At least she knew which way he’d turned, though she could guess he’d head toward Jackson, regardless. Once she got the car out of the lot, she turned toward town and floored it, praying to God that Nate wasn’t working traffic today.
It took almost fifteen minutes to catch up, but she found Ellis, and fell in behind his truck to follow. She only meant to follow him long enough to park beside him and demand an explanation. But as she drove, she realized she might have the wrong idea. Ellis didn’t want to tell her the truth. Whatever he was up to, he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. If she wanted the real story, she’d have to find it.
She immediately let up on the gas and fell back, as if she could suddenly fade into the background like a bright yellow fog.
Frowning, hunched over her steering wheel, she glared at his white van, taking no note of the beauty around her. Had he spotted her? He hadn’t given any indication of it. The back panels of the van had no window, and his driver’s-side mirror appeared to be aimed at the sky. That left the mirror on the passenger side of the van, but really, if he wasn’t using one mirror, why would he use the other?
She fell back a little bit. Then a little more. She planned to catch up again when he got to town, but she didn’t get the chance. Cresting the rise of a hill about ten minutes before town, she realized she’d lost him.
“Oh, crap,” she gasped, looking everywhere in a panic, even toward the sky, as if he’d pulled a Mary Poppins and floated off above the chimneys of the houses gathered at the side of the road.
The houses. She searched among the driveways and saw nothing. But just before she reached the small group of log cabins, she saw a road and slammed on her brakes to take the turn.
It was the only place he could have turned. The river ran along the other side. He couldn’t have— There. His brake lights flashed ahead of her. Jenny slumped in relief and told herself to calm down. Ellis Stone wasn’t sharp enough to lose a tail, even a really awful tail like her.
Now that she’d found him again, she slowed. Even Ellis might notice someone following him on this narrow, isolated road leading to…somewhere she’d never been.
Somewhere far off the highway. When they passed over a cattle grate into free range land, Jenny started to get nervous. Why the hell would Ellis need to be out here? This wasn’t right. He certainly wasn’t the snowshoeing type.
She’d lost sight of him for a few minutes, but she wasn’t concerned. There weren’t any side roads here, or if there were, they weren’t plowed.
As the road snuck through a bare grove of aspen, Jenny finally found a sign of life. A side road, and two cabins, one with smoke tripping from the chimney. But Ellis’s van wasn’t there, and no recent tracks marred the three inches of new snow on the plowed driveway. Jenny drove on. Five minutes later, she found the tracks she’d been expecting and took a right onto a side road. When she eased around the next bend, she had to slam on her brakes so hard that she slid nearly ten feet and skidded along the edge of a ditch for a precarious few seconds.
But it wasn’t Ellis’s van coming toward her. It was a sheriff’s truck. She was so sure that it was Nate that when the deputy got out of the truck and started toward her, she only felt confusion at his blond hair. She didn’t even notice the two other deputies. Or the fact that their guns were drawn. Not until she turned her head and found herself staring into the barrel of a handgun.
For the first time, the thought of running had come too late, and now she was caught in a way she’d never expected.
* * *
AS SOON AS ELLIS WAS in custody, Nate counted himself done. Victor had shown up first, blasting music and so high already that he’d stared stupidly at the arresting officer for a good three minutes before alarm had kicked in.
Ellis had followed fifteen minutes later, and it was done. Nate had expected to feel relief, but he’d only felt tired as he’d trudged down to the cabin and finally gotten a good look inside the greenhouse. “Jesus,” he said as soon as he ducked under the plastic sheeting. “This is the most pitiful potgrowing operation I’ve ever seen.”
The techs had apparently been having the same conversation, because they burst into hysterical laughter. Any worries that this was connected to a big operation were completely assuaged by the sight of the mishmash of random heating lamps and leaking water containers. And the plants themselves looked—
“Good Christ,” his sergeant barked. “That’s the saddest crop of marijuana I’ve ever seen.”
More laughter from the techs, and even Nate felt a smile tug at his mouth. He should’ve taken a closer look yesterday. If he’d seen these two dozen pitiful stalks, he’d have known that he and Luis could’ve quietly taken care of this problem themselves. Hell, they could’ve eve
n made it look like a warning from a real drug operation. Oh, well. It didn’t change the fact that Victor had abused his uncle’s generosity, desecrated a place that meant a lot to the family and endangered his minor cousin. The kid deserved a good scare, not to mention a penalty.
“Got another one, Sergeant,” one of the other deputies said from the makeshift doorway.
“Another what?”
“Suspect.”
Nate’s head jerked up at that. “Who?”
The guy shrugged. “I don’t know. A woman in an old-school Camaro.”
“She’s here?”
“Pulled up a few minutes after we cuffed Ellis Stone.”
Jenny was here. She’d known exactly what was going on the whole time. Damn. Just…damn.
He could feel his sergeant’s eyes on his face, and Nate hoped he didn’t look as green as he felt.