Buch lesen: «Justice At Morgan Mesa»

ONE

Vanessa Ford heard footsteps behind her. She turned around, but she didn’t see anyone. Just pine forest beyond a narrow expanse of rocky soil and scraggly grass struggling to come back to life after a harsh winter.

Morgan Mesa, the place where she stood, towered a thousand feet above her hometown of Torchlight, Nevada. As a kid growing up in Torchlight, she’d been in awe of the rich people who lived on the rim of the mesa. The homes up here had looked like palaces to a little girl living in a single-wide trailer down on the flatland below. Since then she’d made something of herself as an attorney in Las Vegas, nearly five hundred miles away in the southern end of the state.

She was back in town for a few weeks to help her grandfather with preparations to open the Silver Horse Guest Ranch. He and his two closest friends had put their life savings into the endeavor. When their financing had come up short, Vanessa had kicked in some of her own money.

And while she was here, she was investigating a murder.

Standing at the edge of the mesa, she was sure she could feel someone’s gaze focused on her. A chilly breeze brushed the surface of her skin, setting the hairs on the back of her neck on end.

Snap.

The sound of a footstep breaking a twig confirmed her suspicion. Somebody was there, hidden in the forest.

A weird whistling sound pierced the quiet. Vanessa tried to convince herself the noise had been made by an animal or some kind of machine. But she knew better. Somebody was hiding in the woods, whistling a creepy melody she couldn’t quite place. Was someone deliberately trying to scare her? Her gut twisted itself into a knot and her heart began to race. Maybe she was on the verge of stumbling across something she wasn’t meant to see.

The whistling sound abruptly stopped and the sudden quiet made Vanessa’s racing heart pound even harder.

Her hands shook as she reached into her jeans pocket for her phone. She glanced toward the edge of the forest where she’d last heard the whistling, but she still couldn’t see anyone.

She held her breath and listened for sounds of somebody moving around. Whoever was hiding in the woods, watching her, could make their move at any minute. If they were armed, they could fire a shot at her without ever leaving the cover of the forest.

She didn’t have a weapon. Her car was parked a mile away. And the hiking boots she wore weren’t designed for running. Her best option was to call the police and pray they got here fast.

She’d already started punching in 9-1-1 on her phone when she glanced down at the screen. Her heart sank. No bars. No cell service. She was on her own.

She was also still close to the rim of the mesa with a one-thousand-foot drop straight down. She could not stay there. Not if some lunatic was watching her with evil intentions in mind. The rustling of the breeze through the tops of the pine trees could easily mask the sound of footsteps. Maybe the creepy whistler had moved around and was no longer in the direction of where she’d last heard him.

In the late afternoon’s blue-gray shadows, she couldn’t see if anyone was there. Whichever direction she went, she ran the risk of running directly into the lurker she was trying to avoid.

There was always the chance that it was just some fool with a twisted sense of humor taking a shortcut through the woods. Maybe he was already gone.

Or maybe not.

“Hello?” she called out. “Anybody there?”

Nothing.

And then, from among the trees, a mocking, exaggeratedly falsetto voice repeated her words. “Hello? Anybody there?”

Goose bumps dimpled the surface of Vanessa’s skin. It was time for her to leave.

She had to go through the woods to get away from the edge of the mesa. So she started walking quickly, trying to aim herself away from the direction of where she’d heard the voice. She was afraid if she ran it would trigger the person stalking her to run after her.

She’d just stepped into the dim light of the forest when the strange mocking voice called out again, “Hello? Anybody there?” This time it was directly in front of her.

Vanessa stopped. Which way should she go?

Panic clawed up from her chest into her throat. Her heart pounded in her ears.

She looked down at the phone in her shaking hand. Still no coverage. She hit 9-1-1 anyway and held the phone to her ear. Nothing. Then she looked up and immediately wished she hadn’t.

A figure stepped out from the shadows. He was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved red-and-white flannel shirt. He’d pulled his black knit cap down low over his face until it nearly covered his eyes and had covered the bottom of his face with a faded blue bandanna. And he carried a claw hammer in his right hand, tapping the prongs against the palm of his left hand. Through the fabric covering his mouth, she could hear the muffled sound of laughter. And then in a raspy, whispery voice he called out, “Get out of town or get buried here.”

He started stalking toward her.

Run!

No longer frozen in place, she took a couple of stumbling steps while trying to decide which way to go. Then she turned right and sprinted farther into the forest.

Sometimes it paid to be short. Running as fast as she could with her boots sinking into the pine straw and soft loam, at least she could duck under most of the tree branches without needing to slow down. She did a quick mental calculation and figured out if she kept going straight, she’d get to the road. Maybe somebody would drive by and she could flag them down for help.

Or maybe no one would drive by and running along the edge of the road would just make her an easier target for the lunatic with the hammer.

