Stalking Ground Read online

  He was holding a rectangular, leather case similar to one men use for travel. Sitting down on the log next to her, he unzipped it and started taking out his supplies. “I’ve got everything we need right here—lidocaine, antiseptic sponges, antibiotic cream, and skin staples. Okay, Robo, will you let me take a look?”

  Mattie held Robo while Cole unwrapped the bandage. She reached for her flashlight and trained it on Robo’s shoulder. With a gentle touch, Cole inspected the wound as he frowned with concentration. Although the heavy bleeding had subsided, Mattie’s stomach lurched when she saw the gaping slash.

  “This doesn’t look too bad,” Cole said, glancing at her. He gave her a smile of reassurance. “I mean, I know it looks terrible, but the muscle is still intact. It’s primarily a skin tear, and it shouldn’t slow him down much. He’s one lucky dog.”

  Mattie felt such relief she couldn’t respond. She pressed her lips to the top of Robo’s head.

  “I don’t have a muzzle, but I can fashion one out of your leash,” Cole said.

  “He might be okay without it.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But he’s still pretty pumped up, and I’ve learned not to take the chance.”

  “All right.” Mattie reached to retrieve a leash from her utility belt. “Let me put it on him. Just tell me how to do it.”

  “Wrap it around his muzzle, make a tie below his chin, take the ends back behind his ears and secure it there with another tie.”

  Mattie murmured soothing words while she followed Cole’s instructions. Robo’s brow furrowed with his disapproval, but he allowed her to finish the process. She pulled him in for a hug and told him he was a good boy. When Cole took out a syringe to fill with the numbing medicine, she decided to look away, choosing instead to hold Robo close and rub his ears.

  “A little sting,” Cole said as he began blocking the wound.

  Robo flinched and then settled while the medicine took effect. At that point, Mattie watched the fire while Cole worked. When he finished, the gash on Robo’s shoulder had been cleaned and closed with a series of staples. The blood flow had all but stopped.

  Cole leaned back to inspect his work. “When we get down to the truck tomorrow, I’ll start him on antibiotics.”

  “Thank you.” It was hard to put into words how good it felt to know Robo was taken care of and he was going to be okay.

  “I’m not going to put a bandage on it. It’s too far forward on his shoulder for him to irritate it, and I want to leave it where we can check it easily. It should heal just fine open to the air. But let’s cover it with gauze so you can apply the icepack for a few more minutes.”

  While Mattie took care of Robo, Cole used one of his antiseptic sponges and some water to wash his hands.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “I guess I am. Robo might be, too.”

  “I brought food for both of you.”

  He turned back to the panniers, indicating the items. “There’s food, water, a tent, and some space-age blankets. I couldn’t fit sleeping bags in.”

  “I won’t do much sleeping tonight anyway. A blanket sounds like exactly what I need.”

  Cole set out containers of thick ham sandwiches, apple slices, baby carrots, bottles of water, and what appeared to be homemade brownies.

  “You’ve brought a feast,” she said.

  “Mrs. Gibbs made it.”

  “That was nice of her.”

  Cole came close to check Robo’s wound. “I think we can leave that alone for a while and check it later. It looks like it’s stopped bleeding.”

  Mattie cleaned her hands with an antiseptic sponge that Cole gave her. She fed Robo a cup of the food that Cole had brought, but he didn’t seem interested. Considering what he’d been through, she wasn’t too surprised. She left it so that he could get to it if he should change his mind. She and Cole each selected a sandwich from the container and took seats on opposite ends of the log.

  “I hope Mrs. Gibbs is going to work out,” he said. “It sure would make things easier at home if she did. But the girls seem to be giving her a tough time. Or at least Angie is, I should say. Sophie’s just following suit.”

  Mattie chewed her sandwich, staring at the fire. She and Cole didn’t talk about their personal lives. She really didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t want to probe.

  Cole seemed not to have any problem with the conversation. “Mrs. Gibbs had a talk with me this morning, and it’s been bothering me all day.”

