Bound to Fall: A Colorado High Country Novel
Bound to Fall
A Colorado High Country Novel
Pamela Clare
www.pamelaclare.com
Contents
Bound to Fall
Acknlowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Thank You
Also by Pamela Clare
About the Author
BOUND TO FALL
A Colorado High Country Novel
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Published by Pamela Clare, 2022
Cover Design by © Jaycee DeLorenzo/Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs
Photo credit: mrbigphoto/Shutterstock
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Copyright © 2022 by Pamela Clare
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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All rights reserved.
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No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic, or audio format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials by violating the author’s rights. No one should be expected to work for free. If you support the arts and enjoy literature, do not participate in illegal file-sharing.
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ISBN: 979-8-9854351-0-8
This book is dedicated to my beloved daughters-in-law, Angela and Courtney. Thank you for being a part of my family and making my sons so happy.
Acknlowledgements
Special thanks to my sister, Michelle White, and to my younger son, Benjamin Alexander, who have done more than anyone to support my writing journey. Additional thanks to Jackie Turner, the best catcher of typos in the known universe. Where would I be without you? Thanks, too, to Shell Ryan for her friendship and support.
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Many thanks to my readers in the Pamela Clare Readers Group, whose love and support makes it all worthwhile. I hope you love Sasha and Darius’ story as much as I do.
Chapter 1
September 15
Scarlet Springs, CO
Sasha Dillon sent a quick text message to Nicole Turner, her best friend, to tell her where she was going. Years of doing search-and-rescue work had taught her that there was no such thing as being too safe. She always told someone where she was going and when she expected to return.
Going for a ride. Caribou loop. Back in two hours.
She strapped on her helmet, climbed onto her trail bike, and pedaled through Scarlet Springs toward the highway. She wanted to get in another conditioning ride, and the Caribou loop was both strenuous and beautiful, with steep switchbacks and views of the high peaks that stretched all the way to the Divide. So much of rock climbing was leg strength and endurance, and a good ride improved both while giving her upper body a much-needed rest.
Next week, she would pack up for the long flight to Bratislava, Slovakia, where she would defend her title at the sports climbing world championships. Though she was excited to see her international climbing friends again, she wasn’t a fan of long international flights—or flying in general. She felt safer roped in on a two-thousand-foot cliff than she did strapped into an airplane seat.
Sasha pedaled hard, savoring the rush of wind in her face and letting her mind go, the stress of the upcoming competition melting away. She’d promised herself years ago that she would leave competitive sports climbing if it started to feel like work. Climbing was supposed to be fun, even at the professional level. If competition became too stressful, she would quit and go back to climbing for the joy of it.
A red fox darted across the road ahead of her.
“Hey, little guy.”
It glanced her way before disappearing into the pines on the other side.
Sasha loved living in the Colorado mountains. She’d grown up in San Jose, California, where both of her parents still worked as software engineers. But life in the suburbs of Silicon Valley, with its traffic, industry, and boutiques, had been too mundane for her. She’d take a snowy conifer forest over palm trees and traffic jams any day.
The sound of an engine approached from behind.
As a battered, black SUV roared by, the man on the passenger side stuck out an arm, his middle finger raised. “Suck my dick!”
Jerks.
How unhappy he must be to treat a stranger that way.
She glanced at the Colorado license plate and memorized the number.
Sasha had tried to grow a thick skin when it came to harassment and sexism. The world of professional sports was rife with it. From men whose egos were bruised when she climbed better than they did to random creeps on the Internet who threatened her because she was a successful, single woman, she dealt with jerks almost every day.
Forget them.
She turned her mind away from the guys in the SUV and focused on her ride. She was in the best shape of her career, and the exertion felt good—the sweat on her face, the rush of air in her lungs, the nice burn in her quads and glutes.
A truck engine.
Sasha glanced over her shoulder to see a white truck with the words RANGER and Forest County Parks and Open Space painted on the side. She smiled, waved. Austin Taylor, a park ranger and a good friend, waved back as he passed.
Like Sasha, Austin was a Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team member. Founded by Megs Hill and Mitch Ahearn, two legends of the climbing world, the Team conducted hundreds of rescues every year, saving dozens of lives and earning the reputation of being the best high-risk SAR team in the nation.
Not that Sasha was biased or anything…
She had joined the Team after its volunteers had rescued a buddy of hers who’d broken both ankles taking a whipper on Desdichado, a route in Eldorado Canyon State Park. Sasha hadn’t been there to watch them work, but she’d heard about it. When she’d learned who managed the Team…
Megs Hill had always been her idol.
