Chasing Fire

by Нора Робертс

  Time wasn’t wasted, in DiCicco’s opinion, if you found out something.

  “Did you know anything about Dolly getting work in Florence?”

  “No. I don’t know why she would. Plenty of places right around here would hire her on, at least for the season.”

  Marg loosed a long sigh. “I wouldn’t give her a reference. Her preacher came out, tried to get me to write her one. I didn’t like his way, that’s one thing, but I wouldn’t do it anyway. She didn’t earn it with the way she behaved.

  “I guess I’m sorry for that if she felt she had to leave Missoula to work. But there are plenty of places she could’ve gotten work without a reference.”

  Marg sat a moment, saying nothing. Just studying the mountains.

  “Was she coming back from there when it happened? From work in Florence?”

  “It’s something I’ll have to check out. I hate exaggeration, so you know I’m giving it to you straight when I say this is the best cookie I’ve ever eaten.”

  “I’ll give you some to take with you.”

  “I wouldn’t say no.”

  The crew in Idaho had the fire caged in by sundown. But up north, the battle raged on.

  She could see it. As Rowan stepped outside to take the air, she could see the fire and smoke, and the figures in yellow shirts brandishing tools like weapons.

  If they called for another load, if they needed relief or reenforcement, L.B. would send her. And she’d be ready.

  Her back stiffened at the glint of headlights, the silhouette of an approaching pickup. Then loosened again, a little, when she saw it wasn’t Leo Brakeman back for another shot at her.

  Lucas stepped out of the truck, walked to her.

  Some anger there, she noted. Still some mad on.

  He proved it when he clamped his hands on her shoulders, gave her a little shake. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me what happened? Finding the remains, about Dolly, about any of it.”

  “I figured you knew.”

  “Well, I damn well didn’t.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “Don’t pull that crap with me, Rowan. Your landing text said A-OK.”

  “I was. I wasn’t hurt.”

  “Rowan.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you in a text, or on the phone. Then it was one thing and another. I came down this morning to talk to you about it, but—”

  He simply yanked her against him and hugged.

  “I’m a suspect.”

  “Stop it,” he murmured, and pressed his lips to the top of her head.

  “The Forest Service agent’s questioned me twice. I had altercations with Dolly, then out of all the acres up there, I stumble right over what’s left of her. Then, Leo Brakeman came here today.”

  She unburdened, stripped it out and off because he was there to cover her again.

  “Leo’s half mad with grief. In his place, I don’t know what I’d do.” Couldn’t bear to think of it. “They’ll find whoever did it. Maybe it’ll help like they say it does, though I swear I don’t know how.”

  “He was crying when he drove away. I think that was the moment I stopped feeling sorry for myself, because I’d been having a real good time with that.”

  “You were never able to stretch that out for long.”

  “I was going for the record. Dad, about before. I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.” He wiped a hand through the air, a familiar gesture. “Clean slate.”

  “Squeaky clean.”

  “Where’s that guy you’ve been hanging around with?”

  “He’s on the Flathead fire.”

  “Let’s go check with Ops, see how they’re doing.”

  “I want him back safe, want all of them back safe. Even though I’m pissed at him. Especially pissed because I think he had a point about a couple things.”

  “I hate when that happens. Besides, who does he think he is, having a point?”

  She laughed, tipped her head to his shoulder. “Thanks.”

  She kept vigil in Operations, helped update the map tracking the crew’s progress and the fire’s twists and turns, and watched the lightning strikes blast on radar.

  Sometime after two while a booming thunderstorm swept over the base, and up north Gull and his crewmates crawled into tents, she dropped into bed.

  And almost immediately dropped into the dream.

  The roar of thunder became the roar of engines, the scream of wind the air blasting through the plane’s open door. She saw the nerves in Jim’s eyes, heard them in his voice and, tossing in bed, ordered herself to stop him. To contact base, alert the spotter, talk to the fire boss.

  Something.

