The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel) (12 page)

Near what was once the porch I see what looks like a melted gas container. A raw kind of rage, a deep sense of violation surges through me as I walk around the smoking ruins of the house and see another can. This one has escaped the fire and lies a distance away. Crouching down, I pick it up, sniff. I cough, my eyes watering as fresh gasoline fumes burn down my nasal passages. I upend the can and drops trickle out. I glance around. There are vehicle tracks. They look fresh.

Jesus, whoever did this had to have been aware they’d start a massive wildfire. I get to my feet.

“Jeb?” I call.

I move round the side of the ruins, see his bike lying on its side under a blackened tree. His helmet, damaged by fire, lies nearby. Adrenaline explodes through me. I race toward the bike. It’s smashed, gas tank exploded. Turning in a fast circle, I suddenly see something pale in a ditch. Skin—human flesh. Dark hair. I can make out part of his jacket. My mouth goes bone-dry.

Part of me wants to run away, to not see what’s in that ditch. But my feet move, a roar sounding in my ears. As I get closer, I see his jeans. Boots. Him. His body. He’s not burned. The fire has leaped over this wet and deep creek bed. But his face and hair are dark with blood. He’s motionless.

“Dear God,” I whisper as I drop to my haunches in the ditch beside him. I reach out, touch his neck.
He’s alive.
He has a pulse. He’s breathing.
My heart explodes into a rapid-fire staccato beat.

“Jeb! Jeb, can you hear me?”

A soft moan comes from his chest as he moves his head. Then slowly his eyes open. He stares up at me, blinking into the glare of my headlamp. He has an open gash on his head. His pupils contract uniformly against the light. A good sign.

“Rachel?” he croaks.

My heart clutches, relief overwhelming. “Where do you hurt? What happened?”

“Ribs.” He gives an unearthly groan as he tries to roll over.

“Wait, don’t move. Can you feel your extremities, wiggle your toes, fingers?”

He concentrates, moving both arms and legs.

“Any back pain?”

His mouth twists. “Pain all over.”

I glance up toward the EMT lights pulsing red through the trees. My first instinct is to call for help. I reach for the radio on my belt.

“No.” His hand clamps down on my arm.

“I need to get you to the clinic.”

“The
y . . .
they tried to kill me.”

“Who?”

“Three men. Ski masks. Torched the plac
e . . . I . . .
just help me up. Pleas
e . . .
” He tries to sit, but gasps in pain and sinks back down into the wet loam.

Worry burns through me. “I need to get you medical attention—”

“How did you get here?” he says.

“Truck.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it, your truck?” he asks.

“Just back there. Near the top of your driveway.”

“Get me to your truck.” He gives another unearthly groan as he pushes himself into a sitting position.

“Jeb—”

“Please, just help me to your truck.” He gets onto all fours then leans on my arm as he struggles, hunched over, onto his feet. Blood leaks afresh from his head wound. His complexion is deathly in this light. I hear people yelling in the distance as another stand of ancient trees whooshes up in flame. They’re moving the fire line. Sustained-action wildfire crews are arriving. Helicopters and air tankers are hovering somewhere above the smoke.

“They came prepared.” He coughs. “Gasoline. They knew I was here. They laid into me, tire iron, boots. But they fled when the old propane tank blew. If it hadn’t blown, I’d be dead.”

Ice slicks down my spine. Who knew he was back? And so fast? Adam, Trey? The old gang? Who else?

I shoot another glance at the shadows moving between the trees up near the road. Trey and the others will be here any moment, if not already, setting up a command base, ensuring no one is left unaccounted for in the forest. Clint, as fire chief, will also be somewhere close. Adam, too, most likely.

“Wait here,” I say. “Do not move. I’ll bring the truck closer.”

I run, legs pounding, breath rasping, smoke burning my lungs. I fling open my door and hop in, starting the engine before the door is even closed. I drive over the burned clearing.

He’s trying to lift his bike. I fling open the door, rush over to him, leaving the engine running.

“Don’t be an idiot, Jeb.” I try to take his arm.

“Need to get the bike in the truck.”

“Forget it. You’re not thinking straight. You’ve had a concussion. We can’t get that bike into the truck without a ramp anyway. Besides, it’s wrecked.” I take his arm, drape it over my shoulders, accepting the brunt of his body weight as we stumble back to my truck. Another spurt of worry gushes through me. The wound on his temple needs stitches, but my fear is internal brain injury, possible hematoma. Things could get worse. Fast.

