Cold Dawn

by Carla Neggers

  The sun rose over the horizon and sparkled on the snow, the sky turning to a clear, cold blue. She’d dressed in layers and was warm in her windproof and insulated outdoor clothing, but she’d left her ready pack in her Jeep. She and Ranger weren’t here on a mission. She patted him on his broad head. He was patient but paying close attention to the situation. They had encountered charred conditions in their work together, although not since last summer in Southern California.

  Now wasn’t the time to think about that experience.

  Rose noticed the door to the shed was padlocked. Lowell Whittaker had stacked cordwood out front, playing the congenial new neighbor while inside the shed he’d assembled at least three different crude pipe bombs.

  She stood back from the door. The unoccupied buildings, the fire damage and the mix of open space, woods and river provided a challenging environment for keeping her high-energy search-and-rescue dog exercised and on top of his game. For the past six weeks, every Wednesday at dawn, and sometimes more often, they’d headed out whatever the weather—rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain, fog, frigid temperatures. Except for the occasional passing car or truck, they’d never encountered a soul.

  Could someone have camped out here, or stopped to check out where a wealthy killer mastermind had lived—where two homemade bombs had gone off?

  The doors to the house were covered up with plywood. Getting in would require a crowbar or ax. The temperature was just in the upper teens now, but Rose wondered if the wet, warmer conditions over the past few days had brought out the smells of smoke and burnt wood.

  Ranger raised his head, nose in the air as he sniffed, alerting to a fresh scent. She gave him a signal to follow the scent. He moved quickly, leading her onto a narrow, icy path that circled around to an ell off the back of the shed, facing the woods above the river.

  Her normally playful, inquisitive golden barked fiercely, stopping at the solid wood door to the ell. Rose saw that it was ajar, its padlock broken in half.

  The scent of smoke was sharp, nauseating.

  She got Ranger back to her left side and signaled for him to stay. He sat on the path, panting but quiet, and she tapped the door, opening it farther. If any part of the shed had burned in January, she’d have heard about it.

  She peered inside. The sun didn’t reach the solitary eyebrow window high up on the back wall, and her eyes weren’t adjusted to the dim light inside.

  She kicked the door open wider, letting in more light and gagged at the overpowering odor of burnt flesh, burnt hair, burnt clothing.

  With a gloved hand over her mouth, Rose stepped onto the threshold. A sleeping bag and a backpack lay on the rough wood floor to the right of the door, as if someone had just popped in and dumped them off. The ell was small, used primarily to store old furniture and seldom-used yard equipment.

  She steeled herself against what she knew she would see and, remembering her training, focused on the task at hand.

  Someone was dead in here, possibly someone she knew.

  Her eyes adjusted to the dim light. In the back corner, the body of a man lay sprawled facedown on the floor. He was clearly dead, badly burned from his waist up, unrecognizable. Bits of glass and metal were embedded in his neck, head and upper torso. Something—a kerosene lamp, perhaps—must have exploded, and he’d taken the full brunt of the ensuing flames and shrapnel.

  The fire appeared to be out. Rose suspected he’d extinguished any flames when he’d hit the floor, either from the impact of the blast or from trying to save himself. He’d almost certainly been dead hours before she and Ranger had left her house in the predawn darkness.

  She could make out strands of dark blond hair that hadn’t burned. He appeared to be about six feet tall and had on insulated pants, thick socks and good boots that were untouched by the flames. Rose noticed he wasn’t wearing a coat and glanced to the side wall, where an expensive parka hung on the back of an old wooden chair.

  Why camp out here, in the cold? How had he gotten here? Had he been hiking in the woods along the river? Had he been lost, unaware of who owned the property, and seized on a dry spot to spend the night?

  Was his death just bad luck?

  Had Lowell left behind a clever little bomb that the victim happened to trigger?

  Rose shook off her questions. A basic tenet of her work was to stick to the facts and not leap ahead. Nothing indicated the man he was, but she knew she needed to let the police check his backpack and coat pockets for identification.

