“You do?” Maya asked, a little surprised. She’d thought maybe Pops was also suspecting Josh.
“When your granddaughter falls in love with someone and you’re a sheriff, you dig into that person’s past more,” Pops said, a little half smile on his face. “Josh does have a past, but he’s never lied about anything. At least not anything that I can find. And he saved you a couple months ago. If he hadn’t figured out where you were, then I could have lost you forever, and I don’t know how I would have gone on. He told me the truth then too, when I had to put him on leave. So yes, I believe he is getting set up. I’d love to help you investigate, but I can’t. At least, not right now.”
Maya hesitated to take in everything Pops told her. “You looked into his past more? Because of me?”
“Yes, I would never want to see you get hurt. I told Josh I was going to do it too. I wanted to see how he reacted to that.”
Maya didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, Pops was crossing a line into her personal life, but on the other hand, she knew he’d done it because of how much he cared for her. “HowdidJosh react to you doing all that?”
Pops took a long sip of coffee and set the mug down, a few tears in his eyes.
“You okay?” Maya asked.
“Yeah, I am. He responded by telling me that he loved you more than anything. That he wanted to be with you forever. He told me he would make sure I had access to any records I wanted.” Pops paused and then laughed. “He even said he’d take a polygraph.”
That made Maya giggle a little bit, but sadness also swept over her thinking about Josh heading to jail for the night. Not at home, next to her in bed, wrapping his arms around her.
“All I ever wanted for you and for your mother was for you both to be happy. I feel like with Josh, you are happy. I don’t want you to lose that, and I don’t believe Josh would do anything like the crimes he’s accused of. When this trial is over, if we’re not sharing a jail cell, I’m going to help you investigate this,” Pops said.
“Don’t even joke about sharing a jail cell,” Maya said, taking one last swig of coffee. “I think the wind is starting to die down. I’m going to take Juniper back to the stream where we stopped tracking and see if we can find anything.”
“Tonight? You’re nuts.”
“You know I am,” Maya said. “I’ll pack my gear and be prepared. I can handle camping out in the forest tonight if need be. But I need to find that missing person—Elena. She might be the one person who can prove Josh’s innocence.”
“Okay, I know better than to stop you and I didn’t raise you camping in these mountains to tell you not to go. But be careful, okay?”
“Always,” Maya said, standing and giving Pops a quick hug. “Always.”
Juniper stood, did a downward-dog stretch and then wagged her tail.
“You think she has enough energy to track?” Pops asked.
“Oh yeah. She’s napped for a while. Don’t let her fool you. See you later.”
“Check in with me, okay?” Pops said.
“I’ll do that. I promise.”
Maya and Juniper headed out of the sheriff’s office. She needed to go home and let poor Finn out. After driving the short distance to their house, Maya let the dogs out and packed her military tactical hiking backpack. She hadn’t used it in a long time. Once she had all her supplies, including extra food for Juniper, she apologized to Finn and put him away. She’d have to make sure she came back early in the morning to get him out. That could also be a good time to switch dogs, since Juniper was probably going to be tired.
Juniper ran out the door in front of Maya, waiting by her compartment, ready to work again. Maya let her jump in and then made sure she was all settled. Backing out, she turned on the radio for dispatch. Technically, she wasn’t on duty, but she wanted to hear the radio calls in case anyone found Elena. The SAR team had stopped operations for now, but Ryan had said they would resume when everyone was rested. Probably tomorrow morning.
As she backed out of their drive, a call came over the dispatch for a hit-and-run a couple miles out of town at mile marker fifty-six. Maya knew the spot. There were always accidents there. Steep grades with sharp curves often meant that drivers went too fast and lost control. Or even overheated their brakes. Snowy days were even worse, as the road would get slick with ice as the wind blew across there. The wind often polished the ice to make it like a skating rink.
Maya was turning to head toward the recreational cabins when she heard the dispatch add more for the responding officers.
“Be advised, there is a prisoner on the loose from this accident. Use caution.”
Maya slammed the brakes. Juniper lost her balance and gave an indignant whine.
“Sorry, girly,” Maya said, whipping her vehicle in a U-turn and flipping on her lights. Juniper started to howl, forgiving the hard stop. The Mal loved running hot. Flooring the gas and picking up speed, Maya headed for the crash site.
There was only one jail transport and one prisoner that was heading out from Pinecone Junction tonight. Maya prayed that Josh was okay.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The terrain was rough, but adrenaline fueled Josh as he hiked in the direction toward where he could get out of these jail scrubs and regroup. If he was going to be a felon on the run, he might as well not be obvious running around in black and white stripes.