  “Oh?”

  “She took the girls to see Leslie Hartman yesterday after school. I guess Angie was real quiet on the way home, and Mrs. Gibbs asked her what was wrong. Angie gave her some lip.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to talk about what was bothering her with someone she barely knows.”

  “You’re probably right about that,” he said, taking a bite and pausing to chew. “What bothers me, though, is that Mrs. Gibbs suggested that Angie has had too much trauma in her life to handle lately.”

  Mattie swallowed her food. “School counselor.”

  “What?”

  Since Mattie taught the antidrug program at Timber Creek High, she knew the faculty. “There’s a counselor at school you could talk to. Her name’s Mrs. Willis. Have you met her?”

  “No, but I know who she is.”

  “You could talk to her to get her opinion. She seems nice, and the kids like her. I bet she could help you decide what to do.” She was in this deep, she might as well go deeper; after all, this was Angie they were talking about. “Have you tried to talk to her about her feelings?”

  He appeared to squirm in his seat. “I did. I tend to screw things up. I think I ended up telling her she needs to act more respectful toward Mrs. Gibbs or something like that.”

  She smiled. “Sounds like a dad.”

  “Does it?” He looked relieved. “That’s what I am. I’ll never be able to fill their mom’s shoes. Anyway, it’s hard for me to talk to her about how she feels right now. We all feel pretty torn up about things.”

  “Maybe all of you could use some professional help.”

  “Good Lord. I’m not sure I could go for that. I think we just need a little time.”

  “Well, start with Angie then.”

  “Yeah. I’ll think about it.”

  The fire snapped. Mattie stretched her feet out toward it, welcoming the warmth that seeped into the soles of her boots as the snow fell peacefully around them.

  “You told me you were raised in foster care. How did that happen? What happened to your parents?”

  She studied his face, wondering what made him ask about her past. She rarely shared that part of herself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, giving her a searching look. “That might be something you don’t want to talk about. I didn’t think.”

  “No, it’s okay. But why do you want to know?”

  He scrutinized her. “I was thinking about my girls, how hard it is on them to be abandoned by their mom. It made me think of you being raised without either parent. It’s none of my business really.”

  Mattie looked out toward the gravesite. “There’s no reason I can’t talk about my childhood. I typically don’t, so I’m not used to it.”

  “Then let’s talk about something else. How about those Broncos?”

  Mattie couldn’t help but smile. He did have a way of easing her discomfort. “No, I want to talk about it now.”

  He placed another log on the fire and settled back into his seat. Robo lay at her feet, and his eyebrows twitched as he fought sleep.

  “There were four of us in my family, like yours, but my sibling is a brother. My dad was an alcoholic. A violent drunk. He hit all of us at one time or another, but most of the time, he beat on my mom.”

  “What was your mom like?”

  “Do you mean, did she drink, too? No, she didn’t.”

  “No, I meant what I said—what was she like?”

  “Well, I was only six when our family broke up. But I remember her
as being quiet, gentle, loving toward us kids.” Mattie forced herself to examine her memories from an adult perspective. “I think she was probably afraid most of the time. I remember her as being very pretty with black hair and dark eyes, Hispanic ancestry. She was small, much smaller than my dad.”

  She shivered and her chest tightened. Even thinking about it brought back the scary feelings of living in a house where violence reigned.

  Cole got up and went to the pannier again, this time bringing back a blanket. He bent over and wrapped it around her, placing a warm hand on her shoulder for a moment before sitting back down.

  “One night he beat her worse than he ever had before.” Mattie could still remember putting her fingers in her ears to block the sound of the punches, closing her eyes to shut out the sight of blood and the dazed look on her mother’s face as she fought to remain conscious. “He reached for a kitchen knife, and I knew he meant to use it on her. So I sneaked to my parent’s room and dialed nine-one-one. The cops came, my dad went to prison, and my mom was taken to the hospital.”

