Bear Claw Conspiracy (9 page)

The tall spider of a man who unfolded from behind a cluttered desk surprised Gigi. He wore jeans, rope sandals and a T-shirt with a picture of a big black bird, wings outstretched, that invited her to “hang with a cormorant,” whatever that meant. His mid-brown hair brushed his shoulders and he had an abstract tribal tattoo encircling his throat.

Gigi liked him at first sight.

“Blackie!” He came toward them, arms outstretched to first pump Matt’s hand and then enfold him in a back-thumping hug. “It’s about time you came down off that mountain of yours.”

To her surprise, Matt returned a couple of shoulder slaps before he drew away. “Hey. I like my mountain.”

“Not enough birds.” As the ornithologist pulled back, he looked past Matt’s shoulder and saw her, and his dark blue eyes lit appreciatively. “But who needs a flock when one will do nicely?” He held out a hand, as much inviting her into their familiar circle of two as he was offering to shake. “Dr. Ian Scott, at your service. But you’ll call me Ian, of course.”

“Gigi Lynd, CSI.” She took his hand, let his fingers enfold hers and draw her closer.

“Sit, please.” He scooped a pile of books off a visitor’s chair with one hand, keeping hold of her with the other. “You’re a crime scene analyst? Fascinating. I love the shows, you know.”

She sat, perversely enjoying Matt’s low growl. “Don’t believe everything you see on TV. Those shows are more fiction than fact sometimes. Given the level of specialization required in the lab these days, lots of analysts are hired for their science backgrounds, not because they’re cops. The TV shows tend to combine real jobs to make things more interesting.”

“Of course,” he said cheerfully. “Just like movie science. Total crap, but entertaining despite—and sometimes because of—the fact.” Leaving Matt to roll his own chair from behind a computer workstation on the other side of the room, Ian sat back down at his desk opposite her, eyes gleaming. “So. Blackie said you have a feather?”

“Yes. How much has, um, Blackie told you?”

Matt put his chair beside hers, sat too close and leaned in to say under his breath, “You sure you want to go there,
Greta?”

Resisting the organic, almost animalistic temptation to lean into him, she made herself straighten away instead. But her blood hummed and her skin prickled, brought alive by his nearness. Which was so not cool.

Ian answered, “He told me that you needed help IDing some evidence. Because I don’t shut myself up in the middle of nowhere, and therefore have some knowledge of current affairs, I assume it has something to do with the ranger who was attacked, and the subsequent torching of Matt’s station.”

Despite the quips she saw the underlying concern, the quick shift of his eyes toward Matt and away, as if making sure he was really there, really okay.

How long had it been since they had last seen each other? Had Matt left behind not just his career in L.A., but his family and friends, as well? How many more layers were there?

“The ranger who was attacked was clutching the thing when she was found. I know my bird basics, but I didn’t recognize it.” Matt glanced at her. “Did you get anything off it?”

She reached into the inner pocket of her jacket for the flat carrying case. “There wasn’t any obvious trace or transfer, and so far, all I’ve come up with is that it’s not synthetic, hasn’t been sterilized for commercial use and probably came from a living bird relatively recently. The mites I saw under magnification were still alive, at any rate.” She slid the evidence bag across the table.

Ian waggled his finger. “Mites are resilient buggers. They can go for weeks, months, even years on just—” He broke off with a strangled noise, face draining of color. Almost hesitantly, he used one finger to pull the bag closer, then leaned in to inspect the strangely striped feather. “Holy. Crap.”

Gigi’s heart thudded in her chest and she nearly shot to her feet and punched the air. Finally, it looked like they had caught a break!

“Where was your ranger found?” Ian’s voice was cathedral-hushed.

Matt had gone very still, his expression wary, as if he didn’t want to get ahead of himself over something that might be nothing. “About an hour northwest of the station house. I take it we’ve got something here?”

“I’ll say.” Ian tapped the edge of the bag, well away from the feather itself. “This is…wow. Unexpected. It’s from a barred eagle.”

“They’re rare?” Gigi pressed.

Ian shook his head and met her eyes, expression lit with wonder. “No, not rare. Completely extinct.”

