Beneath a Darkening Moon

by Keri Arthur

  Anton nodded in agreement. “You intend to question the ranger while you're at it?"

  "Yeah.” Whether he actually got any information was another matter entirely. She wasn't exactly happy with him at the moment. He tossed the empty beer bottle in the trash can. “Call me if you get anything."

  "I will. Just make sure you've got the phone turned on this time, or we will use the locator."

  Cade ignored the barb, but he heeded the warning as he headed for the door.

  * * * *

  "I can smell him on you, you know."

  Savannah glanced at Ronan as they walked towards the blackened remains of the old house. “I'm sorry. I don't mean to continuously shove it in your face."

  His smile was almost a grimace. “I know. It's just a warning. I may be more sensitive to your aroma, but the others have worked with you for a while and they will catch the mingling of both your odor and his."

  "They're going to know sooner or later that Cade and I were once lovers."

  He nodded. “But you don't want them to know the relationship has blossomed again, do you?"

  "Blossomed is definitely the wrong word,” she said dryly. As was relationship. “And no, it's not something I want the town's general population to know."

  The old gate creaked as he pushed it open, and he stood aside to allow her through first. At the back of the blackened wreckage of the house were two fire engines, their red and blue lights washing the night with eerie brightness. She couldn't see Manny Johnson, the head of the local fire department, but she knew he was here somewhere. Ripple Creek didn't get many emergency calls like this, and as gruesome as it sounded, she knew Manny wouldn't have missed it.

  "Can I ask why?” Ronan asked softly.

  She frowned up at him. “What?"

  "Why don't you want the town to know about you and Cade?"

  "Because it's against the code of conduct."

  "Not really. We are, but not you and Cade."

  "He's here on a case. A murder case. That makes it against the rules."

  Ronan's expression suggested he didn't think it was. “Are you ashamed of what you did with him?"

  Startled, she glanced up at him. “Of course not."

  His gray eyes were intent, yet his expression was touched by something close to sadness. That made no sense, considering what they were discussing. “So are you ashamed of what you did in Rosehall?"

  "No. But, by the same token, I don't want the whole town finding out about it."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I am no longer that person. She died long ago."

  "Did she?” he mused. “Or did circumstances and hurt merely force her to hide?"

  She opened her mouth to deny his statement, but the acrid smell of smoke and death swirled around her, catching in her throat and making her cough, which was probably just as well. She couldn't deny something she knew deep down to be true, as her reaction to Cade these last few days had proven. That part of her hadn't died. It had merely waited for the right person to bring it back out.

  It was such a goddamn shame that the right person just happened to be Cade again.

  A big man stepped from the side of the ruined house, smiling grimly when he saw them.

  "We'll finish this discussion later,” she murmured to Ronan, and held out her hand to the approaching fire chief. “How you been, Manny?"

  "I've had better days,” the older man said wearily, shaking her hand then wiping a sooty forearm across his brow. “Old Lana Lee died in the fire."

  Savannah swore softly. She'd known this was Lana's house, but she'd thought the widow had gone to the Bitterroot reservation to visit her daughter. She said as much to Manny.

  "Yeah,” he said. “Apparently she returned yesterday."

  "Damn.” She'd gotten to know the old woman over the years, simply because it was Lana who owned the flower shop below Savannah's apartment. While they'd never been more than pleasantly polite, she'd liked the older woman. Liked her style. “Has the coroner been called?"

  Manny nodded. “And the state fire marshal. The body has been bagged and sent to the medical examiner for the cause of death ruling."

  "Your guess?"

  "Asphyxiation."

  "So the body showed no sign of trauma?"

  "Not according to the coroner. Doc Carson's home, if you want to talk to him."

  Savannah glanced at Ronan, who nodded and reached for his cell phone as he stepped away from them. “And the fire?” she said, looking back at the fire chief.

  "Suspicious."

  "Why?"

