Raeanne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One

As soon as her daughter left, she turned to Owen. “When you finish your homework, you can play the Lego Star Wars video game your dad bought you this weekend, before we have to go home and get you in your costume for the pageant.”

“Can we go to McDonald’s for dinner?”

He always knew how to hit her up when she was tired and stressed, when the challenge of cooking a healthy, satisfying meal for her family seemed completely beyond her capabilities. “We’ll see how well you do with your homework first.”

In an instant, he reached to whip his homework folder from his backpack at the same time Riley rose to give him space on the desk for the ream of papers he always seemed to bring home.

“I’ve got to run. Let me know if you think of anything else that might help the investigation. No matter how small or insignificant the information might seem to you, it could provide the break we need.”

“I will. Thank you again for all you’ve done.”

“You can wait and thank me after I catch the ba—” He caught himself with a quick, apologetic look to Owen. “The bad dudes. Good luck tonight, Abe. You were always my favorite president.”

Owen grinned as he spread his homework on the desk and reached for a pencil. Claire followed Riley back to the workroom, where he took time to say goodbye to his mother and sisters and the other women still sorting away.

“Wow. This looks like a big mess,” he said.

“You let us worry about the beads,” his mother said. “You just get back out there and catch whoever did this to our Claire.”

“No pressure, right? On my way, Ma.” He kissed his mother’s salt-and-pepper curls, then headed for the door.

CHAPTER THREE

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, the more they stayed the same, and all that.

Riley sat in the auditorium at Hope’s Crossing Elementary School, feeling a little like he’d traveled back in time. The place looked just as it had when he was here twenty-five years ago. Same creaky folding chairs, same red-velvet curtains on the stage.

The third-grade class of Hope’s Crossing Elementary School had been presenting a Spring Fling Spectacular for more than thirty years. Riley could vividly recall his own stint in their play, which his year had been a salute to the original miners who staked claims in the area. Despite old Mrs. Appleton’s stern warnings to the contrary all through their rehearsals, he had been overwhelmed by the crowd and the excitement and had stupidly locked his knees right in the middle of a rousing song about turning silver into gold.

His spectacular dive off the stage as he passed out into the lap of the grumpy fourth-grade teacher holding the cue cards was probably still legendary in the hallowed halls of Hope’s Crossing Elementary School.

He smiled at the memory as he sat beside Angie, his second-oldest sister. Angie’s son Jace—Owen Bradford’s best friend—was starring as the narrator of tonight’s pageant.

He had been away from town for a long time, since he left an angry, troubled punk who couldn’t wait to get out. When he was a kid, he had loathed these rituals, these prescribed, hallowed traditions that beat out the quiet rhythm of life in a small town. Now, fifteen years later, he was astonished at the comfort he found in the steadfast continuity of it all.

He might have changed drastically in those intervening years and the town likely had, as well. But certain things remained constant. The hash browns at Center of Hope Café still held the distinction of the best he’d ever tasted, the mountains cupping the town soared just as dramatically imposing as they’d been the day he left, and the elementary school Spring Fling still drew the biggest crowd in town.

Some part of him had dreaded coming home as much as he craved it. His years as a cop in the harsh world of Oakland had shaped him as much as his youth here. A cop couldn’t work gang violence task forces, multiple homicides, serial rapes, without some of the ugliness brushing against his own soul. When the former chief of police of Hope’s Crossing approached him about replacing him when he retired, Riley had worried those bruises inside him would somehow render him unfit for the quieter, easier pace here.

But that worry seemed far away now as he sat comfortably with his family. The audience applauded energetically when Owen Bradford finished a moving speech about brother fighting brother and Riley slanted his gaze from the stage to the spot across the gymnasium where he’d seen Claire sitting next to her idiot of an ex-husband and the flashy eye candy who’d been in Claire’s store earlier. Her daughter sat next to the new wife, not next to Claire, he noted. Awkward.

How could Claire sit there with them and still wear that look of calm indifference in her eyes? Was it a mask or did she really not care that Jeff had moved on, traded her in for a newer, younger model?

None of his business. She could have a half-dozen ex-husbands all arrayed around her like those shiny beads at her store and it shouldn’t be any of Riley’s concern.

