Fatal Exposure Read online

  FATAL EXPOSURE

  By

  Jamie Jeffries

  Edited By: Nas Dean

  Cover Art and Design by Erin Dameron-Hill, EDHGraphics

  Title: Fatal Exposure

  Copyright © 2015 by Jamie Jeffries

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Mad About Romance Publishing

  P.O. Box 740472

  Arvada, CO 80003

  www.madaboutromancepublishing.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  Fatal Exposure

  Jamie Jeffries

  Dylan made Alex’s heart race and her blood pound when they were in high school. Then her dad caught them naked in her room and sent Dylan packing. Dylan left town a few weeks later, saying he’d never be back. They’re about to learn you should never say never.

  When they meet again four years later, over a mummified corpse in the blazing Arizona desert, what secrets is Dylan carrying, and why does he have to look so damn good? Alex, now a college student and aspiring investigative journalist, can’t decide whether she’d like to find out what she missed all those years ago, or help put him behind bars.

  Will she get the chance to make up her mind, before she's marked for murder herself?

  Acknowledgements

  Time after time, you’ll see authors stating in their acknowledgments that it takes a village to bring a book to fruition. They say that because it’s true. In addition to the professionals who provided cover design, editing and proofing services, I was fortunate to have beta readers who volunteered their time not only to read and comment on the development of the story, but also pointed out errors in the copy, providing five sets of eyes in addition to my own and my editor’s. Angela, April, Kristin, Leon and Miche, thank you so much! Any remaining errors must surely have jumped in after the fact. Good friends (you know who you are) cheered me on, helped with artistic choices as I crafted the blurb—a much more difficult task than writing the book!—and fought through the subtleties of self-publishing. Without the support of these wonderful people and others in my Goodreads groups, too many to name, there would have been no village, and consequently, no book.

  Fatal Exposure is dedicated to the unsung National Park Service Law Enforcement Rangers of Organ Pipe National Monument. These men and women face a daunting task every day to apprehend and as often rescue transients, who enter the United States illegally through the Monument only to find an all but impassable desert.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  About the Author

  Coming Soon

  Discover More Books by Jamie Jeffries

  Chapter One

  4:00 p.m., Monday, July 7

  Alex steeled herself for the first close look at the body surrounded by crime scene tape as she approached Deputy Hendricks, who was standing guard. The air shimmered in the July heat, placing phantom pools of water between Alex and the victim. She wasn’t fooled. There had been no rain in southern Arizona for months and the monsoon rains weren’t due for another couple of weeks, at the earliest.

  “What are you doing out here, Alex?” Deputy Hendricks asked.

  “Hi, Joe. Dad thought I could get some photos for the paper.” Alex hoisted her camera in support of her explanation.

  Joe shot a glance at the camera and grinned. “Sure, why not? It’ll probably be a couple of hours before the homicide unit gets here from Tucson.” He casually rested his hand on the service weapon at his hip, looking at his partner for objections.

  “Wait, a homicide? He didn’t just die of exposure?” It was murder? Dead illegal aliens in the desert weren’t unusual—murder was.

  “That’s what the homicide unit will determine,” Joe said. “Do you want those pictures or not?”

  If murder was a possibility, she damn sure wanted those pictures. The newspaper may not be able to run them, but her photography professor would be impressed.

  Half an hour earlier, at work, Alex had caught police scanner chatter about a find a few miles north of town. She’d asked her dad, owner and editor of the Dodge Desert Times, whether she should check it out.

  “Might as well. It’ll give you practice with that fancy new camera of yours. Maybe it’ll be something big. We still don’t have a front page story for this week’s edition, unless we want to put the Elks Club dance there, or your pictures of the parade.”

  Alex had suppressed an inner groan as her dad made the familiar complaint. They had their share of unlikely events in Dodge, but most weeks were tame, news-wise. Friday’s 4th of July parade and celebration had been fun, and the pictures were good. But, Alex knew her dad was always hoping for a bus accident with a bunch of tourists on their way to Rocky Point, Mexico, or something equally grisly.

  If the human remains ahead were those of a murder victim, Dad would be ecstatic.

  Joe put his hand on Alex’s back to guide her toward the yellow tape at the top of the rise. The added warmth, pressing her sweaty shirt to her skin, was unwelcome. Alex walked faster.

  Joe grabbed her arm. “Not so fast. You can’t go past the tape. There are some footprints and there may be other trace evidence.”

  “Got it,” she said, looking pointedly at Joe’s hand on her arm. He dropped it. They’d had this discussion about his hands before. On a date, okay. When she was working, absolutely not.

