Chasing Fire

by Nora Roberts

  of the pressure on his now throbbing balls.

  Had she aimed, he wondered, or had it just been blind luck? Either way, perfect shot.

  She didn’t budge when he rolled out to pull on his pants, fresh socks, boots. He left the pants and boots unfastened and crawled out into soft morning light.

  Nothing and no one stirred. Then again, as far as he knew the other tents held occupants of one—with no one to jab a knee into their balls. Should they have them.

  He stood, adjusted himself—carefully—then chose a direction out of camp to empty his bladder. Coffee, and filling his belly, would be next on the list, he decided. Being the first awake meant he had first dibs on the breakfast MREs. He’d sit outside, maybe down by the creek, give Rowan the tent for more sleep and enjoy a quiet, solitary if crappy meal until . . .

  He stopped and looked. Looked over a meadow brilliant with wild lupines, regally purple. The faintest ground mist shimmered through them, giving them the illusion of floating on a thin, white river while dozens of deep blue butterflies danced over those bold lances.

  Untouched, he thought. The fire hadn’t touched this. They’d stopped it, and now the wildflowers bloomed, the butterflies danced in the misty morning light.

  It was, he thought, as beautiful, as vivid as the finest work of art. Maybe more. And he’d had a part in saving it, and the trees beyond it, and whatever lay beyond the beyond.

  He’d fought in the smoke and the blistering red air, walked through the black that stank with death. And to here, where life lived, where it thrived in quiet and simple grace.

  To here, which held all the answers to why.

  HE BROUGHT HER THERE, dragging her away from camp before they packed out.

  “We’ve got to get going,” she protested. “If we haul our asses down to the visitors’ center, they can van us back to base. Clean bodies, clean clothes. And, God, I want a Coke.”

  “This is better than a Coke.”

  “Nothing’s better than a Coke first thing in the morning. You coffee hounds have it all wrong.”

  “Just look.” He gestured. “That’s better than anything.”

  She’d seen meadows before, seen the wild lupine and the butterflies it seduced. She started to say so, grumpy with caffeine withdrawal, but he looked so . . . struck.

  And she got it. Of course she got it. Who better?

  Still, she had to give him a dig, one with the elbow in the side, the other verbal. “There’s that mushy romantic streak again.”

  “Stand right there. I’m going to get a picture.”

  “Hell you are. Jesus, Gull, look at me.”

  “One of my favorite occupations.”

  “If you want a shot of a woman in front of a meadow of flowers, get one with clean, shiny hair and a flowy white dress.”

  “Don’t be stupid, you look exactly right. Because you’re part of why it’s here. This is like a bookend to the one I took of Dobie in the black. It shows how and why and who go into everything between those two points.”

  “Romantic slob,” she repeated. But it moved her, the truth of it, the knowing they shared.

  So she hooked her thumbs in her front pockets, cocked her hip and sent him and his camera a big, bold grin.

  He took the shot, lowered the camera slowly and just stared at her as he had at the meadow. Struck.

  “Here, switch off. I’ll take one of you.”

  “No. It’s you. It’s Dobie in the black, the fire raging behind him, telling me how much he loves this job, what he’s found in it. And it’s you, Rowan, in the sunlight with preserved beauty at your back. You’re the end of the goddamn rainbow.”

  “Come on.” Mildly embarrassed, she shrugged it off, started toward him. “You must be punchy.”

  “You’re the answer before I even asked the question.”

  “Gull, it weirds me out when you start talking like that.”

  “I think you’re going to have to get used to it. I’ve fallen pretty deep in . . . care with you. We’ll go with that for now, because I think it’s more, and that’s a lot to figure out.”

  A touch of panic speared through embarrassment. “Gull, getting wound up in . . . care for people like us—for people like me—it’s a sucker bet.”

  “I don’t think so. I like the odds.”

  “Because you’re crazy.”

  “You have to be crazy to do this job.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. “We’ve got to get going.”

  “Just one more thing.”

  He took her shoulders, drawing her in. His fingers glided up to her face as he guided them into a kiss made for meadows and summer shine, the flutter of butterflies and music of birdsong.

  Unable to find a foothold, she tumbled into it, lost herself in the sweetness, the promise she told herself she didn’t want. Her heart trembled in her chest, ached there.

  And, for the first time in her life, yearned there.

  Unsteady, she stepped away. “That’s just heat.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.” He hooked an arm around her shoulders in a lightning switch to friendly. The man, she thought, could make her dizzy.

