Undercover Hunter(42)

                “I was hearing some concern about that.”

                He nodded. “We don’t want to change the place. It has its own character—it’s a working town, not a place created as a tourist venue. We think that’ll give it its own charm. People who want only the ski village experience can stay up on the mountain for that.”

                “Good thinking,” DeeJay said approvingly. “Of course, that may be a bias of mine. Too much plastic loses the real charm.”

                “Well, people who come up here to ski can go down there and meet actual cowboys and so on. See what a real Western town is like.”

                Cade stirred. “What about corollary construction? Condos, houses and so on?”

                “We’re not looking toward much of that. Part of our charm is that we’re pretty much surrounded by protected land, state and federal. So we won’t develop any unnecessary sprawl.”

                “Unless it happens down below.”

                “That’ll be up to local zoning boards. Up here, we’re shooting for pristine. Surrounded by wilderness.”

                A few minutes later, they zipped up again and piled into the crew cab of Luke Masters’s truck. He assured them their sporty little number couldn’t make it. “We have construction roads, but the winter’s done a number on them already, mainly because they were built in a hurry. We’ll need four-wheel drive.”

                The climb up to the site was breathtaking. DeeJay leaned against her side window and stared out as deep forest repeatedly gave way to sprawling vistas of the mountains and valley below. For all her complaints about the cold, this was the reason she had wanted to be out here: the wilderness and the beauty. Too bad it had collected some of the worst ugliness known to man.

                Up at the construction site, Luke showed them around briefly, then told them to wander where they liked as long as they didn’t come inside and avoided the evident obstacles of heavy equipment and mounded earth.

                “The slopes will be up that way,” he said, pointing to the north. “They’re pretty much laid out and ready. We wanted to see how they’d hold up over a winter.”

                It was Cade who asked the important question. “We heard about those boys. Where were they found?”

                Luke’s face darkened. “You’re not going to write about that.”

                “Hell, no,” Cade answered firmly. “But from what we’ve been hearing in town, I’m just curious. That’s all it is. But, no, that’s not part of the story. We’re here to say good things, and since you’re only halfway through development, I don’t know how we could say anything bad yet.”

                Luke visibly relaxed. “It’s terrible what’s going on. Frankly, we’ve got some nervous investors, too. I hope they catch the creep soon. Hurting those boys...” He shook his head. “He better not come up this way. But you can follow that cut line over there if you really want to see.” He pointed. “Not much to it now, though. The cops cleaned it up pretty well. Look about halfway up the slope and to the right.”

                Then he went inside, waving to a man who climbed out of a truck. There were half a dozen vehicles up here, probably belonging to people hard at work inside.

                Cade and DeeJay wandered around a bit, pausing to pretend to take photos of the view.

                “It’s breathtaking up here,” DeeJay remarked.