“How’s ya gettin’ on?” Frank’s accent was straight off a Newfoundland fishing boat.
“Is Rory here?”
“Lord Jesus, no, my girl. Said he ’ad family business and ’as gone outta town for a few days.”
Family business? Rory didn’t have any family, and he hadn’t said anything to me about leaving.
I drove over to his place hoping to catch him before he left. The house was locked, so I waded through the weeds to the garage around back.
The garage door was locked and the side window had newspaper taped across it. I was about to leave when I noticed a corner of the paper was torn. If I stood on an empty garbage can, I could see inside.
With a lot of wobbling, I balanced on the can long enough to peek in.
The first thing I noticed was that Rory’s bike was gone.
The second thing I saw made my mind whirl.
It was an old green step-side truck with a broken taillight. “Son of a . . . ,” I cursed.
I remembered how cool Rory had been after the crash. He wasn’t upset at the driver; in fact, he said he saw me take the header, implying that it was my fault. I’d been so glad the police weren’t going to be involved that I’d never thought how strange this was.
Since Rory had his bike, the truck must belong to one of his roommates. Was this why he didn’t get the cops when it hit me? Because he wanted to protect his sleazy friends? Those guys were dangerous in more ways than one. If they had this truck at the hostel at midnight, you could bet your boots they weren’t there for a cappuccino. They were up to their bloodshot eyeballs in it.
The problem was that if I told the cops, it would be good-bye Robin Pearce and hello Kai Hunter. I might as well start learning to speak Navajo.
I had to talk to Rory.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tragedy and Betrayal
Sunday afternoon was a perfect day for the Mountain Rock concert. I still hadn’t heard from Rory, but he wasn’t a good communicator, so I cut him some slack and tried not to get ticked off.
Anne and Mike picked me up, and we sang our favorite songs as we drove to the meadow where the concert would be held.
A couple of the rock bands were really good, and I even enjoyed the folky stuff.
“This is terrific. The music, the weather, the mountains!” I gushed as I ate one of the best egg-salad sandwiches I’d ever had.
“It really helps take my mind off things,” Anne said, pouring me a cup of iced tea from a thermos.
“Any word on the theft?” I asked.
“The RCMP has some leads. Sadly, even if they catch whoever did it, I probably won’t get the money back.” Her voice sounded strained.
“Don’t worry, Anne. It could have been a lot worse,” Mike assured her. “What if Robin had been cashing out alone when they broke in? No one was hurt, and we’ll get by.”
He patted her knee in a gesture so like the ones Gran used to make, I felt a lump in my throat. I knew love when I saw it.
Mike turned to me. “We could have used your help the past few days, Robin.”
“Oh, yeah? Why?” I sipped my drink.
“The rapattack crew’s been busy putting out dozens of fires in the bush, and we needed more hands. We think the fires all had a human ignition source. Careless people start fires. We even had one report of some genius leaving a campsite with the fire still burning.” He sounded weary, like he’d climbed this same hill many times before. “With this heat wave, the forest is a tinderbox.”
“I thought there was a fire ban on.” I remembered seeing the fire danger signs with the pointer well into the red, which meant no open fires were allowed.
“There has been for weeks. The problem is that there’s always some enthusiastic camper dad who wants to give his kid the full wilderness experience. They figure that one little fire won’t matter and merrily have their weenie roast. A spark goes up, lands in some old-man’s-beard moss hanging from a tree, and wham! I’m rappelling down a rope.”
Anne was already tense, and this sent her over the edge. “Those idiots don’t realize they’re risking the life of a rapattack fighter because they can’t be happy with a sandwich and a cold drink. Every time those guys go up in a helicopter, they risk crashing, especially in a fire when the downdrafts and wind shear are so dangerous!”
Both Mike and I stared at her. So did everyone within a ten-foot radius. Her loud outburst had been so unexpected that it drew an instant audience.
“I’ve got to pee.” Anne jumped up and marched over to the porta-potties
“Wow! She was really upset,” I commented as I watched her retreating.
