2
Blood pounding behind her eyes, breath bursting from her chest, Frankie Cash dropped the rowing machine oar and jogged to the next station of her Orangetheory workout. She surveyed the web of straps and grips, trying to remember how the exercise was done. Sweat trickled into her eyes. Her brain was moving in slow motion.
Too late.
“Oh, Frankiiiie,” sang the dreaded voice from behind her. “Don’ttellme I see you resting right now, girl.”
Cash turned in defeat. Her instructor, Max, hands on hips, head cocked to one side, evaluated her. The tiniest tank top stretched over his muscled chest, the wordsRAYS OUT GAYS OUTemblazoned across in green lettering.
“It goes like this.” Max dropped down into a plank and stuck his feet in the straps. Without breaking a sweat, he scrunched his knees forward and up to the side, keeping his arms parallel and palms on the ground. “Pull, and twist. Pull, and twist,” he repeated, and looked over at Cash from his position on the floor. “Easy.”
He extracted himself in a single movement, stood up, and indicated with an open palm and dazzling smile that it was now her turn.
“Right…” Frankie said. “Pull, and twist.” She wasn’t so sure about the “easy” part. She awkwardly got down. Losing weight was pure torture, but she was damned if she wasn’t going to stick with it. She’d already lost six pounds, and there was no way she was going to throw away the suffering that had required. As if on cue, a rivulet of sweat stung thecorner of her eye. She flicked it off with determination, stuck her feet into the loops, and got ready to start the ordeal again, Max looking on.
The whistling ringtone of her cell playing the theme fromThe Good, the Bad, and the Uglyswelled into life from her pocket, barely heard over the pumping club music that filled the air.
“Don’t answer that,” said Max sternly. “You’renotsupposed to have that in here.”
“I have to,” said Cash, secretly relieved.
Max frowned as she disentangled herself from the apparatus and answered the call. “Cash here. Hold on.” She turned to Max, covering the mouthpiece. “I’ll take it outside.”
As she left, he called out after her, “It better be a murder!”
She took a seat on a bench outside the front door. “Yeah?”
“Frankie,” a familiar voice drawled, “if I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you sound glad to hear from me.”
Cash found herself smiling. “If only you knew,” she said.
Sheriff James Colcord got right to business. “We got a homicide call. It’s a weird one. An old guy dead in the Flat Tops Wilderness.” He paused. “You know what that means.”
“Neanders?” Cash sat up straight, alert now. In the first case they’d worked on together, Neanders—homicidal Neanderthals de-extincted by the Erebus Resort’s crazy chief scientist, Marius Karman—had escaped from a laboratory and disappeared into the Flat Tops Wilderness. Cash knew it was just a matter of time before they’d resurface.
“Probably not, but there’s a ritualistic aspect to it that’s worth looking into. I’m on my way to the crime scene. Northwest of Burns. Remote. We have to hike in to the site. Will turn into a media shitstorm for sure. I’ve already called CBI to assist on this one—and asked for you. You heard from Holmes yet?”
“Nope,” Cash answered. “But you better believe she’ll be hearing from me. Shoot me the coordinates, will you?”
Her cell chimed immediately, and she loaded them and looked at the map. “It’s on federal land. Do we even have jurisdiction?”
“Feds don’t think it’s connected to the Neanders and don’t want it. You know how the US Attorneys’ Office is—they spend more time trying to weasel out of cases than prosecuting them. Plus, the park rangers agreethat CBI should have this one—they hate working with the feds. I’m not complaining. I just hope the FBI don’t pull their usual and swoop in and take the case after we’ve done all the work.”
“So you want CBI to take the lead?” Cash asked.
“Now, I wouldn’t gothatfar.”
“Are the remains in a structure or out in the open?”
“Inside a log cabin. Apparently, the victim was squatting illegally on federal land, but you’re right—better safe than sorry. I’ve got a deputy writing the search warrant, which should be signed by Judge Greenberg by the time we get to the trailhead.”
They set up a time to meet at the trailhead, and Cash ended the call, wondering why she hadn’t heard from her boss, Blaisdell Holmes, the new director of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. She hoped Holmes wasn’t trying to give the case to someone else.
She had better get to the Lakewood CBI headquarters, and fast.
Cash took one of her famous “dunk and run” showers, barely letting the water run over her body long enough to rinse off the soap, taking care not to wet her hair. She threw on a pair of black slacks and a Milano blouse. Luckily, she had put on a pair of Ecco boots that morning, which she could hike in. A spray of dry shampoo fixed up her unwashed hair, and then she holstered her Baby Glock 9 and clipped her shield to her waist. The Baby Glock wasn’t the standard weapon assigned to CBI agents, but she had asked for an exception; it fit so well in her hand. Throwing on a black suit jacket, she was out the door.
Cash squinted at the sun, which was barely peeking over the horizon as she took Kipling Street south toward CBI headquarters. She didn’t have time for her usual post-workout cup of Café Bustelo instant espresso. She hoped Colcord would pick her up a coffee, but she was disinclined to give the old cowpoke the satisfaction of asking for one.
