“Hmm.” Jenna leaned against the filing cabinet and folded her arms. “They have volunteer fire fighters in Louan. It must have been a housefire and they needed him to verify the cause for insurance. If it’s anything to do with us, I’m sure he’ll let us know.” She straightened. “I need a break and something to eat. We could stop by Aunt Betty’s Café. Are you hungry?”
Kane stood. His stomach had been complaining for an hour or so. “I thought you’d never ask.” He pushed his hat on his head. “I’m sure the town won’t be invaded with Hell Hounds while we’re out of the office.”
“There you go again, tempting fate.” Jenna took her weapon out of the desk drawer and holstered it.
“Oh, come on, Jenna.” Kane grinned at her. “I don’t want a psychopath murdering people any more than you do but you have to admit, a nice drug bust, cattle rustling, or a bank hold up would break the monotony.”
“I figure an invasion by aliens would be more interesting.” Jenna chuckled and headed for the door. “Can you imagine what Wolfe would do with alien technology?”
Kane whistled Duke and followed her. “Oh, yeah. He’d be reverse engineering everything.” He laughed. “But with our luck the aliens won’t be little green men, they’ll be ax wielding psychopaths.”
Two
Snakeskin Gully
FBI Special Agent and behavioral analyst Jo Wells picked up the phone in her office. “Agent Wells.”
“Agent Wells, this is Tom Crenshaw. I’m the sheriff out of Louan, we had ourselves an explosion last night. The fire department was first on scene and found a mess of bodies. I notified the ME out of Black Rock Falls, Shane Wolfe. He arrived with his team and has ruled the explosion as homicide. He mentioned you have an explosives expert and I should bring you in on the case. We need someone to search for secondary devices before we can enter the premises.”
Jo made a few notes. “Yes, we have an explosives expert on our team. Give me the coordinates and names of the victims.”
“I can give you the name of the person who owns the property but the ME hasn’t identified anyone. No one has been allowed to step foot inside the house.”
“Okay, that’s good. Give me the property owner’s name.” Jo took down the details and then ran a list of things to ask the man through her head. “Is there a place to set down a chopper close by?”
“Yes, ma’am. There’s grassland adjacent to the ranch house. I’ll lay down some flares close to your ETA.”
“That’s great, can you hold for one minute, Sheriff?” Jo muted the call and turned to ex-navy seal and one of the best crime scene investigators she’d ever known, Agent Ty Carter. “We have a case. Explosion, multiple victims, out of Louan. That’s north of Black Rock Falls, in a little place called Aspen Grove. What’s our ETA?”
“I refueled yesterday and she’s ready to go.” Ty ran his hand through his shaggy blond hair, dropped his cowboy boots to the floor, and smiled around a toothpick. “How long will it take for you to be ready? I’ll need time for a preflight check and packing our gear.” He gave her a slow smile and indicated to a Doberman with a coat like silk, ears pricked and waiting for orders. “The bomb squad is always ready.”
Exasperated by his casual approach to everything, Jo sighed and met his amused green gaze with as much tolerance as possible. “I have a bag packed. I can leave in ten minutes. I just need to call home and inform Clara I’ll be away for a couple of days. I’ll call Jaime after school.” She jotted down the info again and handed it to Bobby Kalo, the FBI’s computer whizz kid. “I want everything you can find on this man and if he lives at the property. If he rents it, I want to know the name of the tenant.”
“You got it.” Kalo went to work.
“Okay, we’re set.” Carter closed his computer. He stood and stretched his lean body before ambling over to a locker. “ETA eleven hundred hours.”
Jo unmuted the phone. “Thank you for holding, Sheriff.” She glanced at the clock. “We’ll be there by eleven.”
“Thank you kindly, ma’am. The ME wants to speak to you.” There was a rustling as the phone changed hands.
“Hi, Jo, it’s Shane.”
The image of Shane Wolfe, a six-three blond-haired man built like a Viking marauder, drifted into Jo’s mind. In his early forties, Shane worked as the ME for most of the local counties around Black Rock Falls, Montana. He was a good friend, who’d raised his three girls after nursing his late wife through her battle with cancer. Not only a great ME, Shane was also an IT specialist and spent most of his time assisting Sheriff Jenna Alton and Deputy Dave Kane with murder cases at his base in Black Rock Falls. “Hi Shane, what have we got?”
“I thought maybe a gas explosion but I’m not sure. It smells like C-4 and we need a bomb squad to clear the area before we remove the bodies. I don’t have time to wait for someone from Helena. I called out the fire chief from Black Rock Falls and he’s standing by to examine the area once it’s cleared for explosives.” Wolfe paused a beat. “It’s a homicide. I can see the remains of zip-ties on one of the victims. Can you handle the case?”
“That’s what we’re here for, our field office is available to all who need us.” Jo pushed to her feet and headed for her locker. “We’ll be there by eleven. Kalo is doing a background check on the property owner. We’re leaving now.”
“Okay, catch you later.” Wolfe disconnected.
After making a call to Clara, her daughter Jaime’s nanny, Jo picked up her duffle and headed out the door. She took the elevator to the roof and handed Carter her bag. He’d packed everything they needed in the chopper, including their crime scene kits, Kevlar vests, extra weapons, and a forty-pound bag of dog food. His dog, Zorro—their bomb squad—sat on a back seat in his harness. “Is that everything we need?”
“Yeah, I can refuel in Black Rock Falls.” Carter moved his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and pulled down the rim of his Stetson. “We’ll be able to go by and see Jenna and Kane, maybe grab a meal when we’re done?”
Jo smiled. “That would be nice. Let’s hope we get this case wrapped up fast. I have no idea what experience the Louan sheriff has in arson cases. We might end up completing the entire investigation alone.” She slid on her sunglasses. “At least we’re coming into summer. I’m over freezing my butt off in the mountains.”
Three
Although the sobering fact of visiting another crime scene was ever constant in Jo’s mind, as Carter lifted the bird high into the air and they headed on their journey, her heart leapt at the sight of Montana’s wild and magnificent west. The mountains, standing proud against a clear blue sky, shimmered in the sunshine like a fortress. The vast and lush forests, pristine waterfalls and lakes mixed with the endless color palate and subtle textures of the lowlands. As they flew high above the towns and ranches spreading out across glorious vistas, she wondered how man had dared to taint this beauty with murder.