The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 5 (171 page)

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Authors: Nora Roberts

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Romance

BOOK: The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 5
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He hit another key, took her to another page.
“I divided the crews, the way we were that day.”
“You’re missing some names.”
“I think we can eliminate ourselves.”
“Dobie’s not here.”
“He had the duct tape.”
“Yeah, that was real handy.”
“He always carries . . . Okay, you’re right.” It burned his belly and his conscience, but he added Dobie’s name. “I should add us because you wished for the damn tape, and I remembered he’d have it.”
“What’s our motive?”
“Maybe I want to scare you off the job so you’ll stay home and cook me a hot dinner every night.”
“As if. But I mean the question. What’s any motive?”
“Okay, let’s roll with that. Yangtree.” He toggled back again. “He’s talking about giving it up. His knees are shot. Thirty years, like you said. He’s given this more than half his life, and now he knows he can’t keep it up. The younger and stronger are moving in. That’s a pisser.”
“He’s not like that.” She snapped it out—knee-jerk—then subsided when Gull only looked at her. “All right. This is bogus, but all right.”
“Cards? He’s had a bad-luck season. Injuries, illness. It wears. The woman he wanted to marry dumped him. Last summer, when he was spotter, Jim Brayner died.”
“That wasn’t—”
“His fault. I agree. It wasn’t yours, either, Rowan, but you have nightmares.”
“Okay. Okay. I get it. We could walk down your lists and find a plausible motive for everyone. That doesn’t make it true. And if it’s such a good theory, the cops would’ve thought of it.”
“What makes you think they haven’t?”
That stopped her. “That’s a really ugly thought. The idea they’re looking at us, investigating us, scraping away to hunt for weaknesses, secrets. That they’re doing what we’re doing here, only more.”
“It is ugly, but I’d rather take a hard look than ignore what might be right here with us.”
“I want it to be Brakeman.”
“Me too.”
“But if it’s not,” she said before he could, “we have to think of the safety of the unit. It’s not L.B.”
He started to argue, then backed off. “What’s your reasoning?”
“He worked hard for his position, and he takes a lot of pride in it. He loves the unit and he also loves its rep. Anything that damages or threatens that reflects on him. He could’ve closed ranks and kept this internal, but he opened it up. He’s the one shining the light on it when he knows he may pay consequences.”
Good points, Gull decided. Every one a good point. “I’ll agree with that.”
“And it’s not Dobie. He’s too damn good-natured under it all. And he loves what he’s doing. He loves it all. Mostly he loves you. He’d never do anything that put you at risk.”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t say that for you.”
“I know.” But it soothed both his belly and his conscience. “Thanks anyway.”
She looked out the window where lightning flashed, and thunder echoed over the gloom-shrouded peaks. “The wind’s pushing the rain south. We just can’t catch a break.”
“We don’t have to do this now. We can let it alone, hit the gym.”
“I’m not a weak sister. Let’s work it through. I’ll tell you why it’s not Janis.”
“All right.” He took her hand, disconcerting her by bringing it briefly to his lips. “I’m listening.”
28
G
ull figured he had an hour, tops. With Rowan hip-deep on her reports for the Alaska fire, she’d be occupied for at least that long. He came down from his duties in the loft, checking the time as he struck out on the service road at a light jog.
Nobody would question a man doing his PT, and there’d be no reason to suspect he’d arranged a meeting away from any casual observers.
Especially Rowan.
In any case, he liked being out, taking a short extra run, getting inside his own head.
The storm the night before hadn’t squeezed out more than a piss pot of rain, but it had managed to drop the temperature. They’d rolled a load that morning to jump a fire east, so he didn’t want to go far in case the siren went off.
He didn’t have to.
Half a mile out, Lucas stood in running sweats and a T-shirt talking on his cell.
“Sure, that’d be great.” He gave Gull a slight nod. “Perfect. I’ll see you then.” After closing the phone, he tucked it in the pocket of his sweats. “Gull.”
“Thanks for meeting me.”
“No problem. I still run here some days, so I got a mile or so in. I have to figure this has to do with Rowan since you didn’t want to talk to me on base.”
“With her, with everybody. Nobody knows the players better than you, Lucas. The staff and crew, the Brakemans, the cops. Maybe not the rookies as much as the long-timers, but I’m betting you’ve got some insight there, as they jump with your daughter.”
Lucas cocked an eyebrow at that, but Gull just shrugged.
“You’d size them up, ask some questions, get some answers.”
“I know you’re fast on your feet, had a good rep with the hotshots, and L.B. considers you a solid asset to the crew. You don’t mind a fight, like fast cars, have a head for business and good taste in women.”
“We’ve got the last in common. Let me ask you straight out, does Leo Brakeman have the brains, the canniness, let’s say, the aptitude to do all that’s being laid down here? Forget motive and opportunity and all that cop shit.” Gull shrugged it off. “Is he the man for this?”
Lucas said nothing for a moment, only nodding his head as if affirming his own thoughts. “He’s not stupid, and he’s a damn good mechanic. Starting from the back, yeah, he could’ve figured how to disable equipment without it showing until it was too late. Killing Latterly . . .”
Lucas stuck his hands in his pockets, looked away at the mountains. “I’d see him going after the son of a bitch once he found out Latterly was messing with his daughter. I’d see him beating the man bloody for it, especially considering Irene’s connection to the church. It’s harder to see Leo putting a bullet in him, but not impossible to see.”
