She and Ben hadn't bothered to undress Mike, and each had taken one of his arms over their shoulder and half-walked, half-dragged Mike to the shower. Ben had then excused himself, closing the "morgue room" door securely after him, whereupon Robin had taken a deep breath, stripped, and turned the shower on at a colder temperature than normal.
Mike had muttered and stirred at the first assault of the driving water. Robin had mouthed a curse that she could not contain, and stepped into the shower, attempting to sober up her husband.
Hardly erotic. Hardly like the honeymoon.
She had stood there, hugging him, while his head turned back and forth, his mouth open, the cascading water pounding down upon them. Instinctively, his arms had semi-consciously encircled her and they'd held each other like that for she didn't know how long. And she found that she had lost none of her respect for this man. He was a good man who had stumbled on his path. He was the man she loved. She would not forsake him now. That's not what love was about.
Ben was topping off Mike's cup of coffee from the pot. He said, "I pronounce this man alive and almost well."
Mike was sitting straighter and his color was returning with each sip from the coffee cup. He chuckled self-consciously.
"What would the citizens say if they saw the Chief of Police serving coffee?"
Ben grunted with mock disgust. "You make me sound like a damn waiter. And me, working to save a friend's life."
"I know what you're doing, Ben." Mike's tone of voice became serious. "I can't thank you enough. I'm sorry, both of you." His gaze took in Robin. "I've been a goddamn fool."
Robin touched his shoulder again, with another gentle squeeze. "Luckily for us, that's not grounds for divorce." Her brief withdrawal had accomplished its purpose. Her emotions no longer ran amok within her.
Ben's cell phone beeped.
He answered with a brisk, "Saunders," and as he listened, the lines of his leathery face grew taut. After listening a short time, he said, "I'm on my way." He pocketed the cell phone. "I've got to run, folks. Duty calls."
Mike said, "Anything newsworthy?"
"I'd say so. There's a forest fire burning out of control, up above the canyon."
Mike's eyes cleared of their final haze as if a switch had been flicked. "How many acres?"
"They haven't even determined that yet. The report came in less than half an hour ago and has just been verified. That's why they called me."
Robin said, "I saw smoke, driving into town. It didn't look so bad from a distance."
"Most likely wasn't when you saw it," said Ben, "but with the high temperatures and dry conditions we've been having, these things can spread like . . . well, like wildfire. The National Forest Service has called in aerial resources. That was the incident commander I just spoke to. They're shuttling crews to cut fire lines and they need me to help mobilize."
Mike said, "The canyon? What about Sunrise Ridge?"
Ben paused on his way out with his hand on the doorknob. "The fire's got a ways to go but it's building up speed. And I'd better be doing the same." He started out.
Mike said, "Thanks, Ben. You've earned a friend for life, whether you want one or not."
Robin added, "And you'd better be at our house for dinner on the next night you're free."
Ben grinned. "That's all the thanks I'll need. Behave, you two." And he was gone.
A moment of awkward silence followed between Mike and Robin.
Mike took a sip of coffee and gazed into the cup. "That man is a better friend that I deserve," he said in a sober voice.
Robin's hand remained on his shoulder. "And I know he won't breathe a word of this to anyone. In some ways," she hesitated, surprised that what she felt so deeply would be so difficult to say, "he reminds me of my father."
Mike rose from his chair and there was no unsteadiness to it. "Robin, I don't know after today if I deserve his friendship, or the love of a woman as good as you."
"You do," she said. "Just don't let this happen again, Michael. It was terrible, seeing you like that. How are you feeling?"
"Better. Okay. I'm okay, hon. Robin, I'm so sorry that this happened."
She studied his expression for reaction and said, "You've been apologizing a lot lately. Showing up late last night. This."
He said, "I met your husband."
She felt like the air was sucked from her lungs. "Jeff?" she said, stupidly. "He came to see you?"
"I went to see him with Ben."
"With Ben?" And she told herself, stop repeating everything you hear like a moron! Steady, girl. Steady. She said, "Is that why you started drinking? Why was Ben along?"
"It was police business."
And he proceeded to tell her about the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death that morning of Olson, the project manager at Sunrise Ridge who had been replaced only last night by guess-who.
When Mike completed his summation, Robin said, "My God. Does Ben think Jeff murdered Olson?"
Mike shrugged. "I don't know. Something smells. We both thought that. And your ex-husband is a prick."
"You don't have to tell me that. You and he didn't—"
"No, not with Ben there. But we came close."
The air was coming back in and out of Robin's lungs, but with some difficulty. "My God, I feel like I need a drink."
"Don't talk like that, Robin, even as a joke."
"Who said I was joking? My God, this is turning into a living nightmare."
"Come here," he said.
It's what she wanted to hear and what she needed to hear. She came into his arms and rested her forehead against his chest. He smelled fresh from the shower. His lips placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head.
She said, "Oh, Michael."
"Paul," he said, with a catch in his voice. "Did he see me . . . like that?"
