Danger On Dakota Ridge. Cindi Myers

his life back together, calmed her. She rubbed her shoulder, where it ached from carrying the pack and tools, and slid her hand around to massage the back of her neck, then froze. Her fingers groped around her collar, then back to the front of her throat, under her T-shirt. Her necklace was gone—the thin gold chain from which hung the gold charm of a bird in flight. She had purchased the necklace shortly after her divorce, as a symbol that she was free as a bird. She never took it off—but it was gone now. She swore to herself. The chain must have caught in the bushes when she pushed through them to get a better look at those two men. Or maybe when she had retreated.

      She would have to go back up there later and look for it. But she wouldn’t go alone. She would take plenty of friends with her, and she would make sure they were armed with more than bolt cutters and saws.

      By the time she parked the Prius in front of the Rayford County Sheriff’s Department, she felt ready to relate her story calmly. She headed up the walkway, only to meet Rob Allerton at the front door.

      He held the door open for her. “After you.”

      “Are you following me?” she asked.

      “I needed to check in with the sheriff anyway,” he said.

      “Why? I thought you said you were here on vacation.”

      “Just professional courtesy, to let him know I’m in town.” He followed her into the reception area. “Besides, I can add my account of the shooting to yours.”

      “Agent Allerton! What a nice surprise!” Adelaide Kinkaid, the sixtysomething administrator for the sheriff’s department, greeted Rob with a wide smile. She didn’t exactly flutter her eyelashes at him, but the implication was there.

      “Ms. Kinkaid. Nice to see you again.” Rob clasped her hand and flashed a smile of his own, and Adelaide looked as if she might swoon. Paige crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. Honestly! It wasn’t as if Rob Allerton was the only good-looking man on the planet. Yes, he had that young Jake Gyllenhaal charm going on that probably appealed to Adelaide’s generation, but Paige had always liked men who were a little rougher around the edges. Less glib. Less deceptive.

      “I just stopped by to say hello to the sheriff,” Rob said. “Ms. Riddell needs to make a report of an incident up on Dakota Ridge, though.”

      “Oh, hello, Paige,” Adelaide said. “I didn’t see you standing there.”

      “No, I don’t imagine you did,” Paige muttered.

      “Did you say an incident? On Dakota Ridge?” Sheriff Travis Walker, Gage’s brother, joined them in the reception area. Clean-shaven and spit polished, Travis could have been a law enforcement poster boy. The fact that he was smarter than most and full of grit had made him a local hero, and at twenty-nine, the youngest sheriff in Rayford County history.

      “It’s Paige’s story to tell,” Rob said. “I only happened upon the tail end of things.”

      “Come into my office.” Travis led them down the hall to his office and shut the door behind them. Paige sat in the chair in front of the battered wooden desk, while Travis took the black leather chair behind it. Rob stationed himself by the door. “Tell me what happened,” Travis said.

      “I hiked up the Dakota Ridge Trail this morning,” Paige said. “I wanted to see if CNG Development had complied with the court order to remove the gate over the trail. They hadn’t.”

      She glanced at Rob, daring him to reveal her plans to remove the lock, but he said nothing. “While I was up there, I saw two men on the other side of the gate, on the old Eagle Mountain Resort property. They didn’t see me. They were carrying a large wooden crate between them—about the size of a coffin, though I don’t think it was a coffin. It looked heavy. I thought it was really odd that they would be carrying something like that through the woods, instead of driving up to wherever they needed to be. The second thing that was odd was that both of the men had semiautomatic rifles slung over their backs. I’m no expert, but I think they were AR-15s.”

      Travis’s brow wrinkled, and he pulled a pad of paper toward him and began making notes. “Can you describe these men?”

      “Muscular—big shoulders. They were wearing forest camo parkas and black knit watch caps. I didn’t get a really good look at their faces through the trees, but I didn’t recognize them.”

      “What happened next?” Travis asked.

      “They continued through the woods, on the other side of the fence. I went back down the trail, but I was curious to know what they were up to, so I followed them. They stopped and one of them bent down and I heard the scrape of metal on metal. I think they opened a trapdoor or something. Then one of them climbed down into the ground. The other one pushed the box in and climbed down after it.”

      “So they went underground?” Travis asked. “Out of sight?”

      She nodded. “I wondered if they were going into that same chamber where Gage and Maya were trapped this summer. But then I wondered again why they hadn’t just driven up to it. Isn’t it connected to that underground lab you found?” She looked to Rob for confirmation. “That’s what Maya told me.”

      “It is,” Rob said. “But we didn’t find any sign that that chamber had been used for anything in a long time.”

      “That chamber is farther from the fence line,” Travis said. “I don’t think you could see the opening at the top from the fence.”

      “I don’t think so, either,” Rob said.

      “Maybe it’s just underground storage of some kind,” Travis said.

      “Fine, but why sneak through the woods, especially carrying something heavy?” she asked. “And why were those guys armed? And why did they shoot at me when they saw me watching them?”

      “Did they say anything?” Travis asked.

      “No. They just yelled ‘Hey!’ or something like that, and started firing. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

      “Did they try to follow you?” Travis asked.

      “I don’t know. I just ran.” Her heart raced, remembering. “I knew they were on the other side of the fence and they’d have a hard time catching up to me. I figured I could make it to my car before they did. Then I ran into Agent Allerton.” No sense elaborating on how he had pinned her to the ground. Though she had to admit that was after she did her best to knee him in the crotch.

      “I heard the gunshots and came running up the trail,” Rob said. “I met Paige coming down.”

      “What were you doing up there?” Travis asked.

      Paige watched his face, not hiding her curiosity. Would he give the sheriff his story about a vacation? He shifted his weight. “I took some personal time to do a favor for my aunt.”

      “What kind of favor?” Travis asked.

      Rob glanced at Paige. Was he going to ask her to leave the room, or suggest that he and Travis talk later? “I didn’t ask you to leave while I told my story,” she said. “I think I can hear yours.”

      “It’s not exactly a secret,” he said. “My aunt by marriage is Henry Hake’s older sister. She asked me to look into his death a little more, see what I could find out.”

      “We’re still investigating Henry Hake’s death,” Travis said. The man behind the Eagle Mountain Resort development had disappeared earlier in the summer. His body had been discovered on the property last month, but so far no one had been able to determine either how he had died or why.

      “I’m not trying to step on any toes,” Rob said. “But she’s been worried sick since Hake disappeared early this summer. When he was found dead in that bunker on what had been his own property, it left her with more questions than answers. I told her I didn’t expect to find anything you hadn’t already learned, but she begged me to try.” He shrugged.