Night Talk

by Rebecca Daniels

  "Squirrels, raccoons…"

  "Skunks," she quickly added.

  "Skunks," he acknowledged. "And bears."

  She grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him to her. "Especially bears. Take care of yourself?"

  Emotion threatened to close off his throat. He wanted to tell her how much she meant to him, how much he cared, but he wasn't sure he would have been able to get the words out even if there had been time to say them.

  "Always," he managed to say in a tight voice. Turning, he headed down the stairs.

  "Hurry back," she called after him. "We've got a date with a sunset."

  * * *

  Kristin carefully tweaked the focus of the lenses, bringing the lush green brush to flawless clarity. She could see the small thread of smoke wind its way up through the pines to form a faint gray cloud above the treeline. To her untrained eye, the smoke trail hadn't seemed to have grown any denser in the fifteen minutes since Jake had left. In fact, she would have sworn it was fading—at least she hoped it was. Seeing the smoke among all the green really showed her just how vulnerable this rugged world was to fire.

  She moved the lenses down, hoping to find the road and catch a glimpse of Jake as he worked his way toward the source of the smoke, but it was useless.

  "Be careful, my love," she murmured to herself, lowering the binoculars.

  Her love. Jake was her love—he was her heart, her soul and the only man she knew she would ever love. She hadn't allowed herself to think about that too much in the last couple of weeks, preferring to concentrate her scope of reference on a day-by-day basis. But living one day at a time had been a fantasy. Her reality was knowing that Jake Hayes would be the love of her life—the one and only. When he was with her, it was too hard for her to remain in control. But in the quiet of the empty tower, she could admit the truth, and the cold hard truth was it wouldn't matter if he lived in Eagle's Eye and she in Los Angeles, or—as painful as the thought was—if year after lonely year passed and she never had the joy of seeing him again—nothing was going to change. She would love him always, and not even the prospect of a lifetime of hurt and loneliness would change a thing.

  The irony wasn't lost on her. The last eight months had been the worst in her life, and yet it was the terror of a faceless, nameless stranger who had set her on this course that brought her to Jake. She wanted nothing more than to forget the nightmare, to put all the nights of terror, all the suspicion, all the fear behind her and move on with her life. Except, going on meant doing so without Jake.

  "Why me?" she mumbled in a flash of self-pity. Walking to the slider, she slid it open and stepped out onto the deck.

  Why couldn't things just have been easy? Why couldn't they have met in the conventional way—on a bus or at the grocery store where they could have taken things slow and gotten to know one another in their everyday lives? Why did it have to happen when her life was in turmoil and Jake was recovering from the turbulence of his past? She'd read enough case studies to know that during times of great emotional upheaval, it wasn't unusual for people—strangers usually—to turn to one another in an attempt to satisfy a very basic human need. That's what had happened with her and Jake. They had been strangers, thrown together by circumstances out of their control. It was only natural they would reach out to one another. They were two consenting adults, what harm would it do?

  A gust of wind traveled up the stone tower, sending a shiver through her body. The harm was the price she would have to pay, the toll it would take on her heart. She had fallen in love. That wasn't supposed to have happened. Maybe she was too much of a realist, but it seemed futile to try to hold on to hope, to try to turn whatever was between them into more than it was. She knew the statistics all too well, knew relationships that began in the midst of such life-altering encounters were usually disastrous. So in that respect, maybe she should count herself lucky it would all be coming to an end very soon. At least this way, she could walk away with a lovely memory.

  But standing there, staring out at the breathtaking beauty of Eagle's Eye, she felt anything but lucky. Jake had never specifically told her he wasn't interested in a long-term relationship, he didn't have to. The solitary and isolated lifestyle the man chose to live had conveyed all she needed to know.

  A sudden glimpse of movement below had her gaze traveling toward the compound. Leaning forward, she squinted, carefully surveying the bushes and rock outcroppings.

  "Mama bear, is that you again?"