"No, and he'll never hear from me about what happened today." She lifted her face to look into his bleak eyes. "But Mike, there's something I have to say. When I came in and found you like that, you were delirious. You were barely conscious. You thought I was Carol. You called me by her name."
"I'm so sorry," and she could tell that he meant it from the bottom of his soul.
She said, "No, that's not what I want to hear. Things are happening that I don't understand. Jeff . . . Carol. It's like the past is creeping out of its grave, trying to strangle and smother and destroy us." She heard the creeping hysteria in her voice and added, "I know it sounds melodramatic. What's going on, Mike?"
He said, "I can't explain it, either. I guess meeting your ex did push me over the edge and made me hit the bottle. We shouldn't offer up excuses, but there's mine. And me, thinking I was so damn on top of my game and in control."
"There's more," she said. "Last night, when I was angry at you for showing up late, I thought for one crazy minute that it could have been another woman that was making you late, then I felt guilty for thinking such a thing. Now, after hearing you call me by another woman's name, I wonder if maybe I wasn't right."
"Please tell me you don't really think that."
"I don't know what I think," she admitted. "But a woman who reminded you of Carol, who just happened to have the same look, style and manner . . . would she have an attraction for you? Would you be drawn to her?"
She disengaged from his embrace and took a step back. She'd thought she was over being angry. Now she wasn't so sure.
Mike said, "I'm not going to get involved in a crazy conversation like that. I'm not seeing anyone, for crying out loud. Everything that's been happening is making us both crazy."
"You told me once that you felt guilty that Carol was . . . about the way she died."
His bleak eyes grew chilly. "Say it if you have to. Carol was murdered." He looked as if he were staring at a distant horizon.
"God, if only I'd been there with her that night at our apartment, like a good husband should be, at home with his wife, the mother of his child." His eyes grew moist.
Her h
eart surged with regret for the pain she was inflicting, but she steeled herself and pushed on. "You've told me that she wanted you to teach those night classes."
"We needed the money. And," he swallowed hard, "she thought I was a good teacher. She thought I had something to share. The folks enrolled in night school, those people really want to be there. They want to learn. I like people like that."
She rested the palm of her hand on his chest, over his heart. "You were away that night because you were doing a job you liked, your family needed the money and Carol wanted you to do it. Michael, you have no reason to feel guilty about what happened."
He blinked a few times and the moistness in his eyes went away, but not the bleak melancholy. "Right. Survivor guilt. Intellectually, I know that."
"Then it's your subconscious that I'm talking to. Carol wouldn't want you to feel that way, would she? Wouldn't she want you to be happy? Wouldn't she want you to live for the family that you do have today, now that she's gone?"
"I thought that's what I was doing," he said, "until today."
"Michael, you know that I've embraced in my heart what you and Carol had. I honor her memory right along with you, because I've been accepting on faith that you had moved on before you asked me to marry you."
"I had. I have."
"You called me by her name when you wanted to make love."
"Damn it, I was drunk. I'm not drunk now."
"I just want the truth."
His eyebrows drew together in a scowl. "What do you mean, the truth? You know the truth."
"Do I?" She let her hand drop from his heart and pressed on with this unpleasant business. "I need to know if you're seeing someone."
"We went through this last night. You told me that you knew I wasn't cheating on you." He didn't seem to know whether to be hurt or angry, and so he was wavering between both. "Do you think that I'm having an affair with another woman because I'm still hung up on Carol? That's crazy!"
"Maybe so." Her nerve ends bristled. She seemed unable to stem the words snapping from her. "Maybe we're both crazy. But I want you to tell me that isn't the case."
"It's not the case," he said promptly. "Robin, I don't want to talk about this."
"I can understand that. But I do."
"Why?"
"Because I've seen her."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mike's jaw literally dropped. "What?"
Robin said, "She was talking to Paul yesterday in the school parking lot. She's driving a silver Altima."
He made a crisp snap! with his thumb and index finger.
"Then she is real. It's not Carol." His words came with the same crispness as the finger-snap. "She's not just something in my mind!"
And in that moment everything—well, not everything; Robin certainly didn't have any of the details—but everything she needed to know about him at that specific moment seemed to be verified and confirmed because she saw that this bit of information, and the conceptual breakthrough it seemed to bring about within him, was the finishing touch to sobering him up completely.
She said, "You thought Carol's ghost was coming back to haunt you." She did not phrase it as a question.
His chuckle was self-conscious. "Talk about working from the wrong premise. My God, I've been a fool. I thought . . . well, I guess I wasn't thinking. Your ex-husband back in town, all this business about an Indian curse—"
She thought about Gray Wolf. She said, "What Indian curse?"
And he told her briefly about the war chief, Ataka, whose blood was spilled on this land more than a century ago, and of his dying curse upon all who would ever claim the land.
He concluded, "That, and thinking that I was seeing Carol . . . I want to find out who that woman is."
Robin said, "And we will."
"We?"