She needed a new plan. But what? She knew panic would cloud her judgment. She couldn’t give in to it, even though she wanted to. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. But this was not the time. Lord, help!

Her car was parked in the driveway of Heaton House. It was farther away than the road, but it was a smarter choice. She veered in that direction.

Heaton House had been the height of luxury when it was built back in the late nineteenth century. Nowadays, the wealthy descendants of Alistair Heaton lived in Lake Tahoe and used it only as an occasional vacation home. Plans were in the works for turning it into a museum.

Nearly an hour ago, Vanessa had parked in the driveway before hiking out to the mesa. Other than parking on the side of the road, the house’s driveway was the only place to leave a car before coming to enjoy the beautiful view of Torchlight.

She’d come back to this spot before heading back down to the ranch because she’d been thinking about her dad and missing him. And she always felt close to him up here.

But right now, her thoughts were one hundred percent focused on avoiding his fate. She would not fall victim to a killer the way her father had all those years ago. And that meant running to her car as quickly as possible and getting away.

Her lungs burned and she gasped for air as she ran. Stark terror kept her legs pumping as hard and as fast as she could move them, but she was losing speed. The ground beneath her feet was rough and muddy, bogging her down like grasping hands.

Her pursuer was closing in on her. She could hear him.

Her phone. When she’d first arrived at Heaton House, she’d used her phone to make a call while she sat in her parked car. The signal had been fine. Maybe she was close enough to that spot to get reception now. Making a call meant slowing down, but she was slowing down anyway.

She slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She glanced at the screen and saw a solitary bar. Relief poured over her. One bar was all she needed.

Her toe snagged under a tree root and she fell forward, smacking her chin and cheek hard on the ground. Her phone flew out of her hand. When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see where it had landed.

Her heart sank. The fall had knocked the wind out of her and for a few panicked seconds she couldn’t catch her breath.

Behind her, she heard laughter. Then whooping and hollering. Her tormentor was enjoying this. He probably could have caught her already if he’d wanted to. He was just dragging it out for fun.

Despite the pain from her fall, Vanessa felt her face grow hot with fury. Her anger shoved aside her fear. Yet, another strategy for survival became clearer. If dragging things out was what this jerk wanted, why not use his twisted sense of fun against him?

She pushed herself up to her hands and knees and glanced back. She could see the masked stalker coming after her but he wasn’t running anymore. He was sauntering toward her, loosely swinging the claw hammer back and forth. He was that sure he had her.

Idiot.

Vanessa pushed herself up onto her feet and started a staggering jog toward Heaton House, which was now visible through the trees. She added a fake limp to keep her pursuer from chasing her any more aggressively. Let him keep making sport of the whole thing. If her plan worked, the fake limp would help her conserve energy for a final dash to her car.

If it didn’t work, she was all out of plans.

When she thought she might be close enough to where she’d parked, she reached into her pocket for her key fob and hit the unlock button. Her car made a beeping sound that betrayed her plan. She hit the alarm button, too.

Then she ran full bore, no longer faking a limp.

She heard a howl of rage close behind her and the steel hammer flashed by, smacking hard against a tree just ahead of her and splitting the bark.

That tree could have been her head.

She finally reached the edge of the scruffy-looking lawn that surrounded Heaton House. Her only obstacles now were the decorative boulders lining the driveway. Once she was past them, she’d be safe. She could get into her car and tear out of here, down the road into town and directly to the Torchlight Police Department.

She made it past the decorative boulders and stopped so suddenly she nearly toppled over. Her heart fell to her feet as she looked at her car. All four of her tires had been slashed.

At least the alarm was still blaring. There were no other houses nearby, but maybe somebody would hear the alarm and call the police. Yet, she hated to count on a “maybe.”

She turned to the house. It was nearing sunset and the exterior lights had turned on. The Heatons were so proud of this house and its role in their family history; it had to be connected to a security system. She would attempt to trigger the alarm.

She reached for the handle on the front door and tried to turn it. Of course, it was locked. It looked like there might be a security camera in the shadowy corner of the house on the other side of the front door, but she couldn’t be certain.

She stepped back, grabbed a stone the size of a softball from the ground beside the front step and chucked it through a window. An alarm sounded. She quickly threw a couple more stones until the pane was nearly gone. She yanked off her suede jacket, threw it over the bottom of the windowsill and climbed over it.

She dropped into the house, crouched down and turned to peek out the bottom of the broken window.

She didn’t see anyone. The man chasing her was out of sight. She let out a sigh. The blaring car and house alarms must have scared him away.

Something slammed into the front door beside her and she jumped. It hit again and again, and it didn’t stop. It was the guy who was chasing her. If the psychopathic creep took a second to look around, he’d see the window she’d just broken and climb through it right after her. If he just kept pounding with that stupid hammer, he was bound to eventually break through the wooden door.

