“You’re a good friend to have, Bowie. Thanks for the ride.”
“Anytime.”
“Want to come in?”
He shook his head. “I have work to do. Call or come find me if you need a friend.”
Rose promised she would and thanked him as she got out of the van.
She spotted A.J. down by the shop and walked in that direction. He was pacing, clearly agitated, and she assumed it was because of the scene at the lake. He shoved a hand through his hair. “I can still smell smoke,” he said. “Damn.”
“I’m sorry, A.J.”
“Yeah. Me, too. I’ve been trying to sort everything out in my own mind. I don’t see how a couple of ski-bum drug dealers had anything to do with the death of that woman in California and this missing actor.”
“We can come up with a thousand different scenarios if we want to.” Rose recognized a middle-aged couple ski from the lodge on the groomed trails in the meadow. “Most guests won’t associate what happened at the lake with the lodge. It’s far enough away—”
“They could see the smoke from the dining room.”
“A fire in the middle of winter, down in the valley. It’s understandable they’d look.”
“A fatal fire on top of another fatal fire just the other day.” Her brother stared at a display of winter sports gear in the shop window. “I’d hoped winter fest would be a fresh start for everyone in town.”
“It still can be,” Rose said. “There’s time to figure out what’s going on and put an end to it.”
“That’s what we keep saying. It’s what we said in November when Jo and Elijah confronted those two killers. It’s what we said in January when Hannah and Sean figured out Lowell Whittaker was behind this network of assassins.”
“The lodge is busiest in the warm-weather months. By then, most people aren’t going to remember if this all happened in another town, or even know that it happened at all. We’re in the middle of it. We’ll know. I’ve been to the scene of so many disasters—”
“This isn’t a natural disaster.”
Rose sighed. “I’m not helping, am I? Okay. I’m going to find Ranger.”
A.J. shifted back to her. “Lauren panicked when she heard sirens and saw smoke. I don’t know how much more of this she can take.”
“She’s strong, A.J. So are you.”
“She’s scared.” He let out a breath, shook his head. “Never mind. We’ll get through it. You just concentrate on staying safe yourself. When you radioed this morning and I saw the smoke…” He stood up straight and managed a small smile. “I was glad Nick was with you.”
She grinned at him. “Ha, the faith my brothers have in me.” She touched his arm. “We’re going to be okay, A.J. You know that, right? Whatever happens.”
“Yeah,” he said, and followed several guests into the shop.
As she headed back up to the main lodge, Ranger bounded toward her with the energy of a puppy. Nick’s influence, she decided, her heart jumping when she saw him ambling toward her.
She believed what she’d said to A.J. They’d be okay. What other choice was there?
Twenty
G rit could tell the Black Falls women were restless, frustrated that they were on the other side of the continent while so much went on at home. Sean was more accustomed to not being in the eye of his hometown storms but the events of the day had clearly disturbed him, too.
The fire at Jo Harper’s cabins on the lake—Robert Feehan’s death, Dominique Belair’s near death—bothered everyone.
The cabin Grit had stayed in had burned, but he wasn’t nostalgic. He figured the accursed woodstove had probably made it through just fine.
Devin and Toby Shay arrived at Sean’s house, and Grit was of a mind to leave them and Beth there while he and Sean drove out to the Cameron & Martini building that had burned a year ago.
Beth had other ideas. Testy and silent, she climbed, uninvited, into the back of Sean’s car and put on her seat belt.
Sean glanced at Grit, as if seeking his wisdom on what to do. Grit shrugged. “How far is this place?”
“Twenty minutes, longer if traffic’s bad.”
As far as Grit could see, traffic was always bad. He figured he could handle thirty minutes with Beth biting her nails in back. Let Sean be the one to kick her out. “Drive on.”
Sean gritted his teeth and steered his expensive sedan out of the driveway.
Grit turned to Beth in the backseat. “Have you talked to Trooper Thorne?” She just stared out her window. He tried again. “Your brother? Your sister? Rose? Dominique?”
“I don’t want to talk.”
That could work, Grit decided, and turned back around. Seventeen minutes later, they pulled into a small parking area by a three-story Art Deco building that Cameron & Martini had saved from the wrecking ball, refurbished and still owned.
There’d been a fire during renovations. Nick Martini’s quick actions had almost certainly saved the building.
Sean led Grit and Beth into a cool, elegant lobby, no indication that there’d been a fire or that the place had ever needed renovating. Sean said, “The fire was last January, months before Jasper Vanderhorn was killed.”
“Your sister was just getting involved with Cutshaw then,” Grit said.
Beth stiffened visibly, but Sean was calm. “I don’t see how the two could be connected.”
“Me, either.” Grit looked up at the Art Deco ceiling. “Vanderhorn investigated this fire?”
Sean shook his head. “Not officially. He looked into it on his own after the fact.”
“He was trying to connect this fire to his serial arsonist?”
“I suspect so, yes,” Sean said, diplomatically.
Grit noted the list of businesses with offices in the building but none struck him as being related to Hollywood and their missing actor. Advertising, digital media, financial planning. He turned back to Sean. “How’d the fire start?”
“Electrical short,” Sean said. “The work crews missed it.”
“No arrests?”
“No. There’s no proof it was arson.”
“But you think it was,” Grit said.
Sean shrugged without answering.
Beth wandered over to the elevator but was obviously listening in.
Grit continued. “The police will be looking into whether Robert Feehan was or could have been in Los Angeles then. Cutshaw, too. Maybe they worked together and just had a falling-out.”
Sean considered Grit’s comment. “Why target Nick and me? The Whittakers were already in Black Falls, but my father wasn’t suspicious of Lowell yet. No one was.”
Something Drew Cameron’s four offspring now had to live with, Grit thought. He said matter-of-factly, “Lowell didn’t like you. You’re everything he isn’t. His crazy bitch wife threw you in his face. Why
“Nick was only here by accident. I wasn’t here at all. The fire couldn’t have been meant to kill us.” Sean looked around the lobby, as if imagining the flames a year ago. “Most arsonists work alone.”
“Okay,” Grit said. “So it’s Feehan, and Cutshaw wasn’t involved. Feehan finds out a Cameron is a rich Californian and locates one of your enemies or one of Martini’s enemies to pay to mess things up for you. Was construction delayed?”
“For a few weeks.”
“Maybe that was enough. Maybe this fire was about profit. How’d Martini find out about it?”
“Nick was out that night and got a call from the security guard that there was a fire. He arrived before the fire crews.”
