Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  on the river yet? I've been looking for Peach or Deb—they're supposed to be driving herd around here—but everyone's running around like chickens."

  "I'm sure he's out there, and Deb's right over there, getting the hockey team settled."

  "Oh. Good God, we're starting. Ed! Stop primping for five seconds. I don't know why I let them talk me into riding behind these horses. Don't see why we couldn't have gotten a convertible. It's more dignified."

  "But not as much of a spectacle." Ed smiled broadly as he joined them. He wore a navy three-piece suit, bankerly with its chalk stripes and flashy with its paisley tie. "Guess we should've had our chief of police behind the horses."

  "Maybe next time," Nate said easily.

  "I haven't congratulated you on your engagement." His eyes were watchful on Nate's as he held out a hand.

  He considered doing it now, right now. He could have him down and cuffed in under ten seconds.

  And three elementary kids rushed between them, chased by another with a plastic gun. A pretty, young majorette in sparkles hurried over to retrieve the missed baton that landed near his feet.

  "Sorry! Sorry, Chief Burke. It got away from me."

  "No problem. Thanks, Ed." He extended his hand to complete the aborted shake and again thought—maybe now.

  Jesse ran up, threw his arms around Nate's knees.

  "I get to be in the parade!" the boy shouted. "I get to wear a costume and march right down the street. Are you going to watch me, Chief Nate?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Don't you look handsome," Hopp commented, and crouched down to Jesse as the boy slipped his hand trustfully into Nate's.

  Not here, Nate told himself. Not now. No one gets hurt today. "Hope you'll come to the wedding,"

  he said to Ed.

  "Wouldn't miss it. Couldn't settle for a local, eh, Meg?"

  "He survived a winter. That makes him local enough."

  "I suppose it does."

  "Jesse, you better get back to your group." Hopp gave him a little pat on the butt, and he ran off, shouting, "Watch me!"

  "Help me up into this thing, Ed. We're about to go."

  "We're going to walk back down aways," Nate said as they climbed into the buggy. "Things seem under control here. I want to make sure the Mackies are behaving themselves."

  "Stealing balloons." Hopp cast her eyes to heaven. "I heard about that."

  Nate took Meg's hand and strolled away. "Does he know?" she asked him.

  "I'm worried. Too many people around, Meg. Too many kids."

  "I know." She gave his hands a squeeze as the marching band's boots began to click on the pavement. "It'll be over soon. Doesn't take that long to get from one end of town to the other and back again."

  It would be interminable, he knew. With the crowds, the shouts and cheers, the blaring music. An hour, he told himself. An hour tops and he could take him without anyone getting hurt. No need to run into an alley this time, no need to risk the dark.

  He kept his stride steady but unrushed as he passed the fringes of the crowd and made his way to the heart of town.

  The trio of majorettes danced by waving and tossing their batons to enthusiastic applause. The one who'd nearly beaned him shot Nate a big, toothy smile.

  The drum major strutted in his high hat, and the band cut loose with "We Will Rock You."

  He spotted Peter at the first intersection and turned his head to press his lips to Meg's ear. "Let's keep walking, down there to the balloon guy. I'll buy you a balloon. They'll pass us, and we'll keep them in sight a little longer."

  "A red one."

  "Naturally."

  End of town circle around, he thought. The hockey team would already be done and moving back into town to see their friends, mix with the crowd. The band would head into the school to change out of their uniforms.

  Out of the way. Most everyone out of the way. And Peter there to move any lingerers along.

  He stopped by the clown with the orange mop of hair and a fistful of balloons. "Jeez, Harry, is that you in there?"

  "Deb's idea."

  "Well, you look real cute." Nate angled himself to see the buggy, the crowd. "My girl wants a red one."

  Nate reached for his wallet, listening with half an ear as Harry and Meg debated which shape would do. He watched Peter move down the opposite sidewalk, and as the band marched by, taking the sound with them, he heard the clip-clop of the horses.

  Kids squealed and dashed out as Hopp and Ed tossed handfuls of candy. He passed bills to Harry and continued to turn as if watching the spectacle.

  And spotted Coben, with his white-blond hair catching the sunlight, in the crowd. So, he saw instantly, did Ed.

  "Damn it, damn it, why didn't he wait?"

