbye.

  Chapter Four

  Alexis opened her eyes. The world was awash with the sounds of frantic voices. She didn’t know where she was; the world floated around her, moving and swaying like she was watching it through a pool of water.

  “Alexis?” A man’s voice broke through her thoughts. “Are you okay? Lex?”

  She blinked and there, kneeling beside her, was Casper with his silver badge on his belt and hair the color of chestnut, reds and browns that reflected the lights that filled the night, and shoulders so muscular that she was certain he did push-ups as a hobby. As he looked at her, his eyes were wide with fear.

  She tried to speak, but nothing more than a slight squeak escaped her lips. Her head ached and as she drew a breath, her chest ached. Swallowing back the pain, she tried again to speak. “What...happened?”

  Casper leaned closer and moved her hair out of her face. The strands stuck to her skin and she moved to reach up, but he stopped her. Then she tasted the blood. It filled her mouth, giving it the iron-rich taste of spilled life.

  “Don’t worry. You’re going to be okay. The EMTs are almost here. It’s just important that you stay awake. Got it?” He spoke in fast, clipped words that she struggled to understand.

  “How?” she asked, groping for the words that seemed to jumble in her mind.

  “We were in a car accident.”

  It all came flooding back. The car flipping through the air. The screech of metal on stone. The scent of gas in the air. She drew in a gasp, but was stopped by the pain in her chest.

  She tried to sit up, but stopped as Casper shook his head. “Don’t move.”