  Alex edged sideways around the taped-off area, taking pictures from every angle as fast as she could. She had no doubt as soon as the CSI unit got there from Tucson, they’d shoo her away like an annoying fly. She had all the pictures of the body she thought she needed, so she squatted on her haunches to get a better angle in the late-afternoon sun. She wanted some shots of the clear footprint she could see just inside the tape. Next, she looked for more, and then moved around to the victim’s shoes to take a picture of the soles. Even she could see his shoes didn’t make those f
ootprints.

  “Hey, Junior Reporter,” Joe called to her. “What are you doing?”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “Nothing. What can you tell me about the victim so far? For the story.”

  “Hard to say for sure. You can see what the sun’s done to him. We didn’t approach the body because of the footprints, but we’re assuming male, probably Latino, probably an illegal. Don’t know how he got this far on foot, maybe he had water for a while. No sign of a water container as far as we’ve searched. We lost his footprints in the rocks over there.” Joe waved vaguely to the south, where hard-packed tuff and basalt outcroppings would make walking difficult and tracking almost impossible.

  Alex was reluctant to leave, even though she doubted the CSI unit or homicide detectives would have anything to say to her at the scene. They had a job to do, and it didn’t include making hers easier. Something about this victim struck pity into her heart, though. She couldn’t help but want justice for him, as unlikely as that was. Never mind the debate about whether he should have been coming into this country illegally. Someone has taken his life, a life he had hopes of improving. He’d almost made it. He was beyond where the checkpoint had been set up lately. If he could’ve gotten someone to stop on the highway for him, he might have made it into Phoenix.

  She hadn’t asked Joe why he thought it was a homicide, rather than another case of heatstroke followed by death. Before she could ask, Joe alerted to a figure walking toward them, and Alex looked too. When he came closer, her mind almost seized in disbelief.

  “Hey, Dylan,” Joe called out. “What are you doing here?” The figure brought his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun, which was directly behind them. No doubt they were just silhouettes to him until he got closer.

  “Oh, hey, Joe. Heard what you had out here. My supervisor sent me to see if this was the one that got away.” Dylan was in the uniform of a National Park Service law enforcement ranger, an enhancement to his looks that did sinful things to her body, against her will. Alex had known he was back in town, but hoped they wouldn’t cross paths—a forlorn hope if there ever was one in a town the size of Dodge. Sooner or later…

  Dylan flashed a brilliantly white grin at his little joke. Dozens got away from his park every day. It was a regular parade. He glanced at the others, who were silently watching his exchange with Joe. When his gaze came to rest on Alex, he flinched. She barely noticed it, but saw Joe stiffen. What was that all about?

  “Alex. What are you doing here?” A slight inflection on the ‘you’ put her on the defensive.

  “My job,” she answered, lifting her chin and the camera at the same time.

  Her eyes were locked on Dylan’s and his on her, and in her peripheral vision she could see Joe looking from one to the other of them, frowning.

  “Hey, are you guys…”

  “No,” she said, not wanting to hear the rest of the question. Dylan’s eyes hooded and the tension was broken. “I guess I’d better get back home. Joe, can I call you for any new info before my deadline?”

  She tore her gaze from Dylan’s and glanced at Joe instead, wishing she hadn’t when she saw a predatory glint. This was ridiculous. Joe was a couple of years older than Dylan, one of the few eligible bachelors still in town if you didn’t count the BP agents. He’d asked her out once or twice, and she had accepted. But, she wasn’t interested in a serious relationship. Joe was entrenched in town. By the time he was thirty-five, he’d be campaigning to be the head of the unit here, and he’d never leave. Not what she wanted for herself, even if she found him attractive. Comparing him directly with Dylan made her realize she didn’t, not at all. Not like she did Dylan. She stuffed the thought down—that ship had sailed four years ago.

  “Sure, Alex,” Joe said. He produced a card from his pocket, as if she didn’t have the office number memorized. But then she noticed his cell phone number was on it, too. He must have forgotten she had that, too.

  “Thanks. Bye, guys.” Alex included everyone in her farewell wave.

  She felt Dylan’s stare on her as she walked away. The memory of their last encounter flooded her mind and dragged her heart into it.

  Why did he have to come back? How was it going to be if she ran into Dylan everywhere she went? Would it be a problem? She needed to know more about why he was here, when he’d said he would never be back. Why did he want the post at Organ Pipe? There had to be dozens, maybe hundreds of open ranger positions in the Park Service. Why this one? The answer to that question would help her set the tone for future chance meetings. And that was all it would be, chance, if she had anything to say about it.

  Who are you trying to convince, Alexis Ward?

  Chapter Two

  Monday, July 7

  Dylan watched Alex walk away, his stare glued to her ass and those long legs. Damn, she was beautiful. Her hair was still long, but today she had it braided at the nape of her neck. Was it still as soft as it used to be? The freckles were gone, though. He’d seen that when she was standing right in front of him. Could they maybe date again? Would she… A noise beside him broke his concentration and he looked over at Joe, then did a double-take. Joe’s legs were planted wide, and his hand was resting on his service weapon. Nostrils flaring, Joe glared at him with cold eyes.