“Get inside,” I order, helping him up into the passenger seat. I open my first-aid kit and find a wad of padded cotton.

“Here, press this against your wound. You need to stop that bleeding. Hold it tight.”

I go round the driver’s side, climb in, and put the truck in gear. More sirens are approaching. The chopper is hovering lower, louder. I accelerate back onto the logging road and bomb down it as fast as I dare. As I near the police cordon, a vehicle approaches from the opposite direction. Silver SUV. Rescue One plate. Trey.

Shit.

“Get down,” I whisper harshly. “Now.”

He does. Head on my lap. I feel his blood soaking into my jeans on my thigh.

Trey stares at me as he drives by, then hits his brakes. I glimpse Harvey Zink in the seat beside him. But I keep going, my focus dead ahead. I wave at the cop as I drive around the cones. As soon as I’m clear of the cordon, I floor the gas, fishtailing on loose sand and gravel as we blast back down to the highway. My heart is beating in my throat, my torso damp with sweat.

Both Trey and Zink have seen me out here. So has that rookie cop. What will it mean?

Jeb lifts his head off my lap.

“Stay down,” I say, stealing a glance at him.

He smiles up at me, a crooked smile twisted with pain. My heart gives an odd kick.

“Like Bonnie and Clyde,” he says. “Like old times.”

I feel a smile of response against my will. That old spark. It’s back. It never left.

“Damn you, Jebbediah Cullen,” I whisper, fists clenching the wheel. “Goddamn you.”

His smile turns into a grin, then a grimace as we jolt over a ditch and bounce onto the paved highway.

CHAPTER 10

Quinn watched out the front window, her hands pressing tightly down on the sill. Brandy was in the kitchen, making hot chocolate. The television was on and reporters were talking about the fire and what would happen to Snowy Creek if the wind shifted. Brandy had put the radio on, too, and was listening to the weather forecast.

She had long, thick hair that reminded Quinn of flames, but Brandy didn’t know anything about fire. She was a ski patroller and an ice climber. She threw avalanche bombs in the winter. Which is why she did other jobs during summer, like babysitting and working at the kids’ mountain bike camp as a group leader. She said she loved kids and was going to have a whole bunch of her own one day.

The sirens screamed up on the highway and a helicopter crossed in front of the burnt-orange sky above the peaks. Scary feelings scrambled about in Quinn’s chest and wouldn’t rest no matter how many deep breaths she took.

“Where is she?” Her voice came out funny.

Brandy came to her side and set a mug of chocolate on the sill, small white marshmallows melting on top.

“Rachel is going to be fine, sweetie. She’s just helping to make sure they get all the people out of that area.”

“What area is it?”

“It’s up the Wolf River Valley.”

Her lip quivered. She didn’t want anything to happen to Rachel. All she had was Rachel. She should never have said those bad things to her aunt. This was her fault.

“Will the fire come this way, like they’re saying on TV?”

“No. Not unless the wind changes, and that’s not going to happen according to the meteorologists. By the time the wind does eventually switch they’ll have the fire under control.” She smoothed down Quinn’s hair. “Hey, it’s going to be okay. You really should get some sleep, you know. It’s still a long way to morning.”

“What’s on the other side of those mountains?” Quinn said, staring at the orange glow.

“Well, there is a First Nations reserve. But they’ll have enough time to evacuate if they need to.”

“But it’ll be all burned? Their houses?”

“I hope not.”

Quinn looked at Brandy. She had eyes the color of honey. “My mother and father burned in a fire,” she said. “My house burned.”

“I know,” Brandy said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Do you have a mother?”

“We all have mothers, one way or another.”

“But do you have a live one?”

Brandy hesitated and her brow creased. A funny look entered her eyes. “In some ways, but in others it’s as if she’s already gone. She doesn’t remember things anymore. She’s got Alzheimer’s. She’s in a home in Vancouver.”

“She doesn’t remember you?”

“No. Not even who she is, really. It’s a different kind of death.”

Quinn studied Brandy for a while. “My mother sent me an angel.”

“Did she?” Brandy took a sip of her herb tea.

Quinn nodded. “To watch over me. In case something happens to Rachel.
I . . .
I don’t want anything to happen.” Tears, those stupid tears suddenly wanted to come again, and it made her face feel hot and angry.

Brandy put her arm around her. She smelled like vanilla and nice things. Like mothers smell. And it made Quinn’s eyes burn hotter.

“Rachel’s going to be fine.”

