Justice At Morgan Mesa
She opened the door all the way.
“Are you hurt?” he asked. There were reddish marks on her chin and cheek.
She blew out a breath. “I’m all right.” She pulled a key fob out of her pocket and turned off the car alarm.
“What happened?” He stepped back from the den into the dining area where he could have a better view of his surroundings. He’d been inside of the house before, but it had been a while.
“Some lunatic chased me with a hammer.”
A hammer? That explained the busted-up front door.
“Do you know this person?”
She shook her head, then winced. He keyed his collar mic and called for EMS to respond. She didn’t seem to be significantly injured, but it was possible that adrenaline was masking it. Better safe than sorry. He also asked for the alarm company to be contacted so the alarm could be remotely turned off and to log a request for them to send him whatever video footage they had.
“The man who chased me didn’t identify himself, and he had his face covered,” the woman said.
Levi holstered his gun, then pulled out a chair and gestured for her to sit down. He flipped on a light switch. “What’s your name?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the alarm.
“Vanessa—” She said her last name but it was drowned out by the blare of the alarm.
“I’m Lieutenant Levi Hawk,” he responded loudly.
Suddenly the alarm stopped.
In the quiet few seconds that followed, the pinched, fearful expression on her face began to ease a little.
She took a fortifying breath and then told him a harrowing story about being chased to the house from the edge of the mesa. As she spoke, the dazed look in her eyes gave way to a more focused expression.
After she finished her story, two of his patrolmen arrived. He had them search the house.
“Why were you over by the edge of the mesa?” he asked. Any details she gave him might help him hunt down the bad guy.
Vanessa arched a pale blond eyebrow. “The Heatons allow the public to enjoy the view from their property along the mesa. They have for years.”
She was defensive. That was interesting. Levi decided to prod a little more. “Why did you decide to enjoy the view this evening?”
She frowned at him for a moment, sighed and then glanced away. “I grew up around here. Moved away. I’m back for a short while and I wanted to visit a few of my old haunts.”
“Where do you live now? What do you do?”
“Vegas. I’m a defense attorney.”
Vanessa. A memory clicked into place in the back of Levi’s mind. “What did you say your last name is?”
“Ford. My name is Vanessa Ford.”
“Are you related to Josh Ford?”
She nodded, the expression in her eyes turning sorrowful. “Yes. He was my dad.”
Levi glanced away and drew in a breath as memories tumbled through his mind. He’d just been twelve years old when Josh Ford’s lifeless body was found on a lonely stretch of road up here on the mesa. It was the first major news story of his young life that he could remember paying attention to. His parents had talked about it at the time. Everybody had. Unease had settled over the town as the weeks and months and ultimately years had passed without the murderer being found.
Vanessa had been eight years old. He remembered seeing her picture. He especially remembered seeing the lost expression in her blue eyes. For weeks, he’d been worried that something terrible would happen to his own parents, until finally that anxiety had faded.
Vanessa had already had more than enough heartache for one lifetime. She didn’t deserve to have some violent maniac chasing her.
So who was after her and why?
“Has anybody from your work threatened you?” Levi asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure? You’re a defense attorney. Hasn’t anyone you’ve defended ever gone to prison? Maybe held a grudge against you that they intended to settle when they got out? Or what about an angry victim, or their family, who felt like you helped a bad guy go free?”
She blew out a sigh. “Of course I’ve been threatened a few times, blamed by one side or the other whether my client has been convicted or gone free. As a cop, I imagine you’ve been threatened, too. Most of the time it’s just somebody blowing off steam.”
“Sometimes those aren’t empty threats. Think about it and see if you can think of some names for me to check out.”
She nodded and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. It was still the same pale blond color it had been when she was a girl. Still very curly.
“Did the guy with the hammer say anything to you?” Levi asked.
“He told me to get out of town or get buried here.”
“Get buried here, on this property? Is that what he meant?” Had she stumbled across someone illicitly using the house, doing something on the property that they wanted to remain undiscovered? There’d been talk recently of turning the house into a museum. Could someone want to sabotage that for some reason? Make people afraid to come up here?
