Cold Dawn Part 31

"As soon as I can figure out how to get there."

"Plane," he said.

For Scott Thorne, that was a major display of humor. Beth felt tears hot in her eyes, the anger draining out of her. She tried to laugh. "I kind of miss winter."

"No, you don't. You miss being in the middle of things." He paused and sucked in a breath. "I miss having you in the middle of things. Going out to the lake this morning...knowing you wouldn't be there to help..." His voice was lower, almost tentative. "It wasn't what I thought it'd be."

She knew he'd said all he meant to and if she pushed for more, she'd only make him uncomfortable. If she'd learned anything in the past twenty-four hours, it was to hold her d.a.m.n tongue once in a while.

"You law enforcement types don't think Dom could be your firebug, do you?" she asked him. "Because that'd be nuts-"

"Go swimming."

She could hear the relief in his voice. She smiled into the sun. "I love you, Scott."

"Yeah," he said, and it was enough.

Beth quickly shut her phone and headed back inside.

Twenty-One.

Black Falls, Vermont N ick was on Rose's couch, welcoming the quiet and coziness of her little house after the long, tense day. She lay stretched out in front of her woodstove, with Ranger asleep, one ear flopped off the side of his bed. It was dark, the promise of warmer temperatures in the forecast for tomorrow.

He could see the white on Ranger's undercoat. "Will you train another search dog after Ranger retires?" he asked.

"Not right away," Rose said. "Maybe not ever. Ranger has time. Another year, I think."

"You're both on the road a lot."

"Especially this past year."

"How much was volunteer and how much was for pay?"

"My search-and-rescue work is on a volunteer basis. I'm a member of a team that responds to disaster calls around the country, but most of our work's in New England. I've been doing more and more consulting in search management. That pays, but I still need to do projects at the lodge to make ends meet."

Nick watched her run her palm over Ranger's golden coat.

She added, "I can't take on the intense commitment to train another dog anytime soon."

"You and Ranger are still a team."

"We have more work to do together. We could drop back to local wilderness searches. The disaster work's intense and demanding for both of us." She glanced up at Nick, the effects of the fire on the lake that morning-the needless death of a man she knew-less evident in her eyes, her mouth. "Enough about me."

"You're driven," Nick said.

"This from Nick Martini," Rose said, amused, and sat up, stretching out her legs in front of her. She'd changed into slim pants and a soft sweater and was barefoot. She seemed aware he was watching her every movement. "Sean's driven, too, but he's more subtle about it. Not you. Submarines, smoke jumping, making money-you dive into whatever you're doing with absolute commitment. What's your family like?"

He smiled slightly. "Intense but likable."

Rose laughed. "You're intense. *Likable' remains to be seen. I know your father's retired. For how long?"

"Five years. He misses the sea, even if he was under it most of his career. He has a number of different irons in the fire as a military consultant. My mother's a geologist. She teaches at a local college. I have a sister, too. Diana. She's career navy."

"You enlisted. How'd that go over?"

He grinned. "It went over."

"You were impatient. You still are. It can be a virtue. You didn't hesitate today. You did well."

Again his gaze settled on her. "So did you."

"I'm not an adrenaline junkie," she said, not defensively. "Maybe at first I had visions of drama and heroism and adventure, but canine search and rescue requires teamwork and a tremendous amount of dedication, training and practice, practice, practice. People who go into it for the glory usually don't last."

"It's similar with smoke jumping." Her toes almost touched his boots. "Training weeds out most of the people who are there for the wrong reasons. It weeds out those who have the right att.i.tude, too, but just can't do the job, for whatever reason."

"I remember what Sean went through. It's a grueling process." Rose glanced at the fire blazing behind the gla.s.s doors of the woodstove. "Some firebugs are frustrated glory hogs."

Nick didn't respond. He knew her statement wasn't a non sequitur.

She turned back to him. "They set fires out of an inflated sense of vanity. They like watching the fire itself, but they also like to watch the crews charge in to put it out-the feeling of power it gives them." The fire glowed in her tawny-colored hair. "I don't know what kind we're dealing with. A glory hog mixed with a cold-blooded killer?"

"Not a good mix," Nick said.

"No."

He s.h.i.+fted the subject. "Ranger loves it here, doesn't he?"

She smiled, slipping on her socks and boots. "You can tell, can't you?"

"He'll have a long, good retirement."

They left him by the fire and headed out. They'd been invited to dinner at A.J. and Lauren's house.

Summoned was more like it, Nick thought, but he understood. A.J. was worried about his sister, and not for no reason.

Rose didn't protest when Nick suggested they take his car. He appreciated the short, easy drive to a white clapboard farmhouse on Ridge Road, just past Harper Four Corners. The driveway was crowded with cars. It had been a bad day in Black Falls, and Lauren and A.J. had also invited Dominique Belair, Myrtle Smith, the O'Rourke cousins, Zack Harper and Scott Thorne.

The little Camerons were already in bed. The house was simply decorated with a lot of bright, cheerful colors. Children's finger paintings hung on the refrigerator. Guests were helping themselves to a simple buffet of cold meats and cheeses, salads, rolls and cookies.

The O'Rourkes and Dominique, clearly exhausted, didn't stay long. Zack pulled Nick aside in the dining room and talked fires. The youngest Harper was a heartbreaker, but he wasn't going anywhere. Black Falls was home. They discussed the emerging timeline of Robert Feehan and Derek Cutshaw's actions over the past few days in particular. Zack commented that Feehan could have locked Dominique in the cabin and set the other two on fire and still have made it back to his campsite without burning up himself.

