Cold River

by Carla Neggers

  After everyone had left the café, she and Hannah had dragged the old trunk up the stairs and stacked the swatches into piles: definite potential, maybe with some work, trash. Sean had gone up to the lodge with his brothers. Rose had stayed behind.

  “Bowie wasn’t just protecting me in that bar fight,” Hannah said, “and he wasn’t completely out of control.”

  “I know. Hannah…” Clearly pained, Rose didn’t continue.

  “Those men were drunk. Derek Cutshaw, especially.”

  Rose stared at the fabric sorted on the worktable. “I was in a bad place last winter and fell for the wrong man.”

  “Derek?”

  Rose hesitated, then nodded. “I haven’t wanted anyone to know. I was so stupid. He’s manipulative and possessive. I dumped him in March, and he didn’t like it.”

  “Bowie knew about the two of you?”

  “Derek told him, bragged to him. Bowie tried to warn me that things could get ugly. I didn’t listen. He probably saved my brothers from getting arrested that night by taking matters into his own hands. I’ve been in a very dark place, Hannah.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “Derek and me…the insults…the bar fight—he was also talking about me that night. Not just you.”

  Hannah could feel her friend’s pain and embarrassment. “Rose, don’t judge yourself—”

  “I pride myself on my good judgment, but I let Derek Cutshaw into my life. Then I didn’t tell you that his insults weren’t about you. I didn’t tell anyone else.”

  “It doesn’t matter who they were about or if they were true or false. He was in the wrong.”

  Rose looked pained. “What he said—it’s not something you live down in a small town. No one really ever believed you…”

  Hannah smiled through her own discomfort. “Why, because I can’t make that kind of mistake?”

  Rose managed a smile back. “No, because everyone knows everything about you. You live right in town and run the café, and people have been looking out for you for years. Hannah…” Tears shone in Rose’s eyes. “I’m not proud of myself. I’m sorry you had to go through this. It’s all because of me.”

  “Derek is a jerk and a heel and I hope he never bothers either of us again.”

  “I never thought I’d be in this position,” Rose said, her voice quiet now. “I was recovering from a series of tough missions. Derek is cocky, good-looking. A mean drunk, though. And here we are. My brothers can’t know, Hannah. I couldn’t stand it if they did.”

  “Do you think your father knew?”

  “Whatever he knew, he kept to himself. It wouldn’t be that way with A.J., Elijah and Sean.” She gave a small laugh. “They need another forty years to mellow.”

  Hannah grinned. “I wouldn’t have called your father ‘mellow’ even at seventy-seven.”

  Pensive again, Rose ran her fingertips over her fabric. “I haven’t heard from Derek since the fight at O’Rourke’s in March.”

  “Bowie kept him from saying your name that night. Maybe Derek got the message and decided to be smart and stay away from you.” Hannah deliberated a moment, but decided she had to say the rest. “Rose, do you need to report Derek to the police for what he did to you?”

  “No. What he did to me wouldn’t put him in jail. My brothers were at O’Rourke’s that night. Derek was nasty and out of control, and it would have been easy for things to get seriously out of hand. Bowie shouldn’t have done what he did, but maybe it would have been even worse if he hadn’t.”

  “What’s done is done. Nick Martini?”

  “A sexier mistake.”

  “One you’d make again?” Hannah asked.

  “I’m not a good judge of men. You understand you can’t tell my brothers, don’t you?”

  “Maybe you should give them a chance.”

  “They’ve gone through enough. Promise me.”

  “I think Sean’s guessed.”

  “Yes, well—” But Rose broke off and smiled. “I noticed you didn’t argue when I said you wouldn’t be doing any quilting by the fire this winter.”

  Thirty-Six

  Grit, Jo and Myrtle arrived back in Vermont and took a table at O’Rourke’s. Grit knew the call coming in on his cell phone—although the screen didn’t say so—was from the son of the vice president of the United States. Charlie Neal was supposed to be back under the thumb of an ever-watchful Mark Francona, who’d told Grit he would personally arrest him if he had anything more to do with any of the vice president’s offspring.