  Cole had crossed his arms over his chest. “What a thing to have to go through. Did your mother die?”

  “No. She got out of the hospital, but she didn’t want to take care of me and my brother anymore. She turned us over to the county. I haven’t seen or heard from her since the night the ambulance came to take her away.”

  “Is your dad still living?”

  “He got killed at the prison by another inmate. Never made it out.”

  He appeared to be mulling it over. “I hate to say it, but it sounds like he got what he deserved.”

  Mattie shrugged. “Who’s to say? Inmates should be safe in prison. It’s hard to justify violence no matter where it is.”

  “I suppose you’re right about that.”

  “My brother and I were messed-up little kids. He was hard to place—he burned down a haystack at one of our foster homes, so he got taken out of that one. Finally got sent to Colorado Springs to live in a foster home there. I turned into a hellion until the track coach found out I could run, and he funneled all that anger and excess energy into cross-country training. Then I was placed in my last foster home with Teresa Lovato—do you know her?”

  “No, can’t say as I do. Does she have pets?”

  Mattie let out a puff of amusement. “No, no pets per se. Maybe the kids feed a stray now and then, but Mama T has no extra money for pet food. She takes in stray kids mostly.”

  “Did you have a good experience in her home?”

  “The best. Thank goodness for that. She straightened me out.” She gave him a pointed look. “But I’m thinking of your kids and how they must feel. Abandonment issues can really mess with your head. You’d be smart to get the girls professional help early before real problems start.”

  “Case made, Counselor.” He gave her a pointed look. “Are you sure you don’t have a law degree? You remind me of my sister. She can jump on a subject, shake it around, and shape it any way she wants to make her point.”

  Mattie laughed, the tightness in her chest loosening. The mountain lion screamed, the sound echoing from a distance. Robo alerted, standing to sniff the air.

  “Sounds like it’s moved off a ways,” she said.

  “Just wants us to know we’re in its territory.”

  “I suppose so.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments.

  “Do you think Adrienne was killed up here?” Cole asked.

  “No.” Mattie knew very little, but of that she was sure. “It wasn’t right here.”

  “I can’t imagine her hiking up here on her own.”

  “Me either.”

  He sighed. “My kids will be traumatized by this, too. They’d grown fond of her. She was teaching Angie massage techniques for horses.”

  “Um-hmm.”

  Cole looked at her, chagrinned. “You don’t have to say it. I know what you’re thinking.”

  A gust of wind battered them, and with it came the snow in earnest.

  “Let’s set up that tent I brought,” Cole said.

  “All right. No reason you can’t stretch out and get some sleep.”

  “We’ll take turns,” he said. “You first. Robo needs to get in out of the snow and warm up.”

  Chapter 13

  Sunday

  Evidently deciding that two humans and a dog were too much to contend with, the mountain lion stayed away, and the rest of the night passed quickly. The intimacy of the campsite made it easier to tell secrets, and Cole shared his feelings about his wife leaving and about his hopes to pick up the pieces and establish a stable home for his kids. Mattie felt reassured that they knew each other better than ever before, and he didn’t judge her for her difficult past.

  The snow stopped falling sometime during the wee hours of the night, leaving about four inches. By midmorning, the sun shone bright and the retrieval party arrived. Mattie scanned the riders, looking for Stella LoSasso, a detective she liked and respected after they’d teamed up during their last homicide investigation.

  Stella sat atop a brown and white paint toward the middle of the string, holding onto the saddle horn with gloved hands. Wearing white down pants and a parka, she looked more like the Pillsbury Doughboy than the sharply dressed woman Mattie knew her to be. Stella appeared to be looking for her, too, and when their eyes met, her face lit up in greeting.

  Brody rode the first horse in the string of six, and he stopped well away from Mattie and Cole’s campsite. Mattie recognized the two crime scene technicians she’d worked with last summer and Garrett Hartman as the other riders. Hartman led the sixth horse, which wore a packsaddle to carry out Adrienne’s body when they were done with the scene.