  "It started in the bedroom. A lit candle left too close to lace curtains. The fire quickly moved into the roof cavity, and from there, in an old house like this, it was only minutes before the whole place was on fire."

  "But Lana hated candles.” She'd hated them since her son had died in a similar accident when he was five years old.

  "Exactly,” Manny said. “So how did the candles get there, and who lit them?"

  And why would they want to light them? Who'd want to kill Lana, for God's sake? She might have been independently wealthy, thanks to her dead husband's insurance policies and the regular income she got from the flower shop's lease, but her living style was frugal, and there was little in the way of sellable goods in her house. Lana hadn't even stepped into the TV age, let alone the DVD years. She'd preferred her music and books to all those “newfangled toys,” as she called them. “Is the building safe enough for us to poke around in?"

  Manny nodded and swung into step beside her as she moved towards the skeletal remains of the house.

  "Were the front and back doors locked?” she asked, stepping carefully through the remains of what was once the living room wall. The ceiling in this section of the house was gone, leaving the living room open to the elements. Burned rafters arched skywards like broken fingers reaching for the stars. Her gaze followed the burn line across the rafters to the wall, which, though it still stood, was skeletal, revealing the innards of the bedroom next to it. The roof had collapsed there, too.

  "Front door was locked,” Manny answered. “Back door wasn't."

  "Meaning Lana had let someone into her house?"

  "Possibly. The old girl was meticulous when it came to locking her doors, and she even used that spy hole of hers to hold conversations through."

  Savannah grinned. “I had a ten-minute discussion like that with her last year. It was snowing, and she was afraid opening the door would let out too much heat."

  "She always was a bit of a tight-ass,” Manny agreed. His gaze swept around the room, and the amusement in his expression faded. “But she was a gentle old soul who wouldn't have harmed a gnat. She didn't deserve this."

  "No.” The question was, why had her life ended like this? “Where'd you find her body?"

  He pointed towards the end of the house that still had most of its roof intact. “In the kitchen, slumped over the table with her coffee."

  "No smoke detectors installed?"

  "Yeah, but the batteries were flat. Or at least, the one remaining in the kitchen was."

  Savannah headed down the hallway. “Wouldn't she have smelled the smoke? Seen it?"

  "One of the boys was telling me that Lana's olfactory sense was pretty bad. Apparently she left the gas running a few times without knowing it."

  "But still, the smoke would have been fairly thick, wouldn't it?"

  "This old house exploded pretty damned fast. Given the fact it was dusk and none of the lights were on, she might not have seen the smoke until it was too late."

  And she obviously hadn't if she'd been found at the table. Savannah stopped just inside the kitchen doorway and looked around. Most of the damage here was either smoke or water related. Her gaze swept the small room, and came to rest on the table. Soot had outlined where Lana had slumped and found death. Anger slithered through Savannah. Why would someone do this to a harmless old woman?

  "When was the fire reported?"

  "Sevente
en-forty-five. By that time it had reached the roof and pretty much destroyed half the house."

  "Who reported it?"

  "Rex, the neighbor to the right, saw the smoke and gave us a call. Apparently it wasn't long after his call that the living room roof collapsed."

  Meaning there might have been accelerants involved, as well as the candle. But they wouldn't know that for sure until the fire marshal got here. She walked over to the sink. No extra cups, no spoons, nothing to indicate that Lana had drunk coffee with anyone else. She walked towards the back door. Old slippers, summer sandals, and a worn pair of lined rubbed boots stood in a tidy line to one side of the doorway. In the doorway itself, mud tracks. Obviously from the boots of Manny and his men ... except for one. She frowned, stepped to one side, and squatted in front of it.

  The footprint wasn't small, nor was it as fresh as the others. And it was a different print pattern. She pointed a finger at it as she glanced up at Manny. “Any of your men wearing different boots today?"

  He frowned and shook his head. “Regulation down the line."

