Zero-Degree Murder (A Search and Rescue Mystery) (25 page)

CHAPTER

“I
should have stayed home after all.” Gracie said through teeth clenched against the pain of riding in a wheelchair over the uneven brick walkway.

“Almost there,” Ralph said as he pushed the chair up the sidewalk leading to the church.

Across the wide gravel parking lot, in the lengthening blue shadows of tall pines, a phalanx of reporters and camera crews—held back by several lengths of yellow Sheriff’s Department tape—snapped and filmed the funeral goers as they trickled into the church. A cluster of onlookers, mostly women, huddled to one side. Stationed at various points around the church grounds were several deputies and a security detail of burly men in suits and sunglasses.

“What the hell!” Gracie growled. “Groupies at a funeral? I want my stupid-ass life back.”

“Almost there,” Ralph said into her ear.

The wheelchair swept past a single deputy standing guard and in through the front door of the church. Gracie blinked to adjust her eyes as they passed from daylight into the darkness of the dimly lit narthex.

Just inside the door stood a small table covered with a white tablecloth on which had been arranged an eight-by-eleven portrait of Steve Cashman in uniform; his scratched and dented helmet; dress uniform shirt, recently ironed; and a coil of Steve’s personal climbing rope. Flanking the entrance to the sanctuary itself were two members of the National Search and Rescue Honor Guard dressed in ceremonial uniform from black berets to charcoal gray shirts and white gloves to 10th Mountain Division ice axes.

“Don’t stop,” Gracie whispered over her shoulder to Ralph.

The late-afternoon sun through stained glass cast slanting streamers of color across a sea of orange shirts already seated inside—search and rescue personnel from all over the state, mourning their colleague killed in the line of duty.

“We should have come earlier,” Gracie said through teeth still clenched so tightly together it was making her jaw ache. She stared straight ahead as heads swiveled and eyes tracked the wheelchair making its excruciatingly slow way down the center aisle to the front of the church. Ralph stopped beside the second row of pews, set the brake, and took the open seat at the end next to Gracie. On the other side of him, in a somber row, sat the eight remaining members of the Timber Creek Search and Rescue team.

In the front pew of the church, alongside Cashman’s family and directly in front of Kurt, Rob sat looking straight ahead and appearing stiff in slicked-back hair, and a bright white shirt and black suit.

Throughout the ponderous service, Gracie fought the temptation to glance over at Rob. Instead she stared at the minister, barely hearing his monotone delivery or the eulogies given by her teammates, pondering why the hero label bestowed upon Cashman rang hollow in her ears and about why she didn’t really feel anything about his being dead.

Even as Ralph and five other men from the team carried the casket bearing Cashman’s body past her back up the aisle, with bagpipes playing “Amazing Grace” from the choir loft, Gracie’s eyes remained dry, the neatly folded cloth handkerchief Ralph had placed on her knee before the service unused.

Immediately afterward, before anyone else in the sanctuary moved, two bodyguards whisked Rob out a side door and Gracie found herself being wheeled by Warren across the front of the sanctuary, through a different side door and into a small windowless room. Warren parked the wheelchair, set the brake, and left the room without a word. “What the—?” Gracie said to the closing door.

Gracie looked around the room—dark wood paneling, crimson carpet worn to threadbare, a small round table surrounded by four wooden chairs with a box of generic tissues placed dead center.

It was warm. And stuffy.

The door opened again and Gracie looked up.

A jolt of electricity hit her as Rob limped in.

He closed the door quietly behind him, then he turned and looked directly at her.

The two studied each other.

Gracie’s heart was thumping so loudly she wondered if Rob could hear it from where he stood only six feet away. She took in every facet of Rob’s face, the black eye and other contusions, the abrasions, the microscopic stitches on the cuts on his cheekbone and above his eye. He looked taller than she remembered. And cleaner. “You took a bath,” she said.

The corners of his mouth twitched. “So did you.”

“Such as it was.” She almost shrugged, but remembered her broken clavicle in time.

Rob took a step toward her, bent forward and kissed her.

Soft and warm
, Gracie thought.
That’s what I’ll remember about his kiss.

Rob dragged one of the wooden chairs over, placed it an inch away from the wheelchair, and sat down.

Gracie looked over at him. “I don’t want to hear a single word about how much like a lopsided chipmunk I look or how much like shit. And I didn’t want this friggin’ wheelchair, but it’s the only way they would let me come.”

Rob’s dark eyes sparkled. “Haven’t changed a bit, have you then?”

“Why the hell should I have changed?”

He smiled. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you’ll let me whisk you away from all of this. Take you back to London with me.”

