Chasing Fire by Nora Roberts
“Merry-go-round,” she murmured. “Still turning. Stay right here.” This time she drew him close before they slept.
ANOTHER FIRE WOKE HER, the fire that killed, that hunted and destroyed. It growled behind her, pawing at the ground as she ran. She flew through the black, yet still it came, stalking her to the graveyard where the dead lay unburied on the ground. Waiting for her.
Jim’s eyes rolled up in the sockets of the charred skull. “Killed me dead.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Plenty of that going around. Plenty of dragon fever. It’s not finished. More to come. Fire can’t burn it away. But it can sure try.”
From behind her, it breathed, and its breath ignited her like kindling.
“HEY, HEY.” Gull pulled her to sitting, shaking her by the shoulders on the way. “Snap out of it.”
She shoved at him, gulping for air, but he tightened his grip. He couldn’t see her clearly, but he could feel her, hear her. The shakes and tremors, the cold sweat, the whistle of air as she fought for breath.
“You had a nightmare.” He spoke more calmly now. “A bad one. It’s done.”
“Can’t breathe.”
“You can. You are, just too fast. You’re going to hyperventilate if you keep it up. Slow it down, Rowan.”
Even as she shook her head, he started rubbing her shoulders, moving up her neck where the muscles strained stiff as wire. “It’s a panic attack. You know that in your head. Let the rest of you catch up. Slow it down.”
He saw her eyes now as his own vision adjusted, wide as planets. She pressed a hand to her chest where he imagined the pressure crushed like an anvil. “Breathe out, long breath out. Long out, slow in. That’s the way. Let go of it. Do it again, smooth it out. You’re okay. Keep it up, in and out. I’m going to get you some water.”
He let her go to roll to her cooler, grab a bottle.
“Don’t guzzle,” he warned her. “We’re in slow mode.” When she gulped the first swallow, he tipped the bottle down. “Easy.”
“Okay.” She took another, slower sip. She stopped, went back to breathing, with more control, less trembling. “Wow.”
He touched her face, leaned in to rest his brow on hers. The shudder he’d held back rocked through him.
“You scared the shit out of me.”
“That makes two of us. I didn’t scream, did I?” She glanced toward the door as she asked.
Trust her, Gull thought, to worry about embarrassing herself with the rest of the crew. “No. It was like you were trying to and couldn’t get it out.”
“I was on fire. I swear I could feel my skin burning, smell my hair going up. Pretty damn awful.”
“How often do you have them?” Now that the crisis had passed, he could coddle her a little—a comfort to himself, too. So he touched his lips to her forehead as he shifted to rub her back and shoulders.
“I never used to have them. Or just the usual monster-in-the-closet deal once in a while when I was a kid. But I started having them after Jim. Replaying the jump, then how we found him. They eased off over the winter, but started coming back at the start of the season. And they’re getting worse.”
“You found another fire victim, someone else you knew. That would kick it up some.”
“He’s started to talk to me in them—cryptic warnings. I know it’s my head putting words in his mouth, but I can’t figure it out.”
“What did he say tonight?”
“That it wasn’t finished. There’d be more coming. I guess I’m worried there will be, and that’s probably all there is to it.”
“Why are you worried?”
“Well, Jesus, Gull, who isn’t?”
“No, be specific.”
“Be specific at half past whatever in the morning after twisting myself up into a panic attack?”
The irritation in her tone settled him down. “Yeah.”
“I don’t know. If I knew, I’d . . . Dolly and Latterly, obviously that’s connected. The odds of them both running afoul of some homicidal arsonist are just short of nil. If we were dealing with random, that would be cause for some serious worry. But this isn’t, and they’re probably going to bust Brakeman for the whole shot. But . . .”
“But you’re having a hard time buying he’d set fire to his own daughter’s body. So am I.”
“Yeah, but that’s what makes the most sense. He finds out Dolly’s not only lying but screwing the preacher. They fight about it, he kills her—in a rage, by accident, however. Then panics, does the rest. It broke something in him.”
Tears running down his face, she remembered.
“He shoots at us, kills Latterly. Case closed.”
“Except you don’t quite believe it. Hence—”
“Hence,” she repeated, and snickered.
“That’s right. Hence you have nightmares where Jim—who’s connected to you and to Dolly—verbalizes what you’re already thinking, at least on a subconscious level.”
“Thanks, Dr. Freud.”