  She stepped back outside, where Ranger was still in position, waiting for her. “Oh, Ranger,” she said quietly. “It’s not a pretty scene in there.”

  She pulled off a glove and dug her cell phone out of a jacket pocket. As part of a regional wilderness search team, she and Ranger generally dealt with lost or injured hikers, Alzheimer’s patients who’d become disoriented, runaways in over their heads in the woods. Shock and hypothermia were usually the biggest concern, but they’d encountered scrapes, bruises, broken bones, head injuries and heart attacks.

  And death, she thought.

  Their disaster work was often intense, but this was different. She’d been caught off guard, and she and Ranger weren’t with a team. They were alone.

  She couldn’t get a cell signal and motioned for Ranger to go with her around to the front of the shed. Lowell Whittaker had used a cell phone to detonate two bombs on his property. There had to be a signal out here somewhere.

  She heard a movement in the woods just as Ranger stiffened and barked once. She quieted him with a hand command and steadied her footing, prepared to run or defend herself. She could grab a hunk of cordwood, a shovel. She wasn’t entirely sure how Ranger would react if she were attacked. He wasn’t trained in apprehension and his work in search and rescue, as well as his temperament, made him comfortable around strangers.

  A shadow fell on the snow and a man walked out from behind a spruce tree.

  Rose took in the short-cropped gray hair, the dark eyes, the strong jaw and lean, fit body and motioned to her golden retriever to remain at her side.

  Sexy, rugged Nick Martini was in Vermont, less than ten yards from a dead man.

  Less than five yards from her.

  “Hello, Rose.”

  His voice was tight, controlled, his gaze narrowed on her. She closed her fingers around her cell phone.

  Eight months ago, they’d fallen into each other’s arms after another fire, another death.

  “Nick,” she said, her own voice tight. “There’s been a fire. A man’s dead.”

  “I know. I saw.”

  “I have to call the police.” She noticed she had a signal and hit 911. “Why are you here?”

  “I was looking for you. I stayed at the lodge last night. A.J. gave me directions here.”

  “A.J.?”

  “Your brother.”

  “I know who he is. In Vermont—why are you in Vermont?”

  “Later.”

  “Is Sean with you?”

  “Sean’s in California.”

  Her call went through and the dispatcher came on. Rose gave him the details, her voice crisp, professional, even as her mind raced with the possibilities of who the victim could be—of why she was standing in Nick Martini’s shadow on a cold, bright Vermont morning.

  “The police are on the way,” she said as she disconnected. She debated calling A.J. but dropped her phone back into her pocket. She’d wait for the police and the firefighters, get through their questions, before she tried to talk to her brother. “Do you know who the victim is?”

  Nick shook his head, his eyes still on her, as if he were taking in every movement she made, every breath she took. “What about you? Any idea who it is?”

  “No, none.” She slipped her gloves back on. “He had a sleeping bag and backpack. He must have planned to camp out in the shed. It looks as if he didn’t have much time to get settled before the fire.”

  “The fire’s been out for a while,” Nick said, not casual
ly but not with a lot of emotion. “It looks as if a kerosene lamp exploded.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, but kerosene wouldn’t just explode like that.”

  “Maybe the lamp wasn’t filled with kerosene.”

  Rose blinked against the bright sun and tried to accustom herself to Nick’s presence. He was dressed warmly, but not for an extended period in cold winter conditions. As if to remind her of the weather, a gust of wind struck her full in the face, numbing her cheeks. Nick had his back to it and seemed not to notice.

  “When did you get here?” she asked him.

  “Just before you did. I parked at the guesthouse. Another car’s parked there. A black Volvo. It has Vermont tags and a several alpine skiing bumper stickers.”

  Rose’s stomach lurched, and she could feel her legs buckling under her.

  A Volvo. Ski stickers.

  Derek.

  “Rose?” Nick’s arm shot out, and he grabbed her by the shoulder, hard, steadying her. “Who does the car belong to?”

  “I can’t say for sure.”

  “Who, Rose?”