“I don’t know what exactly he meant by his stupid threat,” she said irritably.
“Could you have crossed paths with him recently? Maybe you’d had a disagreement?”
“I’ve spent the last couple of days up here on the mesa, stopping in stores and cafés and different places, asking people if they knew or ever heard rumors about what happened to my dad. Nobody knew anything. It was all such a long time ago.” She shook her head and winced again. “What happened tonight probably doesn’t have anything to do with that. Maybe he’s just some dealer cooking meth in the woods around here.”
“Why are you conducting an investigation into your dad’s murder now?” Levi asked, feeling his heart speed up a little at the thought that the case might finally be solved. “Do you have some new information?”
“No new information. This is just something I’ve thought about doing for a long time. And now I finally have the chance to do it.”
Levi’s cop instinct told him she wasn’t telling him the whole truth, but this wasn’t the time to press. He heard the ambulance pull up into the driveway and convinced her to let a medic take a look at her.
By the time she’d been cleared, his officers had completed their search of the house and hadn’t found anyone hiding in there. He had one of them stay behind to take down basic contact information from Vanessa and make sure she got home safely. Then he grabbed a couple of flashlights from his SUV and had the other officer go with him to look for signs of the chase she’d described and to search for whatever evidence they could find.
He didn’t know what he expected to find, especially in the dark, but he knew he wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving until he’d done everything he could. Levi had experienced a rocky return to the United States after his years spent fighting overseas. When he’d finally made his way back to Torchlight, he’d become a police officer to give something back to his hometown and do something to help heal his soul. Protecting Vanessa and capturing the sick assailant who’d attacked her would help him fulfill both of those goals.
Maybe this weird attack was related to Josh Ford’s murder all those years ago. Maybe not.
TWO
“You have to tell your grandfather what happened to you tonight.”
“Of course I will.” Vanessa glanced over at the woman riding in the pickup truck’s passenger seat, Rosa Sandoval. Her husband, Pablo, had worked as a ranch hand alongside Vanessa’s grandfather for years.
When Vanessa’s grandparents started looking into buying property and turning it into a guest ranch for their working retirement, it naturally followed that they’d invite their best friends to join in the venture. Pablo and Rosa had jumped at the chance.
“I’m not trying to deceive Grandpa. I would never do that.” Vanessa downshifted her grandfather’s old truck when she came to a steep drop in the road. “It’s just that he’s finally gotten back to his normal sleeping pattern. It’s been eight months since Grandma Katherine passed away and for most of that time, I don’t think he slept more than two or three hours a night.”
“For a while there, he really was looking like something the cat dragged home,” Rosa agreed.
“Now that he’s finally back to his usual routine of lights out at eight at night and coffee in his cup by four the next morning, I don’t want to mess that up by having him worry about me tonight. He needs his rest.”
Rosa sighed loudly. “You have to tell him as soon as you get up tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, ma’am, I will. And I’ll call my mom and let her know what happened, too.”
Vanessa glanced over and offered her a smile. Rosa was a retired parole officer, which meant she could be tough when she needed to be. Just the kind of person Vanessa wanted alongside her on the ride home tonight.
With a borrowed phone from a patrolman, Vanessa had called to have her car towed into town so the tires could be replaced and the battery checked out. Then she’d called Rosa, at the time telling her only that she’d had car trouble and needed a ride back to the ranch.
Vanessa shifted gears again when they reached the foot of the mesa and drove back onto flat land. She’d wanted to do the driving because she’d thought it would help her feel more in control. So far, it hadn’t worked. The stuff of nightmares had just happened to her. A masked lunatic had tried to kill her. With a hammer.
Thank You, Lord, for protecting me.
A cold chill passed over the surface of her skin and she drew in a quivering breath.
Rosa reached forward and turned on the heater.
After a few seconds, warm air blew out, relaxing Vanessa’s tense muscles. In a way, it made things worse. Physically relaxing made her emotions start to loosen up, and she became more conscious of them. That was the last thing she wanted right now.