Quinn pulled away and stomped into the kitchen. She didn’t want to like anybody else, because they could die, too. But she froze as she heard a car engine. Her heart started pounding and she ran back to the window. Headlights were peeping through the trees.
Rachel!

Quinn exploded in a flurry and raced for the front door. She flung the door open to the night. Wind rushed at her, making her hair fly back as she dashed outside. Trixie followed, nails skittering over the wood floor.

“Quinn!” Brandy called as she came after them. “Wait up. You haven’t got any shoes on!”

The truck door opened and Rachel stepped out. Quinn stopped in her tracks. Her aunt’s face was white and streaked with soot. She looked wrong.

Brandy’s hand was suddenly on Quinn’s shoulder, restraining her. Quinn’s eyes flared up to Brandy’s face. Her sitter was looking at Rachel as if something was wrong, too.

But Rachel marched right up to them both and dropped to her haunches in front of Quinn. “Hey, kiddo, made it back. What are you guys still doing up?”

Quinn flung her arms around her aunt and squeezed. She felt herself shaking, so she held even tighter. “You smell like smoke,” she muttered into Rachel’s neck.

“Everything’s fine, Quinn.” Rachel leaned back. “It’s all fine. Don’t worry.” She smiled and pushed hair back off Quinn’s brow. But there was a strange tightness in her aunt’s face. And although Rachel was smiling, her eyes weren’t.

Rachel glanced up. “Brandy, can you stay a while longer? I need to get the gear from my truck down into the boathouse where I can clean it.”

Brandy’s gaze flicked to the truck. Quinn followed her eyes. She thought she saw a movement inside the truck, a shadow. There was another person in there. Silence hung for a few beats. And the swish of trees and distant thudding of choppers, faint sirens, seemed louder.

“Sure,” Brandy said. “Come on, Quinn. We’ll go inside.”

“No. I want to stay with Rachel.”

“Quinnie, you need to get back into your bed, okay? I’m right here, in the boathouse. Brandy will stay until you fall asleep.”

“Is that blood?” Quinn said, examining her palm that had touched Rachel’s thigh.

Rachel swallowed. “It’s all fine. I helped carry someone who was bleeding a little. Now go on inside.”

Quinn felt her insides go tight. She glared at Rachel. It wasn’t fine. She could tell. Something was wrong and they weren’t telling her. There was blood on Rachel’s thigh, and someone in her truck.

“Go, please.”

Quinn cast her eyes down and followed Brandy back into the house. But as soon as she was inside, she rushed over to the big windows that looked down over the garden toward the lake. She saw Rachel driving her truck farther down the garden pathway and over the grass toward the boathouse. Quinn had never seen Rachel take her truck down there before. She parked it close to the boathouse, behind a hedgerow.

“Quinn, it’s bedtime, come.”

She pressed her hands firmly against the glass, ignoring Brandy. She could just make out the shadow of Rachel helping someone out of the truck. A man. He was bent over and leaning on her. Trixie was following them.

The angel?

Quinn’s heart beat faster.

Brandy crouched down beside her. “It’s time for be
d . . .
” But then Brandy saw what Quinn was looking at and she fell silent, watching, too.

Quinn suddenly grasped Brandy’s hand—she didn’t want anyone else to see him. “I want to go to bed. Now.”

Brandy craned forward, narrowing her eyes, trying to see down into the dark who was with Rachel.

“It’s nobody,” Quinn said, tugging at her hand. “She’s got nobody.”

Brandy looked at her, a frown forming on her brow. She had that funny look in her eyes again.

“Can you read to me in bed? Please. I want to go now.”

Her sitter hesitated. “Sure.” Casting a backward glance to the window, she led Quinn upstairs.

Jeb leaned heavily on Rachel as she helped him into the boathouse. The interior was cold, dark. The door banged shut behind them in the wind. He groaned as she led him over to the bed and eased him down.

She put her first-aid kit on the table and dragged the table up to the bed. Her movements were tense as she lit the old kerosene lantern. With a soft whoosh, flickering flame threw gold light onto the walls, highlighting the old snowshoes, fly fishing rods, a carved wooden fish. An old black woodstove still squatted on tiles in the corner, logs stacked neatly beside it. And past shimmered into present.

Jeb flashed suddenly to being eighteen again, he and Rachel making out here, on the rug in front of the burning stove. Trixie had been curled in her basket by the fire, snow falling thick and silent outside. It was into this boathouse they’d run for drinks from the fridge during the hot summer months, days of bathing suits and diving from the dock into the glacial water, lying in the sun, canoeing across the lake to explore the ghost squatter settlement in the woods on the opposite side of the lake.

