“Busy day,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“You look wiped out.”
As usual, she looked as if she had just stepped off a photo shoot. He should ask her some time if she’d had her patrol uniform tailored. It didn’t fit anyone else that way. “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” he said.
She sipped hot chocolate and regarded him over the edge of the cup. “So what’s the real story on Stacy? Is she really an old friend?”
He shook his head. “We just met when she came to investigate the theft of the cast boosters.”
“Is she with ATF?”
“FBI.”
“Ooh.” Nina leaned toward him. “So, are you helping her with her investigations, or is there more to it than that?”
Last night there had been a lot more to it. In the cold daylight he was less sure. “She’s only here while she’s working on this case,” he said.
“Where does she live the rest of the time?”
“Denver.”
“That’s only a few hours away.”
He gave her a sour look.
She smiled. “I’m just saying. Does she like dogs?”
“Loves them. And Farley is crazy about her.”
“Then she’s perfect.” She sat back. “Don’t look so glum.”
“Yeah, I’m just tired.” He rubbed his hand down his face as if he could erase the weariness.
“Things are winding down,” Nina said. “You should go home. Sleep while you can. Tomorrow is going to be a zoo.”
“I’ve only got a few more hours. I’ll hang in there.”
After lunch he sent another text to Stacy—still no reply. His first instinct was to leave work early and drive out to Shane’s ranch to look for her. And then what? As annoyed as she had been at her father for racing to her rescue, she wasn’t liable to appreciate Connor’s interference.
He reminded himself she was capable and trained. She knew far more about what she needed to do than he did. The best thing for him was to wait and trust her to know how to do her job.
Stacy took thestairs one at a time, pausing on each step to listen. But the only noises were the rattle of wind against a loose pane of glass and her own breathing.
The upstairs consisted of three rooms and a bath. The first two rooms held neatly made beds and enough dust to indicate they hadn’t been occupied in a while. The third room contained a desk, two bookcases and a beige metal filing cabinet. She slipped inside and shut the door behind her.
She quickly searched through the papers on top of the desk, which consisted primarily of junk mail and old invoices. She moved on to the drawers. Broken pens, loose batteries and screws, a tin of snuff, a half pint of bourbon and more uninteresting paperwork crowded the first two drawers.
But in the bottom left-hand drawer, she found what she was looking for—a map of SkyCrest Resort, half a dozen spots marked with precise black X’s. One of the X’s was on the ridge above Lift Ten—the site of yesterday’s avalanche. Other X’s indicated Lifts One and Four, and ridges on the west and southwest boundaries of the resort, above networks of ski runs.
These had to be the targets the people at the quarry had been practicing to hit.
The sound of voices in the rooms below set her heart racing. She shoved the papers back into the drawer, quickly left theroom and hurried down the hall to the first of the two unoccupied bedrooms. She stood with her back to the wall, weapon drawn, and waited.
Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs, then men’s voices. “You’re sure about this?” the first voice—Shane?—said.
“Nate is good enough.” Stacy thought this was the instructor from the quarry, with the British accent. “And that old man you sent over—George. He’s got a good arm. He says he worked with this type of explosive most of his life.”
