Cold Dawn

by Carla Neggers

  “I know it’s difficult,” Rose said quietly.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get out of here.” He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you two were here. I thought I wanted to do this alone, but I see now I was wrong.”

  “I can drive you down to your car.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not far. The walk will do me good.”

  Nick waited until he was out of earshot around the other side of the shed before he spoke. “Griffin seems to get along with you. Does he know about you and Cutshaw?”

  “There was no me and…” Rose stopped herself, hearing the defensiveness in her tone. “Some. Not as much as Robert.”

  “Either one of them date local women?”

  “Not that I know of. I thought from something Brett said that he might be interested in Beth but he said no. I don’t know him or Robert that well.”

  Nick picked up the brick that had been propping open the shed door and set it inside, then shut the door. “You’d all let a newcomer like Brett in?”

  “It’s not a question of ‘newcomer,’” Rose said. “Most of the people I know in town take newcomers one at a time, if that’s where you’re going with this. Derek, Robert and even Brett hurt their chances by what they did last year at O’Rourke’s, but nobody would hold it against them forever.”

  “Bowie and his cousin Liam would,” Nick said without hesitation. “So would Sean. What about you?”

  “I told you. I wasn’t there.” She looked through the woods, down at the frozen river, and noticed deer tracks disappearing down the hill. “Derek found me up at the falls on Cameron Mountain about this time last year. I was training Ranger. It wasn’t as cold and as windy as it is today. It was one of those mild late February days that make you think spring is closer than it is.”

  She could feel Nick behind her. “What happened?”

  “He was in a rage because I’d told him I didn’t want to see him again. Saying we broke up is too strong, at least in my mind. I always knew we weren’t meant to be together forever.” She shivered, then turned to Nick. “Anyway, Derek stomped and swore at me and got nasty and pathetic. Then he left.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “He tried to grab my arm. I backed off and tripped, and Ranger jumped between us.”

  Nick came up next to her. “Good for Ranger.”

  “When I picked myself up out of the snow, Derek was gone. I wasn’t hurt. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Did he stalk you? Threaten you?”

  She shook her head. “He more or less left me alone after that,” she said.

  “What does ‘more or less’ mean?”

  “It means he didn’t do anything that would have made me go to the police.”

  “Or tell your family and friends,” Nick said.

  She didn’t answer.

  He didn’t back off. “Bowie knew?”

  Snow blew off the shed roof into her face. “He ran into Derek when he was still raging about my having stood up to him at the falls. Derek bragged about things that never happened between us. He wanted to get under Bowie’s skin because he knew we were friends.”

  “So Bowie was ready for a fight that night at O’Rourke’s.”

  “He thinks his presence provoked Derek to start in on Hannah in the first place. Derek was spoiling for a fight.” Rose signaled Ranger to come to her side. “It’s complicated.”

  “Not that complicated,” Nick said. “It’s a small town. Your brothers were there. Cutshaw wanted to hurt you. You’re a trusted canine search-and-rescue expert. All he had to do was lie or exaggerate, and you’d be hurt.”

  “What happened between Derek and me was bad enough without him making up stuff.” She glanced back at the ell of the shed where he’d died, smelled the burned wood. “I told the police everything.”

  “Was Cutshaw interested in search-and-rescue work?”

  “He wanted to get into mountain rescue, but he wanted it for his ego, which is exactly the wrong reason.”

  Nick studied her a moment. “Did your father know what went on between you two?”

  “I don’t know. He asked me if I was okay not long after Derek came after me at the falls. It wasn’t like Pop. I said yes, and that was the end of it.”

  Her throat tight with emotion, Rose signaled to Ranger to heel and headed briskly with him around to the front of the shed.

  Nick kept up with them and eased in next to her behind the farmhouse. He nodded to the boarded-up back door. “Did Sean run in through the back when he saved Bowie from the fire?”