Mike let out a long breath. “I’m going to tell you something, and you have to keep it between us. Deal?”
He sounded serious. “Yeah, sure.”
“Anne is a damn fine pilot. She flew a chopper with the forestry service; it’s how we met. We’d been married a year when my crew was sent to put out a nasty little blaze by Lake Louise. Anne was our pilot. Due to the unpredictable winds, the fire had grown a lot faster than anyone expected. We could see as soon as we came over the ridge that we’d need more than one rapattack crew, but still, we had to try. Everyone was on the ground except for Chris, the last man. Anne hovered the chopper by a rock outcrop to give him some protection from the heat. A violent gust threw the helicopter into the rocks. It crumpled like an eggshell. Chris was okay; it was Anne who took the worst of it.” Mike kept his gaze on the stage, where another band was setting up. “She was medevaced out, and for a while, it was touch and go. She made it, but the baby she was two months pregnant with didn’t. The miscarriage devastated her. She quit the service and vowed never to fly again. That was over a year ago.”
Anne was making her way back to us, and I was about to change the subject to something cheerier when some movement at the edge of the crowd caught my attention.
I stared. It was Rory, and he wasn’t alone. He was pulling a tall, blond girl along behind him. She had on a tiny neon-pink tank top, which barely covered her ample chest, and the smallest jean shorts I’d ever seen. She was giggling drunkenly as she tried to walk in stiletto heels on the soft ground. When she stumbled, Rory grabbed her, and the blond melted all over him. There was a lot of skin touching.
From the way he swayed, I could tell Rory was blasted.
I felt numb.
“Robin, are you okay?” Mike asked. “Are you sick?”
“Uh, I’m fine.” My numbness was quickly replaced with anger.
This must be the girl Kyle had talked about. She wasn’t all that pretty really, but there was no denying she had a killer body. Compared to her, I was a boy. I’d been stupid to think Rory would be satisfied with a girl like me. I didn’t even put out.
Later that night, I lay in my bed, unable to shut off my brain.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Mike had told me about Anne. It was like something right out of a horror story. To make it through such a terrible tragedy, she had to be really strong. Anne was what Gran would have called a survivor.
Next, I mentally reran the scene with Rory and the blond. I felt betrayed, used, jealous, weepy, angry, and generally undone.
Rory and I weren’t exactly a couple, and he had the right to date whoever he wanted. The problem was that I thought he wanted to date me. We were so good together.
As if this wasn’t enough, the robbery kept resurfacing in my thoughts, making my mind spin.
I needed to ask Rory about the truck. Why hadn’t he told me it belonged to one of his roommates, and what was it doing at the scene of the robbery?
At the party, I’d been outside with Rory. His loser friends could easily have slipped away, done the deed, stashed the truck, and returned before they were missed.
The sticky part was the key.
It was then I remembered who else had been at the party. When I’d first seen the Goon Squad doing shots, I recognized one of the onlookers. He worked at the Root Cellar. If I were a betting gir
l, I’d put money on his having a key! Everything was there: the key, knowledge of where the money was kept, a truck for transportation, and a party as their alibi. I needed to find out who the guy from the Root Cellar was.
If I went to the police, I’d be in the mix for sure, and the tribal police and social services would be called. I’d be finished. If I didn’t talk to the cops, Anne would never know who stole her money or have even a slim chance at getting it back.
It also meant those scumbags would get away with it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Busted!
I’m still not sure how I got through the next few days. Rory should have been back, but I hadn’t heard from him. Word of the robbery had spread and he’d know by now. If he didn’t care enough to talk to me about it, he could drink poison and die slowly before I went to him.
My tough attitude didn’t help me sleep at night. I missed Rory and didn’t know how long I could hold out.
Work ramped up, mostly because of the great weather. Banff National Park was experiencing one of the hottest, driest Augusts on record. Temperatures soared and the Alberta blue sky shimmered in the heat haze.