  DICICCO AND QUINNIOCK stepped out of Operations even as the vans pulled up to base.

  “It’d be nice if they let us clean up first,” Gull commented, then he got off the van, nodded to the cop and the fed. “Where do you want to do this?”

  “L.B.’s office is available for us,” Quinniock told him.

  “Look, there are tables outside the cookhouse. I wouldn’t mind airing out some and getting some food while we’re at it. I expect Dobie feels the same.”

  “You got that right, son. Did you figure out who’s dead?”

  “We’ll talk about it,” DiCicco told him.

  “We’ll take care of your gear.” Rowan gestured to Matt, Janis. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Appreciate it.” Gull gave her a quick look.

  “Are we suspects?” Dobie wanted to know as they walked toward the cookhouse.

  “We haven’t made any determinations, Mr. Karstain.”

  “Loosen up, Kim,” Quinniock suggested. “We have no reason to suspect you in this matter. You can tell us where you were the night before you jumped the fire, between eleven P.M. and three A.M., if you’d like.”

  “Me? I was playing cards with Libby and Yangtree and Trigger till about midnight. Trig and me had a last beer after. I guess we bunked down about one.”

  “I was with Rowan,” Gull said, and left it at that.

  “We’d like to go over the statements you gave the rangers on scene.” DiCicco sat at the picnic table, pulled out her notebook, her mini recorder. “I’d like to record this.”

  “Dobie, why don’t you go ahead? I’ll go see what Marg can put together for us. Do you two want anything?” Gull asked.

  “I wouldn’t mind a cold drink,” Quinniock told him, and, remembering the lemonade, DiCicco nodded.

  “That’d be good. Now, Mr. Karstain—”

  “Can you leave off calling me mister? Just Dobie.”

  “Dobie.”

  He went over what happened. What he’d seen, done, what he’d already told the rangers.

  “You know, the black looks like a horror show anyhow, then you add that. Gull said it must be connected to Dolly.”

  “Did he?” DiCicco said.

  “Makes sense, doesn’t it?” Dobie looked from one to the other. “Is it?”

  “Dobie, how was it only you and Mr. Curry were in that area?”

  Dobie shrugged at DiCicco just as Gull came out, two steps in front of Lynn. Both carried trays.

  “We needed most everybody up at the head, digging line toward it, but somebody still needed to scout spots along the flank. So I volunteered me and Gull.”

  “You suggested that you and Mr. Curry take that route?”

  “She’s big on the misters,” he said to Gull. “Yeah. It’s a longer hike, but I like killing spots. Me and Gull, we work good together. T
hanks.” He gave Lynn a smile when she set a loaded plate in front of him. “It sure looks good.”

  “Marg said to save room for cherry pie. You just let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Let’s save some time.” Gull took his seat. “We took that route because we were scouting spots. You see a spot, you put it out, and you move on. We had that duty while making our way east to join the rest of the crew. The fire’d been moving east, but the winds kept changing, so the flanks shifted. We found the remains because we cut across the burnout, heading to the far flank in case any spots broke out and took hold. If they did, and we didn’t, it could’ve put the visitor center in the line. Nobody wanted that. Clear?”

  “That’s the way it is.” Dobie took his bottle of Tabasco out of his pocket, lifted the top of his Kaiser roll and dumped some on the horseradish Marg had piled on his roast beef.

  Gull shook his head when Dobie offered the bottle. “Mine’s fine as it is. And, yeah, I speculated this body was related to Dolly. It could be we’ve got a serial killer–arsonist picking victims at random, but I like the odds on connection a lot better.”

  “Shot this one,” Dobie said with his mouth full. “Couldn’t miss the bullet hole.”

  “Jumpers got hurt on that fire. I heard on the way in a couple of hotshots I know were injured. I watched acres of wilderness go up. I want the person responsible to pay for it, and I want to know why killing wasn’t enough. Because I can speculate again that the fire was just as important as the kill. Otherwise, there wasn’t a reason for it. The fire itself had to matter.”

  “That’s an interesting speculation,” DiCicco commented.

  “Since we’ve already told you what we know, speculation’s all that’s left. And since neither of you look particularly stupid, I have to assume you’ve already entertained those same speculations.”

  “He’s feeling a little pissed off ’cause he’s out here talking to cops instead of taking a shower with the Swede.”

  “Jesus, Dobie.” Then Gull laughed. “Yeah, I am. So, since you cost me, maybe you could tell us if you’ve identified the remains.”