  She picked up one of Lana's boots and flipped it over to study the heel and sole. There was mud caked on it, indicating Lana had gone outside earlier today, but the pattern was different from the muddy pattern on the floor. “You want to keep your men away until we can get a photo of this?"

  Manny nodded. Savannah rose and headed back out to the car. Ronan met her at the gate.

  "The doc confirmed what Manny said. There doesn't appear to be any obvious signs of injury, beyond those related to the fire."

  She nodded. “Lana had a visitor before the fire started."

  "Neighbors spotted them?"

  She shook her head, and opened the car. “No. I found a footprint that doesn't tie in with either Lana's boots or the boots used by Manny and his men."

  Ronan reached into the car and grabbed the crime-scene kit. “Doesn't mean it belongs to the person who set the fire."

  "No, but it might. You want to go interview the neighbors while I take a few photos? Rex, the neighbor on the right, reported the fire."

  "I'll start with him, then.” Ronan hesitated and looked around, as if to see who was near, then added softly, “There's something I need to say."

  Her stomach clenched. She knew it was about Cade, about what they'd been talking about before, without even skimming his thoughts—not that she ever did that with Ronan. Or any of the other ranger's, for that matter. “Can't it wait?"

  He shook his head. “I know you think Cade coming back into your life is a bad thing, and if I'm looking at it from a purely selfish point of view, I tend to agree. But mostly, I don't."

  She raised an eyebrow. “Why on earth not?"

  His gaze met hers, and once again there was a touch of sadness in those clear gray depths. Yet there was also determination. And on some inner level that frightened her. Her life was about to change, and she wasn't entirely sure she was ready for it.

  "Because until now,” he said, “you've been living your life like a sleeper, just going through the motions, but never truly experiencing them."

  She opened her mouth to deny his statement, but he raised a warning finger, stopping her.

  "His arrival here has awakened something in you, Savannah. Don't let it go back to sleep, because it's truly beautiful to see."

  "Ronan—"

  He smiled and caught her hand, then raised it to his lips and kissed it gently. “There's no need to say anything. There never was."

  He released her, handed her the kit, and turned and walked away.

  And she knew it was as much a symbolic walking away as it was literal.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to control the swirl of ... not hurt, but at the very least, regret. Yet deep in her heart she knew that what he was doing was right for them both.

  Even when Cade finally left Ripple Creek, there would be no going back to the easy loving she and Ronan had once shared, if only because the wild wolf within her had indeed woken again. That part of her, the part she'd subdued for so long, had always wanted more than just a comfortable existence or relaxed loving. It wanted lust. It wanted the unquenchable fire of needing to be with someone so badly it seemed like she'd die without him. Most importantly, it wanted to know what it was like to be the object of one man's undying passion and love.

  Those were things she could never find in Ronan's arms, no matter how much either of them might want it.

  But she'd found most of it with Cade—then and now.

  Fate, she thought as she brushed the heel of her hand across her eyes, had to be a woman, because it sure as hell was one big bitch.

  Chapter Seven

  Cade combed the remainder of the temporary color through his hair, then stepped back to study the effect.

  Bright red definitely didn't suit him. It made his skin look sallow rather than tanned. But when combined with the silver-gray contact lenses, it went a long way towards disguising his identity. Add faded denims, a black t-shirt and a worn black-leather jacket, and he looked nothing like his usual suit-wearing official self, even though he'd done nothing to disguise or hide his actual facial features.

  But then, he didn't need to. Few people really stopped to examine faces—most folks just scanned surface appearances, making basic assumptions based on little more than clothing and skin color. That had been proven time and again in lineups and undercover operations the world over.

  He picked up his keys, wallet and coat. As he headed for the door, anticipation rose in him. What sort of disguise would Vannah wear? During her time at Rosehall, she'd worn all sorts of costumes—from the prim and proper librarian to a leather-clad whip-mistress, both of which he'd enjoyed immensely. Neither of those was suitable for tonight's venture, but he had no doubt that whatever she came up with would be equally exciting. If there was one thing Vannah could never be accused of, it was lacking imagination.

