by Nora Roberts
with Ro a long time. She’s a proactive optimist in general. In that she—or we, depending—will find a way to make this work. In her personal life, she’s a proactive pessimist who has no problem living in the moment because this isn’t going to last anyway.”
“She’s wrong.”
“Nobody’s proven that to her yet.” She glanced up. “Can you?”
“If I don’t bleed to death from this sadistic game of Operation you’re playing.”
“I haven’t hit the buzzer yet. You’re the first guy, in my opinion, who has a shot at proving her wrong. So don’t screw it up. There.” She dropped more grit into the bowl. “I think that’s it. You lost a lot of skin here, Gull,” she began as she applied antiseptic. “Banged up your elbows pretty good, but it could’ve been a hell of a lot worse.”
“Not to knock the results, but I keep wondering why it wasn’t a hell of a lot worse.”
He looked over at the rap on the door frame. As she had earlier, Rowan leaned on the jamb, but now she had two beers hooked in her fingers. “I brought the patient a beer.”
“He could probably use one.” Janis bandaged the gouges around his right elbow. “Any word?”
“The cops have the grounds lit up like Christmas. If they’ve found anything, they’re not sharing it yet.”
“Okay. You’re as done as I can do.” Janis picked up the bowl filled with grit, bloodied cloths and cotton swipes. “Take two ibuprofen and call me in the morning.”
“Thanks, Janis.”
She gave his leg a squeeze as she rose. “None but the brave,” she said, then walked out.
Rowan stepped over, offered a beer. “Do you want to fight?”
Watching her over the bottle, he took a long swallow. “Yeah.”
“Seems like a waste, considering, but fine. Pick your topic.”
“Let’s start with the latest—we can always work back—and how you ran, alone, into the open out there.”
“We’d decided to try for the barracks, so I did.”
“Of the three of us, I’m the fastest—and the one best qualified to draw and evade fire, if there’d been any.”
“I said I like overconfidence, but this idea you can dodge bullets might be taking it too far. I can and do take care of myself, Gull. I do it every day. I’m going to keep doing it.”
He considered himself a patient, reasonable man—mostly. But she’d just about flipped his last switch.
“The fact you can and do take care of yourself is one of the most appealing things about you. You idiot. Handling yourself on a jump, in a fire or in general, no problem. This was different.”
“How?”
“Have you ever been shot at before?”
“No. Have you?”
“First time for both of us, and clearly a situation where you should have trusted me to take care of you.”
“I don’t want anybody to take care of me.”
“You know, that’s just stupid. Janis just took care of me, yet somehow my pride and self-esteem remain unbattered and unbowed.”
“Bandaging somebody up isn’t the same as falling on them like they were a grenade you were going to smother with your own body to save the guys in the trenches. And look at you, Gull. I’ve barely got a scrape because you took the brunt of that roll instead of letting me take my share.”
“I protect what I care about. If you’ve got a problem with that, you’ve got a problem with me.”
“I protect what I care about,” she tossed back at him.
“Were you protecting a fellow smoke jumper, or me?”
“You are a fellow smoke jumper.”
He stepped closer. “Is it what I do, or who I am? And don’t try the ‘you are what you do’ because I’m a hell of a lot more, and less, and dozens of other things. So are you. I care about you, Rowan. The you who’s got a laugh like an Old West saloon girl, the you who picks out constellations in the night sky and smells like peaches. I care about that woman as much as I do the fearless, smart, tireless one who puts her life on the line every time the siren goes off.”
Wariness clouded her eyes. “I don’t know what to say when you talk like that.”
“Is the only thing you see when you look at me another jumper you’ll work with for the season?”
“No.” She let out an unsteady breath. “No, that’s not all, but—”
“Stop at no.” He cupped a hand at the back of her neck. “Do us both a favor and stop at no. That’s enough for now.”
She moved into him, wrapping her arms tight around his waist when their lips met. She felt her equilibrium shift, as if she’d nearly overbalanced on a high ledge. With it came a flutter, under her heart, at the base of her throat. She gripped harder, wanting to find the heat, the buzz, an affirmation that they were both alive and whole.
Nothing more than that, she told herself. It didn’t have to be more than that.
“Getting a room’s not always enough,” Trigger said from the doorway. “Sometimes you gotta close the door.”
“Go ahead,” Gull invited him, then slid back into the kiss.
“Sorry, they want you in the lounge.”
“Who are ‘they’?” Rowan demanded, and gave Gull’s bottom lip a nip.
“The lieutenant guy and the tree cop. If you’re not interested in finding out who the hell shot at you tonight, I can tell them, gee, you’re out on a date.”
Gull lifted his head. “Be right there.” He looked at Rowan, ran his hands over her shoulders, down her arms. “My place,” he said. “The decision that was so rudely interrupted earlier. My place tonight because it’s closer to the lounge.”
