To Darkness and to Death (48 page)

One fire?

“I was going to… I don’t know, punch you in the gut or something. Bite you again. Let you know what a miserable, despicable failure you are. But you know what? I don’t need to count coup on you.” She turned away from him. Toward the car.

“What—” His voice cracked. “What are you going to do?”

She stopped. Looked at him disbelievingly. “What do you think I’m going to do, you murdering bastard?” She spun on her heel.

He scooped up a fist-sized rock. It was dark down here, below the light and tumult at the resort’s entrance. But even in the dark, he could still throw. He was always good at throwing the ball.

The stone hit her hard, right behind her left ear. She went down with a thud. He strode over to her. Heaved her off the ground and threw her over his shoulder. He didn’t hesitate, as he had done this afternoon. Clearly there was only one course. And what could be more fortunate than a deadly fire close at hand? Shaun moved past the fire trucks and emergency vehicles, toward the far side of the hotel. All he had to do was get inside, somewhere away from the main entrance, and dump her into the flames.

It took him no more than five minutes. Skirting the light and the action, he discovered a side door that had been propped open with a chrome-and-rubber stop. He swung Millie from his shoulders into his arms. It was heavier and a lot less comfortable, but it would present the illusion of a man carrying a woman to safety.

He walked down the hall. He could hear the fire—a smashing, sucking, howling noise. The air was hot and heavy with smoke. He passed a door, opened onto a meeting room, and recognized where he was. The hallway leading to the ballroom. Could he slip into the conference room beside the ballroom and give her a little shove through the door?

“Hey, you!” The voice was weirdly muffled.

Shaun looked up. A firefighter, his face obscured by mask and eye shield, blocked the end of the hall. He had an ax in his hand and an oxygen tank strapped to his back. “You need to get out of here. This area’s not safe.”

Shaun nodded. He turned and walked in the opposite direction. He’d wait outside the doorway until the firefighter moved on, then bring her back. Maybe go upstairs, put her above the ballroom. Bash her a few more times and call it smoke inhalation. Even if the fire didn’t get her, who would know?

“Hey!” the muffled voice again. “That girl.”

Shaun looked down. Millie’s head had lolled back, and her long blond hair was swaying above the Oriental runner.

He kept walking.

“Stop!”

He walked faster. Behind him, he heard the thud of running feet. He broke into a run, but even his athlete’s body couldn’t function at peak with a hundred and forty pounds of young woman in his arms.

The firefighter’s tackle knocked him to the carpet. The girl bounced and rolled, coming to rest on her back, her head tilted to one side.

A hand grabbed his jacket and flipped him over. The firefighter set his ax, blade side down, against Shaun’s sternum. With his other hand, he shoved the face shield up and tugged his oxygen mask down.

Shaun frowned. It was… it was… He blinked. It was Ed Castle, the guy who supplied his pulp.

“What,” Ed Castle said, “are you doing with my daughter’s college roommate?”

9:40 P.M.

Russ had finished getting a radio briefing from Lyle MacAuley on the three-alarm fire that was consuming the old mill on the Reid-Gruyn property. He turned to the newly arrived Mark Durkee and Noble Entwhistle. “What’s the flammable version of ‘It never rains, but it pours?’ ” Mark shrugged his shoulders. “Okay,” Russ said. “We’re going to need some crowd and traffic control here. I want you to—”

Someone grabbed his shoulder. He looked around at John Huggins. “Hey,” Huggins said. “I got a radio squawk from one of my guys. He’s calling for paramedics and the cops.” He pointed toward the edge of the hotel. “Go around there. The second door. It’ll be open.”

Huggins strode away before Russ could acknowledge the information. “You heard the man,” he said, pointing to Mark. “Let’s go.”

From the corner of his eye, Russ saw two paramedics from the Corinth squad shouldering their rolled pallet and medical kits. He let Mark lead, trusting his younger, keener night vision to find them footing.

They found the door. The firefighter who called them in was close by.

“Lookit who I found,” Ed said.

Mark knelt by Millie. “She’s got a bloody laceration at the back of her skull,” he said. “But she’s alive.”

Russ looked at Shaun a long moment. Then he looked at the man holding the ax. “Ed,” he said. He paused. He didn’t know what to say. “Thank you,” he finally got out.

