Wild Ride

by Nancy Warren

  He knelt slowly, picked up the earrings, and stood staring at them. “I feel possessive of you,” he admitted, even though the words didn’t come easily. “I’ve never been like this before, and believe me, I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t like it, either.”

  “Eric said something today, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind.” He took a deep breath and raised his head to look at her. Apology was right up there with commitment on things he wasn’t good at. “I’m sorry. I have no right to question your past.”

  Alex stared at him, her arms hugged around herself. “No. You don’t.”

  He thought that’s all she’d say, but after a moment, she continued. “Gill and Eric had this very private patio behind their house. She and I sunbathed topless a few times.” She stroked her bare foot back and forth across the carpet in front of her, staring down. “Eric came home early from work one afternoon and saw us. We all acted casual, like it was no big deal, but I didn’t sunbathe over there any more after that.”

  He dropped his clothes and was in front of her in two strides. “I’m sorry. I’ve never been like this with anyone before. You drive me nuts.”

  A small smile tilted her lips. “Me, too.”

  He kissed her and before she could think about protesting, lifted her in his arms and carried her to bed.

  Too anxious even to throw back the comforter, he pulled the sash open on her robe and spread it out beneath her. She opened herself to him and he entered.

  “It doesn’t always have to be fun and games,” he said, making love to her slowly, watching the play of expressions on her face as her passion built, letting her see his.

  They came together, and he couldn’t have said, in that one trembling moment, where his body ended and hers began. Never in all his thirty-four years had he known intimacy like this.

  Even as their breathing slowed, they stayed locked together, kissing as though they couldn’t bear to return to their separate selves.

  15

  Six o’clock in the morning wasn’t Duncan’s favorite time of day. But to leave the bed of a warm and exciting woman to spend time with a guy who wanted to put him in jail added an extra layer of irritation to his mood.

  There was no sunshine to tempt him outside, either. The sky drooped with heavy, gray clouds, but it seemed to do that a lot out here. He dressed swiftly in the clothes he’d tossed on the floor last night and headed out, giving Alex a quick kiss on her sleep-warm cheek.

  “Don’t fall,” she said sleepily.

  He drove to Elda’s, where he ordered a breakfast burrito to go and sandwiches. He also picked up some snacks from the wall of foods Elda kept in stock for the outdoorsy types.

  “You don’t look like you’re headed to the library today,” Elda said as she rang up his purchases.

  “Nope. I’m going climbing with Tom Perkins.”

  “Good day for it,” the older woman said, her small brown eyes twinkling behind large glasses. “And you’re in good hands. Tom’s an excellent climber.”

  “Yep, you’re in good hands,” echoed Arnold Black, the municipal building custodian who seemed to spend a lot of time hanging out at Elda’s.

  When Perkins arrived to pick him up at his cottage forty-five minutes later, he’d had time to shower, had ingested some coffee and the burrito and felt half human.

  Perkins looked more like a regular guy without his uniform, Duncan thought, as they loaded up and set off. “You promised me sunshine,” he complained.

  “You’ll get it. This cloud cover should blow off within a couple of hours.”

  He didn’t love the company, but he loved climbing, even if he imagined the climb might resemble a hunter stalking its prey. Duncan himself, unfortunately, cast in the role of prey.

  He had one goal in mind. To find out how much Perkins knew, and to let him know he should direct his resources elsewhere to find Plotnik’s killer.

  “There’s a nice face about an hour’s drive away,” Perkins said. “The routes are mostly 5.10 to 5.12. I’m thinking of starting on Devil’s Advocate—it’s a 5.11b. Is that all right with you?”

  Duncan nodded. For two experienced climbers who’d never climbed together, who would literally hold each other’s lives in their hands, it sounded like a good choice. The climb would be challenging, but not insane.

  They drove out of town, through increasingly forested terrain. After forty minutes or so, they turned off onto a gravel road. About ten minutes further he glimpsed the rock face, jutting above the trees like a single giant’s tooth. He flexed his fingers in anticipation.