“I don’t suppose there is,” she said and saw a flicker of something flash in the bright brown eyes. But whether a flicker of pain or of relief she couldn’t decipher. “At least not with all the friggin’ paparazzi following you—and me—everywhere.”

The smile faded. “I’m sorry for that, Gracie. Truly sorry.”

“Besides, I told you before. I hate cities.”

“So you did.” He cocked his head at her. “God, I love you.”

Gracie jerked away from him as if she had been slapped, then grit her teeth as pain shot through her shoulder. “Don’t,” she said.

“Gracie.” Rob gently lifted her hand and kissed her bruised knuckles, which sent goose bumps up her spine. “I need to tell you something,” he said. “Will you hear me out? Please?”

She nodded and stared down at the orange buttons of Ralph’s uniform shirt draped around her shoulders—the only one large enough to fit over the massive bandage on her shoulder and arm.

“I’m not in love with you,” Rob said in a low voice. “Well, maybe I am, but that’s not what I’m saying here.” He bent to look into her face. “Look at me, love. Please.”

Gracie dragged her eyes up to meet his.

“How can I say this? You’ve ruined me for good.”

“Oh—” Gracie began.

“Let me finish, woman!”

“Don’t call me
woman
,” Gracie growled back at him.

Rob chuckled, bowed his head for a moment, then he said, “You’ve given me my life back. Or given me a new one is closer to the truth. People who live in cities and for cities—and I am one—get all caught up in the minutiae of life, the clutter and clamor and chaos.”

“Nice alliteration,” Gracie said.

Rob stopped.

“Sorry,” she said. “Go on.”

“But,” he continued, “I feel like I’m fully awake for the first time in . . . forever. In my previous life, I lived in two dimensions. Now I live in three. Life seems simpler. More basic. Yet it’s richer, more complex. If that makes any sense at all. I’m seeing things with renewed clarity. Experiencing my life, truly living it. Maybe for the first time. You are the one who brought me there.”

The lump in Gracie’s throat made it difficult for her to swallow back the impending tears.

“You and I come from different worlds that in all probability cannot mesh.”

“Probably not,” she whispered, and bit her lower lip to stop it from quivering.

“But I do love you,” he said. “Everything about you. I love that you’re doing something good in this world, especially saving my worthless English arse.” Rob’s eyes twinkled back at her. “I love your fearlessness. Your strength. Your absolute lack of pretense. I love your smile. Your incredible eyes.”

A single tear slid down Gracie’s cheek and dripped onto her uniform pants.

Rob leaned forward so that his mouth was right next to her ear. “Do not change,” he said, his voice breaking. “Do you hear me? Do
not
let this world change you.”

Gracie leaned over to rest her head against Rob’s. “Yes.”

“No matter what happens, Gracie,” he whispered. “You’ll always be with me. You’ll always be a part of me.”

“And you’ll be a part of me,” she whispered back, choking back a sob.

He pressed his lips to her hair. Then he rose and, with feet silent on the carpet, walked out of the room.

Gracie sat in the silent room, head bowed until gradually her body stopped shaking. Then she shuddered in a long, painful breath and blew it slowly out.

The main door opened, then closed. Gracie felt rather than saw Ralph sit down in the chair beside her.

She lifted her head and looked over at him.

Before Gracie realized what he was doing, Ralph leaned over and kissed her on the mouth.

She sat up, eyes wide with surprise. “What was
that
?”

“Whatever you want it to be, Gracie girl.”

Gracie stared unblinking back at Ralph, her best friend, the man who made her feel warm and calm and safe, the one person who had never let her down, the one person who, she knew without a doubt, would always be there for her.

Gracie smiled at him.

The blue-gray eyes crinkled. “Ready to go?” he asked in a gentle voice.

“I’m ready.”

• • •

AN AUTOPSY OF
Cashman’s body had revealed injuries consistent with a traumatic fall, the cause of which was undetermined. Tristan Chambers’s death was attributed to massive internal injuries and blood loss due predominantly to a severed aorta.

No trace of Diana Petrovic was ever found.

The curved knife was never recovered.

Rob never regained full memory of what had transpired up on the rock promontory.

And somewhere in the depths of the canyon, the body of Radovan Milocek, “The Surgeon,” lay buried in its frozen tomb until early summer and the melting of the last of the high-country snow.

The story of Rob Christian and Grace Kinkaid became yesterday’s news, and Gracie’s life reverted back to something resembling normal. Her contusions faded from purple and black to green and yellow. Her punctures and cuts healed to pink scars. Her clavicle and arthroscopically repaired shoulder ligaments mended.

The emotional bruises took longer to heal.

And eventually, months later, Gracie wept for Steve Cashman.