By Sunday, I was drained. “Can work like a pack mule” was now officially on my résumé.
I was busy delivering food to table four when Twila and her Barbies trooped in. They sat in my section, chattering like a herd of squirrels. Grabbing a handful of menus, I went to do my duty.
“Hi. We have the chef’s favorite for our lunch special: Wicked Tuna Casserole. It comes with a choice of soup, salad, or fries.” I distributed the menus.
Twila did a double-take right out of the movies. “Hey, aren’t you Rory’s Indian princess? Robin, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” I ignored the princess comment.
“We haven’t seen much of you lately,” Twila said, and one of her entourage, a girl with super-thick navy eyeliner and a bright-orange mouth, giggled.
“Sucks about the guys, huh?” I must have looked puzzled by her question, because she went on. “They had it coming. Honestly, they are mindless drones driven by their hormones.”
Now I really was clueless, and Twila tried to help me out.
“Kyle, Rat, and Jimbo hit on the wrong Miss Friendly the night of the party. They got some cop’s daughter who called her old man when the boys tried to play their stupid game with her. They were busted and charged with sexual assault. The cops hauled them off to jail.” She furrowed her penciled brows. “You must have heard the racket. It was not long after they tried it with you.”
I calculated the time. I arrived around seven thirty. They got stupid with me about eight, which means that the Goon Squad would have been on their way to jail well before midnight.
A mental picture of the scene formed in my mind. Whole chunks of that night were missing from my memory, and discovering which of the Root Cellar staff I’d seen at the party was proving almost impossible. I’d done some undercover snooping at work with no answers. Plus, when I ran into a party guest I recognized, I’d ask for any details they remembered. With the three losers out of the picture, the Root Cellar dude had to be the one who pulled off the robbery. Had the goons given him the truck? And how did he get it back in the garage after the robbery? The door had been locked when I’d tried it. The mysteries were piling up.
I woke late on Monday morning to a familiar rumble in the parking lot. I’d know that engine anywhere. Leaping out of bed in my shorts and T-shirt, I ran out onto the wide porch surrounding the staff quarters.
“It’s about time you got up!” Rory climbed off his bike and strode toward the steps.
He had some nerve coming here without so much as a text message. “Why are you gracing me with a visit, Rory?” My Gran always said the best defense was a strong offense, and she wasn’t talking about football.
“Come on, baby girl, don’t be harsh. I’ve been out of town.” He pulled his helmet off.
The image of him and the big-breasted blond popped into my head. “What happened to the skank you were with at the concert? Did she ditch you for richer pastures?”
This made Rory stop. “Who are you talking about?”
“The blond slut dressed like a cheap porn star. Don’t deny it, Rory. I saw you together.” I was on a roll and it felt good.
Then he did something that made me want to find a gun and borrow some bullets. He laughed.
“Are you kidding me? That was Janine. She’s the girlfriend of a buddy of mine from Toronto. They were passing through and came by for a visit. Janine wanted to go to the concert, but Trevor was too loaded, so I took her.”
“Come off it, Rory!” I shot back. “You were drunk or doped up—maybe both—but you sure weren’t sober. And the way she draped herself all over you? Gross!”
“We’re friends, that’s all. I would have called, except we’ve been in Jasper all week. Come on, baby girl. I’ve missed you.”
My righteous rage faltered. “Jasper?”
“Yup, Jasper. They’d never been there, so we decided to go. It was kind of spur of the moment.”
“Is this the truth?” I could feel my anger evaporating.
“Would I lie to my favorite girl?” He took the steps two at a time, lifted me off my feet, and whirled me around.
I couldn’t help it; I started laughing, too.
“Let’s go for a ride. It’s too nice a day to waste. I brought lunch to go, you know, so we could chillax.” Rory indicated his bike, which was loaded with a plastic cooler, a spare gas can, and a sleeping bag.