  Cole and Mattie joined the group. Mattie exchanged nods with Brody, taking a moment to determine how he was holding up. Clean-shaven and not quite so strung out, it looked as if he may have gotten some sleep. Perhaps there’d been some closure in finding Adrienne and knowing that she was not stranded someplace, suffering from injury and nature’s elements.

  “Hello, Mattie . . . Dr. Walker,” Stella said when they approached. “Could one of you help me down from this beast?”

  “Sure,” Cole said, reaching up to her while Mattie took hold of the reins.

  Stella slid off the horse, staggering as she straightened her legs. “My God, I’m not used to that. And the worst thing is, I have to ride back down.”

  “You can walk out with me,” Mattie told her. “It’s good to see you again, Stella.”

  The two women clasped hands while Cole went on to help the others and to greet Hartman.

  “I’ll stick with the horse, thank you,” Stella said, bending down to pet Robo, avoiding the staples on his shoulder. “What happened to your partner? He looks like the son of Frankenstein.”

  “He tangled with a mountain lion last night.”

  Astonishment crossed Stella’s face. “Good grief! You’re kidding me.”

  “No, I’m not. He was very brave.”

  “I’m sure he was,” Stella said, stroking the fur on Robo’s head. “When is he not?”

  Robo waved his tail, trotted over to sniff the newcomers, and came back to Mattie’s side.

  Mattie and Stella watched him. “He’s not limping very much,” Stella said.

  “Cole said it didn’t get into the muscle. He’s got a four-inch gash in his skin, but he’s going to be okay.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How have you been, Mattie Cobb?”

  “I’ve been better. It’s hard to believe we need you again so soon.” Mattie gestured toward the gravesite. “Before the lion attack, we did a grid search and found some evidence. Robo found a cigarette butt that looks fresh, and I found some tracks that I covered before the storm. The gravesite is covered and protected from the snow, too.”

  “Good job, you two,” Stella said, bending down to pat Robo again. “Well, let’s get to it.”

  Mattie led Stella
and the crime scene techs to the grave, pointing out her evidence markers. One of the techs began snapping photos. Brody carried over supplies while Cole and Garrett stayed by the fire.

  “We’ll open the grave first,” Stella said. “Deputy Brody, would you care to join the boys over there?”

  “I’ll stay.”

  “Suit yourself, but this might not be the best way to remember your friend, and there isn’t anything you can do for her now. Let us take care of her.” Stella gave Mattie a pointed look.

  “Come on, Brody,” Mattie said, touching his arm.

  Without protest, he turned away and followed her back to the fire. From that distance, Mattie watched Stella and the techs kneel at the gravesite and slowly strip away the layers of snow, plastic tarp, stones, and pine boughs that covered Brody’s sweetheart. In the back of her mind, she wondered if the fact that he truly did seem devastated was enough to give Timber Creek’s chief deputy a pass on being a suspect.

  *

  While exhausted from the relatively sleepless night, Mattie still kept up with the horseback riders on the way down. Robo stayed close, and Cole rode behind her. They’d debated trying to lift Robo up to ride in front of Cole, but an uneasy attempt showed them he wanted nothing to do with it. Mattie decided to let him go down on his own and try again if his limp became worse.

  Garrett Hartman rode at the front of the line, leading the packhorse that carried the body. Footing was treacherous in some places with snow and ice on the trail, but about midway down the snowfall had ended, leaving the trail wet but clear. The forecast for snow at only higher elevations above nine thousand feet had been accurate; by the time they reached the trailhead, the ground at the lower elevation was bare. Timber Creek would be, too.

  At the parking area, Mattie went with Cole to his pickup and trailer to get the antibiotics. “Thanks for coming up to help last night,” she said. “When do you want me to bring him in to get the staples out?”

  He popped open the latch at the back of the trailer and swung the door wide. “In about ten days.”

  “Should I restrict his movement or take him off work?”