The Trophy Hunter (28 page)

“Makes sense to me,” replied Jess.

“Except for the fact that he was in an
alcohol rehab facility in Estes Park when Cutler was murdered. Joe
fell off the wagon. That’s why he wasn’t showing up for
meetings.”

Jess’s stomach did a nose-dive. “Who does
that leave among the usual suspects?”

“Who do you think? Can you get hold of
Diana?”

“I can try.”

*****

When Jess got off the call with Winston, she
punched in Diana’s cell number. It went to voice mail.
Shit!

Then she called Diana’s office and spoke with
Tamara, who had the same information she already had: Diana was
meeting Darren Rogart in Morrison. From there, they were scheduled
to check out a cabin in Evergreen where Flannigan might have
stashed Patty-Trisha Strickland.

“Wait a minute,” said Tamara after Jess’s
third “Are you sure she didn’t say anything else?”

“I’m in her office as we speak. She has
‘Darren Rogart’ written on her calendar and under it ‘Gorman’s
Taxidermy.’ That’s not a client. Does that name mean anything to
you?”

“No, but it soon will. I’ll keep you posted.
You do the same. You’ve got my cell?”

“Have it,” replied Tamara.

Before Jess headed out of her office, she
remembered the call she’d heard coming in when she’d been on the
phone with Troy. She quickly retrieved the message and heard
Diana’s voice: “Call me ASAP.”

But she’d already called Diana within the
last half hour. Jess pushed Diana’s cell number again. For the
second time, it went to voice mail. “Diana, I’m calling you
back─again. For Chrissake, call me!”

*****

Jess made the drive to Morrison in under a
half hour, found Gorman’s Taxidermy with her GPS. A row of conifers
hid it from sight until she was right on it. The small parking lot
in front of the shop held only one vehicle, a Toyota van that was
lettered in gold on its side with the name of the shop.

A quick check in back of the building
revealed no other vehicles. Just a bird’s-eye view of the freeway.
Jess walked back around, made a face and clawing motion at the
stationary sentry on duty in front.
You’re no Smoky the
Bear.
She entered the front door and called out, “Hey, anybody
minding the store?”

“May I help you?”

Jess spun toward the voice. The man’s arms
were full as he carried a moose head from someplace in the back of
the shop. The dark moose hide made him look even whiter in
contrast.

“I’m looking for a friend,” said Jess.

“I’m not he. Haha.” The forced laughter could
have come from a mechanical device.

What rock did you crawl out from
under?
“A tall redhead. She was meeting a guy here. I’m pretty
sure…”

“Ah, Darren’s
friend
.” He said
friend
in a way that made it sound like a dirty word.

Jess nodded. “Yeah, Darren’s friend. I take
it they were here.”

Moose-man set his burden down on a table.
“They were here. Haha.”

Somehow,
What’s funny?
didn’t seem
appropriate. Jess attempted to duplicate the sound: “Haha?”

“I think Darren’s date…didn’t turn out like
he expected.”

Jess peered at the doughy little man through
narrowed eyes. “You think that because…?”

“Darren asked if the
lady
could leave
her car here for a while. No problem for me. Parking’s not an
issue. Don’t get many walk-ins. Haha.”

Eew. Go back under your rock.
“I don’t
see her car. It’s a white BMW.”

“Yes, it was. They talked for a while, then
left. In separate vehicles.”

Jess frowned. “Did they go in separate
directions?”

“Couldn’t tell.” Moose-man walked to the
front of the shop, gestured through the window. “As you can see,
the road curves. You can’t see beyond the row of pines. They could
have gotten on the freeway, or continued up Morrison Road. Or each
gone in a separate direction.”

“Haha,” said Jess as she headed out of the
shop.

Glancing over her shoulder, more to see if
the guy was picking up a phone─he wasn’t─she saw a puzzled look on
his face. “Is that supposed to be some kind of
black
humor?”
he asked.

Chapter 52

Diana trailed Rogart through the town of
Evergreen. He slowed down just long enough to observe the posted
speed limit. At the edge of town, he turned left and proceeded into
a wooded stretch of narrow highway that wound upward through Bear
Creek Valley. Among the trees that flanked the road, she could see
occasional mansions dotting the hillsides. Then, they seemed to
leave civilization as the houses became less frequent and the road
more convoluted.

