Bear Bait (9781101611548)
Page 5
With a flutter of blue feathers, a Steller’s jay thumped down onto the railing. The bird hopped toward them, chirping its bright “chek-chek-chek-chek.” Chase tossed a bit of bread over the railing. The jay shrieked and snapped, just missed the morsel as it sailed by, and then leapt off the railing in swift pursuit.
“Wouldn’t you like to be a bird?” She turned to him, smiling. “Hop off into space, knowing you’d be fine when you land on the ground a hundred feet below?”
He leaned toward her, took the plate out of her hands, and stacked it on top of his on the deck. “If you’re thinking of hopping off into space, you’re either feeling worse or a whole lot better.”
“Much better. Oh, yeah.”
His laugh told her that she sounded as fuzzy as she felt. She sat forward and reached for the balcony railing. “I’ve got to do the logbook.” While she was still conscious. “You don’t see any fires, do you?”
He pulled her back down onto the deck, positioned his long legs on either side of her. “In a minute,” he murmured into her ear. He smelled so nice. A little wood smoke, a faint trace of citrus aftershave, a little perspiration—so manly. His fingers kneaded the stiff muscles of her neck, gently but firmly worked outward to her sore shoulders.
“Chase, did I ever tell you”—she wanted to purr like a cat—“that I think you’re fine.”
She leaned back against his chest and closed her eyes.
THE Rushing Springs Roadhouse was cool and dark, the way Ernest Craig thought bars should be. The varnish of the oak counter was worn away in spots, but the surface was clean. The Roadhouse was nice and quiet, too, with only the TV news turned down low and the clink of pool balls on the table near the back. He hated those watering holes where you had to shout over the music just to say hi to your neighbor. Besides, it was the only place in walking distance and the battery in his old station wagon was deader than the mouse in the trap under his kitchen sink.
Other than the two pool players, there were only a couple of fellas in the place, sitting at the bar. He took the stool next to the one who had gray-streaked hair like his. With his mustache, pockmarked face, and baseball cap, the guy seemed more approachable than the younger man in sports coat and tie. He wouldn’t know what to say to a yuppie. Ernest hitched his bad leg up on the chrome foot rail with a grunt.
“How you doing, Ernest?” The bartender was a skinny grizzled guy, name of—Rob, was that it? No, that wasn’t quite right. In the light of the bar, his skin looked gray. Ernest sometimes wondered if the man looked any healthier in daylight, but he’d never seen him outside of the place.
“The usual.” He couldn’t wait through chitchat for the whiskey. The pain in his leg was like a hot knife. When the bartender brought the glass, Ernest tossed it back like a college kid on a bet. “’Nother.”
The bartender fixed his sad eyes on him. He resembled a basset hound Ernest once had. The guy’s name suddenly came to him. “No worries, Bob,” he said. “I got the dough.”
When the next whiskey came, he sipped it slowly, savoring every drop. His leg was already feeling a little better, so now he focused on the reason he’d come here. “Tell you the truth, Bob, I ain’t doin’ too good today. I’m lookin’ for my daughter. You seen her round here?”
Bob pushed a rag up into a newly washed shot glass, wiping off water spots. “Allie? She doesn’t come in here, Ernest. You know that. Is she missing?”
“Seems like it. I’m worried about her. She’s got herself a good job with a landscaping company over in Seattle during the week, makes real good money.” She was so happy to finally find a job that paid more than minimum wage. It was Allie’s money that paid for most of the whiskeys, too, but that was nobody’s business. “Stays over there durin’ the week, but she always comes home on Friday nights, spends the weekend with her ol’ man. ’Cept this morning, when I got up, I seen her bed ain’t been slept in. I asked down at the grocery and at the Quik Stop, but they ain’t seen her.”
Bob put the glass on a tray and wiped down another. “Does she have a boyfriend?”
Ernest snorted. “If you could call him that. Owns that little woodworking place next to the highway.” He ran a hand through his wavy hair, which was an odd length now. He’d have to take himself in for a cut or band it back in a ponytail soon.