There was a lot I wanted to talk over with him, and after hearing his explanation, I kind of owed him an apology. “Okay, I may have overreacted a tiny bit. You can’t blame me, though. How was I supposed to know what was going on?”
A shadow crossed his face and his voice became steely. “I don’t have to explain myself to you or anybody else!”
I stepped back, startled, and he regained control. “Today is a big day, okay? And I’m not going to let anything spoil it.”
He smiled and I melted. It was so hard to stay mad at him.
“While I was in Jasper, I picked something up for you.” He reached into his jacket and retrieved a small, blue-velvet bag. Untying the drawstrings, he withdrew a delicate gold pendant on a fine chain. The pendant was in the shape of a flame, a golden tongue of fire, detailed and finely crafted.
I gasped. “Oh, Rory, it’s beautiful!”
“Yeah, and I got something cool to match. Kind of his and hers.” He reached back into his jacket and took out a gold lighter, an exact duplicate of the pendant. With a flick of his thumb, he lit it, staring into the pillar of fire leaping from the lighter. “It’s the kind that stays lit, even in a wind. When I saw this and the flame necklace, I thought of us. Well, you, really. You’re on fire, baby girl.” Putting his lighter away, he undid the clasp on the pendant’s chain. “You’ll have to take that other necklace off first.”
My hand flew to my locket. “I never take this off. It was my mom’s.”
His face hardened. “This trinket was very pricey. I expect you to wear it.”
The bossy tone irked me. I didn’t want to fight, so I reluctantly took off my necklace, tucked it into the velvet pouch, and put it in my pocket. I felt alone without it, vulnerable and empty. Rory fastened his gift around my neck, and the flame flashed in the sunshine. It was stunning.
I held the pendant. It was strangely cold and I shivered. “Thanks, Rory.” When I looked into his ice-blue eyes, I felt that shiver again.
It was a nice day. And I did have it off. “Give me twenty minutes.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Man behind the Mask
The ride was one of my best ever. Rory took us far into the backcountry south of Banff. The sun was hot, and I was glad when the twisted trail took us high up the side of a mountain, where the air was not as stifling as on the valley floor. We went by a hillside crowded with reddish-brown pines, lifeless and dry.
“Pine beetles,”
I called over the noise of our engines. “They’ve killed off this whole section of the valley.”
Rory hooted. “Looks really dried out.”
We finally stopped on the edge of a high overlook with a sweeping view of the entire valley. The forest surrounded us, and I was able to gaze down at the tops of the trees growing up the slope, rich as a green velvet cape. The view was spectacular, and I fished my cell phone out.
“No coverage up here, baby girl.” Rory said, unpacking his bike.
“You’re right.” There were no bars on the tiny scale. “The camera works fine, though, and it’s pictures of this I’m after.” I spread my arms to encompass the wide panorama. “Spectacular” was the only word for it. Far in the distance, I could see Mount Rundle to the east and Sulfur Mountain to the west, with Banff snuggled between them like a favorite child.
The day was a scorcher. The breeze swirling down the valley felt as hot as the air from a blast furnace. Rory laid the sleeping bag out as a picnic blanket, and we ate in the shade of a windswept pine.
When lunch was over, we sat silently watching the world go by. As my fingers toyed with the satiny label on the sleeping bag, my mind replayed those annoying questions that had kept me staring at the ceiling all night.
Rory must have sensed my agitation. “What’s up? You cranked at me again?”
I thought about seeing him with the blond. Something about his explanation didn’t add up. “You want me to be honest?”
“Never lie to me.” Rory shook his finger at me. “No liars allowed.”
He was behaving weirdly. “Okay. The chick at the concert, she wasn’t your buddy’s girlfriend, was she?”
I could tell he was on the edge of real anger when he answered. “You won’t let that go, will you? Fine, you asked for it. She’s his girlfriend, all right. But the thing is, he’s back in Toronto. Janine’s a hard-core party girl. We had a few laughs and spent some time in the sack. No big deal.”
Fire Fight Page 5
