SIX
Fun fact for you,” Terra said through gasps as she hiked.
“Oh yeah?” Jack trailed her. “What’s that?”
He wasn’t breathing nearly as hard as she was. Terra had thought she was in great shape until now.
She paused to look out over a vista, and maybe catch her breath—majestic mountains and welcoming valleys spread over miles, easily seen from this point on Stone Wolf Mountain. “Montana has at least three thousand named mountains.”
“By mountains, you mean what?”
“Anything from a foothill to a peak.”
He’d stopped next to her and leaned over his thighs. Catching his breath? Terra took some satisfaction from that. When he straightened, he stood a head taller than her.
“Fun fact for you,” he said.
“Okay. I guess you can play too.”
“There are eight towns in Grayback County.”
Terra snorted a laugh. “How many towns are in the state?”
He hung his head. “Now that, I don’t know.”
When he lifted his face, his green eyes held shadows as he looked out at the magnificent view. “We should get going before it gets too dark. We still have a couple of miles, and I don’t want to get lost.” He winked. “That’s why I wanted you along.”
“So you wouldn’t get lost?”
A tenuous grin lifted his cheeks, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. She had a feeling his comment had a deeper meaning, and one she wasn’t willing to explore.
“Let’s go then.” She led him next to a rocky outcropping until they reached a meadow of short grass just before the evergreens grew thick and dark. Images of the deputy coroner and his assistants carrying Jim’s body away flooded her mind. A county tech had arrived to collect possible evidence, most of which would be submitted to the Montana State Crime Lab.
The deputy coroner had been quick to identify what he believed was a knife wound to the back.
Deputies, rangers, and forest service law enforcement were now searching for a murder weapon.
Sergeant Aaron Brady had officially assigned Jack to the investigation. Then Terra and Jack had left what was now labeled the secondary crime scene and hiked to the top of the granite cliff to the primary crime scene, where they believed Jim was murdered then pushed or thrown off the cliff. The area had been cordoned off to protect the scene until evidence techs were done. They had kept their conversation to theorizing about the investigation rather than crossing over into anything personal, and for that, she was grateful.
This wasn’t her investigation, and she wanted answers about Jim’s death, so she was happy to be involved.
“Another fun fact,” she offered, “which you probably already know. The Gallatin National Forest encompasses almost two million acres and several counties. It seems to me that whoever killed him, stabbed him, and then dropped him out here—”
“Because . . . given the terrain here several miles from the trail, we shouldn’t have found the body so quickly. The killer had hoped by the time we found human remains, we wouldn’t suspect or be able to confirm foul play.”
“At the same time, he or she didn’t go as far as they could have to dump the body.”
“So they didn’t have the time to spend dragging a body around,” he said.
“Or packing on a horse.” Terra picked up her pace. “We spotted the droppings a quarter mile away, remember.”
“Jim also could have been riding, and was killed, then tossed. Or those droppings could have no relationship to this investigation. But we’ll know more once we hear from the deputy coroner.”
Talking about an investigation with Jack seemed completely foreign to her yet natural at the same time. Law enforcement agencies had to work together, especially when covering such a vast area. They continued on in silence until they reached the base of Stone Wolf Mountain’s north face and ... the Rocky Mountain Courage Memorial.
Terra waited for the dizziness to pass.
“You okay?”