Read Online Cold Fear by Rick Mofina - Free Book Online Page B

begin immediately.
Understand? We’re pulling people from Great Falls, Helena, Billings, Coeur d’Alene, an army will come up from Seattle and Salt Lake. Lloyd Turner will
supervise. We have to move fast; so much is at stake for everyone involved.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Good luck, Tracy.”
    Bowman hung up and put her face in her hands.
    What had just happened?
    Her mind was swirling. She had been given the new job
she needed for Mark’s health, for her peace of mind. But it was conditional she
not drop the ball here on an NHQ file that was a potential career ender. And
she was to work with a man who comes with his own warning label. She had wanted
to be sprung from her office prison, had wanted Violent Crimes, hadn’t she?
    Bowman peeked through her fingers to see Kim Darby
bidding farewell to Roster, whose horse reared as he removed his hat and waved
good-bye.
    “Well, come see a fat old man some time,” Rooster said
before his horse jumped a fence and galloped in the snow toward the mountains.
    Mark had fallen asleep.
    Bowman called her friend Roberta Cara, who had taken
Mark in for several weeks when she went to Quantico. Roberta lived with her
lawyer husband, J.T., and their seven children in a large ranch house south of Missoula. J.T. had handled Carl’s will and business affairs.
    “No problem, Tracy. I’ll send a couple of the girls over
to spend the night with him, then bring him here in the morning.”
    Gently, she woke Mark and told him that Roberta’s
daughters were coming to take care of him because she had an emergency
assignment and she would be gone for a few days.
    “Don’t forget to call me, Mom, like when you went to Washington?” Mark threw his arms around her.
    “Every day. I promise, Marshal.” That was her nickname
for him.
    Smiling, Mark drifted back to sleep. She carried him to
his bedroom, wrote him an I love you and I will miss you note, then began
packing. First for him, then for herself, finishing just as the girls arrived.
She briefed them on Mark’s medication and schedule, then wrote it down for
Roberta, leaving her cell phone and Salt Lake Division numbers. She lugged her
bag to her Chevy Blazer SUV and headed for Interstate 93.
    The drive to Kalispell would take well over an hour. For
some strange reason, as she started out, she suddenly thought about Isaiah
Hood, the killer who was going to be executed in a few days in Deer Lodge. Why
did he come to mind? His case had been in the Missoulian recently. Hood
was awaiting his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was based on the new
claim that he was innocent. Why was she suddenly thinking of him? She shrugged
it off, concentrating on the case at hand. Was her cell phone plugged in? When
she looked to check, it began trilling, startling her for a second before she
answered.
    “Bowman.”
    “Who is this? Who have I got?” A gruff male voice.
    “Agent Tracy Bowman, FBI. Who is this please?”
    “Frank Zander. You are the local assigned to this case
with me?”
    Sounded to her like he said “yokel,” but the line hissed
with static.
    “That’s correct.”
    “Where are you?”
    “En route to Kalispell to meet you at the airport. Where
are you?”
    “I’m calling from the plane on an air phone. I stop in Salt
Lake for a quick connect to Montana. I’ll be there in a couple of hours. Can
you get to a secure fax? I have a priority report I want you to have right
away.”
    Bowman’s brain raced as she drove. “Yes.”
    “Well, give me the number.” His tone was condescending.
    She recited the fax number.
    “I do not know that number as secure for your region.”
    “It is secure.”
    “Alright, it will be on its way once our conversation
ends.”
    “Fine.”
    “Bowman do you know Pike Thornton, a ranger at Glacier?”
    “Not really. I know of him.”
    “Do you know Inspector Sydowski with the SFPD?”
    “No.”
    “Do you know anything about this file, about suspected
criminal intent?”
    “I have been