Case File: Canyon Creek, Wyoming. Paula Graves
the sound of Hannah Cooper’s scream, Riley whipped around to look behind him, half-certain he’d see a crazed maniac with a gun. But all he saw was a nurse run into the room, alarm in her eyes. She pushed past Riley to her patient’s side.
“Who is he?” Hannah asked the nurse, gazing at Riley with wide, frightened eyes.
The nurse looked at him over her shoulder, her expression wary. “What are you doing here? Visiting hours are over.”
“I’m sorry. I should have announced myself at the nurses’ station.” He hadn’t done so, of course, because he didn’t want anyone to tell him he couldn’t see Hannah Cooper. “I’m Riley Patterson with the Canyon Creek Police Department. I wanted to talk to Ms. Cooper about what happened to her this afternoon.”
“The police have already spoken to her.” The nurse lifted her chin, looking like a she-wolf guarding her young.
“That was the Teton County Sheriff’s Department,” Riley said, not ready to give up until he’d talked to the victim alone. “I want to talk to her about a similar case in my jurisdiction.” That was stretching the truth a bit; none of the murders he’d been looking into over the past three years had actually happened in the Canyon Creek jurisdiction. But if nobody else in Wyoming gave a damn about connecting the dots, he was happy to make it a Canyon Creek priority.
“What do you want to know?” Hannah Cooper spoke in a raspy drawl, her voice a combination of honey and steel. Her green eyes remained wide and wary, and she hunkered deeper into the pillow behind her as he approached, but her jaw squared and she didn’t turn away when he reached her bedside.
“I’m going to reach into my pocket and show you my badge first.” He kept his voice low and calm. “So you’ll know I am who I say I am.”
She remained wary as he showed her his credentials. “The guy who attacked me was driving a cop car.” Her gaze lifted defiantly to his. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not particularly impressed by your badge.”
Of course. He should have considered that possibility. Sliding the badge into the back pocket of his jeans, he did his best to soften his expression. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through a terrible ordeal. If you want to call the Canyon Creek Police Department, they can verify my credentials—”
“That’s not necessary.” Anger flashed in her eyes, although he got the feeling she was angrier at herself than at him. She pushed her hair away from her face, taking a deep breath. When she spoke again, she was calmer. “It’s okay, I don’t mind talking to him for a minute,” she told the nurse.
The nurse slanted a look at Riley, as if she wanted to argue, but after a short nod, she left them alone.
“I apologize for barging in without any warning.” Riley pulled a chair next to her bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been kicked in the head and dipped in acid.”
“Pepper spray’s nasty.” He’d been exposed a few times, mostly in his police training. “And so’s a concussion. I took a hit my senior year playing football. Kept asking the trainer what had happened every other minute for a solid half hour.”
His confession elicited a tiny smile from her, the effect dazzling. Bandages, blotchy skin and red-rimmed eyes disappeared, revealing how pretty she was beneath her injuries. Her eyes were a mossy-green, her pupils rimmed by a shock of amber—cat’s eyes, bright and a little mysterious. Her small, straight nose and wide, full lips might have been dainty if not for her square, pugnacious jaw. She was a scrapper. He’d known a few scrappers in his life.
Her smile faded, and he felt a surprising twinge of disappointment. Her chin dipped when she spoke. “You said there was a similar case in your jurisdiction?”
He cleared his throat. “Actually, there are a handful of cases I’ve been looking at over the past three years. Similar MO’s—women driving alone on the highway, incapacitated by pepper spray.” He didn’t add that they usually ended up dead, wrapped in plastic sheeting in some river or lake not far from the highway where they disappeared.
Her expression darkened. “How many got away like I did?”
He licked his lips and didn’t answer.
She nodded slowly. “I’m lucky, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, you are.”
She took a deep breath, coughing a little from the aftereffects of the pepper-spray attack. Her lower lip trembled a moment, but she regained control, her gaze lifting to meet his. “He tried to pull me out of the car, but I kept hearing my brother’s voice in my head. ‘Don’t let him get you out of the car.’ So I smashed my elbow against his hand where it was sitting on the window frame and I drove off as fast as I could.”
“That was smart and brave.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said faintly. “I just didn’t want to die today.”
The simple emotion in her voice tugged at his gut. Had Emily felt that way, trapped by a monster on the highway out of Casper? He knew from the autopsy that she’d fought him—her fingernails had been ripped in places, and there was some pre-mortem bruising from the struggle. Had the pepper spray incapacitated her more than it had Hannah Cooper? Had she lacked the opening that Hannah had to fight back and get away?
He rubbed his forehead, struggling against the paralyzing images his questions evoked. “I saw your statement to the Sheriff’s Department. You didn’t see your assailant’s face?”
“No. I barely saw his midsection through the window before he hit me with the pepper spray. I didn’t see much of anything after that. Just blurry images.”
“You mentioned a silver belt buckle. Can you remember what was on it?”
Her brow furrowed with tiny lines of concentration. “I just know it was silver and there was a pattern to it, but I can’t remember what it was. Maybe I didn’t get a good look.”
Though his instinct was to push her to remember more, he held his tongue. As frustrating as it was not to have all the answers right now, he reminded himself how lucky he was to have a living, breathing witness to the killer’s MO. Maybe she’d remember more as the effects of the trauma wore off.
“You look tired,” he said.
“Gee, thanks,” she muttered, and he smiled.
Behind them came a knock, then the door opened just enough for the light from the corridor to silhouette the shape of a man. The hair on the back of Riley’s neck rose. On instinct, he moved to put himself between Hannah and the visitor.
“Sorry to interrupt. I’m with hospital security. The nurse thought I should check and see if everything’s okay here.” The security guard remained in the doorway, his shoulders squared and his hands at his side, close to the unmistakable outline of his weapon holster.
“Everything’s fine,” Hannah said firmly. “Thank you.”
With a nod, the security guard closed the door behind him.
“Did the Teton County Sheriff’s Department offer to post a guard outside your door?” Riley asked.
“Why? The guy who attacked me didn’t know me. I was—what do y’all call it? A target of opportunity?”
She was right, but leaving her alone here in the hospital didn’t sit well with him. The staff had shown they had her best interests at heart, but he couldn’t shake the idea that the wily killer he’d been looking for over the past three years wouldn’t be happy leaving behind a live victim. The more time Hannah had to remember details from the attack, the more valuable she was to the police—and dangerous to the killer.
He pushed to his feet, sensing she was running out of energy. She needed her rest, and they could pick up this conversation in the morning. “I’m heading out now. You get some sleep and don’t