He found it more than a little unsettling that Claire Tatum Bradford still fascinated him like she did when he was just a stupid kid mooning over his older sister’s smart, pretty best friend. What would Claire think if she knew he used to fantasize about her?

He shifted his attention back to the stage, where his nephew as narrator was introducing Betsy Ross. What any of this had to do with celebrating spring, he had no idea. He imagined it grew tough after thirty years to come up with something original for the third-grade pageant.

The crowd ate it up, jumping to its collective feet as soon as the last words had been spoken and clapping with broad enthusiasm for the young performers, who beamed as the curtain opened for them to bow once more.

“Thanks for making time to come, Riley.” Angie smiled at him as the applause finally died away and people began to gather their coats and belongings. “I know it means the world to Jace that you showed up.”

“I’ve missed a few of these over the years. It’s good to be back.”

She touched his arm in that Angie way of hers, her eyes sympathetic. His sister had been the little mother to the rest of them. He loved all his sisters and was probably closest to Alex, the next oldest sibling to him, but he would always have a tender place in his heart for Angie. During the dark days after his dad walked out, she had been the one he turned to for comfort when his mom had been too distraught herself to offer any.

“You’re staying for refreshments, aren’t you? Ang made her famous snickerdoodles,” her husband, Jim, said.

Angie and Jim were two of the most sane people he’d ever had the fortune to know. After twenty years of marriage, they still held hands and plainly adored each other.

“And you didn’t bring along a few dozen just for your favorite officer of the law?” he teased his sister.

She made a face. “Didn’t think about it. Sorry. I’m still not used to having you home for me to spoil again with cookies. I always make a triple batch, though, so I can probably find you a few crumbs lying around. I’ll bring them by tomorrow.”

“I was kidding, Ang. You don’t have to feed me.”

“I can if I want. And I want. I’m just glad you’re home to give me a chance.”

He was still reserving judgment on whether he shared her sentiment. Coming back to Colorado had been a tough decision, one he hadn’t yet convinced himself had been right. But being an undercover cop had become intolerable. He had been on the verge of handing in his badge and hanging up his service revolver for good—if not for Chief Coleman’s phone call, Riley might be working construction somewhere in Alaska, because that’s about all he felt qualified to do besides police work.

Alaska was still an option. He wasn’t ruling anything out yet. When he took the job, he’d insisted on a three-month probation to see how he could adapt to the quieter pace in Hope’s Crossing. At the end of that time, if he didn’t feel the life of a small-town cop was any more comfortable to his psyche than the urban warfare of inner-city Oakland, he might be spending next winter on the tundra.

“Hey, McKnight! Town must be really scraping the bottom of the barrel to drag your sorry ass back.”

He turned at the familiar voice and grinned as he recognized an old friend. Monte Richardson had once been the star quarterback of the Hope’s Crossing High football team. Now he was balding with a bit of a paunch, a thick brushy dark mustache and the well-fed look of a contented husband and father, at least judging by the sleeping baby in his arms.

“Hey, Monte.” Somehow they managed to shake hands around the sleeping baby. “I figured next time I ran into you, it would be when I hauled you in for a drunk and disorderly.”

Monte laughed. “Not me, man. I’ve reformed. Only drinking I do anymore is maybe a beer or two while I’m watching Monday Night Football in my man cave. You’re welcome anytime.”

He shook his head. “How the mighty have fallen. Whatever happened to party till you drop?”

“Life, man. Kids, family. It’s a hell of a ride. You ought to climb on.”

That world wasn’t for him. He had figured that out a long time ago. Family was chaos and uncertainty, craziness and pain. In his experience, life handed out enough of that without volunteering for more.

He would have stayed to talk longer but the two of them were interrupted by Mayor Beaumont, who greeted Monte with a polite if dismissive smile and then proceeded to corner Riley for the next ten minutes about the progress of the investigation into what for him condensed to only the most pressing issue, the desecration of his daughter’s wedding gown.

“You’ve got to find the buggers and fast,” the mayor finally said, his tone implacable. “Gennie and my wife are out for blood. We all better hope they’re not the first ones who find whoever did this or you just might have a murder investigation on your hands.”

