White Fire (26 page)
And then, with that hideous scream still echoing in his confused and petrified brain, Mockey Jones felt something first warm, then cool, between his legs. A moment later he realized he’d pissed his pants.
C
orrie Swanson eased the rented Explorer into the driveway, and looked up at the cold, dark house. Not a light was on, even though Stacy’s car was in the driveway. Where was she? For some reason, Corrie found herself worrying about Stacy, feeling oddly protective toward her, when in fact she had hoped the opposite would happen—that Stacy would make her feel safe.
Stacy had probably gone to bed, even though she seemed to be a late-to-bed, later-to-rise person. Or maybe a date had picked her up in his car and they were still out.
Corrie got out of the car, locked it, and went into the house. The kitchen light had been turned off. That settled it: Stacy was asleep.
A helicopter flew low overhead, then another. During her drive up the canyon, there had been a lot of chopper activity, accompanied by the faint sound of sirens coming from the town. She hoped it wasn’t another house burning down.
Her date with Ted hadn’t quite ended as she’d hoped. She wasn’t sure why, but at the last minute she’d turned down his request to come back with her and warm her cold bed. She’d been tempted, exceedingly tempted, and she could still feel her lips tingling from his long kisses. Jesus, why had she said no?
It had been a wonderful evening. They’d eaten at a fancy restaurant in an old stone building that had been beautifully renovated, cozy and romantic, with candles and low lighting. The food had been excellent. Corrie, feeling famished, had consumed a gigantic porterhouse steak, rare, accompanied by a pint of ale, scalloped potatoes (her favorite), a romaine salad, and finished off with a brownie sundae that was positively obscene. They had talked and talked, especially about that jackass, Marple, and about Kermode. Ted had been fascinated—and shocked—to learn that Kermode was related to the infamous Stafford family. Having grown up in The Heights, he had known Kermode a long time and come to loathe her, but to learn she was part of the heartless family that had exploited and squeezed the town during the mining days really set him off. In turn, he told her an interesting fact: the Stafford family had originally owned the land The Heights had been built on—and their holding company still owned the development rights to the Phase III portion, slated to launch as soon as the new spa and clubhouse opened.
Putting away these thoughts, Corrie stepped out of the kitchen and into the central corridor. Something made her uneasy—there was a foreign feeling she couldn’t quite pinpoint, a strange smell. She walked through the house and headed to their rooms to check on Stacy.
Her bed was empty.
“Stacy?”
No answer.
Suddenly she remembered the dog. “Jack?”
There hadn’t been any barking, leaping, crazy little mutt to greet her. Now she was starting to freak out. She went down the little hall, calling the dog’s name.
Still nothing.
She headed back into the main portion of the house. Maybe he was hiding somewhere, or had gotten lost. “
Jack?
”
Pausing to listen, she heard a muffled whine and a scratching sound. It came from the grand living room—a room that had been shut up and which she’d been strictly forbidden to enter. She went to the closed set of pocket doors. “Jack?”
Another whine and bark, accompanied by more scratching.
She felt her heart pounding. Something was very, very wrong.
She placed her hand on the doors, found them unlocked, and slowly pulled them apart. Immediately, Jack rushed out from the darkness beyond, crouching and whining and licking her, tail clamped between his legs.
“Who put you in here, Jack?”
She looked about the dark room. It seemed quiet, empty—and then she saw a dark outline of a figure on the sofa.
“Hey!” she cried in surprise.
Jack cowered behind her, whining.
The figure moved a little, very slowly.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Corrie demanded. This was stupid. She should get out, now.
“Oh,” came a thick voice out of the blackness. “It’s you.”
“Stacy?”
No answer.
“Good God, are you all right?”
“Fine, no problem,” came the slurred voice again.
Corrie turned on the lights. And there was Stacy, slumped on the sofa, a fifth of Jim Beam half empty in front of her. She was still bundled up in her winter clothes—scarf, hat, and all. A small puddle of water lay at her feet, and watery tracks led to the sofa.
“Oh, no. Stacy!”
Stacy waved her arm, before letting it fall to the sofa. “Sorry.”
“What have you been doing? Were you outside?”