  Jake may have been convinced their morning visitors were long gone, but it was going to take a little more time for her not to feel jumpy and imagine a grizzly lurking around every corner. The last thing she wanted was another close encounter. She watched and waited for a moment, listening carefully, but the only sound she heard was the whistle of the wind as it swept up the canyon.

  She turned and headed back inside, but the tower felt cold and lonely. She had never felt alone, even though it was just the two of them here, but now with Jake gone, the quiet and the solitude made her feel restless and slightly frightened.

  The smoke trail was almost impossible to see now and she breathed a sigh of relief. Like the wilderness that was vulnerable to the ravages of fire, she was exposed now too. She'd never considered the life of a forest ranger to be a particularly dangerous one, certainly not compared to that of a cop. But she knew better now. She knew about mudslides and slippery mountain roads, about rowdy campers and illegal hunters, about bears and forest fires and all the hundreds of other things that came up each and every day in this unforgiving region of the world.

  She picked up the binoculars and was just about to look through them again, when she heard the footsteps climbing the stairs.

  "I can't believe it," she said, her breath catching in her lungs. "You're back so soon—"

  Only, when she turned, it wasn't Jake's image she saw appear at the top of the stairs and it took a moment for her mind to compute.

  Chapter 13

  Jake kicked at the ash with the toe of his boot, stirring up a small cloud and causing it to engulf the black leather with a dusting of white. This was definitely the spot. The circle of blackened dirt and ash stretched better than three feet across. Something had definitely burned here—and not long ago either. Embers glowed red along the bottom of the indentation his foot had made, gleaming brightly with the influx of oxygen, only to quickly fade and go cold.

  Kneeling at the rim of the circle, he studied the ashes carefully, searching for anything that might give him a clue as to what might have happened. The small clearing was well off the beaten track, located more than a hundred yards from the road and nowhere near any established trails or hunting areas, which pretty much eliminated any notion he might have had about a campfire. Besides, whatever it was that had burned here wasn't meant to be a bonfire or a campsite. This fire had gone up fast and hadn't lasted long.

  Wind rustled through the trees, catching hold of the ashes and sending them flying. Something flickered in the breeze, something in the ash that was small and light and partially buried among the soot. Reaching down, Jake carefully plucked it up from the powdery ash. It looked like paper, charred and blackened on the ends, but he could see some kind of printing on it.

  Catching a glimpse of movement again, he glanced up. The wind had shifted, sending another flurry of ashes swirling into the air and revealing dozens more pieces of paper.

  Jake gathered up several more, spreading them out in his palm and examined them closely. The printing on the paper was sporadic and difficult to make out.

  "Lose? Lost?" he guessed, trying to fit two of the pieces together like a puzzle. "Lost and…" He took several steps back, catching a stream of sunlight through the trees and shifting the bits of paper around again. "Oh my gosh," he murmured when the random words suddenly made sense. "The Los Angeles Times."

  His hand closed around the pieces and he shoved them into this pocket and looked around the clearing again. The hairs at the back of his neck
prickled in a way they hadn't since he left the force. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to hike way up here to burn their L.A. Times. And as far as he could tell, they hadn't left behind so much as a match or a footprint, a tire tread, a horse hoof—nothing.

  Granted, he had seen a lot of unusual things since he'd been at Eagle's Eye, things that didn't always make a lot of sense—hikers who had tried to create their own trails, rock climbers who had attempted midnight climbs, hunters who liked taking potshots at other hunters. But this was something new.

  Looking around the clearing, he shook his head. If someone had been intent on starting a forest fire, they'd botched it pretty badly. In the first place, they hadn't picked a very good spot for it. Given the open space of the clearing, it would take more than some newspapers to ignite the green shrubbery and solid tree trunks. But even if they had been successful in getting the brush to burn, they had to know they'd been in the clear vision of the fire tower. A few runs by a borade bomber would have dropped enough chemical retardant to have prevented the fire from spreading very far.