He took the words to heart. Finally the mayor was distracted by one of the city council members approaching and Riley took blatant advantage of the chance to escape with a wave for the men.

His progress through the crowd was slow and laborious. He supposed that was another one of those curse-and-blessing things about returning to his hometown. Everybody wanted to talk to him, to relive old times, to catch up on the years and distance between them. Add to that the unaccustomed excitement of the day with four—count ’em four—robberies in town, and everyone gathered at the elementary school for the pageant seemed to want to put in his or her two cents.

Wearing the title of chief on his badge in a small town wasn’t much different than being an undercover cop whose entire goal had been blending in. The only difference was instead of hanging with drug dealers and pimps, here he was required to be polite, to make conversation, to play the public relations game, something that didn’t sit completely comfortably inside his skin.

He did have one uneasy moment when he encountered J. D. Nyman, one of his officers who had also applied for the position of police chief. The man had made no secret that he thought Riley wasn’t qualified for the job, which made for some awkward staff meetings.

“Officer Nyman,” he said. “Any word from the crime lab on those fingerprints?”

“No,” the other man said with blunt rudeness and turned his back to talk to someone else.

Riley almost called him on it, but then decided this wasn’t the venue, so he headed out of the gymnasium to the hallway, where he almost literally bumped into Claire Bradford at the coatrack, pulling a charcoal wool coat from a hanger.

She looked tired, he thought. The big blue eyes he used to dream about were smudged with shadows and tiny lines of exhaustion radiated from her mouth. She smiled. “Hello, Chief McKnight.”

Her warmth was refreshing, especially after Nyman’s rudeness. “Looks like you finally ditched the good doctor.”

He gently tugged her coat away to help her into it. Her mouth tightened, at him or at the doctor, he didn’t know. “Holly was tired, so they made an early night of it,” she answered.

She had always been enamored with Jeff Bradford. He hated the guy for that, alone, especially because from the moment Jeff had noticed her, too, Claire had seemed completely smitten.

Even early on, she had talked about living in one of the town’s historic old brick houses, settling down and raising a family here in Hope’s Crossing.

Things hadn’t quite worked out as she planned and Riley knew a moment’s sadness for unrealized dreams. If anyone deserved the life she wanted, Claire Tatum Bradford would have topped his personal list. She’d been through hell as a kid and ought to be first in line for a happy ending.

Was she completely devastated that Bradford had moved on? Riley didn’t want to think so. He had been fourteen when his own mother disintegrated for a while after his old man walked out. He could still remember the nights he would wake up to her sobbing in the living room as they all tried to make sense of James McKnight’s sudden abandonment of his wife and six children.

Another problem he should have anticipated about moving home. Things he hadn’t thought about in years—and didn’t want to waste another moment of his life dwelling on—had a way of pushing themselves to the front of his brain. He quickly turned his attention to Claire’s son.

“Great show.” He shook Owen’s hand with solemn gravity. “Your speech was my favorite of the whole pageant.”

The boy flashed a grin at him. “Thanks. I’m super glad it’s over.”

“Me, too.” A kid with flaming red hair and freckles who had played a highly unlikely FDR in the pageant grinned at him and Riley couldn’t resist smiling back.

“This is Jordie. We’re driving him home,” Owen announced. “His mom and dad couldn’t come see the play ’cause they’re both pukin’ sick.”

His sister rolled her eyes. “Do you have to be so disgusting all the time?”

He shoved his finger in his mouth and made a retching sound until his mother gave him a stern look.

“Carrie and Don have the flu, poor things. I offered to drive Jordan to and from the pageant for them.”

That was just like her, always taking care of everybody else. Apparently that hadn’t changed. “Well, be careful driving out there. Looks like the snow’s finally started. I forgot how lovely spring can be in the Rockies.”

“I have four-wheel drive,” she said.

“Four-wheel drive won’t do diddly-squat if you hit a patch of black ice,” he said, but before she could answer, his cell phone buzzed with the urgent ringtone from Dispatch.

“Hang on, Claire. Sorry, I’ve got to take this.”

She shrugged and finished shepherding the boys into their jackets and gloves while he stepped away to answer.