Ed nodded. “It was her hair caught my eye. Like Becky’s.”

Russ pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “Mark,” he said wearily. “Will you cuff Mr. Reid and inform him of his rights?”

9:45 P.M.

Clare and Deacon Aberforth sat in Hugh Parteger’s car together, keeping warm.

“Do you think they’ll stop it?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m sure they will.” She looked through the window at the carnival of lights and hoses and moving reflective stripes. She sighed.

“I wonder if I’ll be able to get back to my room?”

“You can bunk in the rectory tonight, Father.”

He smiled at her for the first time. “You know, before all this, I would have said that was totally unacceptable.”

“And now?”

“And now, I think I’ll just say, ‘Thank you.’ ”

Clare leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.

“Ms. Fergusson.”

She opened them again.

“I suspect you and I disagree on quite a number of things, including homosexuality, the proper degree of episcopal control of a parish, and, for all I know, the doctrines of immutable grace and virgin birth.”

“I may be a liberal, Father, but that doesn’t mean I’ve fallen under the sway of Bishop Spong.”

“No. No, I suppose not. And we are called to remember what unites us in Christ, not what divides us in the world.”

“Amen,” she said. The car’s heater kicked in again, and her skirt rustled in the blower’s blast.

“What I’m trying to say is, I recognize I must seem like a hopelessly outdated fossil to you.”

She prudently kept her mouth shut.

“But I have lived a good number of years. I’ve seen quite a lot of the world. It may surprise you to know that I served in the marines as a young man.”

“You’re kidding.”

“In Korea.”

“I’m impressed.”

“And I’m a widower.”

She paused. It was difficult to imagine Willard Aberforth in a marital relationship. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“I’m not saying this to garner your sympathy but to let you know that I’ve attained a good deal of knowledge about human nature. And about men and women.” He looked at her. His black eyes were a good deal less intimidating than they had been earlier. It was hard, she guessed, to keep your back up around someone wearing striped pajamas.

“I saw you, earlier.”

She was silent.

“When I was at the bar, after you left, the man you… were with… came through the lobby. With a woman who acted very much like a wife. Was I mistaken?”

“No. You must have a good eye for body language.”

He sighed. “Unlike you, I cannot offer confession and absolution.”

“No,” she said.

“But I can offer a quiet, listening heart. And whatever insight my years have left me with.”

Clare closed her eyes. She felt… taut, as if her skin were stretched around this secret she was stuffed with. She tried to live her life with integrity. But integrity required her to be integrated. To be one whole person, whether alone in her house or in front of an entire ballroom full of people.

She opened her eyes. Beyond the crazy emergency lights she could see the mountains. And the moon.

“When I met Russ Van Alstyne, I thought of him simply as a friend,” she started. “Our relationship seemed like”—she thought for a moment—“a meeting of true minds.”

9:55 P.M.

He found her sitting in Parteger’s car, her skirts practically up to her nose, deep in conversation with an old guy in pajamas and an overcoat. He knocked on the window. She rolled it down.

“Guess what?” he said.

“After tonight? I wouldn’t dare try.”

“We’ve found Millie van der Hoeven.”

She smiled brilliantly. “Oh, Russ, that’s wonderful. Finally, some good news.”

“She’s been resting up in one of the ambulances, but before she goes, she’d like to meet you.”

“Me? Whatever for?”

“I told her about you being on the search party and talking with her brother and all. Will you come?”

She looked at the old fellow. “Will you excuse me?”

“Of course,” he said.

She maneuvered her skirts out of the car. She was still wearing Russ’s tuxedo jacket. “I see you found a replacement,” she said, fingering the heavy parka he was wearing.

“I borrowed it.” He turned his back, to show her the words FIRE CHIEF in reflective letters.

“Why am I not surprised you found one that says ‘chief’?”

He smiled to himself.

“Did you find your Mom okay?”

“Yeah, She and Nane and the rest of the ACC gardeners were already outside when the crates blew. They’ve all gone to the Kreemy Kakes diner to talk the evening over.”

“How are the firefighters doing?” she asked.

“Not bad. The ballroom, the kitchen, and the conference room next to the ballroom are a complete loss, and there’s serious structural damage to the floor above them, but they’ve managed to contain it.”

