Jessica Andersen - Manhunt In The Wild West (Harlequin Intrigue)

WWJBD? Chelsea Swan asked herself as she headed out to the loading dock of the medical examiners office of Bear Claw, Colorado. The e-speak stood for What Would James Bond Do? and served as her mantra, though some days she replaced 007s name with some of her other favorite fictional spies: Jason Bourne, Ethan Hunt, Jack Bauer and the like.

Regardless of who she was trying to channel on a given day, the mantra meant one thing: dont be a wuss. On the scale of fight or flight, Chelsea fell squarely in the flight category, which wouldnt be such a big deal if another part of her didnt long for adventure, for the sort of danger she read about and watched on TV, and experienced secondhand through her bevy of cop friends.

Shed gone into pathology because shed wanted to be near police work without actually carrying a gun, and because she liked medicine, but didnt want to be responsible for another human beings life. She was good at fitting together the clues she found during an autopsy, and turning them into a cause of death. She liked the puzzles, and the knowledge that her work sometimes helped the families understand why and how their loved one had died. Occasionally shed even even assisted the Bear Claw Creek Police Department in finding a killer, and the success had given her a serious buzz.

Most days the job was rewarding without being actively frightening. Then there were days like today, when even James Bond mightve hesitated. Chelsea figured she was entitled to some nerves, though, because while she was certainly no stranger to death, today was different. The dead were different.

The four incoming bodies belonged to terrorists, mass murderers whod been incarcerated in the ARX Supermax prison two hours north of Bear Claw, and whod died there under suspicious circumstances. The knowledge that shed be autopsying their bodies in under an hour gave Chelsea a serious case of the willies as she headed out to meet the prison transport van. No matter how many times she told herself the dead deserved justice, she couldnt talk herself into believing it in this case.

Besides, the bodies came with major political baggage, which meant the MEs office would be under microscopic scrutiny.

Unfortunately, they didnt have a choice in the matter.

Three of the men, who went by the names of al-Jihad, Muhammad Feyd and Lee Mawadi, were international-level terrorists whod been convicted of the Santa Bombings that had rocked the Bear Claw region three years earlier. The fourth, Jonah Fairfax, had tortured and murdered two federal agents in the days leading up to a bloody government raid on a militant anarchists compound up in northern Montana, and had apparently hooked up with the terrorists inside the prison, despite being in 24/7 solitary confinement. The four were seriously bad news.

Chelsea, who usually managed to find the upside of any situation, wished the prison had stuck to its standard procedure of handling everything internally, including autopsies. Unfortunately, budget cuts had forced Warden Pollard to pare back his medical staff. When the four prisoners had died of unknown causes within an hour of one another, Pollard had requested an outside autopsy and the state had turfed the bodies to Bear Claw.

Lucky us, Chelsea muttered as she pushed through the doors leading to the loading dock, which opened onto a narrow alley separating the two big buildings that housed the MEs office and the main station house of the Bear Claw Creek Police Department.

Two other members of the MEs office were already waiting on the loading ramp: Chelseas boss and friend, Chief Medical Examiner Sara Whitney, and their newly hired assistant, Jerry Osage. Under normal circumstances there wouldnt have been a welcoming committee for the bodies, but these were far from normal circumstances. The deaths had gained national media attention at a time the MEs office wouldve strongly preferred otherwise.

That worry was in Saras eyes as she turned to Chelsea, but her voice held its normal brisk, businesslike tone when she said, Im glad youre here. Chief Mendoza wants me to come out front and say a few words for the cameras so we can sneak the van in the back way while the newsies are distracted. Sara slipped out of her fall-weight wool jacket and held it out, revealing a jade-toned skirt suit that perfectly complemented her shoulder-length, honey-colored hair and arresting amber eyes. Take this in case youre waiting long.

The mid-October day was unusually cool, thanks to a sharp breeze that brought frigid air down from the snow-covered Rockies. It was just another change in the unusually unpredictable weather theyd been having lately. The mix of snow squalls and torrential downpours had triggered landslides in Bear Claw Canyon as well as the hills west of the city, taking out roads and at one point even prompting evacuation of the Bear Claw Ski Resort, which was just starting to gear up for the winter season.

For the moment, though, the skies were clear, the wind sharp. The Rocky Mountains were a dark blur on the horizon, well beyond the huge wilderness of Bear Claw Canyon State Park, which formed an unpopulated buffer between the city suburbs and the ARX Supermax prison.

Chelsea shivered involuntarily, though she couldnt have said whether the chill came from the wind biting through the thin scrubs she wore over her casual slacks and shirt, or the thought of how little actually separated them from an enclosure housing two thousand or so of the worst criminals in the country.

She took Saras coat and drew it over her shoulders. Thanks.

The garment was too long everywhere and she didnt have a prayer of buttoning it across the front, mute testimony that Sara was tall and lean and willowy, whereas Chelsea was none of those things.

Five-five if she stretched it, tending way more toward curvy than willowy, Chelsea wore her dark, chestnut-highlighted hair in a sassy bob that brushed her chin, used a daily layer of mascara to emphasize the long eyelashes that framed her brown eyes, and considered her smile to be her best feature. If life were a movie, she would probably play the best friends supporting role to Saras elegant lead, and that was okay with her.

Some people were destined to do great things, others small ones. That was just the way it was.

Within the MEs office, Chelsea was good at the small things. She was the best of them at dealing with the families of the dead, mainly because she genuinely liked people. She enjoyed meeting them and learning about them, and she liked knowing that the information she gave them often helped ease the passing of their loved ones. She might not be saving the world, but she was, she hoped, making the natural process of death a bit easier, one family at a time.