“Out for a walk. Looking for that mother who shot up your car.”
“But I
told
you not to do that. You could have frozen to death out there!” Corrie noticed that Stacy was packing, a .45 holstered to her hip. Jesus, she would have to get that gun away.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“I do worry about you. I’m
totally
worried about you!”
“Come on, siddown, have a drink. Relax.”
Corrie sat but ignored the offer of a drink. “Stacy, what’s going on?”
At this Stacy hung her head. “I dunno. Nothing. My life sucks.”
Corrie took her hand. No wonder the dog had been freaked out. “I’m sorry. I feel the same way myself sometimes. You want to talk about it?”
“My military career—shot. No family. No friends. Nothing. There’s nothing in my life but a box of old bones to haul back to Kentucky. And for what purpose? What a fucked-up idea that was.”
“But your military career. You’re a captain. All those medals and citations—you can do anything…”
“My life’s fucked. I was discharged.”
“You mean…you didn’t resign?”
Stacy shook her head. “Medical discharge.”
“Wounded?”
“PTSD.”
A silence. “Oh, Jesus. I’m sorry, I really am.”
There was a long pause. Then Stacy spoke again. “You have
no
idea. I get these rages—no reason. Screaming like a fucking maniac. Or hyperventilation: total panic attack. Christ, it’s awful. And there’s no warning. I feel so
down
sometimes, I can’t get out of bed, sleep fourteen hours a day. And then I start doing this shit—drinking. Can’t get a job. The medical discharge…they see that on a job application, it’s like, oh, we can’t hire her, she’s fucking mental. They’ve all got yellow ribbons on their cars, but when it comes to hiring a vet with posttraumatic stress disorder? Outta here, bitch.”
She reached out to take up the bottle. Corrie intercepted her and gently grasped it at the same time. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
Stacy jerked the bottle out of her hand, went to take a swig, and then, all of a sudden, threw it across the room, shattering it against the far wall. “Fuck, yeah. Enough.”
“Let me help you get to bed.” She took Stacy’s arm. Stacy rose unsteadily to her feet while Corrie supported her. God, she stank of bourbon. Corrie felt so sorry for her. She wondered if she could slip the .45 out of its holster unnoticed, but decided that might not be a good idea, might set Stacy off. Just get her into bed and then deal with the gun.
“They catch the fuck shot your car?” Stacy slurred.
“No. They think it might have been a poacher.”
“Poacher, my ass.” She stumbled and Corrie helped right her. “Couldn’t find the bastard’s tracks. Too much fresh snow.”
“Let’s not worry about that now.”
“I
am
worrying!” She clapped her hand to the sidearm and yanked it out, waving it about. “I’m gonna smoke that fucker!”
“You know you shouldn’t handle a firearm when you’ve been drinking,” Corrie said quietly and firmly, controlling her disquiet.
“Yeah. Right. Sorry.” Stacy ejected the magazine, which she fumbled and dropped to the floor, scattering bullets. “You’d better take it.”
She held it out, butt-first, and Corrie took it.
“Careful, there’s still one in the chamber. Lemme eject it for you.”
“I’ll do it.” Corrie racked the round out of the chamber, letting it fall to the floor.
“Hey. You know what you’re doing, girl!”
“I’d better, since I’m studying law enforcement.”
“Fuck, yeah, you’re gonna make a good cop someday. You will. I
like
you, Corrie.”
“Thanks.” She helped Stacy along the hallway toward their rooms. Corrie could hear more choppers overhead, and, through a window, a spotlight from one of them trained on the ground, moving this way and that. Something was happening.
She finally got Stacy tucked under the covers, putting a plastic wastebasket next to the bed in case she puked. Stacy fell asleep instantly.
Corrie went back to the living room and started cleaning up, Jack trailing her. Stacy’s drunkenness had freaked out the poor dog. It had freaked her out, as well. As she was straightening up she heard yet another chopper flying overhead. She went to the plate-glass windows and peered into the darkness. She could just see, over the ridge in the direction of town, an intense yellow glow.
