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Considering his body was starting to respond to her perusal, that was probably a good idea. But he had a better one—a safer one. He jammed the empty pot back into place in the coffee maker and headed toward the living room. “I’m going back to bed.”
“Wait…don’t you even want to know what I found?”
He swung around with exasperation to find her right behind him. He fought the rest of the sleep cobwebs clinging to the edges of his mind. The ones tempting him to reach out and pull her against him and kiss her until she begged him to take her back to bed with him.
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Brittany. What did you find? Where?”
She dug in the pocket of her jean shorts and then stretched her arm toward him to offer a crumpled granola bar wrapper.
He narrowed his eyes. “You woke me up to give me garbage?”
She rolled her eyes. “Look what’s inside.” Taking hold of his hand, she placed the wrapper in his palm. Her soft, warm skin distracted him, until he saw the .22 caliber bullet nestled in the wrinkled cellophane and brought his other hand up to part the folds for a better look.
“Don’t touch it! Well, I already did, but—”
He flicked his gaze to hers without lifting his head.
“I’m sorry,” she continued. “I wasn’t thinking. It was only after I’d picked it up and noticed footprints that I thought about fingerprints.”
He set the wrapper on the dining room table, then went back into the kitchen. “Where’d you find that?” he asked while he started refilling the coffee
pot.
“I thought you had enough coffee?” she asked from the doorway, a smug little smile on her face. When he threw her a dark look, the smile disappeared. She moved into the kitchen to lean back against the counter. “I found it on the Lawn Lake Trail. I was on my way to Crystal Lake, but when I saw the bullet, I figured you’d be able to check if it was a ranger or not.”
The park’s armed enforcement rangers carried 9mms, not .22s. That was the caliber favored by the poacher. Unlike a more high-powered rifle, the report of a .22 didn’t travel as far, yet if the shooter was a good marksman, he could still make a kill shot from as far away as three hundred yards.
On the flip side, the bullet could just as easily have been dropped by a visitor who’d been carrying their firearm in the park legally, but at this point, every lead was worth checking out.
Joel leaned his hip against the counter and crossed his feet at the ankles as the coffee began to drip. “You said there were footprints?”
“They looked identical to the ones up at the overnight camp.”
“Some of the most popular hiking boots sold across this country have similar treads. Without comparing the prints, there’s no way to be sure.”
“I took pictures.”
“Good thinking. Let me get dressed and we’ll take a look on my computer. I’ll be right back.”
In his room, he resisted the lure of his pillow, and pulled on a pair of black cotton shorts and a white T-shirt. His computer was on the dining room table, so he returned to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee. “Can I get you anything?”
She held up the glass of water she’d helped herself to, so he took a seat at the table as she pulled her SD card from her pocket. When she sat in the chair next to him, their bare knees brushed. He was immediately reminded of her blatant appraisal in the kitchen and covered his shift away from the flare of heat by reaching for his coffee cup.
“I also noticed animal tracks near the footprints,” she told him as the computer booted up. “In fact, once I realized it looked more like something had crossed the hiking trail instead of veered off it, I figured it was probably just an animal trail. When I looked closer, that’s when I saw the footprints and found the bullet.”
Joel slid the media card into its slot and uploaded the photos she’d taken. One glance was all it took to recognize the tread on the print matched those of other prints he’d documented at previous crime scenes.
“Do they help?” she asked after a few minutes.
“Possibly.”
She leaned close to point to a spot on the computer screen. “Can you tell what kind of animal tracks those are?”
“Looks like elk, but I can’t be sure.” The faint smell of apples mixed with mountain freshness was beginning to go to his head. Probably time to wrap this up.
“Maybe we’ll find a better print when we get up there tomorrow.”
He cast her a sideways glance. “We?”
