Bear Claw Conspiracy

by Jessica Andersen

  Gigi didn’t let herself look back at Matt, didn’t let herself wish for things that weren’t going to happen. Instead, she went into the bathroom, closed the door, turned the luxurious shower to its highest settings, stripped down and climbed in. Then she curled herself into a ball in the corner, pressed her face into her knees and waited for the storm.

  It didn’t come.

  Always before, in the aftermath of terror had come the tears, the emotional outpouring that had, oddly, made her feel normal, as if it said “yes, you’re a woman, not a robot.” She wasn’t fearless, wasn’t nearly as brave as others thought her. But she was good at setting the doubts aside for a few hours, even days, and just dealing.

  At the age of eleven, she had spent three days alone, lost on the Appalachian Trail when a freak storm had separated her from the rest of her family. She had dealt, she had survived and she had eventually found her way back to the main trail. And she hadn’t shed a single tear until she saw her parents and sisters rushing toward her—at which point she had sat down in the dirt and howled.

  It had been like that ever since: she subsumed the fear and did what needed to be done, then weathered the weepy aftermath.

  Only now there weren’t any tears. There was only a hollow, tired ache and the sense that this was the first of the many chases, many adrenaline rushes that would come with being on a crisis response team.

  Which was what she wanted.

  Right?

  But just as she couldn’t summon the emotional release that usually helped her clear her head after she made it through a dangerous situation, she didn’t have an immediate answer to that question.

  She tried to tell herself she was tired, strung out and pent up. Only she didn’t feel all that tired, and she didn’t feel like crying. Instead, she felt alive and alert, and intensely aware of her surroundings. The water was warm, the tiles cool, slick and not very comfortable.

  Finally giving up on the idea of a good crying jag—maybe she just couldn’t let down her guard all the way knowing Matt was out in the other room—she dragged herself upright and finished showering, feeling restless and dissatisfied.

  Too late, she remembered Chelsea’s offer of spare clothes in the bedroom. But there were clean robes folded on a rack, and she couldn’t face putting back on an outfit that stank of fear. Hesitating only briefly, she pulled on one of the robes, belted it firmly, and headed out into the main room, expecting to step from the shower’s fog into cool, dry air.

  She got warm humidity instead, along with the smell of grilled cheese from the kitchen. She stalled at the sight of the filled hot tub under turned-low lights and the flickering illumination of a small fire that provided more ambience than warmth. Motor noise hummed a soothing monotone, jets and bubbles did their thing, frothing the surface of the water, and a Bose radio was tuned to something low and jazzy. There was no sign of Matt, and the bedroom door was closed.

  He had set the scene for luxurious pleasure…and then shut himself away.

  The message was clear: You’ve got your space, I’ve got mine.

  Instead of turning her off or making her angry, it made the gesture that much more poignant. It made her feel cared for, tended to. And it made her ache for him.

  She let out a soft sigh. “He’s right. It’s better this way.”

  She was already in danger of falling hard for the complications and losing sight of what mattered. And he was in a weird place, not yet sure if he wanted to be his old self, some new incarnation, or the loner who disappeared into the backcountry, shutting out the people who wanted to care about him.

  Yeah, the closed door was the right call. But as she headed for the kitchen and found the plate he had fixed for her, along with a cooling cup of herbal tea, she caught herself eyeing the door, wondering if it was locked. And wondering, too, what would happen if she knocked.

  Don’t go there.

  She didn’t let herself stand near the door and listen, picturing him on the other side doing the same thing. Instead, she took her meal up to the hot tub, debating only briefly before she slipped off her robe and climbed in. The warmth surrounded her instantly with cheerful bubbles that burst against her skin, easing the sting of the day.

  She lay back, closed her eyes and thought about the fading ache of bruises, the noise the crash had made, and the way he had hung on to her at the last minute and shielded her with his body.

  She thought about her condo back in Denver, and how it would feel to be there alone after a day like today.

  She pictured Chelsea and Fax winging through the air in the sleek black helicopter, laughing as they agreed that yes, a bearskin rug would definitely be too much for the safe house.

  She heard the soft cadence of Alyssa’s voice as she and Tucker did the “Hello, McDermott, Forensics, this is McDermott, Homicide,” thing.

  And, finally knowing what she needed to do, she reached for the phone handset that rested near the hot tub’s controls, and used the secure landline to dial out.

  When the call went live, she took a deep breath and said, “Mom? It’s Gigi. I need a reality check.”

  MATT PACED THE BIG bedroom like a cougar behind a chain-link fence: restless, edgy and angry. It was tempting to pretend the frustration came entirely from him wanting to be out there working the case, but he knew damn well that if he was out there he would’ve been wishing himself right back inside the safe house.

  He wanted to be there with her, for her, wanted to watch over her, protect her. But that was the lie cops told themselves, that it was possible for one human being to ensure the safety of another. It was a comforting illusion, one that gave them purpose and kept them going when knives flashed and bullets flew. But it was just an illusion.

