Heston (In the Company of Snipers #25)

Chapter Eleven

Decker made good time. Within two hours, Heston and Asher were back at the same LZ they’d landed at days earlier. Only now, they were knee-deep in the wettest, heaviest, moisture-filled snow on Earth and slogging their way to London.

“How do people ski in this crap?” Heston wondered out loud. He’d skied in Utah one winter. Its claim to fame was “The Greatest Snow on Earth?”. But this stuff was shit, only good for making fat-bottomed snowmen and droopy snow forts. Not for hiking. Not even for standing up straight in.

“Over here!” A sweet voice yelled from the bank where the White River curved southwest to Owyhigh Lakes. “Hurry! It’s gone now. They took it down, but I’ve got pictures. I can prove it was here. I’ve got pictures of them, too!”

London wasn’t wearing Forest Service green anymore, which was too damned bad. If the Forest Service canned her just because she’d disobeyed Bates, they were dumber than the FBI. She’d dressed in black jeans and a matching jacket today, which made her look sleek and sexy. Like a ski bunny on one of those travel posters for Vale or Lake Tahoe—or the nearest Army recruiting office.

Her cap was bright white, which accentuated her unique hair color, and her boots were bright red, a fashion statement all by themselves. There was the real London, finally. A big cheesy grin lit her pretty face, and she was laughing at them as they trudged along like a couple idiots because… they were. Idiots. At least, Heston was, and he knew it. An idiot for a Wilde woman.

He’d slowed to bask in her laugh, when he noticed the slightest bulge under her left arm. Sure wasn’t extra-downy fluff. No, she was carrying. A twinge of pride slithered up Heston’s spine. That’s my girl.

“My bad,” the cheeky brat giggled. “I should’ve warned you guys to bring snowshoes.”

“No worries,” Asher chuffed once they were at her side. “Walking in crap this heavy builds muscle. It’ll keep the fat off Heston’s ass.”

“My ass isn’t as fat as your head,” Heston volleyed back. “Show us what you’ve got, London.” Man, it felt good hearing her name roll off his tongue. He wanted to say it again, just for the way it felt.

They were downhill from the footbridge. London was standing between him and Asher. She took her cell phone out of her pants pocket, leaned into Asher and said, “See?”

They put their heads together, her cheek almost against his, she was standing that close. Didn’t help that he was taller and had to hunch his big ass down to her level to look at her damned phone. That he’d put a gloved hand on her shoulder, the dog. Heston knew damned well what Asher was doing. Why should Heston care? They weren’t kissing. Or hugging. Asher hadn’t made a play for her. But he was close enough they were breathing the same air.

“See?” London stuck her phone in Heston’s face next. But some butthead had breathed all over it, and condensation fogged the lens, and—

“Can’t see a thing,” he griped like a petulant child instead of the special operator he was.

London leaned in closer. She was nearly under his arm, where she belonged. Still chuckling, she swiped her thumb over the screen to clear the view. Which Heston still couldn’t see, not standing as close as he was to the woman he’d let get away. Not with her flowery scent suddenly in his nose and his brain digging up memories—one after another—of his previous life with this audacious creature. Not with his blood on fire and his stupid heart pounding in his throat.

London hip-checked him to get his attention. Like she used to—a long time ago—back in the days when they’d played around. Teased. Enjoyed each other. Were carefree and—

Time warped, and once again, they were just a couple college kids in love, on their way to fame and glory. So damned happy that being poor hadn’t mattered. They’d had each other. Almost made the emptiness of the last few years fade away. Almost…

Except London was no longer the woman he’d known before. The FBI might not have been smart enough to keep her, but she’d gained a butt load of confidence while being on her own. At least, he hoped she’d been on her own. Was still on her own. Might make groveling easier if he knew he stood a chance. Her last name was still Wilde. That had to mean something.

“Do you see it or not?” she asked breathily.

He looked down at her, not at her phone. She was looking up at him. And once again, he fell into the jeweled wells of her eyes. He reached out automatically, rested a hand on her jacket-covered shoulder. Just her shoulder. Might as well have been her bare breast the way electricity sparked between them. Heston felt like he’d grabbed hold of a live wire. The shock was stunning. Tempting. Made him hungry as hell.

“Hes,” she growled. “Look. At. The. Picture.”

He jerked his mind out of bed, any bed, because that was where it’d gone. Them—naked—under the sheets—in bed—somewhere else. Loving. Holding. Playing. He cleared his throat, nodded ‘message received,’ and finally studied the damned evidence in her hand. It took a few blinks to get the roaring caveman out of his head, but the moment his eyes focused, he cursed. “What the hell is that? A cattle guard?”