  What the hell? Joe and he always got along when they were in school. Joe had been a linebacker for the high school football team, and Dylan a back-up quarterback, a sophomore when Joe was a senior. Now he looked ready to kill.

  “Joe?” He left it there. Joe had to know what he looked like, and what Dylan was asking.

  “Stay away from her,” Joe snarled, his hand forming a fist beside his weapon. Dylan’s training told him what to do, though he wanted to ask Joe what the hell business it was of his.

  “Joe, no problem. Sorry. Are we good?” Don’t challenge him, don’t tell him to calm down, back away. The drill was instinctive. His body language and voice did the right things without his brain, which was urging him to take Joe out instead.

  Joe shifted, his hand relaxing and moving away from his weapon a fraction of an inch. Dylan let his breath out, not realizing until that moment he’d been holding it.

  “Jesus, Joe, I didn’t know you guys…”

  “Just leave her alone. You had your chance,” he interrupted.

  “Fine. Listen, I came out here to get a look at your vic. Can we just forget about the girl?”

  “Yeah,” Joe said, almost snarling again. “You forget about her.”

  Dylan spread his hands. “You got it. The vic?” He moved toward Joe, gratified to see he didn’t react. He’d talked him down for now, but next time they met when Joe didn’t have a weapon on his hip, they’d have a conversation about this.

  Joe turned and led him several yards away, where the victim lay in a circle of crime scene tape that was far too small, if you asked him. Joe didn’t. Dylan’s shoulders slumped as he looked at the guy. No one could identify that. It was practically a mummy. Like several he’d seen deep in the park boundaries. Dirty, ragged denim pants, what must at some time have been a white cotton button-down shirt with short sleeves, the kind the Latinos called a guayabera. Cross-trainers with no socks. And no recognizable face, just tatters of leathered skin over a partially-exposed skull. He still hadn’t found Rufio Mendez, but if this was him, it would take forensic expertise to determine it.

  “Well?” Joe asked. Dylan jumped. He’d forgotten Joe was there, he was so intent on the need to see whether this was Rufio or not.

  “Well, what?” he asked, glaring at Joe for startling him.

  “Is that the one that got away?” he asked, grinning at Dylan’s discomfort.

  “Who the hell knows?” he muttered. “Could be anyone.” He was trying to sort out his feelings. If this was Rufio, his custody problems were over. So, was he disappointed he couldn’t tell? Relieved he couldn’t tell? He honestly didn’t know and it worried him. What kind of man was he that he might wish another man dead to make his own life easier?<
br />
  “Could be,” Joe said. “But I’d lay odds he came through your park.”

  Joe’s words yanked him out of his funk. “Why do you say that? We’re twenty-five miles from the park’s northern border.”

  “Look at his clothes. He’s got to be an IA. Where else would he have come from?” Joe asked.

  That was a good question, but it had too many answers to bet on the man coming through the park. There wasn’t any way to tell which way he’d been going, even. No tracks, except the one right next to him, inside the tape. That looked like a desert boot. The victim’s worn-out cross-trainers didn’t make that print. So who had?

  “You’re waiting for Tucson, right?” It should have been clear to him from the beginning. That footprint meant they were considering homicide. Interesting, but not his case. He decided to get out of the way.

  “Yeah. Want to stick around?” Joe asked.

  Joe’s question sounded innocent, but Dylan wondered if it was related to his possessiveness over Alex. Was Joe worried he’d get to town before Joe did, and try to do something with her? That might actually be a good idea. At least he could find out if her feelings matched his.

  “Nah. Your case, I’ll get going. See you around. I need to get back to my Mom, anyway.”

  Joe’s posture relaxed.

  Interesting. Maybe he should twist Joe’s nose a bit and try to see Alex before he went home. Before he got to his pickup, though, the homicide unit drove up. Dylan had a request for the lead investigator, so he spoke to the lieutenant briefly as he was walking toward the scene, then left.

  ~~~

  “Hi, Mom.” Dylan shed his uniform hat and belt with its radio and other equipment, hanging both on the coat rack next to the door. “You’ll never guess who I saw today. Do you remember Alex, the girl I dated when I was a senior in high school?”

  His mom’s caretaker appeared in the hallway. “Hey, Ange. How was she today?” Ange often told him his breezy conversation with Mom might be frustrating to her, unable to answer as she was. He disagreed. His theory was his mom just wasn’t there anymore, which was why he never saw a different expression on her face. Except for the beating heart and the cancer consuming her, she might as well have been a wax figure. Ange took care of the unpleasant parts. The catheter, the feeding tube, the bathing.