  Accidents happened. Crimes happened. People died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Aware that he had his Sig in his hand and was methodically dropping the clip and slapping it home, over and over again in a jittery tic he had conquered by his second month on the job, he set the weapon aside and reached for the phone. Line one was lit, so he punched the second line and went through the motions of getting himself patched into the radio up at his house, resigned to the fact that someone would be there.

  Sure enough, there was an answer right away. “Station Fourteen.”

  So much had happened over the past few days that it took him a few seconds to place the voice. “Jim?”

  “Hey, boss.” Anticipating the question, the younger ranger said, “No, she’s not awake yet. But she’s stable, and her parents flew in, so I figured I’d come back up and put in some hours.”

  Hearing fatigue in the other man’s voice, Matt said, “I hope some of those hours are bunk time. Or I guess couch time.”

  “I can sleep later, once we’ve got these bastards,” Jim said, voice low and fervent. He didn’t really sound like a kid anymore.

  “Yeah. I know how you feel. What’s the latest?”

  “Nothing and more nothing.” The answer was laden with disgust. “There’s no sign of her Jeep anywhere in Sector Fourteen—at least as far as we can tell with the really sketchy air-search time Bert has managed to beg, borrow and steal.”

  “Her attackers must’ve driven it out.”

  “Or stuck it in a cave. Either way, it doesn’t look like that’s going to lead us anywhere.”

  “How about focusing on places you might expect to see a barred eagle?”

  “Your bird guy says we’re looking at only two places in Sector Fourteen—we’re pretty low on copper ore—and a few more in Twelve and Thirteen. Bert is checking them out.”

  “Alone?”

  “Hell, no. The place is crawling with volunteers. The parking lot has gone tent city.”

  Oddly, the thought brought only dull surprise—and gratitude—at the way the ranger crews had banded together and volunteered their time. “Make sure nobody goes off alone.”

  “Yeah.” Jim hesitated. “Is this about Tanya’s old boyfriend, do you
think?”

  Matt’s attention sharpened away from the window, where he’d been blindly staring out at the treeline as the late afternoon edged toward dusk. “Maybe. Why? What do you know about him?”

  “She told me how he died in that jailbreak a couple of years ago. She never said it in so many words, but it seemed to me that she felt like it was her fault, because he wouldn’t have been in Bear Claw if it weren’t for her. I guess he asked her to stay with him back east, even get married, but she wanted to keep skiing and wasn’t sure about the marriage thing, so she came here instead. A couple of months later, he got a job in the ME’s office and followed her. I think she figures that if she hadn’t wanted to ski so badly, they both would’ve stayed back east and he wouldn’t have died.” He paused, then added, “At least not that way.”

  Definitely not a kid anymore.

  “The cops aren’t sure whether or not the murder is connected to what’s going on right now,” Matt said, “but regardless, I want you watching your back, okay?” And even though he was out of the business of managing other people’s lives, he added, “Don’t feel like you have to stay up there, either. It sounds like Bert’s got plenty of help, so you should take all the time you want down at the hospital.”

  “Count on it. I’m planning on being the first thing she sees when she wakes back up. I want her to know how I feel about her right away, and that I’ll be there for her, no matter what.”

  “Okay.” A heavy weight pressed on Matt’s chest. “Good. That’s good.”

  “I spent too much time waiting for her to get over the ex and making sure I knew what I was feeling, and…well. I’m not going to make that mistake again. Just because the timing isn’t perfect doesn’t change the way we feel about each other.”

  Matt tried to tell himself that wouldn’t sound nearly so profound if he weren’t closed in an armored bedroom, elementally aware of the woman on the other side of the door, and the fact that they felt something for each other despite being at completely different places in their lives.

  He cleared his throat. “Okay, kid. Stay safe. And tell Tanya’s family that we’re all pulling for her.”

  “Will do.” Jim signed off and the airwaves went blank, hissing with static. But that was nothing compared to the thoughts buzzing in Matt’s mind as he stood alone in the bedroom, barefoot and wearing the worn black cargo pants and plain white T-shirt he kept in his go bag.

  He didn’t feel like the ranger, or even the cop. It was like those other pieces of him had been temporarily emptied out so he could be someone else for a few hours—maybe even the man he would have become if things had been different.

  But that man also knew he was coming down off an adrenaline high and working on zero sleep. And he couldn’t tell if that was making things more or less clear.

  He wanted Gigi like he wanted his next breath, and he knew that the chemistry went both ways, but the timing was just plain wrong. Her life was poised to explode in new, exciting directions. His life was…well, he didn’t know anymore what it was doing, or where he wanted it to go next, and that was a large part of the problem.

  She was burning up the pavement while he’d been standing still. Even if he got moving now, he wouldn’t be able to catch up and might not be going in the same direction. They might collide, but he didn’t see how they could get in step together.

  Was there a workable solution? Damned if he knew. But one thing was certain: he wasn’t going to last much longer in that bedroom. She was too close, his memories of the chase too fresh. He could be sitting looking down at her lying in a hospital bed like Tanya. Or worse, a casket.

  But they had survived unscathed and for now, at least, they were safe.