Trixie went to lie on the woven rag mat in front the stove even though it wasn’t lit—some old memories died hard. Some were wired right into the neural pathways of one’s brain. They were a part of you, in the way a tree grew around a piece of metal, which then became part of the trunk, a part you couldn’t extract without killing the tree.

“Still no power down here?” he said as wind whistled in under the door.

Her gaze ticked to his. Worry darted through her eyes. Quickly she opened her kit, snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

“No. My father kept meaning to wire the place, but—” Her voice caught. She pulled up a chair and sat in front of him, drawing the lantern closer across the table.

“My dad liked the romance of kerosene lanterns, candles, the fire in the pit on the beach.” She removed several packets of sealed antiseptic wipes. “We were going to renovate, after his death. Bu
t . . .
” Her voice faded as she focused on tearing open a pouch.

“We?”

“Hmm.” She removed the wipe.

“You mean you and Trey?” he insisted.

Her dark eyes flashed up. She met his gaze for a moment, but Jeb was forced to blink against the glare from her headlamp. She returned to her task at hand. Outside, far across the lake, Jeb heard the wind howling like lost wolves. Goose bumps whispered over his skin.

“Let me see this.” She lifted the wadded and bloody compression pad he was still pressing to his head. She began to wipe away blood with disinfectant. It stung. Jeb focused on her mouth.

“How long has your father been gone, Rachel?”

“Ten months now. Cancer.”

“That’s a lot of loss in a short space of time. First your father, then Sophia and Peter. Then Trey leaves?”

“Yeah, I’m a regular pariah.” She fell silent as she cleaned farther along his wound.

“Your father left you this place?”

“And the newspaper.”

Surprise rippled through him. “The
Snowy Creek Leader
?”

“Hold still, Jeb.”

He thought of the woman, the editor he’d called yesterday. Cass Rousseau.

“So
you
run the paper?”

“I’m the publisher.”

“Cass Rousseau is your employee?”

Her jaw tensed. “I said hold still, dammit. I need to see if you’ve got any debris in here.”

“I never saw it,” he said, wincing again as she seemed to move more briskly. “You taking after your dad, your grandfather.” He tried to smile. “You’re following in their footsteps, becoming the social crusader.”

Abruptly she set the cloth down on the table and ripped open a pack of butterfly sutures, her mouth a flat, tight line. “The newspaper business is not some crusade. It’s just business, pure and simple. Social crusading was Sophia’s job, not mine.” She held the edges of his gash together, applied a suture, then another. “Sophia was the one always going on about social justice and equality. She was the astute, philosophical one, like my dad and granddad. Me, they say I was more like my mother. I was the athlete. The coddled baby of the family. The one who used to live in the moment.” A bitterness laced her words, and Jeb heard self-disdain.

“Used to live? You’re talking past tense.”

Her gaze ticked back to his. She held his eyes a moment, then looked away again, a fall of dark hair hiding her face. Compassion washed through him. She seemed so alone.

Rachel finished applying the adhesive sutures in silence. The shutters rattled in the wind. Choppers continued to pass overhead and sirens could be heard in the distance.

“You should get that stitched if you don’t want a scar. But it’s not terribly deep,” she said. “You’re lucky.”

“Yeah, you got that all right. I’m the lucky one.”

She breathed in deep, clicked off her headlamp, and removed it before peeling off her latex gloves. “You said it was a tire iron that did this?”

“Just caught the sharp tip.”

“That’s luck in my book. You’d be dead otherwise. Skull could have been crushed. There’s still a chance of internal swelling and a mild concussion.”

Silence hung. The wind moaned and fingered under the door. Cobwebs in the corner lifted softly. She studied his face, his eyes, and Jeb sensed she was trying to see beyond physical injury. She was still unsure about him.

“Where else do you hurt?” she said.

He gave a wry smile.

“Okay, where does it hurt most? Talk me through it.”

“Ribs. Breathing. Everywhere.”

“Jacket off.”

He tried, winced. She helped him. Her hair fell across his cheek and he caught the scent of smoke from the fire. Her hands were warm, soft. Rachel was made of up of memories, of all the things that had been good in his life, before life as he knew it had been stolen from him.

She draped his leather jacket over the back of a chair. “Now let’s get your T-shirt off so I can see the rest of you.”

Jeb tried to lift his arms, a soft groan escaping him, pain sparking across his chest as Rachel helped him pull the shirt over his head.