Chapter Eight

Gigi sat back in her chair, stunned. “Extinct?”

“Well, as it’s technically defined, anyway. There’s no real way to prove that something doesn’t exist, you know. The last known breeding population died out in the sixties. At the time, the naturalists blamed pesticides, but the barred eagles stuck to really barren areas at fairly high altitudes, which weren’t exactly farming hot spots. The current theory is that they suffered from heavy-metal poisoning. The darn things were attracted to ore sites, mines, that sort of thing, which meant they were probably overexposed to the metals.” He paused. “There have been sightings off and on up in the backcountry, but no evidence.” He looked back down at the feather, and said softly, “Until now.”

“Barred eagles?” Matt muttered. “What is going on? What do they have to do with Tanya?”

“Beats me. I’m just following the evidence.” Gigi stared at the bagged feather. How had they gone from terrorists to an extinct species?

She had the sneaking suspicion that this particular piece of evidence could lead them off on a tangent. And even if it was relevant, how could the information possibly help them? It was one thing for the feather to belong to a rare bird that had only a few nesting grounds, thus narrowing down the search for a primary crime scene. It was another thing entirely to go goose-chasing after an ecological ghost.

Matt said, “What if the al-Jihad connection is just a coincidence, and this is the real motive?”

“What, you think Tanya could have crossed paths with someone who wanted to make sure he was the first person to ‘rediscover’ the barred eagle?” She shook her head. “I don’t see the guys who torched your station as ornithologists.”

But a glance at Ian made her wonder. He seemed lost in exuberant thought, his eyes gleaming as he muttered to himself, “We need to get in there and confirm, see what we can do about conservation.” His hands spasmed, as if he wanted to yank the plume out of the evidence bag, but was holding himself back.

Matt, too, was watching him. “The whole ‘publish or perish, you have to be number one or you’re nothing’ thing can be a powerful motivator.”

An inner quiver shook Gigi because that hit close to the bone, but she tried to think it through. Ian had been legitimately shocked at seeing the feather; there was no way he was involved in anything underhanded there. Still, his passion was evident. In another man, it might look a lot like fanaticism…and from there it was often a short fall to violence.

She shook her head. “I don’t see this as a battle over who gets bragging rights. For one thing, we’re dealing with a whole bunch of guys.” Jack and Tucker estimated that it would’ve taken at least four to lock down the station house so quickly. “And while there have been cases of academic murder…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t feel right. But then again, my job is working the evidence. The story is up to the cops and lawyers.”

“Yeah, well, today you’re on story duty, too.”

“An hour northwest of the station house, you said?” Ian asked, seeming to remember they were there.

“Not so fast.” Matt held up a hand. “Listen to me, okay? You can’t go running off with this feather and start calling in the barred eagle experts, okay? We need to take this slowly.”

“Huh? What’s wro— Oh.” Ian stared at them, his eyes clearing as he refocused, then darkening with understanding. “The feather is still evidence.”

Gigi added, “Not only that, but we were hoping it would help lead us to the place where she was attacked.” Instead it looked like they were going to have to find the place some other way, and in the process maybe lead Ian to the eagles.

“Can you give us any specifics on where we should be looking?” Matt asked. “High altitudes, you said. How high? And what kinds of ore? I don’t know of any copper mines or deposits up near Fourteen, but we could check for surveys.”

“Good point,” Gigi said. Maybe the evidence wasn’t quite played out yet, after all. “What do they eat?”

“I think… Let me see.” Ian spun his chair and rolled it to a stuffed-full bookcase along the wall. “Where is… Aha. There you are.” Gigi’s stomach took a long, slow roll as he pulled out a thin volume.
“Ferrier’s Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the Colorado Mountains,”
he announced. “It was the definitive guide back in the day. Comprehensive, though the organization is seriously wonky. It may take me a minute to find our eagle.”

“Look near the back,” she said softly. “About three-quarters of the way through.”

He shot her a curious look, but complied, then flipped a few more pages and stopped, eyebrows raised. “Well, hello. I guess you didn’t need me after all, did you?”

