Part 32 (2/2)
”You legitimately needed help,” Rose said.
”Maybe, but I think my work's made me believe that most people end up in trouble because they screw up. That's harsh, don't you think?”
”My job is search and rescue. I leave judging to others.”
”Doesn't it annoy you when some idiot bungee jumps off a bridge into a ravine, doesn't calculate the pendulum effect of his little bungee cord, slams into a rock wall and you have to go rescue him?”
”That's a technical rescue. It's not what I do.”
”A lost hiker, then. Some idiot in the wrong clothes, with no compa.s.s, no plan, out alone. I'll bet you've rescued a ton of hikers like that.”
”Yes, I have, but you can also do everything right-do your best-and you still can end up in trouble.”
”I had no idea Andrei-Andrei Petrov, my Russian friend who was killed by Lowell Whittaker's a.s.sa.s.sins.” Myrtle paused, her lavender eyes distant as she stared out at the meadow. ”I had no idea he was a target until he died on the bathroom floor after those idiots poisoned his toothpaste. But I knew I was onto them when they targeted me. I'd been researching similar unexplained deaths. My notes were in my office. That's what burned.”
”You did the best you could,” Rose said.
”Did I?” Myrtle turned from the window and fixed her gaze on Nick, Jo and Elijah at their table. ”What if Grit Taylor had been killed that day? What if some firefighter had had to sc.r.a.pe my remains off the walls and then live with that image?”
”Myrtle, what if the police never know for sure who set your house on fire?”
She smiled knowingly. ”Ask Nick Martini the same question. Ask yourself.”
She didn't wait for an answer. ”I'm off to help Lauren. I hope you have a chance to enjoy the springlike air.”
After breakfast, Rose went down to the maintenance shed with Jo and Elijah and collected drills, mallets, taps and measuring sticks and threw them in the back of her Jeep. They wanted to capitalize on the above-freezing temperatures and tap trees for maple sugaring. Rose knew, too, that it was a chance for her brother and future sister-in-law to take another look out by the sugar shack. They would snowshoe across the meadow while she drove the equipment.
As she stuck her key in the ignition, Nick jumped into the pa.s.senger seat and grinned at her. ”Tapping trees for maple sugaring?”
”You'll love it.”
She headed down Ridge Road to the dead-end lane. Jo and Elijah met them and they went in search of appropriate sugar maples to tap. Rose had to admit Nick didn't seem intimidated at all by Elijah, or Jo, for that matter. In fact, the opposite. He was natural, at ease with them and his surroundings. As they plunged through the snow to a trio of old maples, Rose noticed he didn't make an effort to distance himself from her. He also didn't do anything provocative, like put an arm around her or wink at her.
Not that he had a chance.
Jo dived in with questions. ”Tell me about Jasper Vanderhorn,” she said as she adjusted the strap on one of her snowshoes. ”How convinced was he that he was after a serial arsonist? How'd you two meet?”
Nick rubbed the rough bark of an old maple with a gloved hand. ”This guy must have been here when Lincoln was president,” he said. ”I ran into Jasper a few times smoke jumping, but I got to know him better when he looked into a fire at one of our buildings.”
”What was he like?” Jo asked.
Rose made her way to the middle of the three maples, which she remembered tapping with her father as a child. Elijah looked up at its bare limbs, and she wondered if he were remembering, too.
Nick continued. ”Jasper was quiet, measured, systematic.”
Jo pulled a metal tap from her pocket. ”Obsessed?”
”He was trying to connect the dots on a number of different fires. He believed a clever killer was at work, not some yahoo.”
Elijah eyed Nick, but it was Jo who spoke. ”Some of his fellow arson investigators thought he was a little wacky, creating a mythical bogeyman instead of following the evidence. There's a reason half of all arson cases are never solved. It's tricky. He didn't have what he needed to make his case that there even was a firebug at work, never mind who it might be.”
”He'd been a firefighter,” Nick said calmly. ”He'd caught arsonists before. He said this one was different. He was working on a profile.”
”Did he share any details with you?” Jo asked.
”Someone very skilled, not impulsive or purely opportunistic-not just about wildland fires and ma.s.sive conflagrations, or structural fires, or murder. Someone who did it all.”
”A hybrid,” Elijah said.
”Man, woman?” Jo asked.
”He didn't know. He was convinced he was after a cold-blooded killer who wouldn't stop until he was captured or dead. Jasper wasn't given to hyperbole. That doesn't mean he was right.”
Rose realized she had gone still. Elijah had, too, and she was aware of him watching her, gauging her reaction to Nick, to what he was saying.
Jo closed her fingers around the metal tap. ”Do you think Vanderhorn was targeted by this guy? Was he the victim of premeditated murder?”
Nick gave her an unflinching look. ”Yes.”
”This all has to be hard for you.” Jo's tone softened slightly. ”You were friends, and you knew he believed he was after what amounted to a serial killer. But you couldn't protect him. You couldn't save him.”
”We tried. Sean and I both did. We weren't the only ones, either.” Nick glanced at Rose, his expression giving nothing away, then added, ”It was a bad day.”
Jo turned to Rose. ”You were in L.A. then. What all were you up to?”
She'd been antic.i.p.ating the question. ”I was training firefighters in advanced dog handling techniques. I'd been there several days.”
”Were you staying with Sean?” Jo asked.
”Yes.” She carefully avoided meeting Nick's eye, knowing Jo as well as Elijah would notice. ”I had Ranger with me. I volunteered to help search for a boy who'd gone missing during a mandatory evacuation because of the wildfire.”
Jo leveled her gaze back on Nick. ”You and Sean were in big trouble out there, weren't you?”
”It was a close call, but we were prepared to handle the conditions.” Nick shrugged. ”We had backup.”
”Vanderhorn wasn't prepared?”
”He shouldn't have been there.”
”Why was he?”
Nick paused before he answered. ”I think he was lured.”
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