  He knelt down again, sifting through the rest of the ashes, looking for anything else that might help explain what happened, but he could find nothing, which in itself made even less sense. He was hardly an arson investigator, but as far as he could tell, newspapers had been the only thing that had burned. And from the depth of the ash, it would have taken a number of newspapers burning to create a fire circle this size.

  "A lot of newspaper," he mumbled. "No wood, no charcoal, no kindling, no trash."

  Which, of course, only made the whole thing feel all the more bizarre—and it was that, more than anything else, that nagged at him. Maybe it was just the natural suspicions of an ex-cop, but things just didn't add up. He tried to think of a scenario that would make this picture clear, that would help him understand what the person who had done this was thinking. Were they lost? Had this been meant as a signal fire? But if that was the case, where were they now? Why hadn't they stuck around and waited for rescue?

  "And these newspapers," he said out loud, rising slowly to his feet. "Where the hell did all these newspapers come from?"

  He suspected the culprit couldn't have been anyone who lived in the area. People who made this wilderness their home learned to live with the constant threat of fire and did all they could to prevent it. He had a hard time believing a local would be so cavalier with their own safety as to burn anything, let alone leave trash in an open area like this.

  He stepped back from the circle, retracing his steps in an effort to keep the area as pristine as possible. This wasn't exactly a crime scene, but old habits were hard to break. He walked a wide perimeter, looking for any sign of footprints again, but again could see nothing.

  But there was something about the scene that bugged him, something he couldn't quite put his finger on—that is, until he noticed a spot along the edge of ashes, a spot that almost looked as though the dirt might actually have been piled up, creating a small ridge.

  "What's this?" he asked the unknown body who had walked the same spot before him. "Did you actually dig a pit here, my friend?"

  He suddenly realized what it was that bothered him. It was the actual appearance of the burned-out area itself, the unnatural symmetry and bowl-like appearance. It was almost as if someone had taken the time to dig out a shallow pit—but for what reason?

  He circled the mound of ashes one more time, then reached for the small, collapsible shovel that was folded in the case attached to his belt. Crime scene or no crime scene, the most important thing was to eliminate the risk of fire. Besides, experience told him there was a set of circumstances that would fit this scenario, he just hadn't found them yet. Of course, experience also told him that even knowing how didn't always explain why. And as far as he was concerned, digging a fire ring in the middle of the wilderness to burn a bunch of newspapers wasn't going to make sense under any circumstance.

  He turned the ashes under, burying the fire ring completely and tamping out any embers that might have remained. But working only made him all the more uneasy. By the time he had finished and folded the shovel back into its canvas case, he decided it would be wise to report the incident to Claybe just to be on the safe side. They'd been lucky with this one. This fire had virtually gone out by itself, but it just as easily could have turned into a disaster. While it appeared that measures had been taken to ensure this fire wouldn't spread, a loose ember in a dry patch of grass could have ignited the entire forest. They needed to keep their eyes peeled for any suspicious activity. At the very least, this had been an illegal burn and the person responsible needed to be cited; they might even have an arsonist-in-the-making on their hands.

  By the time he had reached the truck, he was breathing heavily and his body felt overheated and uncomfortable. Between the digging and the hiking, he'd gotten quite a workout. But he couldn't take time to rest. He felt a sense of urgency now that had nothing to do with reporting a suspicious fire. The shadows were already beginning to grow long and he had a date for a sunset.

  He slid behind the wheel, turning the key in the ignition and shifting the truck into gear. It was a new experience for him to have someone waiting, to have a reason to get done with work and look forward to a little free time. He'd been alone for a long time and had become used to the solitude. He'd thought he was too old to change, too set in his ways, but all that was different now. It seemed that everything had changed when Kristin came into his life. He suddenly remembered just how nice it was to have someone to laugh and be silly with, to share sunrises and sunsets, someone who worried and cared about what happened to him.

  Reaching for the radio on the seat beside him, he picked it up and depressed the call button. "Anyone ready for a sunset?" He waited a few moments, then tried again. "Fire tower, do you copy? Kristin?"