  “It is what it is,” he said to her, with eyes now filled with sorrow. “It’s, you know, my fate.”

  And he jumped as he always did, taking that last leap behind her. Into the mouth of the fire, screaming as its teeth tore through him.

  This time she landed alone, the flames behind her snarling, throaty growls that built until the ground shook. She ran, sprinting up the incline, heat drenching her skin while she shoved through billowing clouds of smoke.

  She shouted for Jim—there was a chance, always a chance—searching blindly. Fire climbed the trees in pulsing strings of light, blew over the ground in a deadly dance. Through it, someone called her name.

  She changed direction and, shouting until her throat burned, stumbled into the black. Charred branches punched out of smoldering spots and beckoned like bony fingers. Snags hunched and towered, seemed to shift and sway behind the curtain of smoke. The scorched earth crackled under her feet as she continued to run toward the sound of her name.

  Silence dropped, like a breath held. She stood in that void of sound, dismayed, disoriented. For a moment it was as if she’d become trapped in a black-and-white photo. Nothing moved, even as she ran on. The ground stayed silent under her feet.

  She saw him, lying on the ground the fire had stripped bare, facing west, as if positioned to watch the sunset. Her voice echoed inside her head as she called his name. Dizzy with relief, she dropped down beside him.

  Jim. Thank God.

  She pulled out her radio, but like the air around her, it answered with silence.

  I found him! Somebody answer. Somebody help me!

  “They can’t.”

  She tumbled back when Jim’s voice broke the silence, when behind his mask his eyes opened, behind his mask his lips curved in a horrible smile.

  “We burn here. We all burn here.”

  Flames ignited behind his mask. Even as she drew breath to scream, he gripped her hand. Fire fused her flesh to his.

  She screamed, and kept screaming as the flames engulfed them both.

  * * *

  Rowan dragged herself out of bed, stumbled to the window. She shoved it up, gulping in the air that streamed in. The storm had moved east, taking the rain and the boiling thunder with it. Sometime during the hideous dream the sky had broken clear of the clouds. She studied the stars to steady herself, taking comfort in their cool bright shine.

  A bad day, that was all, she thought. She’d had a bad day that had brought on a bad night. Now it was done, out of her system. Put to rest.

  But she left the window open, wanting that play of air as she got back in bed, and lay for a time, eyes open, looking at the stars.

  As she started to drift something about the dream tapped at the back of her brain. She closed down to it, thought of the stars instead. She kept that cool, bright light in her mind’s eye as she slipped into quiet, dreamless sleep.

  Rowan and a mop-up team jumped the Flathead mid-morning. While grateful for the work, the routine—however tedious—she couldn’t deny some disappointment that Gull and his team packed out as she came in.

  While she did her job, Special Agent Kimberly DiCicco did hers. She met Quinniock at a diner off Highway 12. He slid into the booth across from her, nodded. “Agent.”

  “Lieutenant. Thanks for meeting me.”


  “No problem. Just coffee,” he told the waitress.

  “I’ll get right down to it, if that’s okay,” DiCicco began when the waitress had turned over the cup already in place, filled it and moved off.

  “Saves time.”

  “You know the area better than I do, the people better than I do. You know more of the connections, the frictions, and you just recently questioned the victim over the vandalism. I could use your help.”

  “The department’s always happy to cooperate, especially since your asking saves me from coming to you trying to wrangle a way in. Or working around you if you refused.”

  “Saves time,” she said, echoing him, “and trouble. You have a good reputation, Lieutenant.”

  “As do you. And according to Rowan Tripp, we’re both snappy dressers.”

  DiCicco smiled, very faintly. “That is a nice tie.”

  “Thanks. It appears we’ve taken the time and trouble to check each other out. My thinking, it’s your jurisdiction, Agent DiCicco, but the victim is one of mine. We’ll get what we both want quicker if we play to our strengths. Why don’t you tell me who you’re looking at, and I might be able to give you some insight.”

