Cold Case Affair Page 7

  The big strike had lasted over a year. Combined with the mass homicide twenty years ago, it had resulted in severe staffing and production problems for the Tolkin Mining Corporation. Development mining—the boring of new tunnels deeper into rock in order to reach fresh veins of ore—had to be scaled back, resulting in a shortage of quality ore. And new gold mines in the north had subsequently opened, producing a far greater yield. The resultant competition had killed the Safe Harbor mine, and Tolkin had finally shut its doors seven years after the bombing.

  The property had sat abandoned ever since, crumbling with time and seasons.

  For a moment Muirinn just stood there, snared by a surge of memories, the place coming to life with people, frantic, milling around like ants. She could hear sirens, see the acrid smoke boiling up out of D-shaft, feel the spring snow cold on her cheeks, her mother’s hand icy in hers. Chief Bill Moran was walking toward them…

  Clouds began to gather in the sky, suddenly darkening the ground. The air grew hotter, closer. The strange thrum of a grouse reverberated against the stillness.

  Muirinn shook herself, rubbing the chill of the memory from her arms.

  She glanced up at the avalanche-scarred mountains that soared up on either side of the Tolkin Valley. Their plunging chutes looked dark and ominous, although they shouldn’t. They were choked with the vibrant green of deciduous summer growth that had burst from snow-scoured ground, and higher up on the peaks, avalanche lilies—a favorite food of grizzlies—had formed a verdant green carpet.

  Muirinn stepped up to the gate.

  The chain and lock had long ago been rusted and pried open by vandals. Unhooking what was left of the chain, Muirinn creaked open the massive gate, dragging it wide through the dirt so she could bring the truck in.

  She drove through, shut the gate behind her, and traveled along the perimeter fence for about three miles until the Sodwana headframe loomed on a rise ahead, a grim, rusting, metal skeleton in the shape of an A, a small derelict building squatting at its base.

  Just like the photo.

  Muirinn stopped alongside the shed.

  The windows were partially boarded up, a metal drum and old iron boxcar resting outside. Plastic flapped in the hot breeze. Her mouth felt dry.

  This was a bad place, choked with the ghosts of old miners. She didn’t like to think of Gus here, alone. Or down the shaft.

  Muirinn retrieved the rifle from the gun box, loaded it and released the safety. She couldn’t say why exactly. But she felt edgy, as if she were being watched by unseen eyes.

  Wind gusted, stirring fine silt up into a soft dervish, and suddenly it was cold again, and the silt was blowing snow, and she could see Chief Bill Moran coming, looming, the grim news carried in his posture and stride…Disconcerted, Muirinn again shook away the haunting images.

  This place had an eerie way of slamming present and past together, and Muirinn realized that that was exactly why Gus had come here. And why she was here now, too.

  Approaching the old headframe building, the .22 clutched a little too tightly in her hand, her eyes tracked over the dry ground, trying to see where the old photos might have been taken, where some accomplice might have stood vigil on a cold morning twenty years ago as a killer trekked deep underground.

  A sudden soft whoosh of breeze rustled through the alders, leaves clapping like little hands, an invisible audience watching, waiting, cheering. She glanced nervously back at the main gate. It suddenly seemed so far. Her hand touched her belly.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have come out here alone, but she honestly didn’t know who she could turn to right now, apart from Jett. And that definitely wasn’t going to happen.

  Making sure her cell phone was easily accessible in her pocket, Muirinn pushed open the old door. It released an inhuman groan of protest, rusted metal grinding against the hinge.

  Her heart hammered.

  It was stifling inside, rank. She shivered again. Her gaze skimmed around the interior, settling on the heavy-looking grate covering the man-way as the last words in Gus’s notes sifted into Muirinn’s mind.

  Did bomber use Sodwana shaft to access D-shaft where bomb was planted? Did accomplice stand guard at headframe?

  Was that why he dragged the grate back and climbed down into that black hole?

  Maybe he’d wanted to see if it was actually possible to access the bomb site underground from this shaft, and how long it might take.

