Page 82 of Burning Justice

To do that, they’d have to find him.

“Keep me posted.”

“Will do.” Brett ended the call.

Blaze finished rolling around and leaped to his feet, shaking off a few blades of dried grass. Brett reached down, unerringly finding his dog’s head. The look of exasperation on his face echoed her own thoughts. He wanted to nail these people so badly. What would happen if he didn’t? The answer was obvious.

His determination would turn into an unhealthy obsession. Maybe it already had.

Brett’s phone rang again. This time, he didn’t put it on speaker, and she couldn’t see who the caller was.

Nearly a full minute passed, and with every second, his eyes narrowed more. “What’s the exact location?” Another few seconds ticked by. “We’re on our way.”

Brett shoved the phone back onto his belt, then dragged a hand down his face. “We finally got a hit on that BOLO I put out on Johnny Nash. That was the Colorado State Patrol in Briggsdale. Nash’s body was found in an oil field. Three gunshots to the chest.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Brett slowed as he turned onto Weld County Road 68, heading for Briggsdale and into the heartland of Colorado’s oil and gas production. His jaw was starting to ache from clenching it so hard. A big missing piece of the puzzle had just been blown away. Literally.

Gemma sipped quietly on a coffee they’d grabbed before leaving Denver and picking up lunch. Blaze stared out the kennel window, his nose pressed to the glass, as if he were watching the scenery whiz by.

They’d been on the road for over an hour, heading to the northeast part of the state near the Wyoming border. Ten miles ago, they’d left the green, irrigated, and circular-shaped fields behind. The single lane road they were on now was surrounded on both sides by dry-as-a-bone irrigation ditches and fields. In the distance, oil derricks loomed tall and proud.

With Weld County spewing out 85 percent of the state’s crude oil and around 50 percent of the state’s natural gas production, it was no wonder. Farmers and ranchers had long ago figured out that selling or leasing their fields to the oil and gas companies was far more lucrative than ranching or agriculture.

Gemma yawned, holding her hand over her mouth. This had already been a long day and was fixing to be even longer. Through it all, she hadn’t complained once, and he admired her for that. Even though this was the job—long hours and many a night away from home—half the agents he worked with would already have been whining about getting home for dinner and a cold beer.

Following specific mile-marker directions given to him by the CSP trooper, Brett turned onto an unmarked, unpaved, rutted dirt road, one of many in this area used by trucking companies to access the derricks and above-ground holding tanks.

Brett hadn’t had a reason to be in this part of the state in a long time, and he’d forgotten just how rustic and isolated it was.

Dust clouds billowed around them. The Expedition rocked and rolled, the front bumper occasionally hitting the road as the SUV dipped low into one of the deep ruts created by heavy tanker trucks.

“Wow.” Gemma reached for the grab handle above the door. “I’ve never been out here. My job takes me to where there are houses, not where there’s nothing.”

Brett eased his foot off the gas, maneuvering around a particularly deep pothole. “Good place to dump a body.”

They drove for what seemed like another half mile but was probably only a few hundred feet. The road was still rutted but had turned muddy from a recent rainstorm. Up ahead, a police barricade had been set up. Beyond that was a cluster of CSP and Weld County Sheriff’s Office vehicles. A state trooper in a sky-blue shirt, gray slacks, and Smokey Bear hat came around the barricade.

Brett rolled down the window and held up his ID. “Special Agent Tanner, ATF. Trooper Rollins here?”

“She’s over there.” The trooper pointed to the cluster of official vehicles, then began moving the barricade.

“Thanks,” Brett called out as they drove past. He parked next to a gray van—the Weld County Coroner’s Office vehicle. He grabbed a notepad and stuck it in the thigh pocket of his pants. “Let’s do this.” The moment he stepped outside, his boots sunk a full inch into the mud. Just before closing the door, Blaze let out a sad little whine. Unlike many human agents Brett had worked with over the years, if his dog wasn’t working, he wasn’t happy.

“Bye, Blaze.” Gemma scratched Blaze’s ears, then closed her door and walked with Brett to where a group of officers stood off to the side of the road, staring into the adjacent field.

One of the CSP troopers, a tall woman with a long brown braid hanging down her back, turned. She glanced at his shirt. “Agent Tanner?” When he nodded, she held out her hand. “Trooper Rollins.”

“This is my partner.” He indicated Gemma. “Agent Scott with the NICB.”

Rollins’s brows rose, but she didn’t question what an NICB agent was doing out in the middle of an oil field. As Gemma had said, this wasn’t her usual turf.

While the two women shook hands, Brett eyed the crime scene about fifty feet into the field, near an old, rusty oil derrick. An irregularly shaped area had been staked out with yellow tape, inside of which a tech snapped photos and another made notes on a clipboard. A path leading from the road to the scene was taped off, leading Brett to believe it was also part of the crime scene.

“The coroner’s investigator is still working the scene.” Rollins tipped her head to the field. “He’s been in there for hours. Said he’d be out soon to give us an update. What does the victim have to do with your case?”

“He’s a suspect in an arson investigation.”