  “Yes.” Rose crossed her arms against the cold. “Bowie grabbed Vivian Whittaker after Lowell set off a bomb on the second floor and ran downstairs with her. She thanked him by tripping him and leaving him to burn to death. Who’d ever know? She wanted him to take the fall for Lowell.”

  “Sean got Bowie out of there,” Nick said, pensive. “That’s not as easy to do as it looks in the movies. It’s an older house. Always a nightmare for firefighters.”

  “It was built by a wealthy New York couple who loved Black Falls and were nothing like the Whittakers. It’s always been owned by people from out-of-state. Not many people here could afford it.”

  “The Camerons?”

  “Not unless we turned it into something that could produce an income. It’d be a risky investment.”

  “A challenge.”

  Rose smiled, her tension lessening. “Maybe that’s why you’re a multimillionaire. Do you love any of the buildings you and Sean have bought?”

  “We don’t invest in a property we don’t love. We’ve refurbished some historic beauties. We’re looking into a grande dame of an old hotel in Beverly Hills right now. Hannah loves it.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “But it’s still business,” Nick said.

  “It has to be. You and Sean had a fire in a building last winter. I hadn’t thought about that. Did Jasper investigate?’

  “Not at the time. Afterward.”

  “Because of his serial arsonist?”

  A strong gust of wind howled and whistled in the trees. “It’s cold,” Nick said, heading back onto the walk. “Let’s go.”

  They returned to her Jeep. Ranger hopped in the back, agile and eager, no sign of stiffness.

  A mile down the riverside road, Nick settled back in his seat. “What’s on your mind, Rose?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said skeptically.

  She gripped the wheel. “I was thinking about driving up to Killington to check out the house Robert and Derek rented together.”

  “Bad idea.”

  She sighed, the emotion of being back at the scene of Derek’s death—reliving the weeks they’d seen each other—still weighing on her. “I have some work to do at my house. I’ll drop you off at the lodge.”

  “I can keep myself busy at your place. I’ll chop wood.”

  “When’s the last time you chopped wood?”

  He grinned at her. “You just forgot I’m a rugged smoke jumper, didn’t you? I can wield an ax. You insist on always imagining me in a tux at a five-star Beverly Hills hotel.”

  “Wrong, Nick.”

  “Ah. So you also imagine me in the shower.”

  She felt a jolt of pure sexual awareness. The shower. Great. Just what she needed. If she hadn’t been imagining him naked thirty seconds ago, she was now, which, she suspected, had been his goal.

  Was he imagining her naked in the shower?

  She ground the gears turning onto the main road into the village and tried not to look at him. So much for being a private person. Now Nick knew about Derek, and Sean, Hannah and everyone else knew about Nick. She had no secrets left.

  Maybe it was just as well, she thought. Maybe now she could put the pain and mistakes of the past year behind her.

  She glanced at Nick, saw the scrape and bruise on the side of his head and realized that nothing would be behind her, nothing would be over, until he had his answe
rs. Until he was satisfied that Jasper Vanderhorn’s serial arsonist—his killer—wasn’t in Vermont.

  Fourteen

  Beverly Hills, California

  Grit woke up and checked his BlackBerry. He didn’t have any emails, text messages or voice mails from anyone but Admiral Jenkins, his boss, who’d left one of each at around one in the morning East Coast time. Grit eyed the email subject heading: Los Angeles?

  Apparently the admiral didn’t like Grit’s choice of airport.

  Nothing anyone could do about it now. Grit deleted all three messages.

  He went through his routine to put on his prosthesis and headed down the hall to the kitchen. It was a bright, beautiful morning in Beverly Hills. No one was around. He figured Sean was off making money or putting out fires, but he noticed Hannah and Beth were out by the pool. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was just after ten. Later than he thought.

  He ventured outside for coffee, fruit, cheese and cute mini-muffins at a sunny table by the pool. While he was listening to Beth describe a discussion back in Black Falls between foodie Dominique Belair and Washington reporter Myrtle Smith over the virtues of different varieties of peaches, Grit received a series of text messages—one after another—from Charlie Neal. They came through under an obvious alias, but Grit wasn’t even curious how Charlie had pulled them off.

