Weve been trekking through snow for almost five hours, and last I looked, it wasnt letting up.
Id say itll be over before dark falls.
And then we go back down the mountain?
She shot him an apologetic look. Not after dark. Way too treacherous. Weve got enough wood to keep us warm. We can stay here until daylight.
Looking around the room, he spotted one narrow bed. And sleep where?
She looked at the bed and back at him. You were saying something about body heat?
His heart flipped a couple of times.
Blood on Copperhead Trail
Paula Graves
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Alabama native PAULA GRAVES wrote her first book, a mystery starring herself and her neighborhood friends, at the age of six. A voracious reader, Paula loves books that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. When shes not reading or writing, she works as a creative director for a Birmingham advertising agency and spends time with her family and friends. She is a member of Southern Magic Romance Writers, Heart of Dixie Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America.
Paula invites readers to visit her website, www.paulagraves.com.
For the day job gang, Lisa, Amanda and Jessica, for putting up with my distraction and all that writing and editing I do during my lunch hour.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Excerpt
Chapter One
The trail shelter wasnt built for cold weather, but the three girls occupying the small wooden shed were young, healthy and warmly tucked inside their cold-weather sleeping bags. Overnight, the mercury had dropped into the mid-thirties, which might have tempted less-determined hikers off the trail and into their warm homes in the valley below. But youth and risk were longtime bedfellows.
He depended on it ever to be so.
Overhead, the moon played hide-and-seek behind scudding clouds, casting deep blue shadows through the spindly bare limbs of the birch, maple and hickory trees that grew on Copperhead Ridge. The air was damp with the promise of snow.
But not yet.
His breath spreading a pale cloud of condensation in front of his eyes, he pulled the digital camera from his pack. A whimsical image filled his mind. Himself as a mighty, fierce dragon, huffing smoke as he stalked his winsome prey.
The camera made a soft whirring sound as it autofocused on the sleeping beauties. He held his breath, waiting to see if the sound was enough to awaken the girls. A part of him wished it would wake them, though hed have to move now, rather than later, cutting short his plans. But the challenge these young, fit women posed excited him to the point that his carefully laid plans seemed more an impediment than a means to increase his anticipation.
Slow and steady wins the race, he thought. The experience would be better for having waited.
He snapped off a series of shots from different angles, relishing each composition, imagining them in their finished state. Despite the quick flashes of light from his camera, the princesses slept on, oblivious.
He stepped away from the shelter, punching buttons to print the shots hed just snapped. They came out remarkably clear, he saw with surprise. He hadnt been sure they would.
Or maybe hed been hoping hed have to sneak over to the shelter again.
A clear acrylic box, cloudy with scuff marks from exposure to the elements, stood on a rickety wooden pedestal outside the shelter. It housed a worn trail logbook similar to those found farther east on the Appalachian Trail. The latest entry was dated that day. The girls had recorded their arrival and their plans for the next days hike home.
He slipped the snapshots into the journal, marking the latest entry.
A snuffling sound from within the open-faced shelter froze him in place. He couldnt see the girls from where he stood, so he waited, still and silent, for a repeat of the noise.
But the only sound he heard was the cold mountain breeze shaking the trees overhead, the leafless limbs rattling like bones.
After a few more minutes of quiet, he slipped away, a dark shape in the darker woods, where he would bide his time until daybreak.
And the girls slept on.
* * *
IMNOTTHEENEMY. Though Laney Hanvey was using her best soothe the witness voice, she couldnt tell her efforts at calm reassurance were having any effect on the dark-eyed detective across the tearoom table from her.
Never said you were. Ivy Hawkins arched one dark eyebrow, as if to say she saw right through Laneys efforts at handling her. Im just saying I dont know whether anyone besides Glen Rayburn was on Wayne Cortlands payroll, and the D.A. sending a nanny down here to spank our bottoms and teach us how to behave aint gonna change that.
Laney didnt know whether to laugh at Ivys description of her job or be offended. The captain of detectives killed himself rather than face indictment. The chief of police resigned, an admission that he wasnt in control of his department. Surely you understand why the district attorney felt the need to send a public integrity officer down here to ask a few questions.
We have an internal affairs bureau of our own.
And I know how well police officers admire their internal affairs brethren.
Ivys lips quirked, a tacit concession. Why did you single me out?
Who says I did?
Ivy looked around the airy tearoom of Sequoyah House, then back at Laney. Youre telling me you bring all the cops to the fanciest restaurant in town for pretty little cucumber sandwiches and weak, tepid dishwater?
Laney looked down at the cups of Earl Grey in front of them and smiled. Youre laying on the redneck a little thick, arent you?
Ivys eyes met hers again. Im not the one putting on airs, Charlane.
Touché, Laney thought.
Ivys expression softened. Youve gotten better at your poker face. I almost didnt see you flinch. Youve come a long way from Smoky Ridge.
I didnt bring you here to talk about old times.
Ivy leaned across the table toward her. Are you sure? Maybe you thought invoking a little Smoky Ridge sisterhood might soften me up? Make me spill all my deep, dark secrets?
I dont suspect you of anything, Ivy. I just want to pick your brain about whom you might suspect of being Glen Rayburns accomplice.
And I told you, I dont suspect anyone in particular. Ivys mouth clamped closed at the end of the sentence, but it was too late.
So you do think there may be others who were on Cortlands payroll.
I think the possibility exists, Ivy said carefully. But I dont know if Im right, and I sure dont intend to toss you a sacrificial lamb to get you off my back.