  So why had she settled for being a ranger?

  The world of police work, with all its rigid rules and regulations, was one occupation he would never have thought she'd be comfortable in. The Vannah he'd known had been a free spirit and would have chaffed under the restrictions she now worked with.

  But then, how well had he really known her? He hadn't even known she was using a false name, for heavens sake. Which, when he actually thought about it, was pretty slack police work on his part—and that of his supervisors.

  Why hadn't they known?

  The thought niggled at him, and instead of heading for his car, he turned and walked to his team's room.

  "Hey, pretty sexy look you have happening there, boss man,” Trista said, her expression amused as her gaze swept him up and down.

  "Apparently, if I don't wear a disguise to this nightclub, our quarry will run."

  "You sure our chief ranger isn't pulling your leg?"

  "No, I'm not.” And worse yet, he hadn't even thought of the possibility. He glanced at Anton. “You had a chance to go through the files and find my notes?"

  Anton shook his head and raised the pizza slice he held. “Thought I'd have something to eat, first. Why?"

  "Because I want you to uncover what identity checks were done for Vannah Harvey and Nelle James in the early stages of the original investigation."

  Anton frowned. “There must have been checks. I mean, you didn't go in blind and randomly select a target, did you?"

  "No. But there wasn't much in the folders I was given on Vannah and Nelle, other than photos, names and their position in the group."

  Trista reached across the table and picked up a slice of pizza. “But it's standard procedure that all possible crosschecks are done before sending an agent undercover. If they came up empty, it would have raised suspicions."

  "If the little amount of information caused alarm, I certainly didn't know about it."

  Anton's frown deepened. “Considering you were the one going undercover, I would have thought you'd be told if there were doubts about your targe
t's identity."

  "I'd have thought so, too.” He rubbed a hand across his jaw, wincing when he hit the darkening bruise. Still, a bruise added to the cover, because people would focus on that more than his actual features. “While you're checking the files, do a crosscheck on James Oliver, too."

  Trista raised her eyebrows. “Why? Oliver quit the IIS with a spotless record, didn't he?"

  Cade nodded. “Eight years ago. He's apparently living in Florida nowadays."

  "So why run a check on him?"

  "Because something about all this feels wrong.” He glanced at Anton. “If I was right all those years ago and there was a second person involved, then maybe Vannah wasn't the only reason it almost went to hell."

  "Hang on, hang on,” Trista said. “I'm missing something here. How did our head ranger almost cause it all to go to hell?"

  Cade grimaced. “Nelle was Vannah's best friend, and I believe she warned Nelle that I was going after Jontee. Nelle then warned Jontee, who almost succeeded in ambushing and killing me."

  "So why wasn't she charged for impeding an investigation? Why wasn't a warrant issued for them both?"

  "Because I was under orders to let it drop. Oliver had his man, and that was all he cared about."

  "Odd."

  "Thinking about it now, yes, very odd."

  "But,” Trista continued, “surely if Oliver had been involved with the group, it would have come out sometime during the trial and appeals. It would have tarnished the authenticity of the evidence, if nothing else."

  "I'm not casting doubts on Oliver or his part of the investigation—I just want to double check, that's all."

  "Because you have an itch,” Anton said.

  "And in the past,” Trista muttered, “those itches have proven amazingly accurate. You realize that this will put the cat amongst the birds. Oliver has a lot of friends in the department."

  "I'm just asking for a check, nothing more. I don't expect to find anything.” He glanced at his watch. “I'd better get going. Buzz me if anything urgent comes up."

  "Enjoy the club,” Trista said, voice dry.

  He glanced at her. “It's work."

  "I'm sure it is,” she said, and shoved the pizza in her mouth. Unfortunately, it didn't quite hide her grin.