What she needed to do was toughen up and pull herself together. She’d done that as a kid when her father was murdered. And again, when her mother had gotten remarried to an abusive man and it had seemed like life was just one terrible thing happening after another. She’d gone on to hone that skill of tamping down her true emotions when she became a lawyer and needed to appear confident every time she stepped into a courtroom.
“I saw Levi Hawk while I was sitting in the truck waiting for you,” Rosa said. “He’s a very determined and thorough investigator.” Despite her retirement, Rosa still kept active ties to the law enforcement community.
“Good to know,” Vanessa said. He was handsome, too. Military-cut black hair. Intelligent dark eyes. Bronze skin. And a capable, calm demeanor. Not that any of that mattered.
Vanessa tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel, directing her thoughts back to the man who’d chased her tonight, trying to think of any hint at who he was or what his motive might be. She’d been threatened a few times during the course of her career, but never anything like this. She couldn’t imagine it was connected to her work back in Vegas. Her attacker had seemed intent on getting her away from here, specifically. Why would a client with a grudge care where she went?
“What I’m wondering is whether that guy knew you were going to be up on the Heaton property and was waiting for you,” Rosa said. “Or if you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and stumbled across some creep who was desperate to scare you away for some reason. Did you tell anybody you were going to be there?”
“Yeah. Pretty much everybody I talked to on the mesa today. I had no reason to think it was dangerous to do that. I know it was a long shot, but I guess I was hoping somebody might come out and join me to tell me something new about my dad. Maybe give me some new information on what happened to him twenty years ago. I let people know I was going to be there on the Heaton property because I wanted to make it easy for anyone who didn’t want to talk to me around other people, or who might be afraid of our conversation being recorded if they talked to me on the phone.”
Rosa turned in her seat to face Vanessa. “Well, you need to make sure you don’t go to some isolated place alone again. Not until this creep is caught. And don’t tell strangers where you’re going to be.”
Vanessa felt herself trembling again. She glanced in the rearview mirror to see if they were being followed. Of course they were. They were on the only road that led down from the mesa and it intersected with the four-lane highway heading into Torchlight. You could eventually get into Torchlight by following the unpaved county roads on the mesa, but it would add a good sixty miles to the trip. She tried not to be bothered by the headlights behind her, but she felt her shoulders tighten up all the same.
“I’ll be very careful from now on, believe me,” Vanessa muttered, understanding the wisdom of the advice but still angered that she had to change what she did because of some violent crazy person.
They were nearing the intersection with the highway. Torchlight was to the left. The Silver Horse Guest Ranch—her grandfather’s new home—was to the right, several miles away.
“I bet you haven’t had dinner,” Rosa said. “We could load you up with pancakes and hot chocolate. All those carbs will make you sleepy.”
“I’m too nervous to eat anything.”
“Honey, I’ve been through some pretty hair-raising situations in my day,” Rosa said. “And my experience is that afterward you need some time with somebody you can talk to. Even if you don’t eat, you need to talk until you start to wind down a little. Then maybe when you get back to the ranch, you’ll be able to fall asleep.”
Vanessa doubted she would get any sleep tonight. She was pretty sure anytime she closed her eyes she’d see that masked figure with that claw hammer and hear him laughing. She wanted to put that experience off for as long as she could.
“Okay,” she said, turning left onto the highway. “Let’s go into town.”
* * *
The next morning, Levi turned off the highway at the sign that read Silver Horse Guest Ranch. He drove up the winding private road, early-morning sunlight filtering through the new spring leaves on the trees lining the way.
This was an unannounced visit after last night’s strange attack up on Morgan Mesa. Between searching the area on and around the Heaton property for any evidence he could find and coordinating a search for the suspect, Levi hadn’t had as much time as he’d wanted to interview Vanessa. He hadn’t found the perpetrator last night and he was anxious to get the investigation moving forward today. The creep who liked to threaten women with a hammer needed to be locked up.