“Finally, big guy ,” Asher teased. ‘ Big Guy’ was the too-often-heard, cutesy nickname coined by Agent Everlee Yeager, soon to be Mrs. Everlee Yeager-Hayes, for her fiancé Shane Hayes. It had been used so often in the office that it became a joke.

“Stow it, Downey,” Heston shot back at the real ‘big guy’ on the team, ignoring London so the spike in his pants would stop beating its hairy chest and bellowing, ‘Me get girl!’

There is no way we’re getting the girl, bud. We blew it a long time ago, so shut up.

“Yup, a cattle guard,” London answered, an unsteady tremor in her voice.

Which did not help. Heston was damned if he’d rearrange his junk in public.

She cleared her throat twice, then swallowed hard and asked, “S-see the brackets still attached to the framework below the planks overhanging this side of the bridge? There’s two of them. Two brackets. They’re what held the cattle guard in place. That’s how they caught Kelsey Stewart’s body. That’s why she’s still alive. They sh-shot her, then waited until she hit this grate and pulled her out of the river.”

Yeah, London felt the attraction, too. And she was right. The cattle guard was a sturdy steel device, more or less a massive grate used by farmers the world over, to keep their cattle from crossing a fence line and leaving the farm. It would surely also stop a body traveling downstream. This area of the river was wider and the water less turbulent. The cattle guard was painted USFS green and was nearly invisible, bracketed under the overhang of the bridge and in the shade like it was. Anyone observant enough to notice it would’ve thought it was Forest Service property. But Heston saw it for what it was: the first clue that would lead him to the man or woman who’d shot Kelsey.

“And the guys?” he asked. “You said you had pictures of some guys. Were they who dismantled it?”

London’s head bobbed as she swiftly tapped her cell phone ,then showed him several grainy photos that didn’t reveal shit. At least not clear shit. All he could make out was, yes, two shadowy men alongside the river. Both slender and dressed in black. Both holding cell phones to their ears and continually looking over their shoulders. They weren’t exactly dismantling anything but they certainly knew about the cattle guard.

“I couldn’t get close enough to get better shots, and I know they’re pixilated but—”

“They’re better than what we’ve got. Good job, London.” Heston gave her Mother’s number and ordered her to, “Send these to Sasha Kennedy. She’s our technical genius. Maybe she can work her magic and help you identify these guys.”

“Oh, okay.”

Heston jerked his gaze to the White River. “Did you see them take it apart?” How else could they have gotten something that large out of the river?

“Sorry, no. A couple hikers interrupted me. They’d just found their lost dog and needed my phone to contact their vet because she was hurt and I... I got distracted.”

“Nevermind. Show me the brackets.” Two men taking a cattle guard apart didn’t make sense. Cattle guards were heavy contraptions, not made to be broken down into convenient-to-carry pieces.

“If you’re thinking fingerprints, think again,” London replied, even as she aimed her snowshoes toward the bridge. “There’s no way to know how long it was in place, and there’s been a lot of weather up here. It’ll be a miracle if you find any evidence on it.”

“If we find anything. You’re part of this investigation. We’ll see,” he said with confidence. Killers and kidnappers were just people, and stupid, eager people made mistakes.

By the time he and Asher struggled through the heavy snow to where London already stood at the bridge in her flat, extra-wide snowshoes, he was winded, and his hamstrings were screaming. But hope kept him going. The underside of that bridge, possibly the entire thing, needed to be dusted for prints. All he needed was one print, but if Mother could clean up those photos, maybe between a couple prints and a clear photo, they’d get the guys behind the shootings. Maybe then Alex could rest.

Heston had barely caught his breath when London took a few steps down the rocky bank to the noisy, splashing water line. It was all he could do to not reach forward and jerk her out of harm’s way. To keep her from falling into the river. But this was her world. Her job. And his job today was to respect that she knew precisely what she was doing. Just that.

Respect was all she’d wanted years ago, and by hell, she was going to get it today. Maybe. His fingers still clenched with a desperate need to protect her from herself. His whole body leaned closer in case she slipped or the river grabbed her. He couldn’t lose her like Alex had lost Kelsey. He wouldn’t survive.

It was a struggle, his better sense against his willful ‘I know better than you’ ego, but Heston managed to keep it together. At least, he didn’t make an ass of himself.

London shot him a smile over her shoulder. A real smile. A daring, teasing smile that told him she knew how hard it was for him to treat her as a highly qualified equal. But she was, wasn’t she? She was one of this generation’s intelligent, capable, able-bodied women who needed to fly in order to live. And he was the sap who desperately needed London to live—her life, not his. So Heston gulped and swallowed a big mouthful of arrogant male pride. He suppressed his inner caveman and let her be what she was meant to be. In charge.