  The tower should have been in range of the radio, but with the twists and turns of the mountain road it wasn't unusual to lose the signal. Continuing up the road, he negotiated a hairpin turn, bringing the tower into view, and tried the radio again.

  "Kristin? Honey, answer me."

  But she didn't answer and he felt the hairs at the back of this neck prickle again. Of course, she could have just switched off the radio, or maybe she'd left the tower, but that didn't seem like something she would do.

  Clipping the radio to the visor of the truck, he inched his foot down a fraction farther on the accelerator and sped up the mountain road as quickly and safely as possible. The sense of concern he felt was new to him, too, and something he'd experienced only once before: When he had seen the headlights of the Jeep coming out of the storm on the slippery mountain road, a chill had gone through him that had turned his soul to ice.

  Just then the radio crackled to life as he heard Kristin's voice through the small speaker. Snatching the radio from the visor, he depressed the button to speak.

  "Hey, there you are," he said, relief flooding his body like blood in his veins. "I thought you forgot about me."

  Except, when he freed the transmit button to receive her response, her words made no sense. It was as if he were listening to a television program, to a conversation that had nothing to do with him.

  "Kristin?" he said again into the radio. "Can you hear me? Are you on the cell phone? I don't understand what you're saying."

  He listened for a moment longer. He could hear her voice clearly, could hear the words she was saying but they still made no sense. If was almost as if she was talking to someone else….

  "Oh, God," he groaned as realization hit him like boulders tumbling down the mountain.

  Someone was with her. Suddenly all those random, disjointed pieces of the puzzle began falling into place. The fire had been set to lure him away from the tower, to get him out of the way. It had been no accident, no arsonist attempting to start a forest fire or some nut burning trash in the wilderness. The fire had been a ploy by someone who had wanted to get Kristin alone.

  * * *

 
; Nancy. Kristin could hardly believe her eyes. A million things went through her mind. Had something happened to one of her clients? Had Ted sent Nancy here to keep her safe, too? Was the stalker after both of them now?

  "Disappointed, aren't you?" Nancy said, her voice sounding unnaturally high. She stepped up from the stairs and into the tower. "Thought it was going to be your boyfriend, didn't you?"

  "N-Nancy, I can't…I can't believe it. How did you get here? What are you doing here?"

  "You thought I was your mountain man and you were going to rush right over here and throw yourself into his big strong arms." Nancy threw her head back and laughed, a loud, harsh sound that had nothing to do with humor. "Oh, my, how romantic."

  "Nancy—"

  "Shut up!" she snapped, taking another step closer. "All you do is talk, Jane Streeter. Now you're going to listen, now it's my turn."

  Kristin felt as though the floor beneath her had suddenly tilted. This wasn't right—Nancy wasn't right. The fidgety, excitable voice was completely out of character for her, and there was such a wild, almost fanatical look in her eyes.

  "Nancy, maybe you'd like to sit down for a little while. You don't look as though you feel very—"

  "I said shut up," Nancy screamed. She slipped her hand from her pocket, pulling out a large handgun, its long, silver barrel catching a ray of the fading sun and sending it dancing across the floor. "I feel just fine. But I'm afraid Dear Jane is coming down with something, something bad, and may have to miss the broadcast tonight. In fact, I think she's going to be missing a few of them."

  A wave of nausea hit Kristin like a tsunami. This couldn't be happening. Her entire world had changed and she didn't know what to believe any longer. The isolation that had once kept her safe now held her prisoner. Someone she thought was familiar was now a stranger. She felt dizzy and unsteady and thought she was going to throw up—and probably would have if she hadn't suddenly spotted the two-way radio on the counter beside her.

  Her mind couldn't comprehend everything so she switched to a kind of overdrive mode, operating on instinct and intuition and blocking out the fear. If only she could distract Nancy, just for a moment, just long enough to reach the radio.