  Grit answered anyway. “I’m right,” Charlie said. “There’s a firebug out there.”

  “Lots of firebugs.”

  “It looks as if Kyle Rigby and Melanie Kendall were responsible for the bulk of the hits Lowell Whittaker arranged. Lowell hired them to kill Myrtle Smith’s Russian friend, Andrei Petrov, on behalf of a former KGB agent. Did you know that?”

  Grit was aware of Jo Harper frowning at him in that Secret Service–agent way of hers. He chose his words carefully. “Just heard.” In fact, he thought, Jo had been the one to tell him. He said, “I have to go.”

  Charlie sighed. “Agent Harper’s there, isn’t she? Okay. Just listen, then. The KGB agent could have done the job himself but he didn’t want to take the chance. Have someone poison Petrov’s toothpaste. Keep things simple.”

  “Sometimes simple works. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

  “Only no one expected Myrtle. Ms. Smith, I mean,” Charlie said. “She was closing in on the assassins’ network. Lowell had our firebug torch her office to destroy her notes.”

  Grit didn’t argue. “Okay, fine.”

  “The police can’t pin the fire on Kyle Rigby or Melanie Kendall because they weren’t responsible for it.”

  “Right.”

  “Jasper Vanderhorn was killed by this firebug.” Charlie paused to take a breath. “I’m serious. It won’t matter that this network’s been shut down. Firebugs don’t like to stop. They prefer to work alone.”

  “Where are you now?” Grit asked him.

  “Conor and I are setting up for another airsoft game. Dad’s letting us play again. He thinks it’ll keep us out of trouble if we have something to focus on.”

  “Will it?”

  “This firebug is a murderer, Petty Officer Taylor.”

  “So when you get the wrong answer on a test, do you argue with your teacher until she proves you wrong?”

  “Only if I know I’m not wrong. Want to come play airsoft with me sometime?”

  Grit heard a sudden tentativeness in the kid’s voice and realized the invitation was sincere. “Yeah, sure. Be good in the meantime.”

  “Always.”

  After Charlie disconnected, Grit set his phone back on the table. Jo was eyeing him as if she were a split second from whipping out handcuffs and arresting him. He said, “I meant lightning bugs. I don’t know why I said firebugs. Lots of lightning bugs out there in the Vermont wilderness.”

  “Not in January, Grit.”

  “Buy you a beer, Agent Harper?”

  She relaxed some. “I’m not conflicted,” she said quietly.

  He knew what she meant. “Okay.”

  “Elijah and I will figure out what’s next. Together. Lives, careers, families. Half the fun is the complexity of it all.”

  “You weren’t even tempted to move back to your low ceilings and dead plants and forget him? Hit the reset button on your life?”

  “No.”

  “You thought about it, though.”

  “I’ll take that beer, Petty Officer.”

  Grit noticed he had another message from Admiral Jenkins suggesting he report for duty at the Pentagon in three days. A suggestion from a four-star admiral was another way to say “order.” Grit texted him back: Aye-aye. He hit Send, then texted him again: Sir.

  If he were about to start work at the Pentagon, some things had to get straightened out right from the start. He wasn’t the same Navy SEAL he’d been a year ago.
It wasn’t a question of better or worse. Just different.

  Myrtle joined him and Jo at their table. Myrtle had on leather gloves the color of her eyes and was bitching about the cold. “Seriously, Myrtle,” Grit said, “I’ve got to get you to the Florida Panhandle and introduce you to tupelo honey.”

  Sean, Elijah, A.J. and his wife, Lauren, and Beth and Zack Harper all turned up, dragging chairs over so that they all could sit at the same table. A few minutes later, Hannah arrived on her own. Sean rose immediately and pulled a chair up to their table for her. She thanked him. She was reserved and quiet but not as self-conscious as Grit had seen her since he’d first arrived in Black Falls. She just, he thought, wasn’t sure she belonged there with the Camerons and Harpers.

  “My father told me about your father,” Jo said, less combative. “I didn’t look him up. He also said your dad’s death was an accident.”

