Cold Dawn

by Carla Neggers

  In his place, Rose thought, she’d probably do the same.

  She started the Jeep, picturing the backpack and sleeping bag in the shed. Had Derek planned to camp there, waiting for her? He wouldn’t have come to her house. He’d have known she wouldn’t have let him in. Out at the boarded-up farmhouse on the river, he’d have been able to catch her by surprise, force her to talk to him. But why now? Why after a year?

  Nick.

  Had Derek found out Nick was in town and would come to see her?

  But how would he know, and why would he care?

  I still care about you, Rose.

  She knew better. Derek had never cared about her in any of the ways that mattered.

  She pushed back her questions and circled around the common—the children and their teachers still hard at work on their snowmen—and drove out toward the lake and Bowie O’Rourke, hoping this time Nick Martini wouldn’t follow her.

  Four

  Rose navigated the dirt road—now covered in snow and ice—along the shore of a spring-fed glacial lake a few miles outside the village and pulled in behind Bowie O’Rourke’s mud-and-salt-encrusted van. He’d parked in front of the dozen small, run-down cabins on twenty acres that her father had left to Jo Harper, a shock to everyone in Black Falls, including Rose. She sometimes wondered if he’d suspected, at least intuitively, that his end was near and had deliberately put Jo into close proximity to Elijah, his second-born son, who had built a house just through the woods while on visits home from the army.

  Leaving Ranger cozy in the back of her Jeep, Rose picked her way along an icy path to the cabin where Jo and Elijah had holed up when they ran off together as teenagers. An angry, frustrated Drew Cameron had discovered them. Jo, the daughter of the Black Falls police chief, had just graduated from high school. Elijah, a year older, had been knocking around town, aimless. After their three days on the lake had been disrupted, Elijah left Black Falls for boot camp and a career in the Special Forces, Jo for college and the Secret Service.

  The cabin door was open, and Rose found Bowie inside, wearing his usual bright orange sweatshirt, complete with stains and tears, and baggy work pants. His black lab, Poe, was curled up on the sagging floor. Bowie was as tall and broad-shouldered as his cousin Liam, although their similarities ended there. Bowie had grown up in tougher circumstances, and his ready fists and impatience with bullies had put him on the wrong side of the law, as recently as last March when he’d stood up for Hannah in his cousin’s bar.

  And for me, Rose thought.

  Another of her secrets.

  “Hey, Rose,” Bowie said, standing up from an open metal toolbox. “Where’s Ranger?”

  “Asleep in my Jeep.”

  “Afraid Poe would corrupt him?”

  She reached down and rubbed the lab’s stomach, then stood up straight again. “Poe’s a great dog. He misbehaves from time to time, but that’s not his fault.”

  “It’s because I haven’t trained him.”

  She smiled. “Exactly. You haven’t trained him because you don’t care if he misbehaves.”

  “True, provided he doesn’t bite small children, which he doesn’t.” Bowie shook his head, taking in the one-room cabin and its old, musty furnishings. “Jo’s crazy. She should bulldoze all these cabins and sell the land to you Camerons. The lodge could use some lakefront.”

  Black Falls Lodge was straight up the wooded hill behind the cabins. “Maybe she’s nostalgic.”

  “Nostalgic? Jo?”

  Rose ran her fingertips over the red-and-white-checked vinyl cloth that covered a rickety square table under the front window. “You know why I’m here, Bowie.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do. A couple of state troopers just left. They can’t say for sure it was Cutshaw you found, but they know.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “I answered their questions. I have nothing to hide. I’m not going to pretend I like Cutshaw any better now than I did this morning before I knew he was dead.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “The fight at Liam’s place last year, at least as far as I know.” Bowie placed a measuring tape encased in yellow plastic in his toolbox. “I’m on probation. I’m supposed to avoid alcohol, trouble and troublemakers.”

  Rose looked out at the lake, still and frozen in the winter sun. She could feel Bowie’s eyes on her and turned to him.

