Danger On Dakota Ridge. Cindi Myers

kitchen and tried to put Rob out of her mind. His vacation wouldn’t last forever, and she had more than enough to keep her occupied in the meantime. She was working there a little later when the back door opened and Parker entered. He dropped his backpack on the bench by the door and pushed his sunglasses on top of his head. To some of the more conservative people here in Eagle Mountain, he probably looked like trouble, with his full-sleeve tattoos and often sullen expression. But Paige saw past all that to the little boy she had read stories to and made macaroni and cheese for more times than she could remember. “How was class?” she asked.

      “Okay.” He opened the refrigerator. “What did you do today?”

      Attempted vandalism and ended up getting shot at by two thugs, she thought. “I was up on the Dakota Ridge Trail and you’ll never guess who I ran into.”

      He took out a block of cheese and a plate of leftover ham. “I don’t have to guess,” he said. “You always tell me anyway.”

      “Rob Allerton is in town.”

      “Who?” He took a loaf of bread from the box on the counter and began making a sandwich.

      “Rob Allerton. Agent Allerton? The DEA guy who arrested you?”

      “What’s he doing here?”

      “He says he’s on vacation.” He hadn’t told the sheriff about her attempt to cut the lock from the gate up on the trail, so she figured she could keep quiet about Rob’s aunt and Henry Hake. Parker wouldn’t care about any of that anyway.

      “Maybe he wanted to see you,” Parker said.

      “Me?” She blew out a breath. “I’m sure I’m the last person he would ever want to see. Don’t you remember how we clashed at your trial?”

      “I remember sparks.” He shot her a sideways look. “He thought you were hot.”

      “He did not!”

      “You thought he was hot, too.”

      “You’re delusional.”

      He turned back to his sandwich. “I’m not the one blushing.”

      “I’m not blushing. This room is too warm.” She opened the refrigerator and began putting away the items he had removed. “Are you volunteering at the museum this afternoon?” she asked. She had talked Parker into volunteering at the local history museum. Her friend Brenda Stenson, who ran the museum, needed the help, and it was a good way for Parker to keep busy. Everything she had read had said that having too much free time could be a problem for a recovering addict.

      “No.” He took a bite of the sandwich.

      Paige tore off a paper towel and handed it to him. “What time does your shift at Peggy’s start?” She had found him the job as a delivery driver at Peggy’s Pizza as another way to keep him out of trouble.

      “I’m off tonight,” he said, then took another bite of sandwich.

      “Oh. Well, I guess you can use the time to study.” He was enrolled in classes at a nearby community college. Another condition of his parole.

      “I’m going out,” he said.

      “With who?”

      “A friend.”

      “Do I know this friend?”

      “I doubt it.”

      “Parker, we are not going to do this.”

      “Do what?” He didn’t bother trying to look innocent. If anything, he was annoyed.

      “Don’t make me give you the third degree,” she said. “Just tell me who you’re going out with. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

      “And it’s not too much for me to ask that you give me a little privacy.”

      A flood of words came to mind, beginning with the notion that he had violated his right to privacy when he had gotten hooked on drugs, broken the law and gone to prison. But she had vowed when she took him in that she wasn’t going to throw his mistakes back in his face. Her husband had done that and she knew how miserable and degraded it made her feel. So she swallowed back most of what she wanted to say.

      “Be careful, and be quiet when you come in,” she said.

      “I will.” Carrying the rest of his sandwich, he retreated to his room off the kitchen. Paige sagged against the counter. She was exhausted and it wasn’t even one o’clock yet. Big guys with guns, Rob Allerton and her troublesome baby brother—maybe what she really needed was a vacation from men.

      * * *

      WHEN ROB AND Travis arrived at the entrance to the former Eagle Mountain Resort, Rob wasn’t surprised to find the gates shut tight. “This is how they were this morning when I stopped here,” he said. He peered through the iron bars at what had once been the resort’s main street. Weeds sprouted in holes in the asphalt, and in places the paving had disappeared altogether, the road little more than a gravel wash. A weathered sign still proclaimed that this was the future site of Eagle Mountain Resort, a Luxury Property from Hake Development. No sign of luxury remained in the crumbling foundations and sun-bleached wood of the few structures scattered about the property. Rocks ranging from those the size of a man’s head to boulders as big as small cars spilled down from the ridge above at the site of a major rock slide where two men had been killed earlier in the year.

      “It doesn’t look any different than it did when I was here a month ago,” Rob said.

      “I’m guessing if CNG does plan to develop the place—for a research facility or anything else—they’ll wait until spring,” Travis said. “In another few months there will be eight to ten feet of snow up here. The county doesn’t plow the road up this far and there’s always a danger of avalanches on the ridge. It’s one reason the judge agreed with Paige’s group that a housing development up here was a bad idea.”

      Rob looked again at the deserted street. “What do we do now?” he asked.

      “Let’s hike up the trail a ways,” Travis said. “You can show me where you were when you heard the shots, and where you ran into Paige.”

      They drove back down the road to the public trailhead, then started hiking uphill. After about half a mile, the trail began to parallel the fence line for CNG’s property. The black iron fence, eight feet tall and topped with curls of razor wire, was almost hidden in places by a thick growth of wild roses and scrub oak, but in other spots the undergrowth thinned enough to provide a glimpse through the bars of the fence.

      “About this point is where I heard the shots,” Rob said. “I thought they came from the other side of the fence. I picked up speed and I hadn’t gone far when I saw Paige running down the trail toward me. I thought at first someone was pursuing her, but then I realized she was alone. She said two men had shot at her. Then my focus became getting her safely away.”

      “Did you stop by the entrance to the property before you went to the trailhead, the way we did just now?” Travis asked.

      “Yes. The gates were locked and I didn’t see anyone. No cars or anything.”

      “Let’s see if we can figure out where Paige could have seen the shooters,” Travis said.

      They moved up the trail, which soon curved sharply, still following the fence line. Another hundred feet and they came to an opening in the wall of bushes and vines next to the trail. Broken branches and scuffs in the leaf litter told the tale of someone plunging into this opening—and exiting in a hurry.

      Travis went first, with Rob close behind. Bending over, they had a clear view onto the resort property, but what they saw was unremarkable—a few stunted evergreens, oak brush with the last brown leaves of summer clinging to it, and some dried grasses. Travis took binoculars from his belt and scanned the area. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

      They waited