“And your fifty minutes are up. You should catch the couple hours’ sleep we’ve got left.”
“We’re still on the floor. The floor was most excellent, but for sleep, the bed’s better.”
“The bed it is.” He rose, grabbed her hand to pull her up. Then, to make her laugh, swept her up in his arms.
Laugh she did. “I may have shed a few this season, but I’m still no lightweight.”
“You’re right.” He dropped her onto the bed. “Next time, you carry me.” He stretched out beside her. “One thing, it looks like your nightmare blew any potential tequila hangover out of me.”
“Always the bright side.”
He snuggled her in, gently stroking her back until he felt her drop off.
AFTER THE MORNING BRIEFING, she got in her run, some weight training and power yoga with Gull for company. She had to admit, having someone who could keep up with her, and more, made the daily routine more fun.
They hit the dining hall together where Dobie slumped over a plate of toast and what Rowan recognized as a glass of Marg’s famed hangover cure.
“Mmm, look at these big, fat sausages.” Rowan clattered the top back on the warmer. “Nothing like pig grease in the morning.”
“I’ll hurt you when I can move without my head blowing up.”
“Hangover?” she asked sweetly. “Gosh, I feel great.” There might have been a dull, gnawing ache at the base of her skull, but all things considered, small price to pay.
“Hurt you, and all your kin. Your pets, too.”
She only grinned as she sat down with a full plate. “Not much appetite this morning?”
“I woke up on the floor with Stovic. I may never eat again.”
“How’s Stovic?” Gull asked.
“Last I saw him, his eyes were full of blood, and he was crawling toward his quarters. If I ever pick up a glass of tequila again, shoot me. It’d be a mercy.”
“Drink that,” Rowan advised. “It won’t make you jump up and belt out ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,’ but it’ll take the edge off.”
“It’s brown. And I think something’s moving in there.”
“Trust me.”
When he picked up the Tabasco Lynn kept on the table for him, Rowan started to tell him he wouldn’t need it—then smiled to herself as she cut into a sausage.
Dobie doused the concoction liberally, gave a brisk, bracing nod. “Down the hatch,” he announced. Closing his eyes, he drank it down fast.
And his eyes popped open as his face went from hangover gray to lobster red. “Holy shitfire!”
“Burns like a helitorch.” Struggling with laughter, Rowan ate more sausage. “It may scorch some brain cells while it’s at it, but it fires through the bloodstream. You’ve been purified, my child.”
“He’s not going to speak in tongues, is he?” Gull asked.
“Holy shitfire. That’s a drink. All it needs is a shot of bourbon. Man, makes me sweat.”
“She won’t tell. She makes you start with the M-and-M Breakfast—Motrin and Move-Free—with a full glass of water, then drink that, eat toast, drink more water.”
“Said I had to do my run, too.”
“Yeah.” Rowan nodded at Dobie. “And by lunchtime, you’ll feel mostly human and be able to eat. Somebody ought to drag Stovic down here—and Yangtree. Hey, Cards,” she said when he walked in. “How about hauling Stovic’s and Yangtree’s pitiful asses down here so we can pour some of Marg’s hangover antidote into them?”
He said nothing until he’d taken the chair beside hers, angled it toward her. “L.B. just got word from the cops. The rangers found a gun, half buried a few yards from where they found the preacher’s car. They ran it. It’s one of Brakeman’s.”
“Well.” Deliberately she spread huckleberry jelly on a breakfast biscuit. “I guess that answers that.”
“They went to pick him up this morning. He’s gone, his truck’s gone.”
Jelly dripped off her knife as she stared at him. “You don’t mean as in gone to work.”
“No. It looks like he took camping gear, a shotgun, a rifle, two handguns and a whole hell of a lot of ammo. His wife said she didn’t know where he’d gone, or that he’d packed up in the first place. I don’t know if they believe her or not, but from what L.B. says, nobody seems to have the first goddamn clue where he is.”
“I thought—I heard they were going to take him in after the funeral yesterday.”
“For questioning, yeah. But he has a lawyer and all that, and until they had the gun, Ro, they didn’t have anything on him for this shit.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Gull exploded. “Didn’t they have him under surveillance?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know dick-all about it, Gull. But L.B. says he wants you to stay on base, Ro, unless we catch a fire. He wants you to stay inside as much as possible until we know what the fuck. And he doesn’t want to hear any carping about it.”