  Her comment seemed to come out of the blue, but not, as far as Grit could see, to Hannah. It was something she seemed to need to hear and Jo seemed to need to tell her. “Your father, Jo—”

  “He was the first law enforcement officer on scene after the accident. Your dad wasn’t in any trouble and hadn’t been since your brothers were born. I know you know that,” Jo added. “I just want you to know that I do, too.”

  Liam O’Rourke delivered a round of drinks on the house. “Your dad was the love of your mom’s life, Hannah. She missed him, but she carried on without him.”

  Hannah finally spoke. “My mother, Devin, Toby and I all had some good times together.” She seemed to consider whether she should reveal this much of herself. “Before she died, she asked us to remember her and love her always but to have good times again. We have, too. We’ve had some great times.”

  Grit understood what she was saying, and he thought everyone at the table did, too. The people who’d known and loved Drew Cameron best, especially his four children, would miss him, but they’d have good times again.

  Liam set the glasses on the table and addressed Hannah. “I remember you out on the common with Devin and Toby when you were first trying to get them under control. You had the snowball fight from hell. They had you outnumbered, and they were sneaky little rascals, but you didn’t back down.”

  Elijah raised his glass and grinned. “That’s our Hannah.”

  She said nothing, just smiled as she sat close to Sean, his two older brothers right there.

  Jo glanced at Grit, then grinned at the three Cameron brothers. “Speaking of snowball fights…” she said, taking a sip of her beer and rising. “Who’s game?”

  Elijah was the first to his feet and led the way, all of them ending up on the town common, across from Three Sisters Café.

  Snow was falling, just wet enough to hold together.

  Grit knew who threw the first snowball, but he was an outsider and didn’t say. Even Myrtle joined in with her purple gloves.

  Rose arrived a few minutes after the snowball fight started and walked across the common with her golden retriever. She didn’t say a word, just scooped up a handful of snow, fashioned it into a fist-size snowball and hurled it, striking Sean in the shoulder. He pivoted and nailed her with a snowball of his own.

  Ranger obviously loved snow and dived into the fun.

  Grit didn’t love snow, but when he got beaned by an unrepentant Jo Harper, he made his first snowball.

  When he threw it at her, he realized they both were laughing.

  Bowie entered O’Rourke’s. Sean had spotted him after the snowball fight had broken up, with no clear winners, and come over by himself. It was late, and he was tired. Hannah had gone home to take a hot shower, complaining—teasing—because her apartment didn’t have a bathtub.

  Liam tapped a thick finger on the bar. “Any punches thrown in here will be mine. Understood?” He turned back to his work before either Sean or Bowie responded.

  Bowie sat on the stool next to Sean. “You’re thickheaded, Cameron, but you and your brothers didn’t do anything stupid that night.”

  “None of us would have let Hannah get hurt.”

  “Or hurt anyone,” Bowie said dryly. “Thanks for saving my life today.”

  “I like to think you’d have done the same for me.”

  “Yeah.” Bowie grinned at Sean. “Probably.”

  “My father didn’t come to any of us with his concerns. My brothers, Rose, me. You. I wish he had. He was in Washington talking to Ambassador Bruni and never said a word to Jo, just had her go with him to see the cherry blossoms.”

  “What could any of you have done?”

  “Hiked up the mountain with him in April. Been there when those two came after him. Stopped them.”

  “Yeah,” Bowie said. “You could have done that. Me, too.”

  Sean hesitated, knowing he was on difficult ground now. “I need to ask you, if my sister were in danger, would you tell me?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “Those cretins that night weren’t just talking about Hannah, were they?”

  “I don’t give a damn who they were talking about.”

  Sean decided to leave it there. “So why am I ‘thickheaded’?”

  “Hannah. You’ve been out of reach for her since you were kids. She only had to prove herself to herself. The rest of us know she’s too damn good for you.”

  “It’s true.”

  “You may have left Black Falls, but it’s never left you. I figure you had some proving to do. I also figure you made all that money for a reason.”