  “You have to back off and let the police do their job,” he said, shutting his toolbox with the toe of his boot. “I have to check the rest of the cabins. Jo wants an idea of what she’s up against. She knows. She just needs to hear it from someone else. Then Elijah’s got some stonework for me to look at over at his place.”

  “Do you think Jo and Elijah will come back to Black Falls to live?”

  “Eventually.” He lifted his toolbox as if it weighed nothing. “Rose—”

  “I’m okay, Bowie. I have some work I can do at home, and Lauren and I are planning winter fest weekend at the lodge. Have you heard from Hannah lately?”

  “Emails once in a while. None today.” He jerked at thumb at Poe, who eagerly jumped up next to him. “Does she know about the fire yet?”

  “I haven’t talked to her.”

  Nick could have called Sean by now and he could have told Hannah. Rose was aware of Bowie watching her in silence. He knew about her brief, troubled relationship last winter with Derek Cutshaw but nothing about Nick.

  “Rose?”

  “I’m on my way to the lodge,” she said. “A.J. will have heard about the fire and likely have told Sean and Elijah. I don’t need those three worrying about me.”

  “Not much you can do to stop them. Why’s it so bad to have your big brothers worry about you?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Who said you couldn’t?” With his free hand, Bowie scratched Poe’s head. “How’d Ranger do with the fire?”

  “He was confused at first, but he figured it out. He wasn’t expecting to find a body. Neither was I.”

  “You two make a good team.”

  “I think so.”

  “But he’s a dog,” Bowie said with just the slightest hint of a smile.

  Rose forced herself to smile back at him. “A dog is the best friend a woman could have, short of a stonemason willing to go to prison to save her reputation—”

  “I wasn’t willing. It just worked out that way. I didn’t have to take the fight with Cutshaw as far as I did.”

  “You kept him from blurting out about my past with him.” She watched a small clump of snow fall off the toe of her right boot and melt onto the cabin’s worn floor. “Derek was a huge mistake on my part, but he also exaggerated and outright made things up about us. You stopped him from telling lies about me that I’d never have lived down—that would have hurt me professionally.”

  “It’s okay, Rose,” Bowie said gently. “I don’t need to know the details. I didn’t last year, and I don’t now.”

  She looked up at him. He’d been Hannah’s friend and defender since childhood, and now he was hers. He’d seen her and Derek together at Killington and had warned her to steer clear of him. By then, she’d already broken off with him. Derek had been volatile, possessive and verbally abusive, turning a few dates into far more than they’d ever been. Embarrassed by her bad judgment, determined to get on with her life, she hadn’t wanted anyone to know. Bowie had kept her secret.

  Then came the fight at O’Rourke’s and Bowie’s arrest, and her father’s death a few weeks later. She’d retreated into silence and solitude, focusing on her work.

  Except for that night last June in Beverly Hills with Nick Martini.

  “I would have told the police about Derek and me after your arrest last year,” she said.

  Bowie shrugged. “It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  “You don’t have to hide anything on my account.”

  “I know that, Rose. Go on. Go see A.J. Better he hears the full story about this morning from you than from someone else
.”

  She grinned suddenly. “Just what I need, another big-brother type trying to boss me around.”

  “Like anyone can boss you around. And I’m no Cameron. Not a chance. Call me if you need me.” He opened the cabin door, the sunlight catching the ends of his dark curly hair as he gave her a serious look. “I didn’t have anything to do with Cutshaw’s death. I’m sorry it happened. I really am. I didn’t like him and didn’t want anything to do with him, but he should have had a chance to mellow.”

  Rose placed a hand on Bowie’s muscular upper arm. “We don’t know what happened today. Be careful, okay?”

  “Yeah. You, too.”

  He headed outside, and she glanced at the old iron bed, the oak veneer dresser and mismatched chairs, the crooked door to the bathroom. In the months after she’d inherited the cabins, Jo Harper had let friends, mostly in law enforcement, borrow them for a week or long weekend here and there. In November, after Charlie Neal, the vice president’s genius sixteen-year-old son, played a prank on her and she ran into trouble with the Secret Service, she retreated to the best of the lot until things in Washington could cool down.

