“Yes, ma’am. We call that detective work.”

He was right, of course, and she needed to get her mind back on her business and off her social life.

“We’ve got a good lock on it, though, Lieutenant,” he continued, “and it looks like the phone is in the old Faber Building.”

Dammit. There was nothing like some really great news to screw up a person’s schedule.

She looked at her watch. She could have skipped Dumpster diving and just let the boys and girls in blue have at it-but if they’d tracked the phone to the Faber Building, well, hell, then she ought to be there, in case there was a person still attached to the damn thing.

“Lieutenant?” Officer Weisman leaned into her office, holding a sheaf of papers. “Gail came up with a portrait the maid positively identifies as our police impersonator.”

“Let’s see it.” Loretta held out her hand.

Weisman crossed her office and gave her the drawings the artist had done on the computer. “The top one, Lieutenant. That’s the one the maid says is closest.”

Loretta took one look and swore under her breath. Goddammit. Somebody better have an explanation for this.

Fortunately, somebody did, and she knew exactly who that somebody would be.

“Connor?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Get Skeeter on the phone, and ask her what in the hell Johnny Ramos was doing at the Oxford Hotel tonight, impersonating one of my fine Denver police officers.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Lost. Rangers were never lost. Never.

Johnny could have been dropped in the middle of a damn desert blindfolded, and with a compass and a map, screw the GPS, have known where he was on the planet in a couple of minutes. Guaranteed. Rangers were the ultimate Eagle Scouts.

But he’d been on more than one mission in the Middle East where they’d had a local guide, and sometimes, those boys had gotten lost. The Rangers would still know where they were. The trick was in knowing where they were supposed to be, or finding a target that wasn’t where the guide had “known” it would be.

No target, no mission.

That’s where he and his current guide, otherwise known as Esme Alexandria Alden, were: off target. According to her, Isaac Nachman’s mansion was humongous, fifty thousand square feet of castlelike log-and-stone lodge set on a thousand acres.

And the girl couldn’t find it, even with her directions in her hand. Even with having done her recon work less than seven days ago.

So how, he wondered, did a person forget the coordinates of a fifty-thousand-square-foot castle? There was only one way-by never knowing them in the first place.

She’d counted on the roads, and remembering where to turn, without measuring distances and mapping them out. That was the big difference between the pros and the amateurs, between the big boys and the-well, he hated to say it, but between the big boys and the girls.

Esme was all girl, and she was lost, and she’d dragged him with her.

And he wasn’t the only one.

In the traffic on the interstate, he hadn’t noticed anybody following them, but he knew the rear end of a 1968 Mercury Cyclone had a distinct vehicular signature even at night. It would have been easy to follow Solange’s taillights-and somebody had done exactly that, because he and Esme weren’t alone out here in the wilderness.

Every now and then, he saw another set of headlights cutting through the darkness below them. He wasn’t too worried, because the other car was losing ground, falling further and further behind. Nachman’s place was in the back of beyond of Genesee, with dozens of roads snaking off into the night in every which direction.

Rangers were never lost, though. Never. And despite all the twists and turns, and all the roads, Johnny knew exactly how to get back to the interstate. If Esme could just remember how to get them to the lodge, he could get them home.

“There.” She pointed out the windshield. “To the right. Just beyond those two big trees.”

Two. Big. Trees.

Right. There weren’t two big trees on this mountainside. There were thousands-thousands and thousands of big trees.

“Esme-”

“You just missed it.”

Missed what?

He looked back over his shoulder-and he’d be damned. There was a road, or rather a track between two big trees.

“A thousand-acre hunting preserve with a fifty-thousand-square-foot lodge on it, and the entrance is a dirt track no more than eight feet wide?” In his limited experience, guys like Nachman liked to announce their munificence with elaborate gates. There wasn’t so much as a string of barbed wire across the track.

He threw Solange into reverse and backed up a couple of feet.

“The road widens out in a mile. The first thing we’ll see is a massive wall running for about a quarter mile in either direction off a huge gate. It’s like the Great Wall of China. There’ll be a gatehouse and a guard to call us in. This road is meant to throw off the day-trippers.”

A guard-he’d expected as much.

“You’re carrying a sidearm,” he said, stopping the car and shifting back into first. “Were you armed the last time you were here?”

“Yes, and I kept my weapon with me the whole time, if that’s what you’re asking.”

That’s exactly what he was asking.

“Does Nachman’s staff make a habit of frisking uninvited male guests?” There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he looked more dangerous than her.

He eased the Cyclone onto the rutted path, heading for the Great Wall of China. It was possible Isaac’s security staff simply hadn’t considered Esme a threat. She was short, blond, cute. Actually, with the right training, she’d make a helluva bodyguard for somebody.

“It’s possible we won’t see any staff, other than the guard at the gate. They’re there. They have to be. The lodge doesn’t run by itself, but the other two times I was here, with my father, I never actually saw anyone at the house except Nachman.”

Well, that was damned odd. Maybe the staff was just incredibly discreet.

“If you button up and tuck in your shirt, though, it won’t look so much like a gun drape,” she added. “That might help, if you’re concerned.”

He left his shirt unbuttoned and untucked so he’d have easier access to his weapon if he needed it, but she was right. To anyone who was aware, it was a dead giveaway that he just might be packing a pistol, almost as bad as a guy with a fanny pack.

Slowing Solange back to a stop, he put her in neutral and engaged the parking brake, then followed Esme’s advice, stepping out of the car and buttoning up his shirt and tucking it into his jeans. He wasn’t in the mood to have his weapon confiscated for security reasons. But neither was he in the mood to be stuck in the car while she went inside alone-and he knew those would be his choices, if Nachman’s security guys were paying attention and doing their jobs.

And whether she’d seen them or not, he agreed with her; they had to be there, probably half a dozen of them, along with maids, cooks, gardeners, and housekeepers. Guys like Isaac Nachman didn’t live alone.

He stood corrected.

In the middle of the biggest foyer he’d ever seen, a foyer the size of a cathedral, open to the rafters, all open-beamed, three stories high with a giant staircase sweeping up one side, floor after floor, with huge landings and galleries overlooking the foyer, he stood corrected.

The place was empty. He felt it in every bone in his body. Other than him, Easy Alex, God only knew how many dozens of stuffed animal heads from every continent, and the wizened little old man standing in front of them in slippers, socks, and a striped silk robe, and please dear God, something- anything-underneath it, the place was empty.

They’d been passed through the gate by a guard at least as old as Nachman, maybe even older. Decrepitude seemed to be the order of the day at the hunting lodge, ancient decrepitude.