“Not a bad reason.” She picked up the beers, handed him his. “Let’s get this done so we can close the door.”
DiCicco sat with Quinniock and L.B. in the lounge. Generally at that time of the evening, people sprawled on sofas and chairs watching TV, or gathered around one of the tables playing cards. Somebody might’ve buzzed up some microwave pizza or popcorn. And there would always be somebody willing to talk fire.
But now the TV screen remained blank and silent, the sofas empty.
L.B. got up from the table, walked quickly over to wrap an arm around Gull and Rowan in turn. “You’re okay. That matters most. Next is finding the bastard.”
“Did they find anything?” Rowan asked.
“If we could get your statements first.” DiCicco gestured to the table. “It should help us get a clearer picture.”
“The picture’s clear,” Rowan countered. “Somebody shot at us. He missed.”
“And when you file a fire report, does it just say: ‘Fire started. We put it out’?”
“If we could just take it from the beginning.” Quinniock held up his hands for peace. “The witness, Dobie Karstain, says he stepped outside the barracks around nine thirty. A few minutes later, he noticed the two of you walking together between the training field and the hangar area, approximately thirty yards from the trees. Does that sound accurate?”
“That’s about right.” Gull took the lead as it seemed obvious to him DiCicco put Rowan’s back up. “We went for a walk, took a couple of beers, watched the sunset. You’d narrow down where we were if you find the bottles. We dropped them when the shooting started.”
He took them through it, step by step.
“Dobie said it sounded like rifle fire,” he continued, “and it was coming from the trees. He grew up hunting in rural Kentucky, so I’m inclined to believe he’s right. We couldn’t see anyone. The first shot fired right around sunset. The whole thing probably only lasted about ten minutes. It seemed longer.”
“Have either of you had trouble with anyone, been threatened?” When Rowan merely arched her eyebrows, DiCicco inclined her head. “Other than Leo Brakeman.”
“We’re a little too busy around here to get into arguments with the locals or tourists.”
“Actually, there was an incident with you, Mr. Curry, Ms. Tripp and Mr. Karstain in the spring.”
>
“That would be when Rowan objected to one of those three yahoos’ behavior toward her, and them sopping their pride by ganging up on Dobie when he came out of the bar.”
“And you kicking their asses,” Rowan concluded. “Good times.”
“The same holds true on them as it did when we had the vandalism,” Gull continued. “It’s pretty hard to see them coming back here. And harder still to see any one of them staking us out from the woods and taking shots at us when we went for a walk. We’re in and out all the damn time anyway. Together, separately. It’s stretching it even more to figure those bozos from Illinois came all the way back, then got lucky when Ro and I walked out to give them some target practice.”
“How do you know they’re from Illinois?” DiCicco asked.
“Because that’s what the plate on the pickup said—and I did some checking on it after the ready room business.”
“You never told me that.”
Gull shrugged at Rowan. “It didn’t amount to anything to tell you. The big guy—and he was the alpha—owns a garage out in Rockford. He’s an asshole, and he’s had a few bumps for assaults—bar fights his specialty—but nothing major.” He shrugged again when DiCicco studied him. “The Internet. You can find out anything if you keep looking.”
“All right. You two have recently become involved,” DiCicco said. “Is there anyone who might resent that? Any former relationship?”
“I don’t date the kind of woman who’d take a shot at me.” He gave Rowan the eye. “Until maybe now.”
“I shoot all my former lovers, so your fate’s already set.”
“Only if we get to the former part.” He covered her hand with his. “It was either a local with a grudge against one or both of us specially, or the base in general. Or a wacko who wanted to shoot up a federal facility.”
“A terrorist?”
“I think a terrorist would’ve used more ammo,” Gull said to DiCicco. “But any way you slice it, he was a crap shot. Unless he’s a really good shot and was just trying to scare and intimidate.”
Rowan’s gaze sharpened. “I didn’t think of that.”
“I think a lot. I can’t swear to it, but I think the closest one hit about six or seven feet away from where we hit the ground. That’s not a comfortable distance when bullets are involved, but it’s a distance. Another sounded like it hit metal, the hangar. Way above our heads. Maybe it’ll turn out to be a couple of kids on a dare. Smoke jumpers think they’re so cool, let’s go make them piss their pants.
“It’s a theory,” he claimed when Rowan rolled her eyes.
“Lieutenant.” A uniformed cop stepped in.
“Hi, Barry.”
“Ro. Glad you’re okay. Sir, we found the weapon, or what we believe to be the weapon.”
“Where?”
“About twenty yards into the trees. A Remington 700 model—bolt action. The special edition. It was covered up with leaves.”
“Stupid,” Rowan mumbled. “Stupid to leave it there.”
“More stupid if it’s got a brass name plaque on the stock,” L.B. said. “I went hunting with Leo Brakeman last fall, and he carried a special edition 700. He was real proud of it.”