Having polished the shot glasses, Bob pulled open a cabinet door and slid the tray onto a shelf and said, “Well, there you have it.”
“Have what?” He wished the man would stop fussing around and just talk to him.
“She probably spent the night with her boyfriend.”
Ernest groaned. “No. Allie’s not like that. She’s a good girl. I brought her up right. ’Sides, I saw Jack—that’s the kid’s name, Jack Winner. But let me tell you, he’s not. A winner, that is. His business is barely getting by. Allie could do better. She’s a smart one, a lot faster than her ol’ man.”
He shook his head, thinking about her. “She should be in college, but we ain’t got the money just right now. You know how things are these days. They got scholarships for country club kids and minorities and all kinds of gimps, too, but not a cent for us hardworkin’ folks.”
He stared sadly into his nearly empty glass. He was getting way off the subject. It was just that he hadn’t had anyone to talk to all week. “Anyhow, Jack said that he ain’t seen her, either, not since last weekend.”
Bob shrugged. “She’s what—twenty?”
“Just turned twenty-one.”
“Aha. Legal drinking age. She probably decided to spend Friday night celebrating with friends and forgot to tell you. I’m sure she’ll be home tonight.”
One of the pool players whistled from the back of the room. Bob flipped up a section of the counter to let himself out and went to check on them.
Ernest glanced out of the corner of his eye at the heavyset man beside him. The man’s eyes were on the news on the television screen. The sound was muted, but Bob had the captions turned on. “Fallen Heroes,” it said at the top of the screen over a photo of a black woman in uniform. What a waste they’d been, those stupid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was the government for you, repeating the same stupid mistakes over and over again. And now girl soldiers were getting killed along with the men. But at least this time nobody was spitting on soldiers when they came back. This time, nobody much seemed to care one way or the other what was going on over there.
He thought about saying something about the war to the man on the next bar stool. Touchy subject, though. If he said the wrong thing, the guy might get riled up. He shot another glance at him. The stranger wore a black baseball cap with HAWKEYE TOURS stitched across it in fancy silver letters.
“You with a tour group?” Ernest asked.
“Nope,” the man answered, pulling his gaze off the TV to look at Ernest. “I’m trying to start my own business up in Forks; doing hunting, fishing trips, stuff like that, in the forest around the park.” He took a sip of his beer. “You know Olympic National Park?”
“Of course. It’s all around here.” Ernest had driven Allie all over the whole place years ago, right after they’d come up here to live in his brother-in-law’s backyard, when she was just a little girl. It wasn’t like just one park. The parts weren’t even all connected. There was the Hoh Rain Forest down south, and the Olympic Mountains over to the east; roaring rivers everywhere, and to the west, ocean beaches with driftwood logs bigger than any trees you saw standing upright these days. He hadn’t been to any part for years, though, except for where Highway 101 passed through. After Allie showed up, maybe tomorrow they’d go for a drive to someplace pretty. That’d make a nice change. Where was she? Maybe she had to work overtime. Maybe there was a message from her on the answering machine waiting for him right now.
The man held out a business card. “Name’s Garrett Ford; you know anyone who needs a hunting or fishing guide, send them to me, okay?” He shook hands with Ernest, then turned back to the TV. Abruptly, he tensed up and
slapped a hand on the counter. “Goddamn it!”
Ernest jerked his gaze to the set. On the screen he saw a silver-blond woman with a scrape on her face and a little boy in her arms. Then the picture changed to show the same woman, this time sitting on the ground with what looked like a dead cougar in her lap. The words at the bottom of the screen said something about a conference in Seattle, which didn’t seem to have anything to do with the pictures. Ernest had a hard time tracking the story, but he didn’t see what had made Ford so angry. “You know her?”
“She’s one of those so-called environmentalists that’s out to ruin my business!” the man snapped. “Her and the rest of the goddamned feds! First the government took all that land in Utah and Arizona years ago, said we couldn’t hunt there anymore, said all the animals were ‘protected.’” He made angry air quotes around the last word. Then he picked up his beer and slurped it before continuing, “And now they’re doing the same thing here.”