Although it was still early afternoon, Diana
observed a darkening around her not fully explained by the
thickening pine forest. She looked up through her sun roof and
noticed an impending storm through a break in the trees. The flimsy
gray clouds she’d observed when she left Denver had ripened in an
angry sky.

She pulled to the side of the road and
parked, relieved to see Rogart’s truck continuing around a curve
ahead of her. The road followed the base of a large formation of
jagged granite dotted with pines that seemed to protrude from solid
rock.

A chill ran through her bones. She pulled an
overcoat out of the back seat, then slipped into it, but the inner
cold was still with her. Why hadn’t Jess called her back? She
reached into her suit jacket pocket, felt around. No cell. Then she
checked the overcoat, thinking maybe she’d put it in there before
getting out of the car in Morrison. Not likely, but…where was
it?

She was bent down, checking the floor of the
car and around the console when she heard a tapping on her window.
Diana didn’t immediately recognize the face that peered at her from
under the hood of a yellow rain slicker. Big, wet snowflakes zigged
and zagged in front of her vision. The spring storm had commenced
in earnest before she’d been fully aware of its imminence.

“Diana, roll down the window.” Rogart’s
voice? He looked different somehow with his head of beautiful
silver hair covered by the rain slicker. Yellow wasn’t his color,
she thought. But it wasn’t that. It was something in his eyes, now
bare of sunglasses. It jolted her to remember that the sun hadn’t
been bright when he was wearing them an hour or so ago. She hadn’t
noticed. She’d once again been blinded by him.

His lips were smiling at her through the
thickening veil of spring snow. He held up something in his hand
and dangled it in her face.

A cell phone. Hers?

Then she looked beyond the phone, beyond
Rogart to a spot just behind and to the left of her car, where
snowflakes fell and melted on the hood of an idling silver Dodge
Ram.

Chapter 53

Diana’s ambivalence toward Rogart vanished
like a highway centerline in a blizzard. She didn’t need a second
look at the Ram truck to know the license was HUNTER something.
Depending on what connection Shane Cutler had with Rogart. If
Rogart had Cutler with him, she was doubly in peril.

She watched the smug grin vanish from
Rogart’s face as she threw the BMW into gear and wrenched it onto
the highway, nearly knocking him down. She took satisfaction in
seeing him scramble, the hood of his slicker falling away.

The BMW skidded, and in the moments it took
her to complete a U-turn, Rogart had positioned himself in the road
in front of her. She checked that all her doors and windows were
locked, then tried to steer around him. He blocked her path and
waved his arms for her to stop. He’d managed to put a smile back on
his face. Then he shook his head and pointed toward the Ram truck.
Was he trying to convey that
he
needed help? Ridiculous. She
could see exhaust coming from the truck. It was still idling. But
she couldn’t see whether anyone was inside.

Then she saw Rogart inching backward toward
the parked truck, still smiling. The tires of her car spun
uselessly in the sludgy snow and mud. He now stood abreast of the
Ram. Both man and truck blocked her path, should she get her car in
motion.

Throwing the car into reverse, then first,
Diana rocked it several times. She imagined a look of amusement on
Rogart’s face, hidden again under the yellow slicker hood. The snow
had stopped. Fickle Colorado weather! As her car lurched forward,
Rogart mocked her with applause she couldn’t hear through closed
windows. His lips moved. Was he saying
Bravo
?

Diana floor-boarded the BMW. The car leapt
forward. Rogart or the truck? She’d have to hit one to get by. It
didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell her which. He dove for a
ditch on the far side of the road. Through her rear-view, she could
see him climbing out of the slush. One glimpse. Worth a thousand
words.

Her plan was to backtrack to Evergreen, find
a police station if the town had one, or at least some public place
where she could phone for help. She’d been driving only a couple of
minutes when she noted an obscure side road to her left that
appeared to skirt the north side of the mini-mountain. No time or
inclination to explore it, but at least it offered an explanation
of how Rogart had been in front of her in a tan Ford, then ended up
behind her in a silver Ram. The road must circle the mountain.
Somewhere along the route another vehicle had awaited him.