Either way, he had her.

Vanessa leaped to her feet and ran farther into the house. She’d never been inside before and didn’t know which way to go. Just past the kitchen, she spotted an open door to what looked like a den and she ran for it. She slammed the door shut just as she heard the front door splinter and break open. There was no lock on the den door. She shoved a heavy end table in front of it as a barricade, fully aware it wouldn’t keep the attacker out for long.

Then the hammer started pounding on the den door. It would break any second. And the psycho would get in.

* * *

Most likely a couple of bored high school kids had busted a window at the Heaton House and set off the alarm again.

Normally, some fresh-out-of-the-academy patrol officer would have been sent to respond, but Lieutenant Levi Hawk of the Torchlight Police Department had been in the neighborhood. So when the call came in, he keyed his radio mic and let dispatch know he’d respond himself.

He followed the main road across the back of Morgan Mesa as it wound through a stretch of forest dotted with modest houses and trailers. It wasn’t as bustling as the town, but there were plenty of employees from the nearby O’Connell ranch who chose to live up here, along with a few other people who preferred the quieter setting. Property inland and away from the edge of the mesa overlooking Torchlight was actually reasonably priced and normal people could afford it. Roughly eight miles ahead, the road angled toward the dozen or so elaborate homes built closer to the mesa’s rim, each one surrounded by a few acres of the homeowner’s private forest, which was also the neighborhood where the Heaton House was located.

Dispatch contacted him again to add that they’d received a report of a blaring car alarm near the historic house. That was something different—something out of character for bored teens. Maybe this would turn out to be an interesting call after all. Levi sped up.

When he arrived at the house, he saw a gold sedan with four slashed tires parked in the driveway. The car’s alarm was still blaring, but it sounded faint and gurgling, like the car’s battery was dying down. Meanwhile, the house alarm, loud and shrill, was still going strong.

More important, the front door to the house was busted open and one of the windows was broken with some kind of cloth lying over the bottom of the frame. This didn’t look like the work of kids just fooling around. He called for backup and then got out of his police department SUV.

Moving cautiously up the driveway, he scanned his surroundings. He didn’t see anybody there, but a couple of tours with the marines in Iraq had taught him never to assume any situation was safe.

Continuing to move toward the house, he glanced into the sedan and saw a purse and a leather satchel on the front passenger-seat floor. Was the owner inside the house, injured or in danger? Had someone with bad intent broken down the door or climbed through the window after her? Levi drew his pistol and moved closer to the front door entrance.

A couple of security lights shone on the outside of the house, but inside it was filled with shadow. Plenty of places for someone to hide.

“Police!” Levi called out as he stepped past the broken door and crossed over the threshold. “Is anybody in the house?”

“Here!”

The shrieking house alarm made it hard for him to know which direction the shout had come from.

He scanned the area around him. The little bit of light coming through the windows shone on fragments of glass atop the hardwood floor. There was a trail of them that led from the broken window over to a closed door. Maybe someone in trouble was behind the door. Or maybe a bad guy wanted his attention focused on that closed door so he could attack Levi from a different direction.

“Police!” he called out again. “If anybody is in the house, show yourself!”

Over the shrill sound of the alarm, he heard something crash at the far end of the sprawling ranch house, followed by the sound of a door being yanked open. He’d already started in that direction when he heard a woman screaming, “Help me!” from behind the closed door. Drawing closer to it, he saw there were dents and cracks on it, as if whoever had broken down the front door had beaten on this one, too.

He wanted to give chase to the person who’d just fled, but he needed to check on the woman calling out for help first.

Still wary of a trap, he moved toward the door. “Who’s in there?”

“Show me your badge and police ID,” the woman demanded.

He could tell she was terrified by the trembling in her voice, but he admired the gumption she showed by standing her ground.

“You’ll see them when you see me.”

He turned the handle and pushed, but the door didn’t move.

“Wait a minute,” she called out.

It sounded like she was shoving aside something heavy. And then the door opened a couple of inches. He saw a small woman with platinum-blond curls. There were pine needles in her hair. Her chin and part of her cheek were covered with mud. Her blue eyes, wide with fear, focused first on his face, then on the area behind him and then finally on the badge pinned to his chest.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here to help you.” He was in uniform but to make her feel safe, he quickly showed her his ID.

She opened the door all the way.

“Are you hurt?” he asked. There were reddish marks on her chin and cheek.

She blew out a breath. “I’m all right.” She pulled a key fob out of her pocket and turned off the car alarm.

“What happened?” He stepped back from the den into the dining area where he could have a better view of his surroundings. He’d been inside of the house before, but it had been a while.

“Some lunatic chased me with a hammer.”

A hammer? That explained the busted-up front door.

“Do you know this person?”