  No, that was pure insanity.

  Her grandfather might have been eccentric, but he would never have gone down that shaft alone, not at his age, not with his heart condition. Not without telling anyone where he was going.

  She propped her rifle against the wall, bent down to tug the grate off the man-way. It was heavy iron, virtually immovable. She tried to imagine Gus doing this. Sweat prickled over her body as she hefted it a few inches, then a few more, metal grating across metal until she managed to pull the grate right off. Her hands burned, smelled of rust. She’d never have gotten this off if it hadn’t been removed and replaced recently.

  Dank air from deep in the bowels of the earth reached up, cold, crawling right into her. Peering cautiously down into the black abyss, Muirinn was suddenly 100 percent convinced that Gus wouldn’t have taken hold of the decaying old ladder rungs and climbed into that black maw alone.

  But as she bent down to replace the cover, a powerful crack resounded through the quiet hills, and a slug slammed into metal just near her shoulder. A cloud of birds scattered from a clump of alders.

  It took a nanosecond for Muirinn to grasp what had just happened.

  Gunshot!

  She crouched down, mind racing. Must be a hunter. And I just happen to be in the line of fire, she thought, peeking up carefully through the slatted boards just as another explosive sound boomed through the valley. A slug hammered into the opposite wall, splitting a support beam into shrapnel. A piece stabbed into her shoulder.

  Muirinn gasped, clamping her hand over the wound. Blood started to well between her fingers, dribbling down her arm. The report echoed down through the valley, fading into the distant stillness.

  She could hardly breathe.

  That was no simple rifle. That was the distinctive explosive sound of a point three-effing-oh-three, with enough firepower to fell a moose at full charge!

  Almost immediately, another shot walloped through the wall. She dived to her knees, slamming down onto her side into the dirt. Her phone clattered out of her pocket and skittered across the floor.

  Grouse fluttered outside.

  Someone was shooting at this shack!

  She lay dead still, heart jackhammering, skin drenched with sweat. And blood.

  Then came another report—this one clunking off the ironwork outside.

  Her stomach started to cramp. My baby. Oh, Lord, she shouldn’t have come here alone. Muirinn inched along the dirt on her side, reaching for her rifle. Gripping it in her hands, she wriggled over to a second window that had been boarded over. She edged up, inserted the barrel of her .22 through a large crack. She scanned the mountainside with her scopes, trying to locate the shooter.

  She caught a movement in the brush, a slight glint of sunlight against metal. Someone was hiding in the bush, dressed in camo gear and hunting cap, aiming at the shed.

  With shaking hands she snugged her cheek against the stock, aimed to the right of the sniper and slowly squeezed off a round.

  Almost instantly the sniper returned fire, blasting the boards clear from the window. Muirinn screamed, dropping her rifle as she scrambled for cover. Shattered wood blew clear across the room, a piece glancing across her temple.

  Panic and pain tore through her body.

  Her weapon was no match for that kind of firepower.

  Muirinn tried to crawl over to her phone. But the sniper could now see in through the window with his powerful scope, and a slug thwoked into the dirt just in front of her cell, shooting sand into her face.

  She lurched back
with a whimper, crawled into a far corner and cowered there, blood now running down her face from the wound on her temple as more slugs slammed through the shack.

  The only reason she wasn’t dead already was because the heavy metal boxcar outside was preventing bullets from coming through the wall. But that meant she couldn’t move. She couldn’t call for help.

  Tears of frustration burned into her eyes. She held her stomach, feeling small cramps sparking across her abdomen.

  Oh, please, I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want to lose my baby.

  Then she heard a slug thunk into her truck outside, and the powerful odor of gas fumes reached her nostrils. Another well-aimed shot ignited the fuel with an explosive whoosh that filled the air with a rush. She heard the hot crackle of flames, saw black smoke rising outside the far window. Someone out there was determined to kill her.

  If the shack caught fire, she’d be burned alive.

  If she tried to flee, she’d be shot.

  She was trapped.

