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He was pretty sure Michael had been the ass in that threesome.
“Hunters?” Michael asked. “Did Nate check the hunting licenses? Because I think the only thing you can hunt with a rifle right now is white tail.”
He’d been over this with the sheriff. He’d gotten far too familiar with Colorado’s hunting license process. It was done online. “There were only three permits that day, and Nate checked with all of them. Two of the men were together and in another part of the forest. The third wasn’t close. He was up near Bear Creek, but he claims he saw another man hiking with a rifle. Nate had him look at the pictures of the guys who had licenses, but he didn’t recognize them.”
“So you had an unlicensed hunter,” Michael surmised. “I mean, we all know it happens. I’ll let Nate know I’m free to do some digging if he needs help. I’m pretty good at finding people. If the rangers didn’t have a record of him, then he likely walked in or used a snowmobile to bypass the official entrances.”
“It was probably a guy out hunting who didn’t want to pay the fee. It’s fine.”
“I don’t know. I don’t like coincidences, and the fact that someone was looking for you makes me wonder. I would feel better if I was Nate if I could track this person down.”
Hale wanted the whole thing to go away. “I think that’s a lot of manpower for what was clearly an accident. I don’t see why someone would come looking for Van one day and then shoot at us the next. Also, the person looking for us is a woman.”
“A woman can shoot a rifle,” Michael pointed out.
“But there’s no record of a woman being on the land that day, and I have to ask why she would walk in here and boldly ask where we are if she intended to kill Van. It doesn’t make sense to me.” He wasn’t sure why Elisa was so determined to track the woman down, but he was hoping once they did, Van might have some answers. But he didn’t think the two incidents were connected. “Besides, Nate didn’t find any evidence of a lawsuit filed against either me or Van. He had Gemma calling and searching through records for days, and she found nothing in the civil court system.”
“Which makes me think the woman who asked about you might have been lying about her profession. After all, from what Chelle said she didn’t mention she was an attorney when she was here at the lodge. She didn’t become an attorney until she showed up at Trio,” Michael mused. “I don’t know. I need to think about it some more. Something doesn’t feel right to me.”
He’d heard a lot about instincts lately. Elisa talked about this situation not feeling right, too. He did not have any of those alarm bells. “Well, let me know if you need anything, and I thank you for thinking about it. I’m worried about Van. This whole thing is making him anxious. Tell Lucy I’ll be up on three looking at that heater.”
Michael nodded, and Hale made his way to the elevator. The doors closed when his cell buzzed.
He glanced down and then slid his finger across the screen to accept the call. “Hey, what’s up?”
He played it cool with Van. He was trying to be laid back. No deep discussions about where the relationship with Elisa was heading. No pressure on him to stay. He was going to be chill and let Van figure this out.
“Where are you? I’ve been waiting for ten minutes.” Van, on the other hand, was not chill. He sounded irritated and unamused.
“What are you talking about?” Hale asked.
“You called up to Trio and told me to get here as fast as I could. It was an emergency. I nearly had a heart attack and you’re not here.”
Hale had no idea what was going on. “Where is here? I’m out at the lodge. I didn’t call you.”
“I’m in the lobby. You called and told Micky you needed help right away and I should get here ASAP. I left a shift for this,” Van complained.
“I didn’t call anyone.” He pressed the button that would take him to the lobby. “Lucy called me an hour ago and asked me to come look at the heater on three. Why would I call Trio when you have a cell phone?”
That seemed to stop Van. “I guess I thought it had something to do with the emergency. I don’t know. All I know is I was worried. I thought maybe…”
The doors opened, and Hale strode through the hall that took him into the luxurious lobby. He knew exactly what Van wasn’t saying. “I’m fine. I’ve been fine for days.”
No one had tried to shoot him or take out his truck or even looked sideways at him. Everything was fine. Everything was perfect, with the singular exception of his scaredy-cat best friend who couldn’t sleep with their woman. Oh, he could do all kinds of other things to her, but he ran away at the end of the sex, and that needed to stop.