  Her jaw ached from tension. “A private ski instructor named Derek Cutshaw.”

  Nick’s intense dark eyes narrowed even more.

  She eased herself from his grasp. “I don’t know it’s Derek. He could have loaned his car to someone. It could be stolen. We can’t jump to conclusions.”

  “If it is this Derek?”

  “We’re not friends, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Nick made no response. He kept his gaze pinned on her, assessing, probing. He was a skilled firefighter and a highly successful businessman in a very tough, competitive world. He was used to scrutinizing people, seeing through them—gauging what was in their minds, if not, Rose thought, in their hearts.

  “He’s not local,” she added in a half whisper. “He’s not from Vermont.”

  Rose didn’t tell Nick that if she’d seen Derek’s car, she’d have turned around and gone home without stopping.

  “Where’s he from?”

  She looked down past the main driveway to the quiet road, avoiding eye contact with Nick. “Colorado, I think.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “There’s nothing else.”

  “Did he know you train Ranger out here?”

  His tone edged close to inquisitorial but she ignored it and gave him a straightforward answer. “It’s not a secret. Ranger’s very familiar with my house and the surrounding area. There are good challenges for him here—the river, the woods, ledges, open ground and, frankly, the fire damage.” She shifted back to Nick and added, keeping her own tone neutral, “And it’s quiet. No disruptions.”

  “Until today.”

  The wind gusted again, blowing through his short hair. His skin was California-tanned. Rose imagined her own was red from the cold. She knew the basics about him, mostly from Sean. Nick’s father was a retired navy captain. His mother was a geology professor. They lived in San Diego. He had one sister, a navy officer. Nick had served on a submarine for six years. After the navy, he’d trained and then worked full-time as a smoke jumper. He and Sean had pooled their resources, bought a run-down building in L.A., renovated it, sold it and turned a profit, thus launching Cameron & Martini. They both continued to fight wildland fires.

  That was how Rose had seen Nick last June: as a firefighter. Only when she’d entered his condo in Beverly Hills had she remembered that he was also a multimillionaire…and her brother’s best friend.

  At least at first. Once Nick had kissed her, she’d forgotten everything else.

  Ranger rubbed against her leg, as if he knew she needed to get her head back in the game.

  Nick touched her chin with a gloved finger, moving her head gently so that she was facing him and couldn’t avert her eyes. “You’re not in good shape, Rose. No BS, okay? Were you meeting this guy, Derek Cutshaw, here?”

  “No.”

  “Were you seeing him?”

  “No, Nick, I wasn’t seeing him.” Not now, she thought. She wished she could say not ever, but it wasn’t true. “Ranger and I have been coming out here at the same time, on the same day, for the past six weeks.” She pulled back from Nick, and he lowered his hand, although his intensity didn’t lessen. “That doesn’t mean Derek—or whoever is back there in the shed—was here to meet me.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “A few weeks ago. In town. We didn’t talk. I hadn’t realized until then he was even in Vermont.”

  A town cruiser barreled around a curve and turned into the main driveway, closely followed by a fire truck and ambulance. Rose felt her mouth and throat go dry as she watched Zack Harper, a firefighter she’d grown up with, jump down from his truck and glance in her direction, as if to say not again.

  A state cruiser pulled in behind the town cruiser. Rose was surprised to see Scott Thorne behind the wheel.

  She glanced at Nick. “I thought Scott was in California with Beth Harper.”

  “He came home early.”

  “When?”

  “Monday night. He only stayed the weekend.”

  Rose frowned. Why hadn’t Beth told her? But that was her friend Beth, a paramedic who was closemouthed about her love life if about nothing else.

  Then again, Rose thought, she was standing next to a man she’d made love to on one wild night, and another man who hadn’t wanted to take no for an answer was likely dead a few yards from her—and almost no one knew about her association with either of them.

  She watched Scott walk up the driveway, grim and ramrod straight in his trooper’s uniform. He was a fair, strongly built man with little sense of humor. Rose hated to see him and Beth go their separate ways, but the violence of the past months had been hard on everyone.