  “Let’s take the victim first. I think I have a sense of her after reviewing the evidence, compiling interviews and observations. My leading conclusion is Dolly Brakeman was a liar, by nature and design, with some selfdeception thrown in.”

  “I wouldn’t argue with that conclusion. She was also impulsive, while at the same time being what I call a stewer. She tended to hoard bad feelings, perceived insults, and let them stew—then act impulsively with the switch flipped.”

  “Taking off when Jim Brayner died,” DiCicco said, “even though it was a time she’d have most needed and benefited from home, family, support.”

  “She had a fight with her father.”

  DiCicco sat back. “I wondered.”

  “I got this from Mrs. Brakeman, when I talked to her after the vandalism at the base. Dolly came home out of her mind after learning of Jim’s accident, and that’s when she told her parents she was pregnant, and that she’d quit her job. Brakeman didn’t take it well. They went at each other, and he said something along the lines of her getting her ass back to base, getting her job back or finding somebody else to freeload on. Dolly packed up and lit out. A little more maneuvering got me the fact that she packed up her parents’ five-hundred-dollar cash emergency envelope for good measure.”

  “Five hundred doesn’t take you far.”

  “Her mother sent her money now and again. And when Dolly called from Bozeman, in labor, the Brakemans drove out, patched things up.”

  “Babies are excellent glue.”

  “Dolly claimed to have been saved, and joined her mother’s church when they all came home.”

  “Reverend Latterly’s church. I got that, and I’ve spoken to him. He made a point of telling me Leo Brakeman didn’t attend church.” She thought of what Marg had said over lemonade and cookies. “I can’t say I liked his way. His passive-aggressive way,” she added, and Quinniock nodded agreement. “He seems to feel Little Bear, Rowan Tripp, the rest of them failed to show Christian charity to a troubled soul. As harsh as it was, I prefer Leo Brakeman’s honest grief and rage.”

  “Whatever his way, Irene Brakeman claims he helped the three of them—herself, her husband and Dolly, come to terms once she was back. What Dolly left out when she called her parents for help, and I found after some poking around, was she’d made arrangements for a private adoption in Bozeman, which had paid her expenses.”

  “She planned to give the baby up?”

  “She’s the only one who knows what she planned, but she didn’t contact the adoptive parents when she went into labor, nor the OB they’d paid for. Instead she went to the ER of a hospital across town and gave her Missoula address. By the time the other party found out what had happened, she was on her way back here. Since birth mothers have a right to change their minds, there wasn’t much they could do.”

  DiCicco flipped open her notebook. “Do you have their names?”

  “Yeah. I’ll give you all of it, but I don’t think we’re going to find either of these people tracked Dolly down here and killed her, then set fire to the forest.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s a strong motive.”

  “Are you still looking at Rowan Tripp?”

  DiCicco sat back as the waitress breezed by to top off their coffee. “Let me tell you about Rowan Tripp. She’s got a temper. She’s got considerable power—physical strength, strength of will. She disliked Dolly intensely, on a personal level and in general terms. Her alibi is a man she’s currently sleeping with. Men will lie for sex.”

  DiCicco paused to tip a fraction of a teaspoon of sugar into her coffee. “Dolly claimed Rowan had it in for her because Brayner tossed Rowan over for her. She was a liar,” DiCicco added before Quinniock could respond. “Rowan Tripp isn’t. In fact, she’s almost brutally upfront. If Dolly had had her face punched in, I’d put my finger on Tripp. But the kill spot off the road, the broken neck, the arson? That doesn’t jibe with my observations. Whoever killed her and put her in the forest might have expected the fire to burn her to ash, or at least for it to take more time for the remains to be discovered. It would’ve been monumentally stupid for Tripp to call the discovery in, and she’s not stupid.”

  “We agree on that.”