  Panic streaked across Ed's face. Seeing it, Nate began to fight his way through the crowd that was massed into a wall along curbside. He couldn't get there, not in time. He heard the cheers and shouts of the crowd like a tidal wave rushing around him. They applauded when Ed leaped out of the buggy, even when he pulled a gun from under his suit jacket.

  As if anticipating a show, they started to part for him as he dashed for the opposite side of the street. Then there were screams and shouts as he knocked people aside, trampled over them when they fell.

  Nate heard gunfire as he shoved his way to the street.

  "Down! Everybody down!"

  He sprinted across the street, leaped over shocked pedestrians. And saw Ed backing down the empty sidewalk behind the barricades, holding a gun to a woman's head.

  "Back away!" he shouted. "You just toss your gun down and back away. I'll kill her. You know I will."

  "I know you will." He could hear the shouts behind him and the fading music as the band marched on without a clue. There were cars and trucks parked at the curb here, and buildings had side doors that would almost certainly be unlocked.

  He needed to keep Ed's focus on him, before the man could use his panicked brain enough to think about dragging his hostage into a building.

  "Where are you going to go, Ed?"

  "Don't you worry about that. You worry about her." He jerked the woman so that the heels of her jogging shoes bumped the sidewalk. "I'll put a bullet in her brain."

  "Like you did Max."

  "Did what I had to do. That's how you survive here."

  "Maybe." There was sweat on Ed's face. Nate could see it glinting in the sunlight. "But you won't walk away from this one. I'll drop you where you stand. You know I will."

  "You don't throw that gun down, you'll have killed her." Ed dragged the weeping woman back another three feet. "Just like you killed your partner. You're a bleeding heart, Burke. You can't live with that."

  "I can." Meg stepped up beside Nate, aimed her gun between Ed's eyes. "You know me, you bastard.

  I'll down you like I would a sick horse, and I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it."

  "Meg," Nate warned. "Ease back."

  "I can kill her and one of you first. If that's what it takes."

  "Her probably," Meg agreed. "But she doesn't mean anything to me. Go ahead, shoot her. You'll be dead before she hits the ground."

  "Ease back, Meg." Nate lifted his voice now, and his eyes never left Ed's. "Do what I tell you, and do it now." Then he heard a chaos of voices, stumbling feet. The crowd was surging forward, Nate knew, with curiosity, fascination and horror outweighing simple fear.

  "Drop the weapon and let her go," Nate ordered. "Do it now, and you've got a chance." Nate saw Coben come around the back and knew someone was going to die.

  Hell broke loose.

  Ed whirled, fired. In a flash, Nate saw Coben roll for cover and the splatter of blood from the bullet that caught him high on the shoulder. Coben's service revolver lay on the sidewalk where it had flown out of his hand.

  Nate heard a second bullet thud into the building beside him and the sound of a thousand people screaming.

  They barely penetrated. His blood was ice.

 
He shoved Meg back, sent her sprawling to the ground. She cursed him as he stepped forward, his gun steady. "Anyone dies today," he^aid coolly, "It'll be you, Ed."

  "What are you doing?" Ed shouted as Nate continued to walk toward him. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "My job. My town. Put down the gun, or I'll take you out like that sick horse."

  "Go to hell!" With one violent move, he shoved the weeping woman at Nate and dived behind a car.

  Nate let the woman slide bonelessly to the sidewalk. Then he rolled under another car, came up street-side.

  Crouched, he glanced over to check on Meg and saw her soothing the woman whose life she'd claimed didn't mean anything to her. "Go," she snapped out. "Get the bastard."

  Then she began to belly forward toward the injured Coben.

  Ed fired, the bullet exploding a windshield.

  "This ends here. It ends now!" Nate shouted. "Throw out your gun, or I'll come and take it from you."

  "You're nothing!" There was more than panic, more than rage in Ed's voice. "You don't even belong here." There were tears. He broke cover, firing wildly. Glass shattered and flew like lethal stars; metal pinged and rang.

  Nate stood, stepped into the street with his weapon lifted. He felt something sting his arm, like a fat, angry bee. "Drop it, you stupid son of a bitch."

  On a scream, Ed swung around, aimed.

  And Nate fired.

  He saw Ed clutch his hip, saw him go down. And continued forward at the same steady pace until he'd reached the gun Ed had dropped as he'd fallen.