Sometimes after a vicious attack, when a little time had passed, people remembered helpful details they hadn’t mentioned before. There was also the possibility that Vanessa had withheld some important bit of information intentionally last night, either because it was embarrassing or because it might incriminate her in some illegal activity. Levi wanted to talk to her while she was still a little off-balance from the attack and might find it difficult to hide the truth.
His police SUV rattled as he drove over a cattle guard. The noise might wake up some of the ranch’s vacationing guests, but that would just add to the authenticity of their visit. From his own ranching childhood, he knew waking up early was an integral part of an authentic ranch experience.
The Silver Horse Guest Ranch was sixteen miles east of town on what used to be a family-owned horse ranch. The family’s younger generation had sold out, and apparently the buyer had turned it into a guest ranch. Vanessa had told the patrol officer he’d handed her off to last night that she was staying here.
After driving through a couple of curves in the winding dirt road, the view opened up to a fenced meadow on the left and a sprawling ranch house on the right. Beyond the ranch house, scattered among the trees, he spotted several small unfinished cabins. It looked like the guest ranch wasn’t open for business yet.
A big blue storage trailer sat alongside the private drive with piles of raw lumber and paint cans stacked against it. The stables were tucked up fairly close to the ranch house with a big red barn and a couple of other storage buildings a little farther away.
Levi parked his SUV in front of the ranch house and walked up the three steps to the wide front porch. There were four rocking chairs sitting out there, each one a different style and color. An ancient-looking calico cat occupied one cushioned seat. She lifted her head and slowly blinked as he walked up. He reached out to pat her head, half expecting her to run away before he could touch her. But she didn’t.
After scratching the orange patch between her ears for a few seconds, he glanced up. The drapes were open at a pair of large windows beside the front door, and he could see Vanessa Ford inside seated in a straight-backed wooden chair, an elbow propped on the dining table beside it and her forehead pressed into the palm of her other hand.
Across from her, a tall, sinewy man in dark jeans and a long-sleeved Western shirt paced back and forth. His hair was mostly steel gray with a few black streaks while his thick mustache was almost completely black. He waved both of his arms as he talked. “You should have woken me up and told me!”
Levi was interrupting an argument. It sounded like it was about the attack on her last night. He stood by the window so they’d be able to see him, then reached over and knocked on the door.
The man looked at him first. His face was red. Then Vanessa lifted her head to look toward him. The red marks he’d seen on her chin and the side of her face after she’d tripped and fallen last night had darkened into purple bruises. The man strode over to open the door and Levi introduced himself.
“Sam Ford,” the man said in response. “Come on in, Lieutenant. I believe I have you to thank for saving my granddaughter’s life.” With that, he turned to glare at Vanessa.
Vanessa shifted her gaze to Levi. Her eyes were squinted like she was in pain. Maybe a headache. He’d fallen and smacked his head a few times and he knew how she felt. He also understood the alternating emotions of buoyant relief and sinking terror once the adrenaline wore off after someone tried to kill you.
Not that he was convinced the man who attacked her last night had truly intended to kill her. If so, she’d be dead now. The attack was almost theatrical. Fear was the goal. Now he needed some leads on who would do that to her and why.
“Sorry to interrupt your morning,” Levi said as he stepped inside. They were in a dining area. Wood floors, oak table and chairs, a couple of potted plants, coffee mugs hanging from pegs on the wall, and not much else. The current residents hadn’t been settled in for very long. “I came out to ask Ms. Ford a few questions.”
“You could have just phoned me,” she grumbled, running a fingernail up and down the handle of her coffee mug. “And call me Vanessa.”
“I wasn’t aware you’d gotten your phone back.”
Her shoulders dropped and she sighed. “I haven’t.”
“We’ve got a good group of volunteers working with a couple of officers up on the mesa. They’re doing a second search of the Heaton property now that it’s daylight. If your phone is still up there, they’ll find it.”