  “And that would be?”

  Bowie grinned. “To spoil Hannah Shay.”

  Thirty-Seven

  January 8—Black Falls, Vermont

  Hannah delivered warm shepherd’s pie to the McBanes, then walked across the road to the cemetery. Sean had once again returned to California. She could have gone with him, but in light of everything that had happened, she wanted him to have a chance to get his head clear back in the place he’d lived since college. She ached to see him again, and she was downright desperate to see her brothers, but the practicalities of her own life had swarmed over her.

  She needed to hire help at the café, and she needed to start some serious studying for the bar.

  There was also that to-do list of house repairs to tackle.

  She found Bowie collecting the last of his stuff from outside the crypt. “Need any help?” she asked him.

  “Sure, Hannah. Pick up that hundred pounds of granite over there and carry it to my van, will you?”

  “Funny, Bowie.”

  He grinned at her. “Grit Taylor was up here, and he and Reverend McBane and I were talking, and we figured out that some women are like sisters. It’s just the way it is. Some aren’t.” He looked at Hannah and winked. “You and Rose? For me? Sisters.”

  “So who would be under ‘not sisters’?”

  He sidestepped her question with another grin. “Judge Robinson thinks Southern California could be a good place for you to study.”

  “Do you know everything that happens in this town?”

  “I didn’t know we still had killers on the loose, but everything else? Yeah.”

  When Hannah arrived back at the café, Rose, Dominique, Beth and even Jo were gathered in the kitchen. Rose grabbed a folder and opened it up on the worktable. “I have airline points. I know you don’t do tips here, but people insisted. Liam O’Rourke even got in on it with tips from his place. Anyway, we’ve pooled our resources, and we’ve made our decision. We’re sending you to Los Angeles.”

  “You leave tomorrow,” Beth said.

  Hannah was overcome. “Thank you. You’re all too generous.”

  “None of us wants to go to Los Angeles,” Rose said, then added quickly, “Sean would arrange for a private plane for you—”

  “This is perfect,” Hannah said.

  Dominique produced an envelope. “And here’s cash for a shopping spree on Rodeo Drive. We expect receipts. No sneaking off to a discount store—and no spending it on yo
ur brothers.”

  “It’ll be a minor shopping spree compared to some Rodeo Drive has witnessed,” Beth said. “But have fun. We’ll handle the café. It’s been quiet.”

  “Thank you again.”

  “I can help stand in for Hannah here at the café,” Jo said. “Beth and I really are sisters, so we’ll uphold the name.”

  “No.” Beth was horrified. “We’d kill each other. Back to D.C. with you before the Secret Service fires you. You’re not done, and neither is Elijah. Vermont is here. Lake, home, cabins, land. None of it’s going anywhere.”

  Rose said, “Myrtle Smith suggests the two of us switch off subbing as the third sister.”

  Dominique pointed her knife to the cash. “She contributed to the shopping spree and included a note on stores she recommends.”

  Leave it to Myrtle, Hannah thought, amused. Myrtle had surprised everyone by not returning immediately to Washington. Grit Taylor was gone, at least for the moment, rumored to be assigned to the Pentagon.

  There was even a note in Rose’s folder from Everett Robinson telling Hannah she could e-mail him with study questions, unless she decided to do something else with her life. “Want what you want, Hannah,” he wrote, “not what you think you should want, or what someone else wants. Including me.”

  What she wanted right now, more than anything else in the world, was to be in Southern California with her brothers—and, she thought, a certain smoke jumper turned multimillionaire.

  Thirty-Eight

  January 10—Beverly Hills, California

  “This isn’t the right hotel,” Hannah said.

  “Yes, it is.” Nick Martini stopped at the front door of the Beverly Hilton, a sprawling hotel built in 1955, its “retro chic” decor calling up glamorous images of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. “The one you picked out is a fleabag.”

  She’d insisted on booking a motel for herself. She wasn’t entirely sure of the effects of being back in California on Sean, if he felt the same way about her. She didn’t want to box him in. Or herself.