He sighed once. “No, not impossible. He’d be capable of shooting up the base. Aiming for anybody, I don’t think so. But if he had, he wouldn’t have missed. And that’s one I’ve thought long and hard on since he’d have had Rowan in the crosshairs.
“Dolly? They kept at each other like rottweilers over the same bone. He’s got a temper, that’s no secret, and it’s no secret she caused him a lot of shame and disappointment.”
“But?”
“Yeah, but. The only way I can see him killing her is an accident. I don’t know if I’m putting myself into it, or if that’s a fact, but it’s how I see it. I guess what I’m saying is I can see him doing any of those things, in the heat. He’s got a short fuse, burns hot. But it burns out.”
“You’ve been giving all of this some long, hard thought.”
“Rowan’s in the middle of it.”
“Exactly. Hot temper. Hot and physical.” And, Gull thought, straight down the line of his own take on it. “Latterly and the tampering. Those were cold and calculated.”
“You’re thinking some of this, maybe all of it, comes from somebody who works on base. Maybe even one of your own.”
He thought of the men and women he’d trained with, the ones he fought with. “I haven’t wanted to think it.”
“Neither have I, but I started asking myself these same questions after L.B. told me about the tampering. After I settled down some. We’ve skirted around it, but I’m pretty sure L.B.’s asking himself the same.”
“Are you leaning in any particular direction?”
“I worked with some of these people. You know as well as I that’s not like sharing an office or a watercooler. I can’t see anyone I know the way I know those men and women in this kind of light. And I don’t know if that’s because of what we were—still are—to each other or because it’s just God’s truth.”
He waited a beat, watching Gull’s face carefully. “You haven’t told Rowan your line of thinking?”
“I did.”
Approval and a little humor curved Lucas’s lips. “We can add you’ve got balls to what I know about you.”
“I’m not going behind her back.” He thought of where he stood right now, and with whom. And grinned. “Much. Anyway, I made a spreadsheet. I like spreadsheets,” he said when Lucas let out a surprised laugh. “They’re efficient and orderly. She doesn’t want to think it could be true, but she listened.”
“If she listened, and didn’t kick the balls I know you have up past your eyes for suggesting it, it must be serious between the two of you.”
“I’m in love with her. She’s in love with me, too. She just hasn’t figured it out yet.”
“Well.” Lucas studied Gull’s face for a long moment. “Well,” he repeated, and sighed a second time. “She’s got a hard view of relationships and their staying power. That’s my fault.”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s circumstances. And she may have a hard head and a guarded heart, but she’s not closed up. She’s too smart, too self-aware, not to mention a bred-in-the-bone risk-taker to deny herself what she wants once she’s decided she wants it. She’ll figure out she wants me.”
“Cocky bastard, aren’t you? I like you.”
“That’s a good thing, because if you didn’t, she’d give me the boot. Then she’d be sad and sorry the rest of her life.”
At Lucas’s quick, helpless laugh, Gull glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to start heading back.”
“I’ll walk back with you. I run here off and on,” he reminded Gull. “And I have something I need to tell Rowan, face-to-face.”
“If it’s that you’re moving in with Ella, she heard.”
“Hell.” Lucas scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck as they walked. “I should’ve known it’d bounce through the base once I so much as thought about doing it. You’d think with everything going on, my personal life wouldn’t make the cut.
“Well?” Lucas jabbed an elbow in Gull’s ribs. “How’d she take it?”
“It knocked her back some. She’ll get used to it because she loves you, she respects Ella, and she’s not an idiot. Anyway, before we get back—and I’d as soon, unless she asks directly, Rowan assume we ran into each other on the road.”
“Probably for the best.”
“Generally I don’t mind pissing her off, but she’s got a lot on her plate. So, before we get back, I wanted to ask if I can e-mail you the spreadsheet.”
“Jesus Christ. A spreadsheet.”
“I’ve listed names in multiple categories, along with general data, then my take on each. Rowan’s take. Adding yours might help narrow the field.”
“Send me the damn spreadsheet.” Lucas rattled off his e-mail address. “Want me to write it down?”
“No, I’ve got it.”
“Even if Brakeman didn’t do all this—or any of it, for that matter—as long as he’s behind bars it should end. You can’t frame him if you do any of this crap when the cops know exactly where he is twenty-four/ seven. I guess the question we should ask is, who’s got this kind of grudge against Leo?”
Lucas lifted his eyebrows when Gull said nothing. “You’re thinking something else?”
“I think it could be that, just exactly that. But I also think Brakeman, with his temper, his history with Dolly, makes a pretty good patsy. And I know whoever’s responsible for this is one sick son of a bitch. I don’t think sick sons of bitches stop just because it’s smart.”
“I wish you hadn’t said that and made me think the same. Fear the same. If I could I’d make Rowan take the rest of the season off, get the hell away from this.”
“I won’t let anything happen to her.” Gull looked Lucas dead in the eye. “I know that’s a stupid and too usual a thing to say, but I won’t. She can handle just about anything that comes at her. What she can’t, I will.”
“I’m going to hold you to that. Now, you might want to make yourself scarce while I go talk to her. Not too scarce,” Lucas added. “It’s likely she’ll need to take out how she feels about my new living arrangements on somebody after I’m gone. It might as well be you.”
 
