Bear Claw Conspiracy

by Jessica Andersen

  And there weren’t any big-foam-finger clues here, at least not that she could tell at this point. Which meant it was time to head back down to the city and hit the lab.

  Letting herself out of Tanya’s room, she stepped into the hallway. She heard radio traffic from the main room, and raised her voice to call, “Hey Bert, can you—”

  Movement flashed in her peripheral vision and a heavy blow slammed into her from behind, driving her to her knees. Ambush!

  Panic flared at the sight of a man dressed in dark clothes standing over her, his face obscured by shadows.

  Part of her recorded details—six foot, shaved head, athletic—while another had her shouting, “Help! They’re in the station!”

  Her body reacting more from training than thought, she tucked and rolled, then lashed out with a foot. She connected and her attacker fell back with a curse. But before she could follow up, the lights went out, plunging the hallway into pitch darkness.

  “Come on!” a voice called from farther down the hall. “Forget about the stuff. The fire’ll take care of these two, along with everything else.”

  Fire? Heart hammering with new terror, Gigi screamed, “Bert? Help!”

  It was a mistake; her attacker oriented and slammed her aside. She swung another kick, but didn’t connect with anything, and moments later feet pounded away from her.

  A door slammed, and then there were two dull thuds. Seconds later, she heard the crash of breaking glass on either side of her, behind several of the closed bunkroom doors, one of them Tanya’s.

  Then there was an ominous whoomping sound that had her instincts sparking with terror as she identified the sounds: the man had thrown Molotov cocktails into the dorm rooms!

  Worse, she could see the orange glow through the exit-door windows, smell it on the thickening air.

  Atavistic fear flared and she froze in place, blanking on everything except the insidious crackle and yellow-orange glow. Her brain jammed, and all she could think was: impossible. This wasn’t happening, couldn’t be happening.

  Except it was.

  “Help! Fire!” She screamed it so loud that her throat went instantly raw. The pain snapped her back to reality, adrenaline cleared her head, and the two together got her moving, fast.

  She remembered seeing extinguishers, didn’t know where they were, remembered seeing smoke alarms and sprinklers, didn’t know why they weren’t going off.

  She lunged for the doors that led outside, but they didn’t budge, not even when she twisted the deadbolt back and forth. They were jammed from the other side.

  Forget about the stuff. The fire’ll take care of these two, along with everything else.

  Her stomach roiled. Oh, God. They were trapped, and she had missed something important. Something the men—there had to be more than two—would kill to protect.

  The air was heavy with smoke, making her cough.

  Her mind was jumbled with half-memorized crisis response protocols, terror, and the drive that made her one of the best at her job. She reeled back to Tanya’s room and banged open the door, noticing too late that the knob burned her palm.

  Flames roared greedily, leaping at her, and a wall of heat sent her staggering backward. Instead of providing an exit, the broken window fed oxygen to the flames that engulfed the bed and desk, curling the sketches to blackness and then racing toward her.

  “No!” She reeled back and slammed the door. A rasping moan brought her whipping around. “Bert!”

  With no light except for the unearthly glow of the fire that was spreading outside, along the building’s too-dry exterior, she stumbled in the darkness, feeling her way to the door that led to the front room. The knob was warm but not scalding, so she pushed through, coughing when she tried to breathe the hot, smoke-laden air.

  There were emergency lights on in the main room, but the fire outside was worse, licking past the level of the windows. She saw Bert sprawled in the corner near the men’s room, but raced across the room and tried the front door first. It was locked.

  Her pulse thudding so loudly it almost drowned out the fire’s insidious crackle, she crouched over the older ranger, breathing the thinner air near the floor. He stirred and groaned, but wasn’t fully conscious.

  She checked his pulse; his skin was baking in the increasing burn of the air around them, but his heartbeat was sure and steady. “Bert? It’s Gigi. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. I’m going to get us out of here.” But how?