“I didn’t know the bird. I knew the book.” She met Matt’s eyes. “Let’s add a waterfall to our list of things to look for.” Because the sketch of Jerry Osage sitting in front of a waterfall had been stuck between the pages near the entry for the barred eagle.

Matt leaned in. “What else is listed near there?”

“This is the end of the birds.” Ian flipped a few pages. “Then we get into the ‘flora’ part. Which, for some reason, starts with trees. Specifically those weird pines that grow up near the Forgotten.”

Gigi frowned. That was the second time in as many days she’d heard the name. Alyssa had said something about it yesterday. “I assumed that was a ghost story or something. You mean it’s a real place?”

“It’s both,” Matt said. “It’s this grim chunk of wasteland that runs along the edge of the park’s northwest corner—except for a couple of rivers, it’s too dry to support anything but some real scrubby trees and a few coyotes, too far away to be a real tourist draw, and not challenging enough to interest the more extreme hikers. Question is: Would it be barred eagle country?”

Ian shook his head. “Unless they’ve done some major adapting over the past fifty or so years, the elevation is too high. And there wouldn’t be much in the way of food. The place is pretty deserted.”

“Is it part of the park?” Gigi asked, trying to figure out where the Forgotten belonged in the puzzle, if at all.

“It’s federal land,” Matt answered, “but the feds’ll never do anything with it, which makes it a perfect buffer for Sector Fourteen.”

“Actually, the city bought it from the feds,” Ian corrected. “Last I heard, the mayor had nearly managed to pawn it off on a private buyer to help offset budget problems, but there was some holdup over the paperwork. Something about impact statements, I think.”

“How long has this been going on?” Matt snapped.

“Six months maybe.” Ian sent him a look. “I assumed you knew. As it is, I think it’s pretty much a done deal at this point. Just needs the last few rubber stamps.”

“Son of a—” Matt broke off, gritting his teeth. “Proudfoot must’ve made sure word didn’t reach me. Probably a deal of some sort with the Park Service so they wouldn’t fuss. But Sector Fourteen needs those rivers. Hell, that whole damn side of the park does. If some private buyer starts mucking around up there and screws with the water, the west side will go as dry as the east and it’ll all burn.”

Gigi said, “If there are already problems with the impact statements, maybe there’s still time to make some noise.”

Ian shook his head and said, “Proudfoot has it all tied up.” He glanced at Matt. “Too bad nobody legitimate stepped up and ran against him, even after the mess he made as acting mayor.” His voice was mild, but there was something very far from mild in his expression, and in the way tension suddenly snapped into the air between the two men.

Matt glared at him. “Leave it alone.”

“But you could have—”

“Leave. It. Alone.”

Gigi did a double take as the conversation veered from the Forgotten to something else entirely. “Wait. What did I just miss?”

“Nothing.” Matt tugged on her arm to bring her with him, and said in a suddenly formal, cop-to-civilian expert voice, “Thanks for the help with the feather. We’ll let you know if we see the eagle, and if not, when it’s safe for your people to come in and search.”

Ian rose and came around the desk to put himself between them and the door, eyes firing. “I’m just saying it would’ve been nice if there had been someone else to vote for. Someone who has a political science degree and used to say he was going to put in his twenty on the force and run for governor, because if an actor could do it, why not a cop?”

Matt’s fingers closed tighter on her arm, almost to the point of pain. His face, though, had gone hard and distant. “You should’ve taken the hint when I ducked all your calls. I’m not that guy anymore. I haven’t been in a long time.”

“You don’t need to be anybody but who you are right now, today,” Ian insisted. “The last mayor resigned in the middle of a sex scandal, and Proudfoot is well on his way to running the city into the ground. If someone like you could bring integrity back to the office, it would go a long way to healing—”

“Fine,” Matt snapped. “If that’s your plan then go and find someone like me. Because I’m not interested, and I’m not available.” He dropped Gigi’s arm and headed for the door, leaving her standing there, brain spinning.

This wasn’t the ranger’s detachment or the cop’s intensity she was seeing—this was anger overlain with a deep, restless frustration that was as powerful as it was unfocused.

Ian followed them to the door. “Okay, you’re not interested or available. So what are you? Because you sure as hell don’t look happy.”