“I’ll work in the loft.”
“They’ll get him, Ro. It won’t take them long.”
“Sure.”
He gave her arm an awkward pat. “I’ll roust Yangtree and Stovic. It’ll be fun watching the smoke come out of their ears when they drink the hangover cure.”
In the silence that followed Cards’s exit, Dobie got up, poured himself coffee. “I’m going to say this ’cause I have a lot of respect for you. And because Gull’s got more than that for you. If I took off into the hills back home, if I had the gear—hell, even without it, but if I had the gear, a good gun, a good knife, I could live up there for months. Nobody’d find me I didn’t want finding me.”
Rowan made herself continue eating. “They’ll find his truck, maybe, but they won’t find him. He’ll lose himself in the Bitterroots, or the Rockies. His wife’ll lose her home. She put it up for his bond, and he just fucking broke that. I didn’t believe he’d done it—or not Dolly. He’s running, and left his wife and granddaughter twisting in the wind. He abandoned them.
“I hope he screws up.” She shoved to her feet. “I hope he screws up and they catch him, and they toss him in a hole for the rest of his life. I’ll be in the loft, sewing goddamn Smitty bags.”
As she stomped out, Dobie dumped three heaping spoons of sugar into his coffee. “How do you want to play this, son?”
“Intellectually, I don’t think Brakeman’s coming back around here, or worrying about Rowan right now.”
“Mmm-hmm. How do you want to play it?”
He looked over. Sometimes the most unlikely person became the most trusted friend. “When we’re on base, somebody’s with her, round the clock. We make sure she has plenty to do inside. But she needs to get out. If we hole her in, she’ll blow. I guess we mix up the routine. We usually run in the mornings, early. We’ll start running in the evening.”
“If everybody wore caps, sunglasses, it’d be a little harder to tell who’s who at a distance. The trouble is, that woman’s built like a brick shithouse. You just can’t hide that talent. I don’t guess she’d transfer to West Yellowstone, or maybe over to Idaho for a stretch.”
“No. She’d see that as running. Abandonment.”
“Maybe. But maybe not, if you went, too.”
“She’s not there yet, Dobie.”
Dobie pursed his lips, watching Gull as he drank coffee. “But you are?”
Gull stared down at his half-eaten breakfast. “Fucking lupines.”
“What the hell’s lupines?”
Gull just shook his head. “Yeah, I’m there,” he said as he got to his feet. “Goddamn it.”
Southern, Gibbons and Janis came in, still sweaty from PT, as Gull stormed out.
“What’s that about?” Gibbons demanded.
“Sit down, boys and girls, and I’ll tell you.”
TEMPER BUBBLING, Gull tracked down L.B. outside a hangar in conversation with one of the pilots.
“How the fuck did this happen?”
“Do you think I didn’t ask the same damn thing?” L.B. tossed back. “Do you think I’m not pissed off?”
“I don’t care if you’re pissed off. I want some answers.”
L.B. jerked a thumb, headed away from the hangar and toward one of the service roads. “If you want to jump somebody’s ass, find a cop. They’re the ones who screwed this up.”
“I want to know how.”
“You want to know how? I’ll tell you how.” L.B. picked up a palm-sized rock, heaved it. “They had two cops outside the Brakeman house. Shit, probably looking at skin mags and eating donuts.”
He found another rock, heaved that. “My fucking brother’s a cop, over in Helena, and I know he doesn’t do that shit. But goddamn it.”
Gull leaned over, picked up a rock, offered it. “Go ahead.”
“Thanks.” After hurling it, L.B. rolled his shoulder. “They were out in the front, watching the house. Brakeman’s truck is around the side, under a carport. So he loads it up sometime in the middle of the night, then he pushes it right across the backyard, cuts a truck-sized hole in the frigging fence, then pushes it right across the neighbor’s yard to the road. Then God knows where he went.”
“And the cops don’t see the truck’s gone until this morning.”
“No, they fucking don’t.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it?”
“It’s an answer. I do better with answers. She’s third load. Can you put her on Ops if we get a call for one or two?”
“Yeah.” L.B. picked up another rock, just stared at it a moment, then dropped it again. “I’d figured on it. I just wanted to wait until she’d cooled off.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“She’s been known to kill the messenger. That’s why I sent Cards,” L.B. added with a slow smile. “He’s just off the DL, so I figured she’d take it easy on him.”