“Thank God.”

“Was Millie behind the bombing? Or the PLA?”

“No.” He didn’t elaborate on what the van der Hoeven sisters had already told him.

He pointed to where the Corinth ambulance was parked. Several people milled around the open back doors. “Are those the corporate honchos from GWP?” Clare asked.

“Yep. Millie and her sister insisted on signing the documents transferring Haudenosaunee before they left for the hospital.”

“Wow. That’s dedicated.”

Ahead of them, the delegation from GWP finished bowing and shaking hands. Russ and Clare hung back a moment until they had cleared out. Then he urged her forward. “Millie, this is Reverend Clare Fergusson. Clare, I think you’ve already met Millie’s sister, Louisa.”

Clare shook hands with Millie, who reclined on the ambulance bed with a bandage on her head. Louisa sat next to her sister, holding her hand. One of them looked like a San Franciscan socialite, and the other looked like she’d come out of a brawl in a lumber camp, but their resemblance to each other—and to their late brother—was notable.

“Millie, I’m delighted to meet you. And find you safe and relatively sound.”

Millie touched her bandage tentatively. “Thank you. Chief Van Alstyne told us about all you did to help me. And my friend Becky.”

Clare shook her head. “I was just one of the search team.” She hesitated. “I’ve already told Louisa, but I’m so very sorry about the loss of your brother.”

Tears filled the young woman’s eyes. She nodded.

“I understand your car is one of tonight’s casualties,” Louisa said. “Please allow us to make restitution.”

Russ thought of the twisted, smoking wreck that was her Shelby Cobra. “Oh,” Clare said gamely, “I have insurance.”

“Nevertheless.” Louisa looked at her sister. “And we’d like to explain to you,” she looked at Russ, “why we believe Gene was solely responsible for tonight’s carnage.”

There was a long pause. Clare looked at Russ. He shrugged. Millie had disclaimed the IEDs earlier, and he was pretty sure further investigation of the physical evidence was going to prove her statement, but he didn’t know what this was about.

“I feel responsible,” Millie said. “I was the one who brought the land sale up. I knew Gene was attached to Haudenosaunee, but I didn’t realize…”

Louisa looked at Clare and Russ. “I believe it’s common knowledge that Gene’s lived a reclusive life at Haudenosaunee since the fire that destroyed the old camp and took his mother’s life.”

Russ nodded.

“What is not commonly known—in fact, no one outside the family knew—was that… Gene…”

“Gene started that fire.” Millie’s face was as expressionless as her inflection.

“His mother had gotten primary custody of him, and he didn’t want to go. He loved to… tinker with things. Make things.”

“Things that blew up?” Clare asked bluntly.

Louisa nodded. “I don’t think he actually meant to hurt her…”

“Yes, he did,” Millie said. “He hated her, and he didn’t want to leave Daddy and Haudenosaunee. So he waited until she was alone in the old camp, and he set off his firebomb.”

“Good heavens,” Clare said, which was a lot milder than what Russ was going to say. “That’s a pretty big secret to carry around for all those years.” She searched both the sisters’ faces. “Are you sure, though, that means Eugene was responsible for tonight’s violence?”

“He locked me in the tower,” Millie said. “He slipped something in my drink last night during dinner. I don’t know what. I couldn’t remember anything when I woke up this morning.”

“Probably roofie. Rohypnol,” Russ explained. “Makes you extremely susceptible to suggestion and wipes out your memory. He could have told you to walk to the tower and climb the stairs and you wouldn’t recall doing it.”

“He did it to keep me away from the ceremony,” Millie said. “So I wouldn’t get hurt.”

“He didn’t tell
me
to keep away,” Louisa said. Her mouth drew taut, as if its strings had been yanked shut.

“Lou, I’m sure he had some plan up his sleeve. He didn’t want to hurt you.”

“No,” Russ said, “just the leadership of the ACC and the GWP corporate brass.” All three women looked at him.

“Oh, my God,” Clare said. “This afternoon, when I agreed to deliver the cases of wine for him, Eugene told me to leave the ballroom and come outside at nine o’clock. And bring my friends. He told me he was going to set off fireworks.”

Everyone looked out the open ambulance door, to where the night was alive with whirling lights and color.