 
ROWAN FINISHED HER REPORTS,
rechecked the attached list of paracargo she’d requested and received the second day of the attack. All in order, she decided.
Once she’d turned it over to L.B., she could get the hell outside for a while, and then . . .
“It’s open,” she called out at the two-tap knock on her door. “Hey.” Her face brightened as she rose to greet her father. “Great timing. I just finished my reports. Got your run in?”
“I thought I’d take it this way, get a twofer and see my girl.”
“I tell you what, I’ll dig out a cold drink from the cooler, trade you for glancing over my work here.”
“If you’ve got any 7UP, you’ve got a deal.”
“I always keep my best guy’s favorite in stock,” she reminded him as he braced his hands on her desk, scanning the work on her laptop.
“Thorough and to the point,” he said after a moment. “Are you bucking for L.B.’s job?”
“Oh, that’s a big hell no. I don’t mind spending the time on reports, but if I had to deal with all the paperwork, personalities, politics and bullshit L.B. does, I’d just shoot myself and get it over with. You could’ve done it,” she added. “Gotten in a couple more years.”
“If I’m going to do administrative crap, it’s going to be
my
administrative crap.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s where I got it. Do you want to walk over to the lounge? Or maybe the cookhouse? I imagine Marg has some pie we could talk her out of.”
“I don’t really have enough time. Ella’s picking me up in a little bit.”
“Oh.”
“I wanted to see you, talk to you about some things.”
“I heard Irene Brakeman’s letting her house go, and she’s probably moving to Nebraska. That you’re letting her use your house until she’s got it all dealt with. That was good of you, Dad. It has to be hard for her, being alone in the house, with all the memories. Added on to knowing it’s not really hers anymore.”

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