"I don't think he meant to get killed," Zack said. "It wasn't suicide."

"What was he doing at the lake?" Rose asked, sitting next to Zack at the pine table. "His tent was cozy, well hidden. Why not stay up there?"

Zack leaned back in his chair. "He could have been meeting someone, and Dom surprised him."

Rose wasn't satisfied. "Why the ski mask?"

"Maybe he was cold. Maybe he didn't want a casual observer to recognize him. He knew the police wanted to talk to him."

"Doesn't make sense," Rose said. "Dom was a casual observer, and she got locked in a cabin. Why didn't Robert just take off for Miami or someplace? Why stay here in town?"

A.J. and Lauren stood arm in arm in the doorway of the dining room. "He had unfinished business," A.J. said.

Rose frowned. "What, lighting Jo's cabins on fire?"

"Who knows?" A.J. shrugged, but he was anything but casual or relaxed. "We all want this to end here. It'd be easier if Feehan and Cutshaw were having a personal feud over their drug dealing that had nothing to do with Lowell Whittaker and his killers."

"And no one else was involved," Lauren added.

Myrtle came in with a plate heaped with salad and nothing else. She sat next to Nick. "Could either one of them have set my house on fire and taught Lowell how to build a pipe bomb and detonate it with a cell phone?"

Silence descended over the gathering. Nick bit into a slice of cuc.u.mber. "From all I've heard, Lowell Whittaker hired very competent people."

"That's right," Myrtle said, "and this guy Feehan just burned himself up in a run-down cabin."

"Maybe he knew he was caught and chose how to go out," Zack said. "Maybe it wasn't a calculated move and he just acted on impulse."

"Let me repeat," Scott Thorne said from the arched doorway to the living room. "The investigation's only just started. We should resist speculating when we don't have all the facts."

Myrtle waved her red nails at him in dismissal. "I like how you say *we,' Trooper Thorne. You mean the rest of us. I'm just saying if these two b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were in D.C. in the hours before my house caught fire, it's a cinch. If not, we still don't have all of Lowell's contract killers."

Scott eyed her. "We might never be able to prove who started the fire in your house."

"I refuse to accept that," she countered.

Nick leaned back, appreciating Myrtle's determination. "You don't want to go back to your house until you know what happened," he said.

She raised her lavender eyes. "Unlike some of us, fires scare the h.e.l.l out of me."

Lauren, looking drawn and tired, changed the subject to plans for winter fest and an uptick in bookings at the lodge for that weekend. Nick sat back, observing the interplay among people who'd known one another all their lives and newcomers to Black Falls. He'd been Sean's friend for ten years but understood him better now. Sean was a part of this. He thought he'd left, but he still had a place here with his family, his hometown. It wouldn't have mattered if he had never bought property in Black Falls.

Nick ate another cuc.u.mber, not really hungry.

What if one of these people was a killer?

What if he ended up being the one to point that out?

Everything would change. Better that two ski b.u.ms had unraveled over drugs and one had set the other on fire and then killed himself, whether on purpose or by accident.

Better, even, that Robert Feehan was a skilled arsonist who'd worked for Lowell Whittaker and now was dead and out of the picture.

Nick didn't think either was the case, and he doubted Rose or anyone else in the room did, either.

Rose was quiet on the drive back to her house. Nick could guess why. "You don't want me near you tonight," he said as he turned off the engine.

"Are you reading my mind or warning me?" She didn't wait for an answer. "I can't keep worrying that some masked man might come through my window. Derek and Robert were around long before this week, and now neither one is a threat."

"They're not why you want to kick me out."

"I'm not kicking you out. You're staying at the lodge. I live here. If you were my guest, that'd be different. Besides, my couch is lumpy and short."

"I managed fine."

"I haven't vacuumed in days. The dog hair's piling up."

"Keep talking. Maybe you'll convince yourself."

She sat next to him in the dark. The car hadn't had a chance to warm up on the short drive back from her brother's house. "You think this is about you?"

"No," Nick said. "It's about you. You're not sure you want a man in your life right now. You like living alone on your hill with a dog."

"Dogs are easier than men."

But he was serious and so was she. She was distancing herself, and he thought she knew it. She stared at her house, dark but for a light in the entry.

"I have to regroup," she said.

"At least let me check inside first," Nick said.

She nodded. "Sure."

He followed her up the front steps, noting the shape of her hips, remembering her legs wrapped around him as she'd pulled him deeper into her, clawed at him in the throes of her climax.

Not good, he thought. He should do some distancing of his own.

Ranger barely stirred from his bed by the fire when Rose entered the house. He certainly wasn't alarmed at Nick's presence.

She went to the stove, grabbed the poker and stirred the fire. "Nick." Her voice was hoa.r.s.e, soft. "I'm used to being around intense, masculine men, but you-d.a.m.n. Now it does feel as if I'm kicking you out."

He slipped an arm around her and turned her to him. "I'll take the poker," he said with a smile, setting it on the hearth. He kissed her on the forehead. "It's been a long day. Neither of us wants a repeat of last June. That worked out great on some levels but not others."

"I'm as attracted to you as I was then. I can't help myself."

He grinned. "I'll take that as a compliment." He tucked his finger under her chin and kissed her lightly on the lips. "Sleep well." He winked at her. "Lock your doors."

Headlights shone down on the driveway. Rose frowned and went to the window. "It's Jo and Elijah." She glanced back at Nick. "You knew. That's why you're being so cooperative."

Nick was amused. "A.J. might have said something to me."