the past that her presence called up were too great for him to deal with on top of the responsibilities he already shouldered.
* * *
The hot afternoon sun bore down on Annie as she climbed out of the HumVee. This time she had a camera slung over her shoulder, a report in hand, and she was prepared to search the area where Libby Tyler had said she’d fallen. Joe Donnally was no different, however much she’d hoped he would be. No, he was just as gruff and grumpy as ever. Compressing her lips, she moved around to the front of the HumVee where he stood, arms crossed, surveying the terrain.
“This is it,” he said, discouraged by the rough rocks and sparse vegetation. How the hell were they supposed to find the exact spot where Libby Tyler had fallen? Frustrated, he looked over at Annie’s clean profile. He’d thought a day would make a difference in how he felt toward her, but it hadn’t. After a broken night’s sleep, with memories of the past bleeding into the fabric of the present, he was in an even fouler mood than yesterday, if that was possible.
“We need to look for sagebrush or tufts of grass that have been disturbed,” Annie said.
“Yeah? Well, it’s like looking for a needle in a damned haystack, if you ask me.”
Annie smiled a little and set the report on the hood of the HumVee. Waves of heat, like invisible curtains, shimmered in front of them. It was over a hundred degrees, the sky a bright, cloudless blue. Only the refreshing scent of the Pacific Ocean less than ten miles away offered refreshment to Annie’s senses. “Maybe not.” She pointed toward the left. “You see that area?”
“What, that bunch of sagebrush?”
“Yes.”
“What about it?”
“I’ll bet that’s where the horse dumped her.”
“How can you tell?” Joe looked over at her, incredulous.
“I’ll show you.” Annie felt good about this opportunity to demonstrate to Joe that she knew her job as a tracker. As they walked about two hundred feet into the desert, she pointed to several surrounding markers. “She said she fell in a ravine. There are rocks on both sides of this V-shaped area. And the sagebrush down there looks damaged.”
“It doesn’t to me,” Joe said flatly.
Annie said nothing, but gingerly made her way down the steep side of the rocky ravine. Once at the bottom she knelt. Feeling Donnally’s presence, she looked up at him. “The sagebrush is broken here and here. This is where she fell.” Annie turned over several branches to show him they recently had been broken.
Amazed that she could be so bold and sure about her discovery, Joe snorted. “Sure, and the next thing you’ll find is where the bullets hit the rocks.”
Lifting her chin, Annie tried to ignore the sarcasm in his tone. “There’s one,” she said, pointing to a gray-and-black rock on the other side of the ravine.
His eyes widening, Joe’s gaze followed her finger’s path. Stepping across the ravine, he spotted the rock she’d indicated. The surface of the huge boulder had been scarred recently by a bullet. Without a word, Joe lifted the camera and took a photograph of it, as well as where the brush had been broken by Libby’s tumble from the horse.
Annie rose and started a rock-by-rock search for a second bullet indentation. About five feet away, on the opposite side of the ravine, she found what she was looking for. Calling Donnally over, she pointed to the rock.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered, and took another photo.
Annie felt hope soar within her. Joe’s look had been one of praise, not anger. In her heart, she wanted to like him a lot. If only he would drop that angry wall he held up like a shield. Time, Annie cautioned herself. They needed time to adjust to each other.
“The trajectory of the bullets indicate they were fired from that direction,” she told him, pointing off into the distance.
Joe straightened. “You’re probably right.” He frowned and looked down at the rocks. “Whoever was doing the firing hit five feet either side of that horse.”
“Yes,” she murmured, “the shooter knew what he was doing.”
“I don’t think this was an accident,” Joe said quietly.
“I don’t, either.”
Joe wrestled with how easy it was to fall into a comfortable working relationship with Annie. She was all-business, and possessed a keen intelligence that startled him. He tried to suppress his burgeoning respect for her. “I’m going to assume the shots came from an M-16,” he told her. “Ms. Tyler said she didn’t see the person who fired, so it must have been long-range.”
“Six hundred yards?” Annie guessed.
“Bingo.”
“You think the person who fired it was more than just an expert marksman? Maybe sniper-quality shooting?”
“Yes.”
Annie saw a gleam of respect in Joe’s eyes—if but for a fraction of a second—and a warmth flowed through her. At last, he was thawing a little toward her—even if it was strictly business, she thought as she nodded and followed him back to the HumVee. They rode in silence, the HumVee grinding over several small, rounded hills as Joe headed in the direction from which they believed the bullets had been fired.
“Look,” Annie said suddenly, excitement in her voice. “See that cluster of rocks on top of that hill?”
Joe smiled grimly. “Great place to hide a sniper, isn’t it?”
Annie grinned. She liked Joe when he acted more human and less like a cornered mountain lion. Suddenly, they were a working team. She loved the natural high that came from successful investigative work, and obviously, so did Joe. The usual frostiness in his blue eyes had been replaced by an intensity that could only be translated as enjoyment.
Getting out of the HumVee, they cautiously approached the series of boulders that were stacked haphazardly to form a semicircle at the top of the hill. Her eyes scanning the ground for spent cartridge casings, Annie felt her heart pump with excitement as she neared the other side of the boulders.
“Look! Footprints!” She knelt and pointed to a partial print barely visible on the sand and rock.
Joe grunted. “Good. Keep looking.”
Feeling like a bloodhound on a fresh trail, Annie scanned the ground. Sunlight was glinting off something about ten feet from her and she picked her way through the thick sagebrush. Leaning down, her fingers searching, she felt the heat of metal and quickly grasped it. Triumphantly, she turned and held the cartridge casing up for Joe to see.
“I found one!”
He turned. The glint of sunlight off metal in Annie’s fingers spoke of her important find. From where he stood, he noticed a number of hoofprints. “Great! Looks like whoever fired the rifle rode a horse, too.”
Annie nodded. She moved carefully around the prints and placed the shell in Joe’s outstretched hand. Just that minimal contact with his hand—callused