“Yeah, Chief.” Tammy, the night dispatcher spoke rapidly, her words a jumble. “I just got a call from Harry Lange out on Silver Strike Road reporting a possible burglary in progress at one of the vacation homes near his place. He says the owners were just in town from California last weekend and told him they wouldn’t be back until June but he’s seeing lights inside that shouldn’t be there. He thinks it’s kids. And get this, Harry also reported they might be driving a dark-colored extended-cab pickup truck, just like our suspect vehicle from the robberies.”

“Did he get a plate?”

“No. He said he couldn’t see it from his angle in the dark and didn’t want to move in too close. What should I do? Jess is in the middle of a domestic disturbance over at the Claimjumper Condos and Marty is taking care of a fender bender out on Highland Road. Do you want me to divert one of them or call the sheriff’s department for backup?”

“I can be there faster than anybody else. Have the sheriff send a couple deputies for backup just in case.”

“Right, Chief.”

He was already heading out the door, his adrenaline pumping at a possible break in the case, when he remembered Claire and the kids.

“Sorry,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ve got an emergency.”

He wasn’t sure whose eyes were wider, hers or the kids.

“Are you going to catch whoever stole my mom’s computer?” Owen asked.

“I intend to,” he vowed.

He gave one last apologetic smile to Claire, then raced out the door. Less than a minute later, he pulled out of the elementary school parking lot as fast as he dared and turned toward the canyon road that hugged the mountainside east of Silver Strike Reservoir.

As he had told Claire, the snow that had been threatening all day had begun to fall, plump fluffy flakes that might look like something off a postcard but played hell with road conditions. Welcome to April in the Rockies.

At least there was little traffic in either direction up the canyon. He was still about two miles from Harry Lange’s place when his dispatcher’s voice crackled through his radio. “Chief, be advised, suspects are believed to have left the premises of the vacation cabin and are now on Silver Strike Road, heading back toward town.”

Which meant they would be coming right at him. He might have missed catching them in the act, but he could still possibly nail them with stolen items from the vacation cabin and then link them to the Main Street break-ins.

“Ten-four, Tammy.”

He wheeled his department SUV around, grateful for all the years he’d driven the mountain back roads and byways around town. This was the only road out of Silver Strike canyon, which dead-ended at the ski resort. The suspects would have to pass him eventually on their way back to town.

He pulled into a turnoff shielded from view from the road by a large pine, then shut off his headlights and killed the engine, lurking in wait for them in the cold.

Normally he hated waiting for anything. His natural impatience, he figured, a consequence of being the youngest of six and the only boy in a house with only two small bathrooms. Seemed like he’d spent half his youth waiting for somebody to finish blow-drying hair or soaking for hours in a bathtub or writing a novel or whatever the hell they did in there.

This was a different sort of wait, just moments before he expected to apprehend a suspect, and he never minded the anticipation.

The suspects in question didn’t give him much time to savor the hunt. Only maybe a minute passed before he heard the rumble of a powerful engine in the cold night, then a dark extended-cab pickup passed him, fast enough that he could nail them for speeding if he couldn’t find any other obvious evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

He waited until they took the next curve before he pulled in behind them. He eased closer and despite the snow that seemed to have picked up in the fifteen minutes since he left the school, he had a clear view of the vehicle, a late-model three-quarter-ton Dodge Ram with a lift kit and a roll bar.

He called in the license plate, still following at a sedate pace.

“Affirmative, Chief. That vehicle is registered to…um, Mayor Beaumont.”

Oh, crap. Riley considered his options. He’d just left the mayor and Mrs. Beaumont at the Spring Fling, so neither could obviously be behind the wheel. What if their pickup had been stolen?

“Don’t the Beaumonts have a teenage son?” he asked on a hunch.

“Yeah. Charlie. Seventeen or so, and a wild one, from what my girls say.”

Charlie, you are in some serious trouble. He was close enough now that he could nail the little punk. He hit his flashing lights and accelerated.

For a moment, he thought it would be easy. After a few seconds, the pickup truck started to slow to around twenty-five miles per hour and Riley tried to focus on driving in the snowy conditions instead of the excitement pounding through him.

The truck didn’t immediately stop, but Riley assumed Charlie Beaumont was looking for a good place to pull over on this fairly narrow road, with the mountains to their right and the reservoir a dark and sullen void across the oncoming lane to the left.