  Each message included a piece of the address for his sister Marissa’s actor ex-boyfriend, Trent Stevens.

  Grit didn’t text Charlie back.

  Hannah and Beth were dressed in shorts and T-shirts, Hannah’s legs slightly less pale than Beth’s. Both had obviously slathered on sunscreen. Grit, who was in civilian cargo pants and a polo shirt, didn’t bother. He wasn’t spending the day by the pool.

  “It was cool last week,” Hannah said.

  “It’s cool this week,” he said. “You two just think it’s warm because you’re used to it being four degrees.”

  “You did your SEAL training out here,” Beth said, holding a bunch of grapes in her lap.

  “Not in Beverly Hills.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I know not in Beverly Hills.”

  “I don’t scare you, do I?”

  “What?”

  He grinned and helped himself to a strawberry. “Never mind. I trained down the road on Coronado. What’re you two doing today?”

  “Hannah’s studying this morning,” Beth said. “I’ll hang out here. Then we’re doing a ladies’ lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. You’re welcome to join us.”

  “I’m not a lady.”

  Another roll of the eyes. Grit figured Beth Harper deserved sunlight, warmth and time away from Vermont, given the stresses of the past winter. She’d been on the search team that had hiked up the remote north side of Cameron Mountain when one of Lowell Whittaker’s paid killers had pinned down Jo, Elijah, Hannah’s brother Devin and another teenager—the stepdaughter of a murdered ambassador—in a tiny cabin.

  By the time Beth arrived, the killer, a brutal type named Kyle Rigby, was dead. Elijah had shot him while Jo provided cover from the cabin and kept the two teenagers alive.

  Trooper Thorne had been on the team that morning.

  Beth was the second daughter of a Black Falls retired police chief, one of the co-owners of Three Sisters Café and, from what Grit had seen during his days in Black Falls, close to her firefighter brother and federal agent sister. But right now, Beth looked very alone to him.

  Hannah gave Grit a bright smile. “What are you doing today?”

  “I have a few errands to run before I head to Coronado. Should be interesting. I haven’t been this far from my physical therapist since they wheeled me into Bethesda.”

  Beth plucked a grape off her bunch and popped it in her mouth. “You’ll be fine.”

  “You’re a hard-bitten Yankee woman, Beth Harper,” Grit teased her, good-humored, as he got to his feet.

  “I was being encouraging.”

  He laughed and headed back inside. It was a nice house. Generally it took a lot for him to notice such things. He was digging out his phone to call a cab when Beth appeared at his elbow. “Sean’s loaned me a car,” she said. “I can take you where you want to go.”

  “What about your ladies’ lunch?”

  “Hannah said she can use the extra study time. We’ll go tomorrow.”

  “You could just give me the keys,” Grit said.

  “Nope. Can’t. The idea of driving the streets of Beverly Hills with a disabled Navy SEAL scares the hell out of me.”

  “No, it doesn’t. You’re looking for distractions. In my experience, that, combined with car keys, is a recipe for problems.”

  “Add jet lag and unfamiliar roads and it all cancels out,” Beth said. “I’ll have to concentrate.”

  Who was he to argue with such logic?

  Grit followed Beth to the garage and took the passenger seat of an expensive sedan while she got behind the wheel and snapped on her seat belt. He thought about getting her to talk about Rose Cameron, but she hadn’t been kidding about the jet lag and unfamiliar roads. Even after a week in Southern California, she said, she wasn’t used to the three-hour time difference. He had a feeling she just didn’t want to admit she’d been sleeping badly since Trooper Thorne had gone back to Vermont early.

  “Didn’t you think Beverly Hills would be flatter?” she asked as she careened around a sharp, downhill curve.

  “No. It’s got ‘hills’ in the name.”

  “There are hills and there are hills. Where are we going?”