J
ust when things couldn’t possibly get worse, they did, thought Chief Morris as he looked at the two wrecked cars blocking Highway 82 and the furious, desperate traffic jam piling up behind. The medevac chopper was just lifting off, rotor wash blowing snow everywhere, as if there weren’t enough of it in the air already, carrying away the two victims to the advanced trauma unit at Grand Junction, where at least one of them, shot through the head, was probably going to die. What really infuriated the chief was that no one had been hurt in the accident; instead, it had generated a road-rage incident in which the driver of a BMW X5 had pulled a gun and shot the two occupants of the Geländewagen that had rear-ended him. He could hear the perp now, handcuffed in the back of his cruiser while waiting for the snowcat to arrive, yelling at the top of his lungs about “self-defense” and “standing my ground.” So if the victim died—and most people with a .38 round through the skull did—that would mean nine murders in little more than a week. All in a town that hadn’t seen a murder in years.
What a nightmare—with no end in sight.
Four days before Christmas, and the snow was now falling heavily, with a prediction of twenty-four to thirty inches over the next three days, with accompanying high winds toward the tail end of the storm. Highway 82—the only way out of town—was gridlocked because of the accident; the snowplows couldn’t operate; the blizzard was quickly getting ahead of them; and in an hour or less the road would have to be closed and all these people sitting furiously in their cars, yelling and honking and screeching like maniacs, would have to be rescued.
McMaster Field had seen nonstop flights out as all the Gulfstreams and other private jets and planes fled the town, but it, too, would soon be closing. And when that happened, Roaring Fork would be bottled up, no way in or out except by snowcat.
He glanced in the rearview mirror, back in the direction of town. The third arson attack had been the worst of all. Not in terms of numbers of deaths, but in terms of the psychological effect it had on Roaring Fork. The burnt house stood just at the edge of town, on the first rise of the hill: a grand old Victorian belonging to Maurice Girault, the celebrity fund manager and New York socialite, number five on the Forbes list, a dashing older fellow with an ego as big as Mount Everest. The victims were himself and his fresh young wife, who looked as if she couldn’t be a day over eighteen—and who had precipitated herself out an upper-story window while afire.
The entire town had seen it—and been traumatized. And this snarl of traffic, this road-rage shooting, this classic example of a FUBAR situation, was the result.
His thoughts returned, unwillingly, to Pendergast’s now-prophetic words.
The next house will no doubt be equally conspicuous
. And his conclusion:
To send a message
.
But what message?
He returned his gaze to the mess. His idling squad car, with the shooter in the back, had its lights and sirens going—all for show. Idiots fleeing town had blocked both sides of the highway as well as the breakdown lanes, and high banks of snow on either side prevented cars from turning around—creating total gridlock. Even the chief was locked in; despite all his efforts to prevent cars from coming up behind and blocking him, they had.
At least they had managed to temporarily block the way out of town, preventing any more vehicles from adding to the mess. And, thank God, the RFPD had three snowcats, all of which were on their way. Even as he sat in his car, the wipers ineffectually swiping the snow back and forth, he heard the first one approaching. Immediately he grabbed his radio, directing the officer in the cat to get the perp out of there first. An angry crowd had started to gather around his squad car, yelling at the shooter, cursing and threatening him, offering to string him up on the nearest tree, while the perp, for his part, was yelling back, taunting them. It was amazing, just like the days of the vigilantes. The veneer of civilization was thin indeed.
And on top of everything else, Pendergast had vanished, split, gone off to London at the worst possible moment. Chivers, the fire investigator, was now openly at war with the police department, and his own investigators were demoralized, angry, and disagreeing with each other.
Now the second snowcat had arrived, delivering a CSI team and a couple of detectives to document the accident and crime scene and to interview witnesses. The snow was beginning to fall more heavily, big fat flakes coming down fast. Getting out of his squad car, the chief walked back to the cat and climbed aboard, along with some of his other men who needed to get back to town and work the new arson attack. A number of desperate motorists wanted a ride back to town as well, and the chief allowed a few of them—a couple with a baby—to get on board, causing a ruckus among those left behind.
As the vehicle headed back to town through the deep snow on the side of the highway, the chief turned his thoughts again, for the thousandth time, to the central mystery of the arson attacks: what was the message? Was he completely insane? But if that was the case, how could the crimes be so carefully planned and executed?