After perhaps two minutes at the slower pace, suddenly the pickup shot forward, fishtailing on the now icy road.

Shit. The idiot was a runner. And under these conditions, too.

He accelerated to keep pace while he picked up his radio again. “Suspect is fleeing. Unit in pursuit. Requesting backup. How far away is the sheriff’s deputy?”

A male voice he didn’t recognize answered. “Just approaching Silver Strike Canyon, Chief.”

“Set up a roadblock at the mouth of the canyon. Don’t let anybody in or out.”

As soon as he spoke, he spied headlights heading toward them in the other direction from town and his insides clenched. Too damn late. Somebody was already coming this way. Possibly more than one vehicle.

As much as he wanted to catch the little punk who had run roughshod over his town—no matter how powerful his father might be—Riley had to consider the safety of pursuit when innocent civilians might be in danger. He had to stop the chase before someone was hurt. He would just have to keep his fingers crossed that the sheriff’s deputies could set up the roadblock at the mouth of the canyon in time. Even if the kid slipped through, he knew where to find Charlie Beaumont.

Riley eased back and turned off his flashing lights to let the kid know he was curtailing pursuit, but the driver of the pickup, probably juiced up on adrenaline and heaven knows what else, didn’t seem to care. The vehicle was still moving dangerously fast, especially on a curvy canyon road in the dark with those big fat snowflakes falling steadily.

After that, everything happened in a blur. At the next curve, Charlie swung too wide, too fast, and veered into the other lane—directly in the path of the oncoming vehicle.

Riley saw headlights flashing crazily as that driver veered to the shoulder to avoid a head-on collision. He held his breath, hoping the other driver would be able to maintain control. For a second, he thought the other vehicle would make it safely back onto the roadway, but he didn’t even have time to offer up a prayer before the vehicle somehow found a gap in the guardrails along the reservoir and a moment later the headlights soared over the side.

“Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit!”

Riley hit the brakes and felt the patrol SUV’s tires slither to gain traction. He turned into the skid and fought to regain control…and as he did, he vaguely registered the headlights of Charlie Beaumont’s pickup were nowhere in sight. How had he escaped so quickly?

He picked up the mic and yelled for the sheriff’s deputy to hold the roadblock and for the dispatcher to send emergency vehicles, that he had a vehicle possibly in the water. Without waiting to answer questions, he grabbed his waterproof flashlight and a crowbar from the trunk, then raced to the edge of the slope.

Snow stung his face, but he barely noticed as he scanned below into the dark water. Finally his flashlight picked up the shape of the vehicle about twenty feet from shore. It hadn’t rolled, a good sign, but it was leaning nose-down toward the driver’s side, submerged in water up the bottom of the windshield.

Riley made his way down the snow-covered slope as quickly as he dared, sliding a little as he went. He was nearly to the bottom when he heard a voice from above, barely discernible over the wind.

“What can I do?” a man called from the road. “Need me to call for help?”

He didn’t recognize the voice and couldn’t make out the man’s features from this angle. “I’ve done that already,” he shouted back. “Keep an eye out and direct the ambulance.”

Until he had a chance to assess the scene, he didn’t want another civilian down here for him to worry about.

“Should I go check on the other guys?”

He paused in the act of shoving his flashlight into his waistband and removing his Glock 9 mm and holster. “Other guys?”

“Yeah. The pickup truck. He spun out and crashed into a tree just around the curve.”

Riley’s gut clenched. He’d been so preoccupied watching in horror as this car sailed into the water that he hadn’t seen or heard the other vehicle’s collision.

For a second he was torn about what to do, then he yanked off his other boot. As far as he was concerned, the suspects could rot while they waited for help. If Charlie Beaumont hadn’t been such an asshole to run, none of this would have happened. Innocent victims got first dibs on rescue, that was his philosophy.

“Yeah, go check on them,” he answered the man he now recognized as Harry Lange, although what the wealthiest man in town might be doing spying on intruders at his neighbors’ house and responding to accidents in the middle of the night was anyone’s guess. “Does your cell work this far up the canyon?”

“It’s spotty but I might get lucky.”

“Call 9-1-1 and tell the dispatch we’ve got two accidents to deal with and we’re going to need all available units up here.”

