Breathe (Colorado Mountain 4)

Chace had been the one to tell Tonia Payne’s parents their daughter was dead including, at their insistence, how she’d died and her death was uglier than most. He’d also informed Misty’s folks. Throughout his career, not regularly but too f**king often, he’d had bad news to give about car wrecks and arrests.

This was less fun than all of that shit and none of that had been pleasant. This was because Newcomb’s wife had taken off, whereabouts unknown which meant his kids, one of them gravely ill, had lost their last parent.

Newcomb was a moron, racist, wife-beating, ass**le pig. He played with fire for understandable reasons but should have been smart enough to know that when he got burned, the ones who would live with the scars were his kids.

He wasn’t that smart.

And now they were f**ked.

“How’s it going?” Chace asked a question he knew the answer to.

They had DNA on this guy from his se**n. But the samples were deliberately tampered with, the tampering explained away as a “mistake”. In fact, they were so tainted, they couldn’t even run them.

Reports were probably not in yet but it was doubtful they’d find se**n on or in Newcomb. Possible but doubtful.

They didn’t even have slugs. Misty was done by a gun stolen by one of Carnal’s own in an effort to frame him. From visuals on Newcomb, he was done close range with a high powered assault rifle. Overkill. But this meant the shots were through and through. It also was a likely reason why Newcomb didn’t fight or attempt to flee. A man carrying an assault rifle undoubtedly struck an imposing figure. If you tried to run, if that rifle had a scope, you’d still be f**ked. So this time, the killer collected the bullets and shell casings leaving them with next to nothing.

That was what they had. Next to nothing. No locals to either site reported seeing vehicles in the vicinity. No bullets, shell casings or DNA that could be found unless something came up on tests run at the lab. Nothing except footprints which, from preliminary investigation of both scenes, kill site and dump site, was all they got this time too.

“We know he wears construction boots,” Frank answered. “But since every third guy in this county wears motorcycle boots, cowboy boots or construction boots, that narrows our suspect pool down to about two thousand guys.”

Chace could hear the frustration in Frank’s voice and he understood it. He wanted to get this guy for four reasons. The guy was a murderer likely times two, at the very least, and he needed to be stopped. CPD had a nasty case file open and unsolved that fell on them during a time when it was infested. Frank wanted to make an important bust because it would look good. And he wanted this off Chace’s shoulders and he was one of the few men who knew it was weighing there. Not because Chace had shared. Because he worked side by side with Frank and Frank was observant.

“He’s not local, Frank,” Chace said quietly. “He’s a professional. He could be from anywhere.”

“Yeah,” Frank replied quietly then in a normal voice, “Old Man Harker’d pitch a fit, he knew this shit was goin’ down in his wood.”

Frank was not wrong about that. Old Man Harker died seven years ago, luckily before the major garbage started piling up at the CPD and they found a serial killer lived local. He’d given his wood to the city before that, he was that proud of it and he loved Carnal. Knowing blood had been spilled and mouths had been raped in a spot where Harker and many others in town thought a miracle had occurred, he’d lose his mind.

Luckily in this instance, he no longer had a mind to lose.

“This isn’t why I’m callin’,” Frank went on.

“Yeah?” Chace prompted.

“Like you asked when you called in yesterday, had the interns run the name Malachi. They report nothin’ comes up. No one is lookin’ for this kid. Or at least, if they are, they haven’t reported him missing.”

“Could be a fake name,” Chace muttered.

To which Frank asked incredulously, “Malachi?”

“The kid reads four, five books a week, Frank. So yeah, Malachi.”

At this, he felt Faye’s hand press into his chest and he dipped his chin to look at her to see he had her full attention.

Thus he muttered into the phone, “If you don’t have any more, Frank, appreciate the call but gotta go.”

To this, Frank asked searchingly, “Faye still there?”

Jon had opened his big f**king mouth.

Not a surprise but damned annoying.

“Gotta go,” Chace repeated.

“Right,” Frank murmured, a smile in his voice and Chace couldn’t see it but he bet it was knowing.

Jesus.

“Thanks for the call,” Chace told him.

“Not a problem. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday with Faye,” Frank replied.

He definitely would.

And yeah, Frank’s smile had been knowing.

“Later,” Chace gave his farewell.

“Later, buddy,” Frank gave his and Chace disconnected.

“Malachi? A professional?”

She didn’t even wait for him to toss his phone on the table which was what he did before answering.

Once he’d shifted into her, did that and brought them back, he told her, “Asked the interns to run the name Malachi, see if anyone reported him missing. They did. Nothing.”

“What does that mean?”

“It could mean a lot of things, honey. What it means most is that we gotta talk to this kid. He’s not registered in school. He’s not reported missing. He’s like a ghost and kids aren’t ghosts unless serious bad shit is going down. We gotta push the breakthrough tomorrow and get him talkin’. You gonna be up for that?”

She nodded immediately and Chace ran his hand up her back, pulling her closer as he did and dipping his face to hers.

“You gotta go gentle but you gotta get a good result. If you don’t, I’m steppin’ this shit up another way. We need him safe. We need him fed. So, it sucks, baby, but we need him in the system.”

She slid her bottom lip to the side and bit it. She often bit her lip. She often licked her lips. He’d learned to read why she did both. He didn’t see the slide and bite often but it usually meant she was either very nervous, feeling more than her normal shy or a little bit scared.

“He’ll be okay,” Chace assured gently.

She let her lip go and asked quietly, “What does stepping stuff up mean?”

What it meant was setting Deck on the kid. Deck would find him. Deck wouldn’t be outrun because he wouldn’t give up. And Deck would likely scare the shit out of the kid.