Ford made it sound like protecting something was akin to stealing it. His loud rambling attracted one of the pool players, a burly young guy with a blond crew cut, who now stood a few feet behind Ford, smoking a cigarette while he stared at the TV and listened to Ford’s rant. Ernest thought he’d seen that same guy over at Jack’s place a few times. Bill, was that his name? Something like Bill.
“Just six months ago, the government took the land I’ve been hunting on up here for the last ten years! Just grabbed it, without asking anyone. The feds’ve locked up Utah and Arizona, and now they’re doing it to Washington State!” Ford thumped the bar with a fist.
This was an old song in the area, whining about the government. A lot of the whining was horse shit, but then Ernest had found long ago that if he wanted to fit in, he’d best put on his hip boots and wade in it, too. “Yeah,” he said, “I read the president made some new monuments and such.”
“It’s nothing but a goddamned land grab! The government thinks it can take away anything you have nowadays. The national forests are supposed to belong to the people. They’ve got no right to take them away to make a park bigger. The last thing we need is a bigger park! How the hell are you supposed to make money out of a park where they won’t let you shoot a deer or chop a little firewood, for chrissakes?”
The crew-cut pool player, smiling and nodding like he’d just heard something funny, went back to his game. Privately, Ernest thought that making any park bigger sounded like a pretty good idea. God knew the land around his double-wide was being swallowed up by tacky little summer cabins, and Rushing Springs wasn’t anything close to a big city.
He and Allie used to see all kinds of birds and even elk and martens, and one time a fox, but nowadays he was lucky if anything more than a stray cat walked through the backyard. Made his days even lonelier, with nothing to look at. It was the end of the road, this place. Always had been, always would be. He sure hoped Allie would be there waiting for him tonight when he got back, ready to tell him all about the landscaping business and the wider world of Seattle. And about whatever she’d been up to all of last night and all day today.
His whiskey was gone, and he had no money for another. He looked longingly at Ford’s mug, still half full of Budweiser on the countertop. Maybe he could get the guy to buy him a beer. “I know what you mean about the feds,” he offered. “I was in ’Nam, too, right at the tail end. Got this bum leg now, and is the government takin’ care of me? A long time ago, the doc said I should get an operation, but is the VA gonna pay for it? No way. Hell, ask any of these poor jerks comin’ back from the Middle East—nobody even knows where the VA is these days.”
“I heard the VA got their act together,” Ford said.
“Yeah?” Ernest was surprised. “How so?”
Ford shrugged. “They opened up some new clinics and stuff. Maybe you should check into it.”
“Huh,” Ernest huffed. He thought about the pile of unopened mail on the kitchen table and the computer that was so slow it was useless. “If they got a new clinic, it’ll be all the way over in Seattle and you’ll have to make an appointment on the computer.”
The guy shrugged again. “Maybe.”
Ernest decided to get off the vet thing. “And jobs?” he said, snorting for effect, “When I moved up here, I asked the forest service and the park service for jobs. Nothing but trail crew, they said.”
Ford nodded. “Yeah, there’s always trail crew jobs in the summer. Pay’s not bad, but it’s damn hard work.”
Ernest shook his head. “Do I look like I can bust a trail? That’s a job for kids.” He placed a hand on the counter. “But that’s the government for you. They just use a man till he’s all used up, don’t give nothin’ in return.”
Ford’s gaze remained locked on the news program. He curled his fingers around the beer mug, gestured with it in the direction of the television, which now showed a bunch of kids on skateboards whizzing around with juice drinks in their hands.
“You know that blond gal, she was down in Utah bugging a friend of mine last year,” Ford growled. “And now she’s up here! She’s one of those tree huggers who think animals are more important than people.” He leaned toward Ernest, wafting the heady scent of Budweiser beer his way. “Well, I’m going to beat her at her own game. I know how to fix her wagon. I know how to fix all their wagons.”