  Grit checked the directions Charlie had obsessively provided. “Two lefts and a right.”

  They came to a square, three-story stucco apartment building off Wilshire. Beth pulled into a small parking area out back. Grit got out. His left leg was doing better after his flight but still ached. He had instructions from PT on what to do about any kind of discomfort, rash or swelling that flared up.

  “You can wait here,” he said to Beth.

  “I get bored fast.” She pushed open her door and got out. “Who are we going to see—some SEAL buddy of yours?”

  He glanced back at her. He really should have told her to keep her lunch date with Hannah. She didn’t need to be with him. “An actor,” he said. “A friend of a friend.”

  She looked skeptical. From what he’d seen of her, she had good instincts about people, undoubtedly including him. Her big sister, Jo, was the same, although Charlie had gotten the better of her with his prank last fall.

  Then again, Charlie got the better of most people.

  Grit went ahead of Beth to a rear apartment on the corner of the first floor. A little hybrid car was in what appeared to be the apartment’s designated parking space. On the cracked concrete landing, a basket with dried-up red flowers poking out of it hung from a hook.

  “Is that a flower that needs a lot of water?” he asked Beth.

  “How would I know? I’m a paramedic.”

  “That doesn’t mean you don’t know flowers.”

  “They’re red,” she said. “They look like they need more water than they’ve been getting.”

  He glanced back at her. “You’re not going to be much help, are you?”

  She didn’t answer. He stepped onto the landing and reached to press the rusted doorbell, but Beth grabbed his arm.

  He knew why. He’d smelled it, too. It wasn’t strong, but he recognized the sickly, tangy-sweet smell of rotting human flesh.

  “Call 911,” Beth said. “Someone’s dead in there.”

  “You call.” Grit turned to her, serious now. “Okay? Do it now.”

  He tried the doorknob. The door was unlocked. He heard Beth’s sharp breath behind him but ignored her and went in.

  A woman lay sprawled on her back on the kitchen floor. She was young, about five-four, with wide hips and a flat stomach and long, straight hair as black as Grit’s.

  She’d been dead for some time, at least a couple of days.

  “Looks like she was electrocut
ed,” Beth said, tight. “See her hands? Burned.”

  Grit pointed at a stainless-steel electric kettle turned over on the tile floor by the counter. Bare wires poked out of the bottom of the pot. “Well, well. Some son of a bitch stripped the wires, set them between the heating element and the pot…. She grabs the pot for a nice cup of tea and she’s toast.”

  “Literally.” Beth was grim as she nodded to a sponge mop standing in a bucket of water. “She’d been cleaning the floors, too. Water and electricity don’t mix.”

  Not an accident, Grit thought.

  Beth called 911, identified herself and calmly, professionally described the emergency, but when Grit started into the adjoining living room, she waved frantically at him. He ignored her. They’d already contaminated the crime scene, and how did they know there wasn’t another victim—someone who might be alive and need their help?

  No one was in the living room. Grit ducked down a short hall and checked the one bedroom and bathroom, then returned to the living room and checked the door there, which led to a hall and the building’s front entrance.

  There were no other victims and no obvious signs of an intruder.

  The apartment wasn’t neat. It was decorated with white shag carpets and bright, cheap artwork, with a state-of-the-art media setup.

  The dead woman hadn’t gotten far with her cleaning. Grit considered that she might not be an outside housekeeper. Maybe she was bunking in with Trent and it had just been her turn with the mop.

  So where was he?

  A corkboard above the dining table was covered with photos of a very good-looking, fair-haired man in his earlier thirties. Grit helped himself to one and tucked it in his back pocket as he dialed Jo Harper on his cell phone.

  She didn’t bother with a hello. “How’s California?” she asked him.

  “Well, it’s like this, Jo. I’m in a small, stuffy apartment in Beverly Hills. The tenant’s not here but a dead woman is.”

  He heard her breathe in through clenched teeth. “Damn, Grit. You weren’t supposed to go out there and find a body.”