  She wondered if the FBI and the ATF would be next to descend on the scene, perhaps even the Secret Service. Vice President Preston Neal and his wife and five children had visited Black Falls in early February and planned to come for the winter festival at the lodge in a couple of weeks. It was meant to celebrate the last days of winter and to put the violence of the past months behind them.

  Everyone believed Lowell Whittaker’s arrest had put his killer network out of business.

  Rose felt Nick standing close to her. Did he believe it? She remembered him sweeping her into his arms last June, holding her tight as he pushed back the memories of a friend who’d died earlier that day in a wildland fire.

  The friend, Jasper Vanderhorn, had been an arson investigator obsessed with a serial arsonist.

  She turned, facing Nick. “Are you in Vermont because of Jasper? Do you think his serial arsonist followed you and killed Derek?”

  Scott Thorne was within a few yards of reaching them. More police cars and fire trucks arrived. Nick’s expression didn’t change. “Not now,” he said.

  “We’re not done yet, Nick.”

  He fixed his gaze on her. “That’s right. We’re not.”

  Three

  Rose welcomed the cold air as she let Ranger out of the back of her Jeep. She’d parked in front of Three Sisters Café on Main Street, across from the common in the middle of the village of Black Falls. She wondered if Sean had ever tried to explain their hometown to Nick over mojitos by the pool, or looking out at the view of Beverly Hills from their Wilshire Boulevard offices.

  She’d left Nick with two state detectives.

  She snapped a leash on Ranger and, bypassing the café’s main entrance, went into the 1835 brick house through its center-hall door. Sean owned the building. Three of Rose’s friends—“sisters” in spirit—had converted the corner rooms into a breakfast-and-lunch enterprise that few in town had believed would survive six months. Almost two years later, it was thriving.

  Without waiting to be told, Ranger lay down in the hall. He looked tired. Rose had given him a treat and water in the Jeep, but he wasn’t as resilient as he’d been even just a year ago. She suspected he wa
s reacting to her stress as much as his own at the unexpected scene on the river. A body burned beyond recognition. The likelihood that the victim was a man she knew and had hoped was long out of her life.

  Nick’s presence.

  She took off Ranger’s leash, hung it on a peg on the wall and entered the café. The early-morning rush was over, the only customers three middle-aged women fresh from their yoga class up the street. They’d leaned their rolled-up mats against the wall and were enjoying house-made yogurt, fresh fruit and muffins at a table overlooking Elm Street.

  Dominique Belair, one of the café’s three owners, was behind the glass case, her fine dark hair pulled back neatly but her face pale, her brown eyes wide, shining with worry. “I heard about the fire,” she said as she reached for a mug in the café’s evergreen signature color. “Is it true the man who died is Derek Cutshaw?”

  “There hasn’t been a positive ID,” Rose said, pulling off her coat. She’d left her hat and gloves in her Jeep. “His car’s at the guesthouse and footprints lead to the shed where the body was found.”

  “So yes, it’s Derek. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you to go out there expecting a beautiful morning with Ranger and finding…” Dominique shuddered and pointed the mug at the glass case. “You should eat something. Coffee and a scone?”

  Rose had brought a breakfast bar with her to the Whittaker place but hadn’t touched it. Now it was almost lunchtime. She couldn’t imagine eating and yet knew she had to. She nodded and attempted a smile. “That’d be great.”

  Dominique filled the mug from a coffee urn on a counter behind her, then pulled a cinnamon scone off a stack on a tray and set it on a small plate. She handed both the mug and plate to Rose. “Anything else I can get you?”

  “No, thanks,” Rose said. “This is perfect.”

  Dominique started to say something, but another customer entered the café and Rose took her coffee and scone to a table overlooking the river that ran behind the café. She wasn’t sure why she’d come here. To have a few moments to herself, or to be among friends? Or just to avoid being alone at her house, or going up to the lodge and talking to her brother A.J. about what had happened—about Nick Martini and Derek Cutshaw?