Matt stopped and spun back, expression dark. “I’m in the middle of the case from hell. It’s not murder yet, but it’s only a matter of time before they get brave enough, desperate enough. I’ve got a ranger in the hospital, another one sleeping on my couch, and I’m wearing a damn badge. So forgive me if I’m not in a very happy place at the moment.”

“I’m not talking about right this second and you damn well know it,” Ian pressed. “Are you doing what you really want, or is it just easier this way? Tell me you’re happy, Blackie, and I’ll leave you alone.”

Gigi wanted to slip out and let them argue in private, but she couldn’t move. Her pulse thudded in her ears. “I
was
happy, damn it. Forty-eight hours ago, I was just fine. I had air, sunshine, privacy and three good rangers in charge of keeping the hikers from killing themselves. And I’ll get back to that peace and quiet when this case is over and life goes back to normal. A week, thirteen days on the outside, and, yeah, I’ll be happy again.” His voice went harsh. “I just want to be left alone. Is that so damn much to ask?”

“Not if that’s what you really want.”

“I just said it was, didn’t I? Ian, let it go already. And don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Cutting a black look in Gigi’s direction, Matt snapped, “Come on. We’re leaving.” He yanked open the door and stormed out, boots thudding angry beats on the waxed marble, the sound cutting off as the glass door eased shut in his wake.

She didn’t follow, just stood staring after him for a moment, stomach roiling in such tight knots that she didn’t know whether she wanted to scream, cry or shoot something. Or all of the above.

A gentle touch on her elbow startled her so badly that she jolted and spun, fists raised.

Ian jerked back, hands up, evidence bag dangling from one. “Whoa. It’s just me. And despite what you probably think right now, I come in peace. It’s just that peace doesn’t always start out that way with him. Never did.”

She uncoiled, swallowing past the aching tightness in her throat. “Sorry.”

“No. I’m the one who’s sorry.” He shot a telling look at the door. “I thought from seeing the way he was when he came in, and the way he was with you, that he was…well. I thought he was in a different place, that’s all.”

“It’s not like that.” But the heavy weight pressing on her heart said that deep down inside, part of her had hoped.

Not if all he wanted was to be left alone, though. Not if he wanted to be the ranger, the loner, the closed off man who didn’t need anything except space and didn’t offer anything in return.

He had said he would have his peace and quiet back in thirteen days, and he hadn’t picked the number at random. In thirteen days, the academy assignments were being announced and personnel shifted around. Which meant Tucker had used the information to talk Matt into teaming up with her…and he was looking forward to her departure.

Well, screw him. She could take care of that part right now.

She pulled out her phone, bypassed the first McDermott number and speed-dialed the second. “McDermott, Homicide.”

“It’s Gigi. I want to trade in my cop. He’s broken.”

M
ATT MADE IT HALFWAY
down the hall before he spun and slammed his shoulder into the wall. Pain flared at the point of impact and lower down in his gut, but he deserved all of it and more.

Sagging, he leaned back against the wall, which felt far steadier than he did just now.

One second he and Ian had been doing okay, and then the next…damn it. They’d been back at it like they’d seen each other four days ago, not four years.

And Gigi had been right in the line of fire.

He had caught a glimpse of her face as he stormed out, and the dark-eyed mixture of sharp hurt and dull resignation was singed into his brain. He deserved that, too, because he had insisted that he was the best one to watch her back when really he was about the worst possible choice to protect her.

Which he had just proven in spades.

His emotional control was gone, incinerated the moment their lips touched. Or maybe it had happened before then, somewhere between the first sizzle of seeing her in the hallway outside Tucker’s office and the second his brain had kicked back into gear and warned him that she was trouble. That she was the first person he’d met in a very long time who had the potential to mess with his head.

Only she wasn’t trying to mess with anything—she was just trying to do her job. He was the mess—what had just happened back there had nothing to do with her and everything to do with old scars, even older dreams, and a friend who knew how to push his buttons.

Damn Ian for going there. Damn Proudfoot for whoring out part of Bear Claw Canyon because he couldn’t handle his finances.