"This is my family too, mister. I told you that she was talking to Paul. I don't like that. I guess our blonde ghost in the Altima and Jeff showing up at the same time could be a coincidence, but I'd like to know for sure. And you know something?"
"What?"
She eased back into his arms, and she hoped that he could sense the inner calm she was beginning to feel as their bodies melded together effortlessly, as perfectly as ever.
"I'm sorry, Mike. I'm sorry for accusing you of cheating. I guess we both slipped and fell today."
The kiss they shared then was tender, but lasting: a gentle, repeated series of lips touching, saying so much without saying a word.
Mike said, "Nice as this is, I'd better get a move on. I've got a fire to cover."
The telephone on his desk rang.
She stepped from his embrace again, but this time with a smile. "Go ahead. I know you're a working man."
"I'll let the answering machine field it," he said. "I really do want to get to the site of that fire."
The answering machine clicked on after the second ring, and they could hear Rose Merrill's voice informing the caller that they had reached the office of The Clarion, but no one was in, so would the caller please leave a detailed message.
A frantic voice filled the office, rendered metallic by the Radio Shack answering machine.
"Mike! Mr. Landware, it me . . . Del. Del Muskie." The words splattered out, rushed and breathy. "lf you're there, please pick up the phone, man. Oh, Jesus, I don't know what to do! Mr. Landware, are you there?"
Robin found her fists clenching at the sheer panic and terror in the man's voice. She knew who Del was from the restaurant, of course. Everyone did.
Mike scooped up the telephone receiver and there was the briefest feedback squeal from the answering machine before he thumbed down the volume switch.
"I'm here, Del. What is it?" He listened briefly, then he said, "Well, it's going to have to wait. Haven't you heard about the fire? Yeah, there's a fire blazing down the canyon toward Sunrise Ridge right now."
There was more frantic squabbling from the receiver that Robin could hear crackling from several feet away.
Mike said, "Well, what have you found out that's so important? Uh huh. So why can't you tell me about it over the telephone? Look, Del, I've got to cover the fire. I—"
Then his expression grew dark as he listened to whatever Del Muskie said next.
When Del was finished, Mike said, "Okay, I'll get there as soon as I can." When the receiver crackled more frantically than before, Mike added, "I said I'd be right up, Del. Yes, I understand that. All right, I'm leaving the office right now. I'll be there in about twenty minutes. Okay. Okay. Now do your best to calm down before I get there, will you, please? Okay, I'm on my way."
He hung up the phone to find Robin making a last check in her compact mirror before leaving here to present herself to the world. Replacing the compact, she said, "I'd better let you get about your business, Michael. I left Paul at Terri Ordway's house so he could do his homework with Dani. He should be getting home before long. He's called you on your cell phone today too, by the way."
"I've been all kinds of negligent today. I'll get back to Paul on my way up to Missionary Ridge."
"But the fire—"
"I know. It's in the other direction. But this is something that won't wait."
She said, "Is the busboy at Donna's really more important than the fire threatening Sunrise Ridge?"
"That's what I'm going to find out." By unspoken agreement, they started toward the door. "According to Ben, the firefighters are just now organizing. I should be back down from Missionary within the hour."
They paused just inside the door.
She said, "Honey, normally I don't ask where you go and what you do."
"I know that. But?"
She said, "A few minutes ago you gave a pretty good rundown of all the weird stuff that's been happening. Does your business with Del Muskie . . . is it the same business that made you late coming home last night?"
He opened the door, holding it, like the gentleman he always was, for her to pass. "Robin, I have to go."
She ste
pped outside with him. The sun had arced behind the mountains to the west. It was not yet dusk, but the air had taken on the chill of coming evening.
"Mike, from what I heard, that man has something that he doesn't even want to tell you over the phone. That sounds dangerous. The thing you've been working on for the paper, your investigation of the Sunrise Ridge construction site, and now my slimy ex-husband shows up to replace a project manager who you intimate was murdered—"
"I didn't say that, Robin. I said I didn't like the smell of it. There were suspicious circumstances."
She felt her nerve ends starting to bristle again. "Whatever. And now, the busboy at Donna's is suddenly more newsworthy than a wildfire burning its way down the mountain. Please, Mike. Explain this to me."
He touched her lightly on both arms. There was a plea in his eyes. "Honey, I don't have the time right now. You heard me on the phone. Del—"
"I heard you. Okay, can I go with you?" It was a question she'd never asked him before regarding his work for the paper, and she instantly regretted asking him now.
He said, "No, Robin. If there is trouble, I'm keeping you out of harm's way."
"And what about you?" she asked in a burst of petulance. "Will you keep yourself out of harm's way, or should Paul and I sit up waiting and worrying like we did last night, until you decide to come home?"
He lowered his hands to his side. "You either trust me or you don't," he said, and he walked away, to his Jeep.
She stood there watching him, waiting for him to turn around, but he didn't. She watched his Jeep all the way to the corner down the street, where it turned and disappeared from sight. She thought about following him. She decided that she couldn't do that.
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