  While they climbed, enjoying the challenge of the craggy, jutting stone face, it was tough not to develop some kind of trust. Perkins climbed first, clipping into the route while Duncan belayed from below.

  While he held the anchoring rope, he watched the sergeant and was forced to admire the single-minded athleticism of his climb. They didn’t compete, exactly, but there was nothing lazy about Duncan’s ascent of the same route.

  They were both sweating and panting by midday when they stopped for a break, sucking back water and chomping fruit leather, sandwiches and trail mix.

  Duncan figured this was Perkins’s idea for them to climb together, so he let him start the conversation. Which he did, sitting back in a granite indentation that kept them out of the wind. To his surprise, the man didn’t mention the murder investigation.

  “You’re seeing Alex.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah. You planning to break my balls?”

  A swift grin lit Perkins’s face. “You can sleep with her. But don’t hurt her. Then I’ll have to break your balls.”

  Duncan snorted. “When you first warned me off, I thought you had an interest there yourself.”

  “Nope. I have an interest somewhere else.”

  Duncan nodded. “Gillian. She’s a beautiful woman, like her cousin.”

  He thought for a second that his climbing companion was going to topple off the ledge. “How the hell do you know that?”

  “I saw you look at her in the library. It reminded me of the way I’ve been looking at Alex.”

  From up here, they had a view over the tree line. The promised sunshine brushed the tops of ragged, dark green cedars and towering Douglas firs. Duncan breathed deep and wondered what Van Gogh would have made of this somber palette.

  “Well, it’s complicated,” Tom answered at last, “so I’d appreciate it if you kept your observations to yourself.”

  “No sweat.” There was a pause. A Whiskey jack landed near their feet and cocked its black-and-white head, looking for food. Duncan tossed a scrap of the fruit leather over and the bird squawked, presumably out of gratitude for the treat, and hopped higher to eat. “Gillian seems like she needs careful handling.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Hurt Alex’s cousin and I might have to break your balls.” The laughter they shared did as much as the physical exertion to ease the tension.

  “Ready to try something more challenging?” Tom asked after they’d finished most of their food and caught their breath.

  Duncan nodded, accepting that they’d moved beyond wariness to a measure of trust. They’d been swapping the lead back and forth. This time it was Tom’s turn to go first.

  When he hit the ground, Tom took over belaying duties while Duncan climbed. It was their toughest climb yet, and he exhilarated in hanging from burning fingertips as he edged his feet over, finding a small fissure, and jamming his toes in. By the time he’d reached the top of the climb, his blood was pounding and his breath coming hard.

  He took a moment to enjoy the warmth in his muscles and the feeling of having conquered another route. He felt the rope quiver as Perkins took up the remaining slack.

  He looked down to the small figure below and yelled, “I’m going to rest for a minute before I start down.”

  He’d have to climb down the route, removing their clips as he went. He waited until his muscles had recove
red a little, then headed down.

  The breeze cooled the sweat on his face, the rope creaked as he swayed slightly. He heard the distant crack of a car backfiring in the parking lot.

  A bee buzzed by his head. Even as he wondered what a bee was doing out here in October, he heard a small explosion against the rock face not a foot from where he hung, helpless, suspended in air.

  Not a bee. A bullet. Years of experience dodging gunfire came into play. He didn’t panic. A cold, icy calm enveloped him.

  Get down. It was all he could think. Get down those forty feet—and fast.

  He yelled to Perkins, “Lower me, now!”

  Perkins didn’t argue, ask questions, or say a word, simply let the rope out.

  Faster, Duncan urged, when the sound he’d dreaded came again. He heard the whine and whistle of the bullet and hunched his head instinctively.

  Even as he congratulated himself that the shooter had missed him a second time, he felt an odd shift in the rope, a tiny jerk. He glanced up in time to see that the bullet hadn’t hit him, but the rope that held him aloft.

  The nylon was severed, but not completely. He now hung from a thickness about that of household twine.

  It would never hold.

