“You bet.” A self-conscious smile tugged at her lips. “I finally get to put my American history and anthropology classes to good use.”
“Sounds like it’ll be interesting. Would you like help? Like when I’m not patrolling?” What was he saying? Had he lost his mind? Sam needed to put distance between them, not manufacture a reason to be around Emma.
“You’d do that?”
He couldn’t think of a way to backtrack. “I don’t want you at Mount Locust alone, at least not until we know more about the shooting and now the flowers.”
“I’ll take any help I can get.”
He opened her truck door. “I have an appointment at Rocky Springs later this morning and will have to leave around eleven,” he said. Something he could comfortably do since Nate would still be on site investigating the shooting. “I’ll be back by one or two to help.”
“Thanks. You do know it’ll be hard work,” she said dryly.
“Evidently you don’t think I’m up to it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you meant. I’ll help this afternoon, and since tomorrow is Saturday and I’m off duty, I’ll help again.”
“You’re on,” she said and slid behind the wheel of her pickup. “See you this afternoon.”
“Actually, you’ll probably see me all morning. The investigation, remember?”
Emma’s face turned somber. “Oh yeah, that.”
He glanced over the white pickup. “Is this Ryan’s old—”
“It was my dad’s,” she said sharply and pushed in the clutch as she turned the key. “Ryan just drove it until he got the Mustang.”
“You’ve taken good care of it.” He seemed to put his foot in his mouth every time he turned around. She pulled away from the curb while he hurried to his SUV. He hadn’t planned to offer his services and was just as surprised as she was when the words came out of his mouth. But it was his responsibility to guard the Trace and anyone on it who might be in danger. And Emma definitely needed someone to watch over her.
Although it would be extremely difficult for them to see through his darkly tinted side windows, he ducked down as the two vehicles passed his parked car.
What was the ranger doing at her apartment? And why was he following her? Jealousy stabbed his heart, and he quickly brushed it away. When Sam Ryker had retrieved a box from his SUV, he’d used binoculars to see what it was. A fingerprint kit. She must have told him about the flowers, but didn’t she understand they were from him?
He removed the windshield sun screen and cranked the car. Emma hadn’t posted her message to him on Facebook yet. That was unlike her. Maybe it was because of the ranger . . . he certainly seemed familiar with her, holding her arm, helping her down the steps. Was the ranger going to be a problem? That bore thinking about.
He shifted his thoughts back to Emma and the flowers. Did she get the meaning of the nine daisies? Forever mine.
He remembered when they’d bumped into each other, the way her hand had lingered on his arm even as she talked about being friends. She was testing him. Her smile sent a different message, one that said she loved him but they couldn’t be together just yet. He was willing to wait.
For a while.
After waiting outside Walmart for Emma to pick up a bag of cat food, Sam followed her to the Trace, then through the gate to the visitor center at Mount Locust. Once she got out, he circled back toward the maintenance building and parked beside the sheriff’s SUV. Nate Rawlings walked toward him from the woods. “What’ve you found?” Sam asked.
“Someone hot-wired the backhoe, and the hole is bigger than I thought it was,” Nate said. “I’ll show you.”
Sam followed him through the woods and saw the yellow backhoe long before they reached it. Beside it was a mound of dirt. He stopped at the edge of a hole. His chest tightened. A few feet deeper, and it could pass for a shallow grave. “Did your techs find any prints?”
“No, not even any footprints. Found a scrap of newspaper, though. He must have laid paper on the floor of the backhoe. Trey just got here and is digging a slug out of the post at the inn.”
“Reckon what the intruder was digging for?”
“Good question. One of my deputies is bringing a metal detector to go over the ground. Thought I’d ask Emma to use that fancy machine to see what’s beneath the ground. But it’s not likely anything of value is buried here.”
“Do you think the intruder found what he was looking for?”
“Hoping that GPR machine will tell us.”
Sam stared at the hole. No one trespassed at a federal park in the dark and hot-wired a piece of equipment to dig a hole this size for nothing. Or fired at someone coming to investigate. He followed Nate to the Mount Locust Inn, where they found Trey working at the back of the cabin. The chief deputy acknowledged him with a nod as he inserted a laser rod in the bullet hole.
“Find anything?” Nate asked.
“Just got started.” Trey nailed a string beside the rod. “How’s Emma today?”
“Fine until she received a bouquet of daisies this morning,” Sam said, watching for a reaction.
“You mean I have competition?” the chief deputy said. “Who were they from?”
“The person didn’t leave his name on the card,” Sam said. “Thought they might be from you.”
“It wasn’t me. I would have signed my name if I’d sprung for flowers. Do you suppose it had anything to do with this?” He jerked his head toward the post.
Sam shrugged. “At this point, I don’t have enough information to tell.”
Trey let the string drop and stepped off the porch. “It should be easy enough to track down the sender. Whoever sent them must have ordered them from a florist since daisies don’t grow around here this time of year.”
“True, and I’ll be checking that out.” Sam had to admit Trey’s reaction didn’t fit a guilty person, but maybe he was a good actor—he certainly had a ready answer about the daisies.
8
Several cars were already parked in the visitor center parking lot, including a couple of Adams County deputy vehicles, when Emma pulled into Mount Locust. After realizing she would be late, she’d contacted Guy Armstrong, the head of maintenance, and asked him to unlock the gate.
Emma parked and scanned the grounds for the gray-and-white tabby that had showed up last night. It was probably hiding out from all the activity buzzing around the visitor center. When she entered the building, her volunteer was circling a Trace map for a visitor. Sheila was helping out this winter while Emma worked on the mapping project.
“I’m sorry, the Mount Locust Inn is off-limits today, but be sure to stop here,” Sheila said, pointing to the Sunken Trace. “It’s twenty-six miles up the road.”
After the tourist left, she turned to Emma. “What’s going on? Nobody will tell me anything.”
That was a first. Sheila could usually worm information out of a scarecrow. “We had a little disturbance here last night.” Emma set the bag of food on the counter. “Have you seen a cat around here?”