Sasha downshifted as the road sloped more steeply uphill. She passed the sign that marked Scarlet’s town limits, the turnoff for Caribou just ahead on the left. Then she saw it—the black SUV.
Damn.
It sat in a vehicle turnout, just ahead to her right, engine running, windows down, heavy metal blaring. She would have to pass them to reach the turnoff, and for a moment, she thought about turning around and finding a different route today.
To hell with that!
She couldn’t let those rat bastards bully her into changing her plans. She checked for traffic and then crossed the road, riding on the left shoulder, putting some distance between herself and the jerks in the SUV.
This time, they said nothing as she passed.
She relaxed into her ride, now only a hundred feet or so from the turnoff. More than once, she’d seen a moose—
The roar of an engine. Tires squealing on asphalt.
She glanced over her shoulder to see the black SUV cross the centerline, he
ading straight toward her.
What the…?
Were they freaking insane?
On a surge of adrenaline, she turned her handlebars toward the forest, instinct driving her toward the cover of trees. But this side of the highway had a steep five-foot drop from the road to the forest floor. She would have taken her chances and ridden her bike over the edge, but the SUV was too fast. Its bumper hit her rear tire and sent her hurtling over the handlebars, her scream cut short when she struck a tree.
Bone snapped. Brakes shrieked. The forest floor rushed up at her, drove the breath from her lungs when she hit, landing face down.
Men’s laughter.
“Die, bitch!”
She fought to inhale, pain exploding in her side. As the world went dark, she heard them drive away.
It was pain that roused Sasha as she fought to get air into her lungs.
Stay awake, or you’ll die here.
She raised her head, spit pine needles and dirt from her mouth, and struggled to sit up. But the pain in her ribs and chest was unbearable, and it was all she could do to roll onto her back. Without the breath to scream or cry for help, she lay there, feeling as if there were a fifty-pound weight on her chest. She knew what that meant.
Pneumothorax. A collapsed lung.
Your phone.
Where was it?
It was zipped into the right pocket of her cycling shorts.
She tried to reach for it with her right hand, but pain stopped her, her wrist clearly broken. But retrieving it with her left hand was impossible because it forced her to reach across her body, putting pressure on her collapsed lung and ribs that must be broken. She steeled herself against the pain and tried with her right hand once more. The zipper wasn’t completely zipped, the gap at the top large enough for a fingertip. Gritting her teeth, she worked her finger inside, pushed the zipper down, and drew the phone out with two fingers, dropping it onto her chest.
She took it with her left hand, searched her contacts, and called Megs.
Megs answered, the familiar sound of her voice putting a lump in Sasha’s throat. “Hey, Sasha, what’s up?”
Dizzy from pain and lack of breath, Sasha managed to get out only a handful of words. “Help me! Hit … by car … near … Caribou turnoff. Can’t… breathe.”
Then the world went dark again.
Darius Silva poured himself a cup of coffee, relieved that today’s action had gone so well. After nine months of hard detective work, the son of a bitch who’d murdered Reina Hernandez was behind bars.
“Way to go, Silva.” Julian Darcangelo clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. “I’m glad that bastard is off the streets.”
“Thanks, man.”
As a detective with Major Crimes Investigations, Darius didn’t work directly with Darcangelo. Still, the man had a reputation for getting the job done, and Darius respected that. If even half the shit people said about him was true, he was a badass.
Darius made his way down the hallway toward Conference Room 2 for the debriefing, nodding to those who congratulated him along the way.
“Congrats, Silva.”
“I hear you got him. Well done.”
“Good work, man.”
He got paid to catch bad guys, but if his fellow cops wanted to make a big deal out of it, he would let them.
Darius had been with the Denver Police Department for a little more than a year now. He’d moved to Colorado after a decade with the LAPD’s Threat Management Unit, chasing down the stalkers and psychopaths who targeted celebrities. The work had been rewarding at first. But after a decade of working with movie stars, directors, models, and singers, he’d decided most of them were as obsessed with themselves as the unhinged people who stalked them. Everything he’d loved about his job had become everything he’d hated about it, and he’d known it was time to go.
After LA, Colorado was a breath of fresh air. Though Denver had the conveniences of a big city, it was close to world-class skiing and endless miles of pristine wilderness. Best of all, there was no celebrity culture. It had been more than a year since anyone had demanded he run press releases by their publicist or treated him like staff or sat through an intake interview naked.