  There was a knob of rock five feet below, and a fissure he could jam his toes into. That became his immediate goal. All he had to do was climb down, nice and easy. If he didn’t stress the rope, maybe everything would be fine. He hung there, concentrating on that jutting elbow of rock, and not the bone-smashing distance between him and safety.

  He reached out for a handhold. It was an inch from his questing fingers when the rope snapped and hurled him into free fall.

  All his attention was focused on that jutting piece of stone below. His climbing shoes hit it, and he used his feet to slow his fall. He had one chance. He humped his body and grabbed the rocky outcrop with his hands, using every bit of muscle, bone, and ligament to hang on even as the weight of his body and gravity combined to try and break his hold.

  But it didn’t. He hung on grimly until his feet stopped swaying. His own panting breath was loud, as was the frantic scrabbling below as his feet tried to find a hold.

  “Hang on,” Tom yelled. Thank God, the cop wasn’t one to lose his head either. Hang on was pretty much his plan.

  He found a toehold. It wasn’t much, but it would do. It had to.

  “The rope snagged about four feet below you and two feet to your left.” Perkins’s voice was as calm as he knew his own would be if their positions were reversed. “If you can grab that, I can lower you down.”

  Not bothering to waste energy answering, Duncan worked his way down, spider like. He put out of his mind all thoughts of bullets and the possibility of falling and concentrated on this next hold, and the next. His muscles screamed, adrenalin raced through his system, lending him the extra strength and focus he needed.

  A toe crammed into a crack where moss grew gave him enough stability to reach for an elbow of rock. He saw the severed rope, which had snagged on one of Tom’s clips, and he worked his way over to it.

  Somewhere in the distance, he heard an engine roar and the squeal of tires. He fervently hoped it was the shooter, who’d seen him fall and assumed the worst.

  “Almost there. Stay focused,” Tom’s calm voice reminded him.

  And there it was, dangling before him like a broken promise. The severed rope. He grabbed it with both hands.

  “Okay,” he called down, pleased with his own calm tone. “Lower me.”

  The trip down seemed to take a year, but at last his shoes hit the ground. His chest heaved and he fought the urge to collapse and kiss the ground.

  “Thanks, man,” he said to Tom.

  His partner thumped him on the back. “Come on. I want to try and catch the guy.”

  They ran for the Jeep and threw themselves in. Tom took off at full speed and their vehicle fishtailed as it hit the gravel road.

  “Hold on,” Tom said, pressing harder on the accelerator.

  Duncan picked up the rope and ran his thumb back and forth over the sliced end, brushing the frayed portion that had snapped under his weight.

  “Who knew you were coming today?” Tom shouted over the noise of the engine and the scatter of pebbles against the undercarriage.

  He shrugged. “Any number of people. It wasn’t a secret. I stopped at Elda’s this morning.”

  “And I checked in with the climbing group on the net.” He swerved to avoid a pothole and the vehicle bounced. “Can you think of anyone who’d want you dead?”

  Duncan stared out the window at the evergreens, thick as an invading army.

  Yes. He could. His competition for the Van Gogh, that’s who. He’d dropped some heavy hints at Forrest Art and Antiques plus anyone who cared to do a Google search on his name would quickly learn about his side-hustle. Seemed like somebody wanted their competition eliminated.

  He could tell Tom about his real reasons for being in Swiftcurrent, but he chose to keep them to himself. Even though he’d consulted with Interpol a few times, he was generally leery of cops. They tended to stick their noses in his business.

  Besides, he didn’t have the Van Gogh yet. He was a big believer that possession is nine-tenths of the law. When he had the painting, he’d cooperate fully with the law. Until then, he preferred to work solo.

  He seemed to have come out of this ordeal with two sore shoulders and some new information. Whoever was also after the Van Gogh was willing to kill again.

  He was fairly certain from Eric Munn’s reaction yesterday that Mr. Franklin Forrest’s golden boy knew about the picture. How could he not know where the hell it was? Or, if he did, why didn’t he sell it or donate it to the Louvre or something? For all he knew, Duncan Forbes had a buyer. Why not drop a few hints of his own that he’d be interested in selling?