Fair enough. Laney sat back and sipped the warm tea, trying not to think of Ivys description of it. But the image was already in her mind. She set the teacup on the saucer and forced down the swallow.
The cucumber sandwiches werent too bad, Ivy said with a crooked smile. But Im going to have to grab something from Ledbetters on my way back to the cop shop, because Im still hungry. Want to join me?
An image of Maisey Ledbetters chicken-fried steak with milk gravy flooded Laneys brain. Youre an enabler, she grumbled.
Ivy grinned. Im doing you a favor. Youre way too skinny for these parts, Charlane. People will start trying to feed you everywhere you go.
Laney, Ivy. Not Charlane. Even my mama calls me Laney these days. Laney motioned for the check and waved off Ivys offer to pay. I can expense it.
They reconvened outside, where Ivys department-issue Ford Focus looked a bit dusty and dinged next to Laneys sleek black Mustang.
Ivy grinned when Laney started to open the Mustangs drivers door. I knew you still had a little redneck in you, girl. Nice wheels.
Laney arched her eyebrows. Cant say the same about yours.
Ivy didnt look offended. Cop car. You should see my tricked-out Jeep.
The drive from Sequoyah House to Ledbetters Diner wasnt exactly a familiar route for Laney, whod grown up poor as a church mouse and twice as shy. Nothing in her life on Smoky Ridge had ever required her to visit this part of town, where Copperhead Ridge overlooked the lush hollow where the wealthier citizens of the small mountain town had built their homes and their very separate lives.
The Edgewood part of Bitterwood was more suburban than rural, though the mountain itself was nothing but wilderness broken only by hiking trails and the occasional public shelter dotting the trails. People in this part of town usually worked elsewhere, either in nearby Maryville or forty-five minutes away in Knoxville.
Definitely not the kind of folks shed grown up with on Smoky Ridge.
Ivy hadnt been joking. She pulled her department car into the packed parking lot of Ledbetters Diner and got out without waiting to see if Laney followed. After a perfunctory internal debate, Laney found an empty parking slot nearby and hurried to catch up.
All eyes turned to her when she entered the diner, and for a second, she had a painful flashback to her first day of law school. A combination of academic and hardship scholarships had paid her way into the University of Tennessee, where shed been just another girl from the mountains, one of many. But law school at Duke University had been so different. Even the buffer of her undergrad work at UT hadnt prepared her for the culture shock.
Coming back home to Bitterwood had proved to be culture shock in reverse.
You coming? Ivy waited for her near the entrance.
Laney tamped down an unexpected return of shyness. Yes.
Ivy waved at Maisey Ledbetter on her way across the crowded diner. Maisey waved back, her freckled face creasing with a big smile. Her eyebrows lifted slightly as she recognized Laney, as well, but her smile remained as warm as the oven-fresh biscuits she baked every morning for the diners breakfast crowd.
I dont come back here to Bitterwood as often as I used to, Laney admitted as she sat across from Ivy in one of the corner booths. Mom and Janelle have started coming to Barrowville instead. Mom likes to shop at the outlet mall there.
Never underestimate the lure of a brand-name bargain. Ivy shoved a menu toward Laney.
Laney shoved it back. Maisey Ledbetter never changed her menu once in all the time I lived here growing up. I dont reckon shes changed it now.
Well, would you listen to that accent, Ivy said softly, her tone teasing but friendly. Welcome home, Charlane.
The door to the diner opened, admitting a cold draft that wafted all the way to the back where they sat, along with a lanky man in his thirties wearing a leather jacket and jeans. He was about three shades more tanned than anyone else in Bitterwood, pegging him immediately as an outsider and one from warmer climes at that.
Is that him? Laney asked Ivy.
Ivy followed her gaze. Well, look-a-there. Surfer boy found his way to Ledbetters.
Laney stole another glance, trying not to be obvious. Sooner or later, she was going to have to approach Bitterwoods brand-new chief of police in order to do her job, but it wouldnt hurt to take his measure first.
Her second look added a few details to her first impression. Along with the tan, he had sandy-brown hair worn neatly cut but a little long, as if he were compromising between the expectations of his new job title and his inner beach bum. He was handsome, with laugh lines adding character to his tanned face and mossy-green eyes that turned sharply her way.
She dropped her gaze to the menu that still lay between her and Ivy. I havent been able to set a meeting with Chief Massey yet.
Hes been keeping a low profile at the station, Ivy murmured. I get the feeling he wants to get his feet under him a little, scope out the situation before he has a big powwow with the whole department.
Hes pretty young for the job. Doyle Massey couldnt be that much older than her or Ivy. Hes what, thirty?
Thirty-three, Ivy answered, looking up when Maisey Ledbetters youngest daughter, Christie, approached their table with her order book. Ivy ordered barbecue ribs and a sweet tea, but Laney squelched her craving for chicken-fried steak and ordered a turkey sandwich on wheat.
When she glanced at the door, Chief Massey had moved out of sight. She scanned the room and found him sitting by himself at a booth on the opposite side of the café.
Maybe you should go talk to him now, Ivy suggested. While hes a captive audience.
Laneys instinct was to stay right where she was, but shed learned long ago to overcome her scared-squirrel impulse to freeze in place if she ever wanted to get anywhere in life. Good idea.
She pushed to her feet before she could talk herself out of it.
He saw her coming halfway across the room, his deceptively somnolent gaze following her as she approached, like an alligator waiting for his dinner to come close enough to snap his powerful jaws. She ignored the fanciful thought and kept walking, right up to the booth where he sat.