  “That information . . .” DiCicco caught Quinniock’s look, huffed out a breath. “While we’re waiting for verification, we found Reverend Latterly’s car parked on the service road alongside the visitors’ center. His wife can’t tell us his whereabouts, only that he wasn’t home or at his church when she got up this morning.”

  “Somebody shot a preacher?” Dobie demanded. “That’s hell for sure.”

  “The Brakemans’ preacher,” Gull added. “And the one rumor has it Dolly was screwing around with. I heard Leo Brakeman made bail.”

  “Sumbitch better not come back around here.”

  DiCicco gave Dobie a glance, but kept her focus primarily on Gull. “We’ll be speaking to Mr. Brakeman after his daughter’s funeral this afternoon.”

  “I’ve got a couple of men on him,” Quinniock added. “We’ve got a list of his registered weapons, and we’ll take another look at his gun safe.”

  “It’d be pretty stupid to use one of his own guns, at least a registered weapon, to kill the man who was screwing his daughter and preaching to his wife.”

  “Regardless, we’ll pursue every avenue of the investigation. We can speculate, too, Mr. Curry,” DiCicco added. “But we have to work with facts, with data, with evidence. Two people are dead, and that’s priority. But those wildfires matter. I work for the Forest Service, too. Believe me, it all matters.”

  She got to her feet. “Thanks for your time.” She offered Gull the ghost of a smile. “Sorry about the shower.”

  “Why, Agent DiCicco,” Quinniock said as they walked away, “I believe you just made an amusing, smart-ass comment. I feel warm inside.”

  “Well, hold on to it. Funerals tend to cool things off.”

  BLOW UP

  To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame,

  to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.

  WALTER PATER

  21

  Rowan dawdled. She lingered in the shower, took her time selecting shorts and a top as if it mattered. She even put in a few minutes with makeup, pleased when the dawdling transformed her into a girl.

  Time enough, she decided, and went to hunt for Gull.

  When she stepped out of her quarters, Matt stepped out of his.

  “Wow.” She gave him and his dark suit and tie a lusty eyebrow wiggle. “And I thought I looked good.”

  “You do.”

  “What, do you have a hot date? Going to a wedding, a funer—” She broke off, mentally slapped herself. “Oh, God, Matt, I forgot. I wasn’t thinking. You’re going to Dolly’s funeral.”

  “I thought I should, since we’re off the fire.”

  “You’re not going by yourself? I’d go with you, but I’ve got to be the last person the Brakemans want to see today.”

  “It’s okay. I’m just . . . I feel like I have to, to represent Jim, you know? I don’t want to, but . . . the baby.” He shoved at his floppy, sun-bleached hair with his fingers. “I almost wish we were still out on the fire, so I couldn’t go.”

  “Get somebody to go with you. Janis packed out with us, or Cards would go if he’s up to it. Or—”

  “L.B.’s going.” Matt stuck his hands in his pockets, pulled them out again to tap his fingers on his thigh. It reminded her painfully of Jim. “And Marg and Lynn.”

  “Okay then.” She walked over, fussed with his tie though it didn’t need it. “You’re doing the right thing by your family by going. If you want to talk later, or just hang out, I’ll be around.”

  “Thanks.” He put a hand over hers until she met his eyes. “Thanks, Rowan. I know she caused you a lot of trouble.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Matt, it really doesn’t. It’s a hard day for a lot of people. That’s what matters.”

  He gave her hand one hard squeeze. “I’d better get going.”

  She changed direction when he left, headed to the lounge. Cards sprawled on the sofa watching one of the soaps on TV.

  “This girl’s telling this guy she’s knocked up, even though she’s not, because he’s in love with her sister but banged her—the one who’s not knocked up—when she put something in his drink when she went over to his place to tell him the sister was cheating on him, which she wasn’t.”

  He slugged down some Gatorade. “Women suck.”

  “Hey.”

  “Fact is fact,” he said grimly. “So I’m riveted. I could get hooked on this stuff taking my afternoon, medically ordered lie-down. I get to malinger for another day while I get pretty again.”

  She sat, studied the bandage over his cheek. “I don’t know. The hole in your face added interest, and it would’ve distracted from the fact your eyes are too close together.”

  “I have the eyes of an angel. And a hawk. An angel hawk.”

  “Matt’s leaving to go to Dolly’s funeral.”

  “Yeah, I know. He’s wearing Yangtree’s tie.”

  “We should get a couple more of the guys to go with him. Libby’s still on mop-up, but Janis packed out.”