At least the snow had subsided, but a
deepening gray sky hovered over the area, choking off light. The
storm was just taking a breather.

She opened the window, then drove faster than
she knew was safe. The forest air smelled of wet pine needles, but
somehow that odor had lost its freshness.

As she took curves and ruts at sixty miles an
hour, Diana reasoned that she might as well die in a crash as to
let Rogart catch her. She had her hands too full to analyze her
fears, but one thing stood out. The kiss and the quick feel that
didn’t really go anywhere. It went somewhere all right. Into her
jacket pocket. Back at Gorman’s Taxidermy, Rogart had lifted her
cell phone.

Chapter 54

Arlette Cruz-Ramos lived in Evergreen. Jess
knew this from the woman’s biography found on the internet─artists
of the twenty-first century. Diana and Rogart had been headed for
Evergreen. Their paths may have split according to the strange
little man at the taxidermy shop. But then again, they may not
have.

Jess drove out of sight of Gorman’s, parked
and then called Tamara who informed her that she still had not
heard from her boss. Next Jess consulted her GPS for directions to
the address listed for Arlette.

Some ominous dark gray clouds were descending
on her from the western mountains. Jess recalled that the morning
weather report had predicted snow in the high country that might
spill over onto the front range.
Might
now appeared more of
a certainty. Her Camaro would be next to useless in a snow storm.
As bad as, if not worse than, Diana’s BMW. So why would she drive
it into a burgeoning storm? Maybe she didn’t. Maybe Diana was
headed back to Denver.
Why doesn’t she call?

Another thought: just because Jess had
reception didn’t mean that Diana did. Maybe Diana didn’t have that
Can-you-hear-me-now
company.

As she pulled up to the iron gates that
marked the entrance to the Cruz-Ramos estate, Jess’s cell vibed.
“Diana,” she answered without looking at the caller number.

“No,” said Tamara. “It’s me.”

Jess’s whole being wilted. “Oh,” she
said.

“Dr. Bell called, looking for Diana.”

It still amused Jess that Tamara held
Winston, with his juris doctorate, in such high esteem that she
always referred to him as “Dr. Bell.”
She should see him in his
boxer shorts at six a.m.

“I told him where you’d gone. He wants you to
know he’s taking Mr. Flannigan in to surrender to the authorities.
He’s pretty sure they’re going to charge him. Dr. Bell’s going on
record as his attorney.”

“And Winston’s not calling me directly
because…?”

“He did. He said he got a message that your
number was not available.”

“I must’ve lost reception somewhere.
Damn!”

“He gave me the information he wanted you to
have,” continued Tamara. “He has to enter his appearance with
federal court, get to Estes Park to pick up Mr. Flannigan, then
accompany him to the Denver FBI office. He thought…he hoped you
might have found Diana. You haven’t, have you?”

“Not yet. I’ll keep in touch.”

Snow flakes were falling at a good clip as
Jess rolled down her car window so she could reach the key pad on
Arlette’s gate. One button read
Main House
. She pushed it.
Nothing. She pushed again, waited. Still nothing. Finally Jess held
the button down for a full sixty seconds. When she let up, a
falsetto voice that Jess could not positively identify as male or
female was in mid-sentence. Chewing her out royally.

“I’m sorry,” said Jess without an ounce of
sincerity. “I’m here to see Mrs. Ramos.”

“Mrs.
Cruz
-Ramos?” asked the
voice.

Whatever.
“Are you she?” ventured
Jess.

Flustered garbles at the other end. Then,
“Oh, dear no. I’m Roy…uh…the houseman.”

“Is Mrs. Cruz-Ramos available?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

Jess took a deep breath. The cold seared her
lungs. She wore only an unlined leather jacket over a medium-weight
blue turtleneck and jeans. “No, I don’t have an appointment.” Her
teeth began to chatter.

“I’ll check with Mrs. Cruz-Ramos. She doesn’t
usually see people without an appointment. Did you know she doesn’t
receive unscheduled callers?”

Would I be sitting out here in a blizzard
if I knew that, asshole?
Then she had a constructive thought.
“I’m a friend of Darren Rogart. He’s meeting me here.”