The conference room door stood open. Chief Irving, with his gray crew-cut and suit jacket, sat at one end of the table. Marc Hunter, the SWAT captain whose team had assisted with the arrest, sat a few chairs down, still in body armor.
Darius took the seat across from Hunter. “Thanks for your help today. You and your team do good work.”
Hunter grinned. “Hey, you’re the one who solved the case.”
It had been one of the most challenging investigations of Darius’ career. Everyone believed the victim’s husband had murdered her. Much of the evidence had initially pointed in his direction. Statistically speaking, when a young woman disappeared and turned up dead, her boyfriend or husband was the killer.
But Darius knew only too well how assumptions could bias an investigation, ruining the lives of innocent people while allowing the guilty to go free.
Despite circumstantial evidence and statistics, the killer hadn’t been the husband this time around. It had been the meth dealer next door. Hernandez had begun to suspect the bastard was dealing when she’d witnessed a steady stream of vehicles stopping at the house at all hours of the day and night. She’d confronted him rather than calling the police. That had been a fatal mistake.
Chief Irving looked like he hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep in the past thirty years. There were heavy bags under his eyes, and his face wore a resigned expression, as if he’d long ago accepted that the bullshit would never end. “I read the case reports from both of you. Good work. Silva, your former boss said you never give up. Like a pit bull, he said. Now I know what he means.”
A pit bull?
Darius supposed he did have a reputation for persistence. He’d had the highest closure rate of any detective on the Threat Assessment Unit and the second highest at the LAPD. It had cost him a couple of girlfriends, a car, and more than a few nights’ sleep.
“Thank you, sir.”
They spent the next ten minutes going over details of the raid before Chief Irving changed the subject.
“I have a request for support from the Forest County Sheriff. They’ve asked for help investigating a hit-and-run that happened yesterday just outside Scarlet Springs. The young woman who was hit is a world-famous climber—the reigning world champion, in fact—and the sheriff wants our help determining whether this was a random act or a personal attack. I’ve told them you’ll arrive tomorrow morning to lend a hand.”
It took Darius a moment to sort through that. “You’re sending me … where?”
Hunter grinned. “Scarlet Springs. It’s a small mountain town west of Boulder. I worked with the Forest County Sheriff’s Department and the local fire department when they were hit by a wildfire a couple of years ago. They’re good people.”
“If you’ve got a good working relationship with them, why don’t you go?”
“Hunter has a wife and kids, and he lacks your cyber-crime experience.”
Hunter shrugged. “I’m good at kicking down doors and pulling triggers, but beyond that…”
Fuck.
The last thing Darius wanted was another celebrity stalking case.
Irving slid a folder across the table, opened it to reveal a publicity photo of a pretty young woman with a bright smile on her face, her golden blond hair in braids. “The victim is Sasha Dillon, age twenty-six, single, no dependents. She’s currently in Memorial Hospital with injuries that aren’t life-threatening.”
Hunter’s brow furrowed. “Thank God for that. She’s a sweet kid.”
Irving went on. “You’ll be staying at the Forest Creek Inn on our dime. Take your service vehicle. Also, they don’t have the cyber tech that we have, so take whatever you think you’ll need—cyber monitor, validator, all of that.”
Hunter chuckled. “Listen to you, old man
—trying to sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
Irving shot him a withering glance, but he didn’t fool Darius. Irving was fond of Hunter. He turned back to Darius. “Any questions?”
Darius bit back his objections. He respected Irving, and he’d sworn an oath to follow orders. “How long will I be staying there?”
Irving rose. “I’d suggest you pack for a week. If you believe the hit-and-run is the work of a stalker and you need to remain on assignment to direct the investigation, you can always do laundry.”
That was not what Darius was hoping he’d say. “Yes, sir.”
Chuckling, Hunter got to his feet. “Don’t look so glum. Be sure to stop by the local brewpub, Knockers. The beer is outstanding. The town owns a ski resort—Ski Scarlet. It’s a quirky, fun place to hang out.”
“If you say so.” Then it hit Darius. He picked up the file and stood. “You already knew about the attack, didn’t you? It was your idea that they ask Irving for help.”
Hunter didn’t deny it. “One of their deputies called me to ask my opinion. I gave her a little advice, and she was smart enough to take it.”
Darius could appreciate Hunter’s wanting to help a friend. “Okay, man. I’ll head up, look into it, and let them know what I think.”