  Jett’s truck bounced over ruts in the road as he raced north, a cone of silt roiling out behind him. His gun lay on the seat beside him. He had no idea what Muirinn was up to, but a cold instinct told him trouble awaited.

  Nearing the Tolkin perimeter, he saw a plume of black smoke twisting up into the wind.

  Jett slammed down on the gas and blew his truck right through the closed mine gate, smashing it back with a violent crash and scrape of metal. Spinning his tires in the fine dry dirt, he swerved and sped along the perimeter fence, aiming for the source of the smoke.

  As he approached, he realized it was Gus’s red truck burning.

  Jett drove even faster. But suddenly a cloud of dirt spat sharply up in front of his tires. Then another. Then something thudded into the bed of his truck.

  With raw, gut-slamming shock, Jett realized that someone up in the hills was shooting at him, trying to stop him from reaching the shed. And judging by the burning wreck of the truck and the state of the shed, Muirinn was holed up in there like prey.

  Or worse.

  She could already be dead.

  Chapter 7

  Jett skidded to a stop behind the headframe building and flung open his door, dropping down behind his vehicle as another shot slammed into the ground. Resting his rifle barrel on the bed of the truck, Jett edged up, squinting into the scope.

  He saw the glint of a weapon, then a sharp movement in leaves up on the hill, as if the sniper had suddenly seen him looking and ducked.

  Reining in his adrenaline, Jett forced his breath out, slow and measured, and he squeezed off a shot. The bushes on the hill rustled sharply. Then a cloud of dust boiled up into the air as the shooter fled into the mountains on an all-terrain vehicle.

  Jett burst through the shed door, slamming it back off its hinge.

  Muirinn scampered backwards with a whimper, blind terror in her eyes as she cowered into a tight ball in the corner. Blood and tears streaked her sheet-white face.

  A terrible fear gripped Jett as he dropped to his knees, rifle to the ground as reached for her. “Muirinn! How badly are you hurt?”

  She sagged visibly as she registered his voice. “Oh, God, Jett—”

  He took her quickly into his arms, her entire body trembling like a frail aspen branch. He held her tight and she sobbed, releasing everything, giving herself fully over to him, to his care. To his embrace. And it tore into his soul. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, a fierce, raw rage bubbling inside him.

  He fought to tamp it down. Uncontrolled aggression bred rash decisions.

  He needed cool.

  Focus.

  Jett blinked back his hot emotion and stroked her hair back from her face. “What in hell happened here?” he said, examining the cut on her temple.

  She couldn’t talk. Not yet. Sobs still wracked her body, choking her words.

  “Shhh, it’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s just a surface wound. But they do bleed a lot.” He removed his hunting knife from the sheath on his belt and used the tip to tear back the blood-soaked sleeve from her shoulder.

  “Got some wood fragments in there. I have a first aid kit in the truck, but we need to get out into the light.” He helped her to her feet and led her from the shed. Coughing, eyes burning from toxic black smoke, they steered clear of Gus’s smoldering vehicle.

  Once they were well away from the mine property, Jett pulled over onto the side of the road and tended to Muirinn as she sat in the passenger seat, feet hanging out the door.

  Putting his paramedic training to work, he cleansed the wound on her brow then applied a butterfly suture just under her hairline.

  “A stitch or three and you’ll be as good as new,” he reassured her gently. But he had to force his voice to stay level, because inside his belly trembled with raw protective rage, and it took every ounce of control to bottle it in. He was angry with her, too, for coming out here alone.

  “What happened here, Muirinn?” he asked softly as he pulled the shard from her shoulder, feeling her wince as he did. “What were you doing at the mine?” He taped the wound tightly shut, noting the ripped knees on her dust-caked pants, the deathly pallor of her complexion. His chest tightened.

  “I wanted to see where Gus was found.” Her voice sounded small, scared.

  “I swear that idiot was trying to kill me. I thought it was over. I…I thought I was going to die, Jett. You…” her voice hitched. “You gave me—my baby—a second chance. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.” Tears tracked down through the dirt on her face.

