Cold Case Cowboy. Jenna Ryan

think about the fact that the man who’d sideswiped her had taken the same fork.

      IT BEGAN TO SNOW before Nick and Dana reached the halfway point to Smoking Gun Pass.

      Dana braced a hand on the dash while he used Nick’s laptop and cell. “Okay, I’m in.” He typed the license plate number, winced and waited. “I don’t remember this road being so bumpy. Needs to be properly plowed. I’ll talk to…Hang on, I’ve got it. Anthony James Rush. City of residence—Telluride, Colorado. Forty-seven-year-old white male. Drives an ’88 F250. Everything seems fine here.”

      “Yeah, if you don’t include the fact that he whacked Harvey Stubbs with a mechanic’s wrench and stole a 4x4.”

      “Well, yes, that. But his driving record’s impeccable.” Dana tapped the keypad. “Signal’s fading, Nick. Anything else you need?”

      “A radar tracking device for Rush would be good. We’re coming up to the fork.”

      Dana let out a whistle as he closed down. “Man, look at that overhang. It’s enormous. Do you know that in a bad year, this pass can be closed five or six times by slides? We’ve already had to dig out twice since November, and looking at that snow ledge, I say we’re approaching number three. George Painter used to set off slides on purpose, thus the name Smoking Gun Pass. He liked to separate himself from the vermin in town.”

      “Sounds like my father.” Nick kept his eye on a large rift developing in the overhang, while Dana watched the other side.

      “It’ll hold,” he said, but his anxiety was evident. “Right turn.”

      The road twisted and turned, sometimes following the curve of the mountain, sometimes rolling away.

      At a hard thump on the roof Dana raised his eyes. “Nick, this isn’t good. We could get trapped.”

      “So could Rush.”

      “You’re not helping me here, old friend. Remember, I have a wife and three kids in town. Left turn.”

      “I know the pass, Dana.”

      “Sorry. Nervous.” He pointed east. “Skye’s lodge is that way. I’m not sure about the building site.”

      Nick was. He’d drawn the map in his head. Lodge, building site, Sasha, roads. But where was Rush? Would he hide, or try to make it through the pass and into Wyoming?

      A clump of ice landed on the windshield. Nick maneuvered around an even larger chunk. “Storm’s getting worse.” He turned right, drove for half a mile and rounded a sharp bend. A moment later, he braked so hard he almost threw Dana into the windshield.

      His friend blinked at the wall of snow and rock sitting directly in their path. “My God, when did that happen? Did you hear anything?”

      Nick regarded it for a moment, pictured the terrain and reversed. “Must have come down last night.”