  Elijah had been home from war, a hundred yards up the lake. Now Jo was wearing the diamond ring he’d bought for her fifteen years ago, when he was nineteen and she was eighteen.

  Rose shut the door tight behind her, barely noticing the cold on her walk back to her Jeep. Ranger sat up and yawned as she got behind the wheel. “Funny how things work out sometimes, isn’t it, buddy?”

  He slumped back down, and she turned the Jeep around and headed back to the main road.

  Next stop, Black Falls Lodge and her brother A.J.

  With any luck, Nick wouldn’t be there.

  When Rose arrived at the lodge, she didn’t see Nick’s rented car in the parking lot. She gave Ranger a quick walk, again not bothering with her hat and gloves. She paused and squinted out at the white-covered mountains in the distance. Up closer, she noticed a few cross-country skiers on the groomed trails in the meadow behind the lodge. If she’d brought Ranger here this morning instead of to the Whittaker place, who would have discovered Derek’s body? Would he even have gone out there?

  Would he be alive now?

  She shivered in the cold and headed inside with Ranger.

  She was surprised to find Brett Griffin, one of Derek’s two friends who’d been in the fight at O’Rourke’s last year, standing in front of the stone fireplace in the lobby. Ranger flopped down next to him.

  “It definitely was Derek,” Brett said, his voice quavering as he stared at the fire, flames rising from logs cut from managed woodlots on lodge property. He didn’t seem to notice the heat. His light brown hair curled below the line of his jaw, and he wore a heavy wool sweater and wind pants that were baggy on his lanky frame. “The police found me at Harper Four Corners and told me. I was taking pictures for a photography project I’m working on….” He trailed off, his anguish obvious.

  “I’m sorry, Brett,” Rose said, suppressing her own emotions. “I know Derek was a friend.”

  Ranger placed his head on Brett’s boot. Brett smiled, as if forcing himself to focus. “I guess I’m still in shock. I’ve only been back in Black Falls a few weeks. I’m house-sitting up the road for one of my ski students. It’s perfect, or so I thought.”

  “Have you seen much of Derek since you’ve been back?”

  “No, not really. I haven’t had much to do with him since last winter. I thought he was going to stay in Colorado, but he had established contacts in Vermont. I ran into him at Okemo last week. He seemed good.” Brett faltered, glancing back at the fire. “I know we weren’t favorites around here.”

  Rose placed a hand on the back of one the comfortable, overstuffed chairs arranged in front of the fire. “People know you weren’t a big part of the fight last year. You didn’t harass Hannah.”

  “I didn’t stop Derek.”

  “When you saw him, did he mention he wanted to talk to me or that he planned to go out to the Whittaker place?”

  “No, nothing like that. We just talked about skiing. Damn. This is awful.” Brett eased his foot out from under Ranger’s head. “Just what you all need.”

  “Never mind us. We’ll get through it.”

  “Finding him this morning must have been hard on you.”

  “It was,” she said softly.

  Brett didn’t speak for a moment. The fire crackled, glowing chunks of a log shifting as it burned. “Derek liked you, Rose. He never got into whatever went on between you two last winter, but I know he felt bad about it.”

  Suddenly feeling warm, she unzipped her jacket. “None of that matters now.”

  “I guess it doesn’t. It’s hard to believe he’s dead.” Brett pointed to the lobby door. “I should go.”

  “I can run you up the road if you’d like.”

  He gave a faint smile. “The exercise will do me good.” He lifted a down vest off the back of a chair and shrugged it on, then snapped it up, his hands steady but his movements slow, as if every snap were a struggle. When he finished, he looked at Rose, tears shining in his pale gray eyes. “I know that fight at O’Rourke’s last year wasn’t Derek’s first or his last. He could be a real bastard. What if someone had it in for him?”

  “Who would?” Rose asked. “Just because some people didn’t like him doesn’t mean anyone wanted him dead.”