6
THE brightness of sun on her eyelids woke her up. Sam yawned, rolled her head to the left, and was startled to find Chase’s face only inches from her own. He lay on his stomach, his face mashed into the pillow. The sleeping bag had fallen away from his bare shoulders. They were nice muscular shoulders, tapering to a lean bronze back. It was weird how they’d been through so much together and yet she had never seen him without a shirt before.
His black hair was ruffled, for once not parted knife-straight with FBI rigidity. His lips were slightly parted, pale against the dark sheen of whiskers. Relaxed in sleep, his features looked softer. It was easy to picture what he’d looked like before kidnappers and extortionists and bank robbers had sobered him. But it was still hard to picture him as the accountant he’d been before joining the FBI. She raised herself up on an elbow.
The movement woke him. His eyes snapped open, focused on her, and then crinkled at the corners. “Good morning.” His voice was husky. He smiled and rolled over on his back, stretching his arms above his head. His bare leg grazed hers beneath the covers, startling her. He had zipped their sleeping bags together.
Trying to be inconspicuous, she slid a hand down into her own sleeping bag. She was wearing a T-shirt, bra, and panties. She could feel Chase’s gaze on her face. Damn the blush creeping up her cheeks!
He cupped his hands behind his head. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Okay,” she mumbled. Confused was more accurate.
“How’s the head?”
Actually, her head felt surprisingly good, considering. She searched her memory for the night before, remembered wine and pain pills and his hands on her shoulders, then couldn’t come up with anything beyond leaning back into his arms. She turned her eyes away from his. “Uh, last night…Did I…”
“Still having trouble with the mouth?” His expression was deadpan, but a gleam lurked in his dark eyes.
Damned smart aleck.
“You called me fine.” He used the same inflection that Lili had, and batted his eyelashes at her.
“When exactly did I do that?” Had she finally tangled the sheets with Chase and not even remembered it?
A pained expression took over his face. “It was that forgettable?”
Her cheeks burned. “Well, I…” She remembered wanting to kiss him and see him naked, but she didn’t remember actually doing either of those things.
Clapping a hand to his jaw, he focused his gaze in the direction of his feet. “Jeez,” he sighed, using her slang, “I guess I’m going to have to study the manual again.” He leaned back against the pillow, rolling his eyes. “I practice and practice…”
He rolled over, pushed himself up on his elbows, and moved his head close to hers. “I don’t take advantage of unconscious women, Summer.”
Pulling himself out of the sleeping bag, he stood up. She had long wondered whether he’d wear boxers or briefs. Trust him to choose something in between, a close-fitting type of gray knit underwear that hugged his buttocks and muscular thighs.
He retrieved his jeans from the floor. “Keep staring like that and you’re going to see more than just my shorts.”
“A little more?” she teased. “Or a lot?”
“Hey, they don’t call me a special agent for nothing.”
“You do gymnastic tricks or something?”
“More like magic.”
“Show me.”
He groaned. “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.” He jammed his feet, sockless, into his boots. “If the President calls, I’ll be in the small conference room, the one with the half moon on the door.” The door slammed behind him. It sounded like he was descending the ladder three rungs at a time. She should have told him that it was all right to pee off the balcony.
Should she take her T-shirt off? Wait for Chase to do it? A delicious thought. Then she had a sudden vision of the tight neckline getting hung up on her chin or nose. Decidedly unsexy. She ripped the T-shirt off, tossed it in a corner, studied her bra and panties with dismay. White cotton. She wished she were wearing the peach-colored lace set at the bottom of her underwear drawer.
She crawled to her daypack, pulled out the tiny mirror. Surprisingly, the face that looked back was not too bad. Her lower lip was still swollen and dusky, but if she ignored the stitches, the injury gave her kind of a sexy, hard-kissed look. She squeezed a dab of mint toothpaste onto her tongue and ran it around her mouth, sniffed her armpits, finger-combed her tangled hair. Then she slid back into the sleeping bag, pulled the quilted nylon up to hide the utilitarian bra, arranged herself as if casually lounging against the pillow.