  “Sticking with the victim, I’ve spent some time trying to verify her claim she had work in Florence. So far, I haven’t been able to verify. I’ve started checking places like this, along the highway, but I haven’t found any that hired her, or anyone who remembers her coming in looking for work. And, given her history, I’m wondering why she’d go to the trouble of looking for work down this way when she recently deposited ten thousand dollars in two hits of five—I traced it back to Matthew Brayner—in a bank in Lolo. Not her usual bank,” DiCicco added, “which leads me to believe she didn’t want anyone knowing about it. Which likely includes her parents.”

  He hadn’t hit on the money—yet—and money always mattered. “She might’ve been thinking about running again.”

  “She might have. There’s another pattern in her history. Men. Which is why I’m going to start checking motels along the route from Florence to Missoula. Maybe she decided to try out the other Brayner brother.”

  “Sex and money and guilt.” Quinniock nodded. “The trifecta of motives. Want to get started?”

  17

  Gull sat on his bed with his laptop. He’d answered personal e-mail, attached a couple of pictures he’d taken that morning of the mountains, of the camp. He’d done a little business and now brought up his hometown paper to scan the sports section.

  He knew the jump ship was back, and wondered how long it would take Rowan to knock on his door.

  She would, he thought, even if just to pick up the fight where they’d left off. She wasn’t the avoid-and-evade type, and, even if she were, it was damn near impossible to avoid and evade him while working on the same base.

  He could wait.

  Out of curiosity he did a Google search for wildfire arson investigation, and while he shifted through the results, considered heading into the lounge to see what was up, or maybe see if Dobie wanted to drive into town.

  Always easier to wait when you’re occupied, he thought. Then an article caught his interest. He answered the knock on the door absently.

  “Yeah, it’s open.”

  “Unlocked is different than open.”

  He glanced over. Rowan leaned on the jamb.

  “It’s open now.”

  She left the door ajar as she stepped in, and angled to see the laptop screen. “You’re boning up on arson?”

  “Specific to wildfire. It seemed relevant at the moment. How’d the mop-up go?”

  “You left a hell of a mess.” She shifted her gaze from the screen to his face. “I heard things got hairy up there.”

  “There were moments.” He smiled.
“Missed you.”

  “Because I’m so good or so good-looking?”

  “All of the above.” He shut down the computer. “Why don’t we take a walk, catch the sunset.”

  “Yeah, all right.”

  When they went out, she pulled her sunglasses out of her pocket. “The fact that I’m surprised and not happy that my father’s involved with a woman I don’t know and he didn’t tell me about doesn’t make me jealous.”

  “Is that what we’re calling it? Surprised and not happy. I’d’ve defined it as outraged and incensed.”

  “Due to the surprise.” She clipped the words off.

  “I’ll give you that,” Gull decided, “since you’ve apparently gone your entire life without witnessing a lip-lock.”

  “I don’t think I overreacted. Very much.”

  “Why quibble about degrees?”

  “I’m not apologizing for telling you to butt the hell out.”

  “Then I don’t have to be gracious and accept a nonexistent apology. I’m not apologizing for expressing my opinion over your not very much of an overreaction.”

  “Then I guess we’re even.”

  “Close enough. It’s a hell of a sunset.”

  She stood with him, watching the sun sink toward the western peaks, watched it drown in the sea of red and gold and delicate lavender it spawned.

  “I don’t have to like her, and I sure as hell don’t have to trust her.”

  “You’re like a dog with a bone, Rowan.”

  “Maybe. But it’s my bone.”

  Silence, Gull thought, could express an opinion as succinctly as words. “So. I heard about Dolly’s father coming down on you.”

  “Over and done.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you butting in again, Gull?”

  “If you want to call it that. You’ve got to have sympathy for a man dealing with what he’s dealing with, so maybe he gets a pass this time. But that’s what’s over and done. Nobody lays into my girl.”

  “Your girl? I’m not your girl.”

  “Are we or are we not together here and watching the sunset? And isn’t it most likely you and I will end up naked in bed together tonight?”