“There,” she said, pointing a finger beneath the left side of the overhang, the side where they’d stopped. “See it? There’s two of them. One here, one way over there.”

The footbridge was maybe ten-feet-wide, at least a good twenty, maybe twenty-five feet long. Built of sturdy four-by- eight wood planks laid over a sturdier wooden framework that, in turn, was attached to vertical steel beams pounded deep into the volcanic bedrock of the riverbed, at eight-foot intervals. Overall, there were sixteen steel beams. The top planks overhung the supporting framework by a good two feet. The force of white water roaring down the mountain had had no effect on the steel. They were weathered but tight, and the bridge didn’t shudder, which spoke to the strength of its workmanship. Wooden handrails up top kept travelers safe. The safety net stretched beyond the handrail along both sides of the bridge kept debris, slippery cell phones, wayward children, or mischievous teenagers from falling into the river.

Heston peered closer. Industrial-sized lug bolts secured the brackets to the framework. Both brackets and bolts were tucked beneath the overhang, where, until this snow hit, they’d kept fairly dry. Fingerprinting might be the smart thing to do.

But that two feet of extra overhang was a problem. To remove either bracket, some idiot would have to traverse under the overhang by his fingertips, hanging like a monkey from the planks with no safety net. Once he made it to the first bracket, he’d have to hang by one arm while he removed lug bolts, washers, and brackets with the other. Which wasn’t a problem if he rigged a bag to catch both brackets and bolts once they were loose. Because, yeah. He was that idiot.

“I’m going in,” Heston said to no one in particular, stripping out of his jacket and boots, down to his double holster, his jeans, shirt, and stocking feet. Anxious to get this over with.

London smacked his forearm. Her fingers dug into him, holding him back. “No. That’s crazy. You’ll be hanging over white water, Hes. It’s not safe. Let me call—”

“ You’re calling me crazy?” he asked, teasing her while he traded his snow gloves for climbing gloves out of his gear bag and secured the straps tightly at his wrists.

“No. Never,” she answered breathlessly. The liar. Her pretty eyes had turned dark turquoise with worry. “I know you’re strong and capable, but the net’ll be way above your head, Hes. Not under you, and I don’t have a safety rope. If you fall—”

“Asher has a rope. London, don’t worry. This is my call, my job,” he said gently, cocking his head to maintain eye contact with the woman he had never gotten over. “Not yours.”

He knew how high her anxiety was. How it was burning a hole in her gut. That her adrenaline level was out of sight. Because he’d been in her shoes the night of their fight. He’d been scared, and he understood now why he’d been an ass to her. Because he had witnessed two men die earlier that same day, and the fear that she could die just as quickly as they had, had been a godawful powerful motivator—just as powerful a manipulator. That was what he’d been running on, the high-octane fear of losing her. Fear of her dying in some distant country without him there to catch her, to hold her, to comfort her while she took her last breath. And enough adrenaline to power that fear, enough to make him say anything to make her stay. To keep her safe.

“But, Hes—”

Damn, he loved it when she used his name. “Trust me, babe. I know what I’m doing. Done crazier stuff than this before. Asher, I need a rope and harness,” he ordered, needing to get those brackets bagged before he froze to death.

“You got your Leatherman on you?” Asher asked.

“Yes, but I need to be beneath the overhang before I pull it out. Can’t risk dropping it.”

“Then use this for the evidence.” Asher tossed a small nylon bag with a carabiner attached at one corner. “And this one’s” —he sent another bag flying— “for your tools.”

Heston caught both bags and snapped the carabiners to his belt loops. “Good thinking.”

“And this,” Asher tossed a foot-long S-hook.

Heston caught it and threaded one end into his belt loop. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. That harness and rope won’t keep you from falling, only from being swept away if you do something stupid. You’re taking one hell of a risk, Contreras. The water won’t kill you. The rocks will.”

True story. The White River was a churning washing machine, and the sharp volcanic rocks sticking through the foam were damned wicked agitators.

“Don’t go,” London whispered. “Please, Heston. Don’t do this.”

He winked at her, hoping if he looked cocky enough, she’d understand that there was no way he wasn’t doing this. Rangers took chances. Intestinal fortitude was drilled into them. Surrender was not in the Ranger vocabulary. He’d volunteered to be a Ranger, and he’d volunteered to help Alex nail the bastards who’d hurt Kelsey. End of story.

It took a few minutes to strap into the woven harness and rope. By the time Heston was standing at the edge of the overhang, his clothes were chilled and wet, his feet were frozen, and he was breathing frosty vapor. Asher had one end of the rope wrapped around his fist, and Heston was banking that one of those kidnappers had made a mistake. He only needed a partial print. Just one. If they were in the system, Alex would finally have a way forward.

Go time.