  He stilled his hand against her cheek.

  A second chance. Was it possible for them? Could they ever try again?

  He felt his body—every molecule in his system—aching to kiss her, hold her, comfort her. And Jett started to shake against his restraint, the powerful aftereffects of the massive cortisol dump to his system finally seizing control. With it his anger mushroomed.

  “You shouldn’t have come out here alone, Muirinn,” he said brusquely.

  Her mouth flattened at his admonition.

  He grabbed his phone. “I’m calling the cops.”

  “No! Wait!” She clamped her hand on his arm, looking mortified.

  “What for?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, sucking in air deeply, bolstering herself. “Gus’s death wasn’t an accident, Jett.”

  “What are you saying? Did you get into his laptop? Did you find something?”

  She nodded. “Gus had new evidence on the Tolkin homicide, something that could lead to the bomber. I think he was murdered because of it, and whoever killed him might believe that I have seen it, and now they might be trying to silence me.”

  “Why in hell didn’t you come to me with this first, Muirinn, before charging off half cocked to the mine?”

  She sighed heavily, limbs still trembling, and guilt pinged through Jett. He knew why.

  Muirinn was avoiding him because he hadn’t been able to come clean on his divorce. She was staying away out of respect for him.

  He softened his voice. “Tell me what was in those files, Muirinn.”

  “Ike Potter, a retired cop who worked for the SHPD at the time of the Tolkin homicide apparently gave Gus some old crime scene photographs—”

  “I knew Ike. He had cancer, passed away just two months—”

  “Yes,” she interjected. “And just before he died, he handed Gus information from the old Tolkin investigation. Evidence that had been buried by the SHPD, never making it into the hands of the FBI team.”

  “What?”

  “Hear me out.” Her eyes looked glassy. She was going into shock—pale, clammy skin, breathing too fast and light. Jett was worried about her baby.

  “Muirinn, listen, we need to get you checked out. You can finishing telling me all this on the way to—”

  “No! Listen to me first, Jett, please!” She grasped his hands. “You need to know this before we figure out who we can talk to.” She swallowed
hard, glancing nervously toward the mountains into which the shooter had fled. “Among the missing crime scene photos were shots of two different sets of boot prints. One set of prints was made inside and outside the Sodwana headframe on the morning of the bombing. It appears the bomber had an accomplice, Jett, someone who waited at the headframe while the bomber climbed down the shaft—”

  “That shaft is miles away from the bomb site, Muirinn. I don’t even know if the bomb site is accessible from Sodwana.”

  “I don’t know, either, and maybe that’s what Gus was trying to find out. But the FBI was never given those photographs, Jett. And apparently the tracks themselves were obliterated by someone on the SHPD force before the postblast team could get in. The FBI never explored that angle because there was no evidence to corroborate it.”

  Jett shook his head. “Muirinn, this doesn’t make sense. Why would Ike have sat on this information all these years? And why suddenly hand it over to Gus?”

  “Because he was dying, Jett, and he wanted to come clean. Because he was a cop, and he’d been eaten up by guilt these past twenty years. Maybe Ike sat on the evidence because he was a rookie at the time of the blast, and he was afraid of ratting out a superior officer—someone who could still be around now.” She gripped his hands tighter in her urgency to get her message across.

  “Gus probably felt secure in thinking that no one knew what Ike had given him, Jett. But someone must have found out, someone who is still trying to keep the past buried. And will kill to do so.”

  Jett leaned back in shock. “So you think Gus was murdered?”

  She hesitated, suddenly growing more pale, exhausted, drained. She glanced in the direction of the mine. “I know he was,” she whispered. “After looking down that hole I know in my heart that my grandfather would never have gone down there on his own. Something bad happened to him.”

  “Muirinn,” he said gently. “Your grandfather was known for his eccentricity, his obsession with Tolkin. And remember that both the ME and Gus’s doctor were in agreement about the cause of his death. The police didn’t voice any suspicions about foul play, either.”