LITMIR.BIZ

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with any organized religion. There are a lot of women and children out at that camp, so it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye open for signs of abuse or neglect. But so far, they’ve lived up to their reputation as peace-loving isolationists.”

      “Right.” Ellison eyed the rest of them. “We don’t have any reason to harass these people, but keep your eyes and ears open. On to other areas of concern...”

      The captain continued with a discussion of off-road vehicles trespassing in a roadless area, reports of poaching activity in another area and suspicion of hazardous chemical dumping in a remote watershed.

      “Randall, you and Walt check out the chemical dump,” the captain ordered. “Carmen, take Ethan with you to look into the roadless violation. Dylan, you go with—”

      The door burst open, letting in a gust of hot wind that stirred the papers on the table. “I want to report a body,” a woman said.

      She was dressed like a hiker, in jeans and boots, a day pack on her back. Her shoulder-length brown hair was in a windblown tangle about her head and her eyes were wide with horror, her face chalk-white. “A dead man,” she continued, her voice quavering, but her expression determined. “I think he was shot. Part of his face was gone and there was a lot of blood and—”

      “Why don’t you sit over here and tell us about it.” Carmen Redhorse, the only female on the Ranger team, stepped forward and took the woman’s hand. “Let’s start with your name.”

      “Kayla Larimer.” The woman accepted the glass of water Carmen pushed into her hands and drained half of it. When she lowered the glass, some of the terror had gone out of her eyes. Hazel eyes, Dylan noted. Gold and green, like some exotic cat’s.

      “All right, Kayla,” Carmen said. “Where did you see this body?”

      “I can show you. It’s in a canyon on Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, land. The Family is camping there.”

      “Your family is camping there?”

      “Not my family.” She gave an impatient shake of her head. “That hippie group or whatever you want to call them.”

      “The peace-loving isolationists,” Dylan said.

      Kayla looked at him. She wasn’t desperate or hysterical or any of the other emotions he might have expected. She looked—angry. At the injustice of the man’s death? At being forced to witness the scene? He felt a definite zing of attraction. He had always liked puzzles and figuring things out. He wanted to figure out this not-so-typical woman.

      “Are you a member of the Family?” Ethan asked.

      “No!” The disdain in her tone dropped the temperature in the room a couple degrees. She slid a hand into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a business card. “I’m a private detective.”

      “What were you doing in Dead Horse Canyon?” Graham Ellison asked.

      She took another drink of water, then set the glass aside. “A client of mine has a daughter who cut off contact with him. He hired me to find her, and I located her living with the group. Then he asked me to check on her and make sure she was okay, and to ask her to get in touch with him.”

      “He had to hire a PI for that?” Dylan asked.

      That hot, angry gaze again. “He hired me to find her, first. He didn’t know where she was. After I located her, he thought she might listen to me if I approached her initially.”

      “Most parents wouldn’t be too thrilled about their kid running off to join a group some people might see as a cult,” Ethan said.

      “Exactly.” Kayla nodded. “Anyway, I found the young woman, gave her the message from her father and was leaving when three men rushed into the camp, shouting. Two of them were dragging a body behind them. The body of a man. He was covered in blood and...” Her lips trembled, but she pressed them together, her nostrils flaring as she inhaled. “Part of his head was gone.”

      “What were they shouting?” Graham asked.

      “They said they were walking out in the desert and saw him lying there.”

      “Saw him lying where?” Carmen asked.

      Kayla shook her head. “I don’t know. And before you ask, I don’t know why they thought they needed to bring him back to the camp. I told the leader—some guy who calls himself the Prophet—that his men shouldn’t have touched the body, and that they needed to call the police, but he ignored me and ordered the men to take the dead man back to where they had found him, then report to him for a cleansing ritual.”

      “He refused to report the incident?” Graham’s voice was calm, but his expression was one of outrage.

      “He said they didn’t have cell phones. Maybe they don’t believe in them.”

      “Phones don’t work in that area, anyway.” Simon Woolridge, the team’s tech expert, spoke for the first time. “They don’t work on most of the public land around here. No towers.”

      “That’s why I didn’t call you, either,” Kayla said. “By the time I got a signal on my phone, I was almost here.”

      “Did anyone say anything about who the dead man might be?” Graham asked. “Did you recognize him?”

      “No. Everyone looked as horrified as I did.”

      “Did the men do as the Prophet asked and take the body away?” Dylan asked.

      “I don’t know. I left before they did anything. No one tried to stop me. I wanted to get away from there and I headed straight here.”

      “What time was this?” Graham asked.

      “I don’t know. But it’s a long drive. So...maybe an hour ago?”

      “More like an hour and a half,” Carmen said. “Dead Horse Canyon is pretty remote.”

      “Lieutenant Holt, I want you and Simon to check this out,” Captain Ellison said. “Ms. Larimer, you ride with Lieutenant Holt and show him exactly where you were.”

      “We know where Dead Horse Canyon is,” Simon protested.

      “The canyon is seven miles long,” the captain said. “She can show you the location more quickly.”

      Silently, Kayla followed Dylan to his Cruiser. He opened the passenger door for her and she slid in without looking at him. He caught the scent of her floral shampoo as she moved past him, and he noticed the three tiny silver hoops she wore in each ear. By the time he made it around to the driver’s side, she was buckled in and staring out the windshield.

      “You holding up okay?” he asked.

      “I’m fine.” Her clipped tone didn’t invite sympathy or further conversation, so he started the Cruiser and followed Simon out of the parking lot. They followed the paved road through the national park for the first five miles, past a series of pull-offs that provided overlooks into the Black Canyon, a half-mile-deep gorge that was the reason for the park’s existence. Every stop was crowded with RVs, vans and passenger cars full of tourists who had come to enjoy the wild beauty of the high desert of western Colorado.

      “How long have you been a private detective?” he asked.

      She was silent so long he thought she had decided not to talk to him, but when he glanced her way she said, “Two years.”

      “Do you have a law enforcement background?” A lot of PIs he knew started out with police or sheriff’s departments before hanging their shingle to do investigations, but Kayla hardly looked old enough to have had many years on the force under her belt.

      “No.”

      “How did you get into the work?”

      She let out a sigh and half turned to face him. “Why do you care?”

      “I’m making

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