She shook her head, then winced. He keyed his collar mic and called for EMS to respond. She didn’t seem to be significantly injured, but it was possible that adrenaline was masking it. Better safe than sorry. He also asked for the alarm company to be contacted so the alarm could be remotely turned off and to log a request for them to send him whatever video footage they had.

“The man who chased me didn’t identify himself, and he had his face covered,” the woman said.

Levi holstered his gun, then pulled out a chair and gestured for her to sit down. He flipped on a light switch. “What’s your name?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the alarm.

“Vanessa—” She said her last name but it was drowned out by the blare of the alarm.

“I’m Lieutenant Levi Hawk,” he responded loudly.

Suddenly the alarm stopped.

In the quiet few seconds that followed, the pinched, fearful expression on her face began to ease a little.

She took a fortifying breath and then told him a harrowing story about being chased to the house from the edge of the mesa. As she spoke, the dazed look in her eyes gave way to a more focused expression.

After she finished her story, two of his patrolmen arrived. He had them search the house.

“Why were you over by the edge of the mesa?” he asked. Any details she gave him might help him hunt down the bad guy.

Vanessa arched a pale blond eyebrow. “The Heatons allow the public to enjoy the view from their property along the mesa. They have for years.”

She was defensive. That was interesting. Levi decided to prod a little more. “Why did you decide to enjoy the view this evening?”

She frowned at him for a moment, sighed and then glanced away. “I grew up around here. Moved away. I’m back for a short while and I wanted to visit a few of my old haunts.”

“Where do you live now? What do you do?”

“Vegas. I’m a defense attorney.”

Vanessa. A memory clicked into place in the back of Levi’s mind. “What did you say your last name is?”

“Ford. My name is Vanessa Ford.”

“Are you related to Josh Ford?”

She nodded, the expression in her eyes turning sorrowful. “Yes. He was my dad.”

Levi glanced away and drew in a breath as memories tumbled through his mind. He’d just been twelve years old when Josh Ford’s lifeless body was found on a lonely stretch of road up here on the mesa. It was the first major news story of his young life that he could remember paying attention to. His parents had talked about it at the time. Everybody had. Unease had settled over the town as the weeks and months and ultimately years had passed without the murderer being found.

Vanessa had been eight years old. He remembered seeing her picture. He especially remembered seeing the lost expression in her blue eyes. For weeks, he’d been worried that something terrible would happen to his own parents, until finally that anxiety had faded.

Vanessa had already had more than enough heartache for one lifetime. She didn’t deserve to have some violent maniac chasing her.

So who was after her and why?

“Has anybody from your work threatened you?” Levi asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure? You’re a defense attorney. Hasn’t anyone you’ve defended ever gone to prison? Maybe held a grudge against you that they intended to settle when they got out? Or what about an angry victim, or their family, who felt like you helped a bad guy go free?”

She blew out a sigh. “Of course I’ve been threatened a few times, blamed by one side or the other whether my client has been convicted or gone free. As a cop, I imagine you’ve been threatened, too. Most of the time it’s just somebody blowing off steam.”

“Sometimes those aren’t empty threats. Think about it and see if you can think of some names for me to check out.”

She nodded and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. It was still the same pale blond color it had been when she was a girl. Still very curly.

“Did the guy with the hammer say anything to you?” Levi asked.

“He told me to get out of town or get buried here.”

“Get buried here, on this property? Is that what he meant?” Had she stumbled across someone illicitly using the house, doing something on the property that they wanted to remain undiscovered? There’d been talk recently of turning the house into a museum. Could someone want to sabotage that for some reason? Make people afraid to come up here?

“I don’t know what exactly he meant by his stupid threat,” she said irritably.

“Could you have crossed paths with him recently? Maybe you’d had a disagreement?”

“I’ve spent the last couple of days up here on the mesa, stopping in stores and cafés and different places, asking people if they knew or ever heard rumors about what happened to my dad. Nobody knew anything. It was all such a long time ago.” She shook her head and winced again. “What happened tonight probably doesn’t have anything to do with that. Maybe he’s just some dealer cooking meth in the woods around here.”

“Why are you conducting an investigation into your dad’s murder now?” Levi asked, feeling his heart speed up a little at the thought that the case might finally be solved. “Do you have some new information?”

“No new information. This is just something I’ve thought about doing for a long time. And now I finally have the chance to do it.”

Levi’s cop instinct told him she wasn’t telling him the whole truth, but this wasn’t the time to press. He heard the ambulance pull up into the driveway and convinced her to let a medic take a look at her.

By the time she’d been cleared, his officers had completed their search of the house and hadn’t found anyone hiding in there. He had one of them stay behind to take down basic contact information from Vanessa and make sure she got home safely. Then he grabbed a couple of flashlights from his SUV and had the other officer go with him to look for signs of the chase she’d described and to search for whatever evidence they could find.