  By the time they’d rejoined the main road to town, it was clear that whoever had tried to kill Duncan had gotten clean away.

  Tom didn’t rant or swear, he simply eased off the speed and compressed his lips. After a moment he said, “I want you to come in and report that incident.”

  “No. It was probably a freak accident. A hunter with lousy aim.”

  “Bullshit. Somebody tried to murder you today. I don’t want another dead body in my town, even if it’s yours.”

  “Does that mean I’m no longer a suspect?”

  Tom shot him a sideways glance. “It means I’m not arresting you today. But I will not tolerate anyone holding back information that could help solve a murder. What if you’d taken Alex climbing with you?”

  “Hey, you asked me out today. Maybe somebody’s got it in for you?”

  “By shooting your ass off the mountain?”

  “Think about it. Everybody in town knows you’ve been giving me a hard time. Two of us go out climbing. Only you return with some story about a stray shooter. That’s not going to look good for you.”

  Perkins tightened his lips. “It’s a theory.”

  He shrugged. “Who in town is that good a shot?”

  Perkins glanced his way and back to the road ahead. “They weren’t that good a shot. You’re still alive.”

  “They shot the rope.”

  “On purpose?” And wasn’t that the question.

  Dark green trees flashed by the window like solemn warning flags. A few ferns drooped onto the roadside. The tires hummed over cracked pavement. A minute passed. Two. Duncan thought about Alex, the way she’d looked last night when they’d made love. How her lips tasted when he kissed her, and the way she sighed when he was moving deep inside her body. He doubted she’d ever come climbing with him, but Tom had got him thinking. If somebody really wanted to hurt him, they’d go after Alex.

  “If I were you,” he said to Tom, “I’d see if you can find a connection between Jerzy Plotnik, an art dealer in L.A. named Hector Mendes and somebody in this town who knows how to shoot.”

  Alex pulled in behind the cottage where Duncan was
staying. She figured a man who’d been out climbing mountains all day deserved a hot dinner when he arrived home. Down here by the river it was a bustling place in the summer, but out of season it was rainy, dreary, and lonely.

  Perfect for a writer in search of solitude and few distractions, she supposed.

  She hoped he’d like her surprise—which would definitely count as a distraction. Hating to think of him down here with nothing but a bare-bones summer kitchen after spending a day in the cold mountains, she’d decided to bring him dinner cooked by her own hands.

  Maybe it was her way of saying everything was back to normal after their disagreement of the night before. She couldn’t believe Eric would let on to the man she was sleeping with that he’d seen her naked breasts. It was so out of character for the man she knew.

  She’d have gone over to the store today and given him a piece of her mind if Duncan hadn’t made her promise she wouldn’t. He said he didn’t want Eric knowing he was the jealous type, and he’d managed to convince her that nothing but awkwardness would arise if she challenged Gillian’s ex.

  He was probably right, but still, she was pissed.

  Cooking was one of her passions and she’d enjoyed the homey smells of baking as she’d cooked coq au vin, simple and hearty. The smells of red wine, tomato sauce, vegetables, and spices bubbling around a free-range chicken had made her feel housewifely today as she’d completed her weekend chores around her apartment. The washing, ironing, and cleaning. She loved the smell of beeswax polish on the antique desk her grandparents had given her for a graduation present, the sparkle of windows when she cleaned them, the steamy, fresh laundry scent of ironing.

  It had been her habit to cook her grandfather dinner once a week and deliver the meal with enough leftovers for a couple of days. Then they’d chat, play chess, or watch TV in the evening. It hadn’t mattered what—it was the connection that was important.

  No psychiatrist needed to tell her that she was recreating her ritual by cooking for Duncan. She grimaced as she realized she’d brought plenty so there’d be leftovers he could heat later in the week. She also had a crusty loaf of bread, a salad, a bottle of burgundy—and something she hadn’t taken to her grandfather’s—a raging case of lust.