  More, Jim’s words about not wanting to wait too long kept colliding with the pins-and-needles sensation that had been chasing Matt ever since he kissed Gigi, the two together letting him know that sometimes it wasn’t possible to wait for the perfect moment, the perfect plan. Hell, he didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what he was expecting. All he knew was that he couldn’t sit in that bedroom alone another minute if there was any chance she was feeling half of what he was.

  Already moving before he was consciously aware of having made the decision, he crossed to the door. He cracked it and heard her voice, opened it all the way and saw her reclining in the hot tub, mostly submerged in bubbles, with her wet hair slicked back from her face, her eyes closed, and her head tipped back against the curving wall of the faux stone surround.

  With the fire in the background, candles around the edges and music carrying just over the water’s burble, the space was a warm, comforting fantasy that put him instantly on edge and told him this wasn’t a good idea, that it was as much an illusion as his peace and quiet had turned out to be.

  He took a big step back and reached for the door. But then he hesitated, empathy tugging when he realized that Gigi might be surrounded by soft luxury, but she didn’t look comforted. She looked stark.

  A woman’s voice emerged from a hidden speaker. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed for you, baby. Call us the minute you hear anything, okay?”

  “I will,” she said softly. “’Bye, Mom. I love you.”

  “We love you, too, sweetie.”

  Those simple, profound words cut through him and left him aching for the things he’d lost. But at the same time, there was a dullness in Gigi’s voice, a sense that she was deeply disappointed.

  The line went dead, but it was a long moment before she sighed and stirred, reaching across to cut the call.

  “She doesn’t know what’s happening out here, does she?” he asked.

  She stiffened, but didn’t do the jerk-gasp-squeak routine he would have expected from so many other women. Instead, she slowly opened her eyes. “How long have you been standing there?”

  He suspected that she meant to glare, but the effect was ruined by an air of quiet unhappiness. It tugged at him, drew him closer, until he was standing at the edge of the hot-tub platform. He was all too aware that her robe was draped nearby, her skin pink beneath the swirling, bubbling water. “Just through the goodbyes. Did you tell her about the fire and the crash?”

  For a second he didn’t think she was going to answer. Then she looked away and sank a little deeper, so the water covered her shoulders. “I was going to—that’s why I called her. I was going to tell her everything, ask her what she thought about…well, all of it. But then she started asking about the academy, all excited for me, and I just couldn’t. It’s taken this long for her to stop asking ‘are you okay?’ right off the bat every time I call. I just…”

  She shrugged, the movement causing ripples in the restless water. “She doesn’t need to worry about me. I can take care of myself.” She paused, lips quirking. “And now you’re going to tell me that someone sure as hell needs to worry about my reckless butt, and how I don’t take care of myself nearly as well as I’d like to think.”

  He might have, but he was caught up in the sudden realization that even though she was surrounded by friends and intimately connected to her family, at the same time she was, in her own way, very isolated.

  Maybe because of that realization, or the strange emptiness inside him and the things Jim had been saying about the dangers of waiting too long, he found that it wasn’t all that hard for him to say what he’d been meaning to say. “You know how I said I would tell you later why I left L.A.?”

  She nodded slowly, eyes sharpening on him.

  “Well, it’s later.” He paused. “That is, if you still want to hear the story.”

  Her lips parted in surprise. She hesitated, and for a second he thought she was going to be the smarter, saner one by turning him down. But then she reached over to dial up more bubbles, obscuring his glimpses of pink skin beneath the water, and patted the soft faux stone beside her.

  “Come and put your feet in, at least,” she said softly. “The water helps.”

  And so, he realized, did the feeling of moving toward somet
hing for a change, rather than walking away.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gigi made herself keep breathing as he levered himself easily up onto the platform and padded toward her, barefoot. His faded black pants had slipped below his hipbones and his white T-shirt clung, dampening in the humid air.

  With any of the fun, insubstantial men she had spent time with over the years, she would have stripped those last few pieces of clothing off him and pulled him, laughing, into the hot tub with her. More, a small, panicked part of her brain said that would be safer than peeling back this layer. Not because she feared she wouldn’t like the man beneath, but because she was badly afraid she would, and she wasn’t sure she could afford it.

  That scared part of her said to run. Instead, she stayed put as he rolled up his pants to reveal masculine, muscular calves and the hint of a small surgical scar below one knee.

  His eyes followed hers and a corner of his mouth kicked up. “I tore my ACL trying to get around this tall, obnoxious guy during a pickup basketball game my freshman year of college. Ian busted me up back then, and he’s been doing it ever since.”

  It was the kind of small detail she had never cared about with other men. Now she stored the information away as he sat beside her, let his feet drop into the water, and braced himself on his palms.

  His entry sent new currents brushing along her body, touching her breasts and thighs. Not that she needed anything to heighten the churning burn of desire. It had taken root the moment she saw him in the bedroom doorway, eyes dark with an emotion she couldn’t name. Didn’t dare.

  Okay, this so wasn’t going to work. “Close your eyes,” she ordered. “And no peeking.”

  When she was pretty sure he had obeyed, she grabbed the robe and climbed out of the hot tub, wrapping the garment around her.

  Then, feeling better armored with a layer of white terry cloth around her rather than bubbles, she sat beside him, slipped her feet into the water beside his, and said, “Okay. Start talking.”