Levi felt another presence walk into the room and turned to see a second older gentleman, this one shorter than Mr. Ford, with sparse reddish hair. He was barrel-shaped and wearing a white cook’s apron. He walked from the kitchen area with a plate of muffins and a coffeepot. He set the muffins on the table and turned to Levi. “Good morning. Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure, thanks.”
“This is Pablo Sandoval,” Vanessa said. “Pablo, this is Lieutenant Levi Hawk.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Pablo said as he took a mug from a peg on the wall and filled it with coffee for Levi. “I’m grateful to God that you arrived at that house in time to keep something terrible from happening to Vanessa.”
Levi nodded. He was a praying man. And he, too, was grateful to God that nothing worse had happened.
“This is Rosa,” Vanessa added, making the introductions as a lady with graying hair pulled back into a tight bun walked into the room and smiled at him.
“Rosa and I know each other through work,” Levi said. “It’s good to see you.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d had to intrude on a family while doing his job. He’d accepted the offer of coffee in an attempt to be social, which wasn’t always his strong suit. But he’d been working on it. He thought about forcing a friendly smile on his face, but didn’t. His sister, Angela, told him he looked scary when he did that. “How are you feeling?” he asked Vanessa.
“Probably about how I look. Bruised.”
“Why bother asking?” her grandfather snapped. “She’ll just tell you everything’s fine. She won’t be forthcoming.”
Pablo loudly cleared his throat and gestured toward the plate he’d set on the table. “Applesauce muffins. Anybody hungry?”
Apparently, nobody was. No one made a move toward the food. Everyone’s attention was focused on Vanessa.
“So, you live in Las Vegas and your family lives here?” Levi asked her.
Vanessa started to nod, winced and stopped. “We bought this property a few months ago. There’s still a lot of work to be done before the guest ranch opens for business.”
“Do you have any leads on who attacked my granddaughter?” Sam asked impatiently.
“Not yet.” Levi watched Vanessa closely, trying to gauge whether she was holding back information. Maybe she didn’t want to talk in front of her grandfather. “I have several questions for you,” he added. “Maybe you’d like to step outside. We could talk on your porch.”
“You can talk right here,” Sam growled out. He pulled out a chair for Levi and one for himself. Pablo and Rosa headed off into the kitchen area. There was the sound of a cabinet door opening and a bag rattling. A gray tabby cat shot down the staircase beside the dining area and disappeared into the kitchen, heading toward the sound of kibble being poured into a bowl.
“Good morning, Tornado,” Levi could hear Pablo saying in the kitchen.
“Vanessa should have called me last night right after everything happened,” her grandpa said, his voice a low rumble, leaving no room for argument. He twisted in his chair to face her. “We would have gone to the hospital to have you checked out. Maybe had you stay there overnight just to be certain you were all right.” He shook his head. “No more secrets, little girl. Not with me.”
“I’m sorry, Grandpa.” Vanessa’s eyes looked watery and her nose reddened. She sniffed loudly, then turned to Levi. “Go ahead and ask your questions—it’s fine for us to stay in here.”
“First, have you thought of anything else to tell me about the events last night? Anything you remembered?”
“Not really. I’ve tried to think of anything I could add to the physical description of the guy who chased me, but I can’t.”
“That’s all right. Maybe you’ll see or hear something later that will trigger a memory. Meanwhile, you mentioned being up on the mesa to talk to people about your dad. I’ll need a list of the names of the people you spoke to.”
“I can give you the names of people I know that I’ve spoken to since I’ve been back in town. But when it comes to the people I spoke to on the mesa yesterday, I don’t know their names. They were strangers. Out of desperation to generate a lead, I took a chance and I just stopped at random places. A couple of gas stations, a coffee shop. The Carson Family Diner. I told people who I was and asked if they knew anything about my dad and what happened to him. Asked if they had any theories or ever heard any rumors about who’d murdered him or why.”
“Did anybody have anything to tell you?”
“No. I gave people my phone number in case they thought of something. And I mentioned I was going to stop at the edge of the mesa on the Heaton property and enjoy the view around sundown before I headed back down to the flatland.” She drew in a shaky breath.