  Brett pulled a knitted hat from his vest pocket but didn’t put it on, just held it bunched up in one hand. “Rose…do you think there’s any chance Derek killed himself? I don’t mean to be so blunt, but if his death wasn’t an accident, then maybe it was suicide and not murder.”

  “I don’t know what happened to Derek.”

  “Of course you don’t. Sorry. Damn, this isn’t what I expected when I got up this morning. I’ll be around. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” His cheeks reddened with embarrassment. “As if there would be. You Camerons can take care of yourselves, that’s for sure. I’ll see you later.”

  He left quickly, mumbling hello as he passed A.J. coming in.

  Rose watched her older brother walk stiffly to the stone fireplace. He patted Ranger, then grabbed a log from a copper box, pulled back the screen in front of the fire and set the log on the red-hot coals. “It’s quiet around here,” he said, replacing the screen. “Midweek, not that many guests. Most everyone’s out enjoying the good weather.”

  “A.J.—”

  He held up a hand and turned to her, his back to the fire. “I should have stopped you from going out to the Whittaker place from the beginning. I didn’t understand why you wanted to, but I wasn’t going to come between you and your work—you and Ranger.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  She could see the pain in A.J.’s blue eyes, which so reminded her of their father. “You must be beat. Have you had lunch?”

  “I had something at the café. I just wanted to stop by before I head home.”

  “You shouldn’t be alone, Rose. Why don’t you stay here tonight? Your favorite room’s available. Or you can stay with us at the house.” He seemed to make an effort to smile. “The kids love their aunt Rose.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll be fine at home. I’ll have Ranger—”

  “Ranger’s great, but he’s still a dog.”

  Normally she’d have come back with a retort, but she didn’t have one.

  A.J. sighed and unzipped his canvas coat. “I talked to Elijah. He’s debating whether to head back up here. He says he’s not getting much done in D.C., anyway.”

  “What about Sean?” Rose asked.

  “Nick Martini had already called him.” A.J.’s gaze narrowed slightly. “I assume you know Nick’s staying here.”

  “I do, yes,” she said, keeping her tone neutral.

  “He was just here. He grabbed a sandwich and took off again. He didn’t say where he was going. He drove. That’s all I know.”

  Rose glanced down at Ranger, settled in comfortably on the he
arth. She could hear the suspicion and curiosity in her brother’s voice, but he wouldn’t ask her outright if there was anything personal between her and Nick. She’d wondered last week when Sean was in town if he had begun to suspect, but he hadn’t said anything. Of her three brothers, Elijah was the most likely to flat-out interrogate her about her love life, but they all kept a watchful eye on her, especially since their father’s death. Now Nick would be facing her brothers’ scrutiny.

  Would he even care?

  Probably not, Rose thought.

  She couldn’t imagine where he’d gone. To confer with the firefighters on the scene that morning? To pry information about her from people in town?

  She could hear the squeals and laughter of small children down the hall and knew they were from Jim and Baylee, her four-year-old nephew and two-year-old niece.

  A.J. took in a shallow breath. “Lauren’s having a hard time with this,” he said, referring to his wife of five years.

  “I’m sorry, A.J.”

  “Never mind. We’ll get through it. Take care of yourself, Rose. Let us know if there’s anything we can do.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  He left her by the fire to join his wife and children in the dining room. Rose quickly got Ranger onto his feet, acknowledging with a little jolt of surprise as they headed out that she felt better for having seen her brother. She didn’t lack for offers of company, friendship, solidarity and even protection, but she was looking forward to being back on her hill, alone, with her dog.

  She drove out to Four Corners and turned up Cameron Mountain Road. Her small house was tucked onto a hillside, with expansive views of the surrounding mountains and valley. Anyone could stand at the top of her driveway with a pair of binoculars and see people getting in and out of cars in the Black Falls Lodge parking lot.

  Which was what Lowell Whittaker had done in November.

  He’d waited, watching for Melanie Kendall, one of his hired killers, to get into her car. When she did, he’d set off the crude pipe bomb he’d assembled and placed under the driver’s seat. She’d screwed up an assignment and the penalty was death.