  "You're under arrest, you asshole. You coward." His voice was calm as June as he shoved Ed onto his belly, yanked his arms behind him and cuffed his wrists. Then he crouched, spoke softly while Ed's pain-glazed eyes flickered. "You shot a police officer." He glanced without much interest at the thin line of blood just above his own elbow. "Two. You're done."

  "We need to get Ken up here?" Hopp's query was conversational, but when Nate looked up to see her coming toward him, crunching broken glass under her dressy shoes, he saw the tremor in her hands, her shoulders.

  "Couldn't hurt." He jerked a chin toward the people who'd jumped over, crawled under or simply shoved barricades aside. "You're going to need to keep those people back."

  "That's your job, chief." She managed a smile, then it frosted as she stared down at Ed. "You know, that TV crew got damn near all of this on camera. Cameraman must be certifiable. One thing we're going to make clear in the upcoming interviews on this unholy mess. This one's the Outsider now.

  He's not one of us."

  She shifted deliberately away from Ed, held out a hand to Nate as if to help him to his feet. "But you are. You sure as hell are, Ignatious, and thank God for it."

  He took her hand and felt that light tremor in hers as she squeezed his hard. "Anybody back there hurt?"

  "Bumps and bruises." Tears trembled in her eyes, were willed away. "You took care of us."

  "Good." He nodded when he saw Otto and Peter working to move the crowd back.

  Then he looked over, found Meg crouched in a doorway. She met his eyes. There was blood on her hands, but it appeared she'd fashioned an expert field dressing on Coben's wounded shoulder.

  She brushed a hand absently over her cheek, smearing blood. Then she grinned and blew him a kiss.

  * * *

  They said it was fortunate no lives had been lost, and injuries to civilians, while plentiful, were mostly minor—broken bones, concussions, cuts and bruises all caused by falls and panic. .

  They said property damage wasn't extensive, broken windows, windshields, a street light. Jim Mackie, with considerable pride, told the NBC affiliate reporter he was going to leave the bullet holes in his pickup.

  They said, all in all, it was a hell of a climax to Lunacy, Alaska's May Day Parade.

  They said a lot of things.

  Media coverage turned out to be more extensive than the injuries. The violent and bizarre capture of Edward Woolcott, the alleged killer of Patrick Galloway, the Ice Man of No Name Mountain, was national fodder for weeks.

  Nate didn't watch the coverage, and settled for reading reports in The Lunatic.

  As May passed, so did the interest from Outside.

  "Long day," Meg said as she came out on the porch to sit beside him.

  "I like them long."

  She handed him a beer and watched the sky with him. It was nearly ten and brilliantly light.

  Her garden was planted. Her dahlias, as expected, were spectacular, and the delphiniums speared up, deeply blue, on five-foot stalks.

  They'd reach taller yet, she thought. They had the whole summer, all those long days washed with light.

  The day before, she'd buried her father, at last. The town had come out for it, to a man. So had the media, but it was the town that mattered to Meg.

  Charlene had been calm, she thought. For Charlene, anyway. She hadn't even played to the cameras but had stood—as dignified as Meg had ever seen her—with her hand gripped in The Professor's.

  Maybe they'd make it. Maybe they wouldn't. Life was full of maybes.

  But she knew one sure thing. Saturday next, she would stand out here, in the light of the summer night, with the lake and the mountains in front of her, and marry the man she loved.

  "Tell me," she said. "Tell me what you found out today when you went down to talk to Coben."

  He knew she'd ask. He knew they'd talk it through. Not just because of her father. But because what he himself did, who he was, mattered to her.

  "Ed switched lawyers. Got a hotshot from Outside. He's claiming your father was self-defense. That Galloway went crazy, and he feared for his life and panicked. He's a banker, and he kept banker's records. He's saying he won the twelve thousand that suddenly showed up in his account in March of that year, but they'll have witnesses that say different. So it won't fly. He says he had nothing to do with the rest of it. Absolutely nothing. That won't fly either."

  There was a cloud of mosquitoes near the edge of the woods. They buzzed like a chain saw and made him grateful for the bug dope he'd slathered on before coming outside.

  He turned his head to kiss her cheek. "Sure you want to hear this?"

  "Keep going."

  "His wife's turned inside out, so she's spilled enough to rip his alibis for the time of Max's death and Yukon's. Put that in with the yellow spray paint in his tool shed, and Harry stating Ed bought some fresh meat from him the day we had our little encounter with the bear. Weave it all together, you've got a tight little net."