“Got it.”

He was taking too long with this, while the occupants of the vehicle in the water needed rescue. He just had to trust Lange would be able to reach dispatch to send more help. With a deep, steadying breath, he braced himself and headed into the water.

The shock raced through his nerve endings like ice blocks clamping hard around his feet and calves. He ignored it, pushed past it and waded out.

By the time he had crossed ten yards, the brutally cold water had reached his waist. Snow and wind whipped any exposed flesh and every breath seemed to slice at his lungs like tiny switchblades. He was aware of the bitter cold on some level, but mostly he forced himself to focus on what had to be done.

“Help us. Please, somebody, help us.”

The desperate cry chilled him worse than the elements. By the sound of it, that was a kid’s voice, a young girl, wet, cold, possibly injured.

Kids. Damn it.

“I’m coming. Hang on.”

In the cloudy moonlight, he could finally make out the vehicle was a small SUV, a Toyota, by the look of it. He saw at least a couple of heads and now could hear other young voices crying. The sound of those desperate voices pushed him even faster and he finally just dived in and swam the remaining distance.

With icy hands, he pulled his flashlight from his waistband and aimed it into the vehicle window. He saw a form slumped over the steering wheel where a now-deflated air bag had deployed. He moved the light to the backseat and saw three pale faces staring back.

He tried to pull the doors open but they wouldn’t budge because of the water pressing in. “Can you wind down the window?” he yelled.

“No, we tried. They won’t work.”

Power windows tended not to be real cooperative when the car’s battery was submerged in four feet of water. He pulled out the crowbar, grateful for whatever instinct had prompted him to grab it. “Look, I need you to move away from the window and cover your face with your hands. I’m going to break the window, okay?”

“Okay.” He heard the muffled response from inside.

“Are you all clear?”

“Yes.”

Urgency lent him added strength and he slammed the crowbar into the window. It shattered and he brushed at the glass with his wet sleeve.

“I didn’t think anybody saw us. I thought we would be here all night,” the girl whimpered. He knew that voice, but he couldn’t see her features very well. He aimed the flashlight to get a better look at possible injuries and everything inside him froze.

Macy Bradford.

One of the little figures she cuddled was her brother, Owen, and the other was the freckled, red-headed kid who had been with them at the pageant. Jordie something or other.

He jerked his attention to the motionless form in the front seat. “Claire? Claire, honey? Answer me.”

She didn’t respond, although he thought he heard a slight moan. He checked quickly for a pulse and found one there, a little thready but strong. He wanted to do a full assessment but his gut was telling him the first priority was to get the terrified kids out of the reservoir and back to shore, where he could now see other rescuers coming down the slope toward the water’s edge.

“Are you guys hurt?”

“I’m cold. I cut my face,” Jordie said through his scared sobs. “And my shoulder hurts.”

“My arm hurts,” Owen whimpered. “I think it’s broken.”

“I’m okay,” Macy said, but Riley was pretty sure she was lying. He couldn’t wait for stretchers to get here. Not in these conditions. It could be fifteen minutes or longer before the paramedics managed to make it up the canyon and he had no idea what was happening with the other accident.

He was going to have to trust his instincts and go against every stricture he’d ever learned about not moving accident victims who had been injured. Sometimes removing a victim from further injury was the only option and right now hypothermia and shock were both grave concern.

“Macy, I’m going to carry the boys to shore first and then I’ll come back for you, okay? There are people who will help you make your way up to the road and get you all warmed up. Got it?”

“Is my mom gonna be okay?” Her voice shook with fear and his chest ached from more than just the effort it was taking to breathe through the bitter cold.

“I promise you, I will do my best to make sure of that. Hang on while I take care of the boys first. You keep talking to your mom while I’m gone, okay? You ready, boys?”

“Uh-huh.” Owen sniffled as he slid across the seat. Riley scooped him up over one shoulder and then took the other boy over the other in a double fireman’s hold, careful as he could manage of possible injuries.

The trip back through the water was surreal in the moonlight with snow swirling around the inky water. He almost fell once and would have dunked them all but he somehow managed to keep his footing. When he was almost to the shore, several people waded the rest of the way to take the boys from him.