Rowan’s hand balled into a fist under Gull’s. “So much for theories.”
When DiCicco and Quinniock went out to examine the weapon, L.B. walked over to the coffeemaker.
“You know,” Ro said, “she told those lies to her father. All those lies, and they drove him to come out here with a gun and try to kill me.”
“I’d say you’re half right.” L.B. sat with his coffee, sighed. “The lies drove him to come out here with a gun, but, like I said, I’ve been hunting with Leo. I saw him take down a buck with that rifle, at thirty yards with the buck on the run. If he’d wanted to put a bullet in you, you’d have a bullet in you.”
“I guess it was my lucky day then.”
“Something snapped in him. I’m not excusing him, Ro. There’s no excuse for this. But something’s snapped in him. What the hell’s Irene going to do now? Her daughter murdered, and her husband likely locked up, an infant to care for. She hasn’t even buried Dolly yet, and now this.”
“I’m sorry for them. For all of them.”
“Yeah, it’s a damn sorry situation. I’m going to go see if the cops will tell me what happens next.” He went out, leaving his untouched coffee behind.
18
Too wound up to sit, Rowan pushed up, wandered the room, peeked out the window, circled back. Gull propped his feet on the chair she’d vacated and decided to drink L.B.’s abandoned coffee.
“I want to do something,” Rowan complained. “Just sitting here doesn’t feel right. How can you just sit here?”
“I’m doing something.”
“Drinking coffee doesn’t count as something.”
“I’m sitting here, I’m drinking coffee. And I’m thinking. I’m thinking if it’s Brakeman’s rifle, and if Brakeman was the one shooting it, did he just go stand in the trees and assume you’d eventually wander out into range?”
“I don’t know if it had to be me. He’s pissed at all of us, just mostly at me.”
“Okay, possible.” He found the coffee bitter, wished for a little sugar to cut the edge. But just didn’t feel like getting up for it. “So Brakeman stands in the woods with his rifle, staking out the base. He gets lucky and we come along. If he’s as good a shot as advertised, why did he miss?”
“Because it has to be a hell of a lot different to shoot a human being than a buck. Nerves. Or he couldn’t bring himself to kill me—us—and decided to scare us to death instead.”
“Also possible. Why leave the weapon? Why leave a special edition, which had to cost, which he cared enough about to put his name on, under a pile of leaves? Why leave it behind at all when he had to know the cops would do a search?”
“Panic. Impulse. He wasn’t thinking clearly—obviously. Hide it, get out, come back for it another time. And maybe take a few more shots.” She stopped, rubbed at the tension in the back of her neck as she studied Gull. “And you don’t think Leo Brakeman shot at us.”
“I think it might be interesting to know who had access to his gun. Who might’ve liked causing him trouble, and wouldn’t feel too bad about scaring you doing it.” He sipped at the coffee. “But it could’ve been Brakeman following impulse, getting lucky, being nervous and panicking.”
“When you say it like that, it’s a lot to swallow.”
She plopped down in L.B.’s chair as Gull had opened her mind to alternatives. And thinking was doing, she reminded herself.
“I guess his wife would have access, but I have a hard time seeing her doing this. Plus, I’ve never heard of her going hunting or target shooting. She’s more the church-bake-sale type. And it’s easier to believe she might panic because she’s more the quiet, even a little timid, type. If you get past the first step, her actually coming out here with a rifle, the rest goes down.”
“Maybe a double bluff,” she considered aloud. “He left the rifle so he could say, hey, would anybody be that stupid? But I don’t know if he’d be that cagey. I just don’t know these people very well. We’ve never had much interaction, even when Dolly worked here. Which means I don’t know if anybody’s got a grudge against Brakeman, or would know enough to use him as a fall guy. It’s easier if it’s Brakeman. Then it would be done, and there wouldn’t be anything to worry about.”
“It’s up to the cops anyway. We can let it go.”
“That’s passive, and that’s what’s driving me crazy. Who killed Dolly? That’s the first question. Jesus, Gull, what if her father did?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She hooked her feet around the legs of the chair, leaned forward. “Say they had a fight. Say she’s coming back from Florence—if she got work there like she claimed—gets the flat. Calls her father to come fix it. I can’t picture Dolly with a lug wrench and jack. He comes out, and they get into it over something
. Her dumping the baby on her mother so much, maybe having the kid in the first place, or just dragging him out that time of night. Things get out of hand. She takes a fall, lands wrong, breaks her neck. He freaks, puts her body in the truck. He’s got to figure out what to do, decides to destroy the evidence—and the rest follows. He knows the area, the trails, and he’s strong enough to have carried her in.”
“Plausible,” Gull decided. “Maybe he confesses to his wife, and you get part two. There’s another hypothesis.”