  He stirred weakly, rolled onto his side, and started struggling to rise, but was clearly out of it, wobbly and incoherent, coughing wretchedly in the smoky air. She took off her windbreaker, draped it over his head and ordered, “Stay down.”

  She lurched to her feet and stumbled to the nearest window and wept when it didn’t budge.

  Heart hammering, fear jamming a hard lump in her throat, she felt along the counter, searching for a radio, an extinguisher, something—anything—that would help.

  The air scorched her skin, and the roaring sound coming from behind her suggested that the bunkhouse was fully ablaze.

  Her fingers brushed something fastened beneath the counter, and she nearly sobbed in relief when she recognized the butt of a shotgun, secured out of public sight but ready if needed. Her hands shook so badly that it took her several tries to yank it free, but she finally got it.

  Staying low, she pumped it, took aim, and fired both barrels through the window.

  The blasts deafened her, but she raced to the window, stuck her head through and screamed, “Blackthorn, help! Fire!”

  Chapter Five

  The gunshots and distant scream rang in Matt’s ears like a nightmare. Fire!

  He broke off in the middle of saying something to Tucker on the phone and spun toward the far window of the living room in his house, which was a short hike from the station.

  His gut fisted at the sight of a sickly glow where the station’s lights should have been.

  In the split second it took him to process the shock, a dark figure streaked past in silhouette, brake lights flashed from a rolling vehicle he damn well hadn’t heard pull up, and gravel spat as the culprits accelerated away. “Son of a bitch!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Get whatever eyes you can on the access road and send men up here to Fourteen, a fire chopper if you can get one. Someone just lit the station and took off!”

  Gigi’s scream echoed in Matt’s head as he jammed his radio on his belt and took off at a dead run.

  As he skidded down the short path between his quarters and the station house, the ranger in him noted the wind strength and direction and hoped to hell the flames wouldn’t jump to the nearby trees. The rest of him just saw a damned inferno where a T-shaped building should’ve been.

  Flames shot up from the bunkhouse windows and roof, eating through the too-dry wood like it was fresh newspaper. The front wasn’t yet fully consumed, but fiery fingers of yellow-orange twined along the logs and licked at the pitched roof.

  For a second, Matt thought that he was too damn late. Then he caught movement at one of the windows and—thank God—heard Gigi call, “Blackthorn!”

  He bolted for the spot just as a figure came through the broken window, movements slow and uncoordinated, body too big to be Gigi. Bert.

  Matt surged forward to help, his mind locking on the awful knowledge that the bastards had lit his station and he hadn’t been there to stop it.

  “Grab him!” Gigi’s voice was raspy, her eyes wet and afraid, but she was wholly focused on getting a woozy Bert out first. “Watch the glass. I had to shoot it out.”

  The window was shattered and jagged, the frame wedged shut by a narrow chunk of wood shoved into the top.

  Murderous rage boiled through him, but he held himself in check as he helped Bert down, then tucked a shoulder under his arm to prop him up. “Come on,” he said to her, holding out his free hand. “Jump down.”

  The air was barely breathable, the heat u
nbearable. It seared through his clothes and crisped his skin. Small cinders were starting to break loose and sail up into the sky.

  Gigi slithered through the window in a practiced, feet-first rush, but when she landed, staggered a few steps and went down on one knee, coughing.

  He caught her by the arm and hauled her up, then started half-dragging, half-carrying both of them away from the blaze.

  She leaned into him, gasping for air, trying to get out information between her ragged breaths. “White guy, maybe six foot, one-eighty…said something about ‘the stuff’…evidence…” She stopped dead and yanked away with a gasp, eyes going wide in shock. “The picture!”

  “Who—” He broke off when she whirled and ran back toward the station. Blood congealing, Matt bellowed, “Gigi, damn it, no!”

  “I know who he is!” She vaulted back through the window.

  “Gigi!”

  “Go.” Bert pulled away from him and stood swaying. “You go get her. I’ll call it in.”

  “I already did.” Matt yanked his radio off his belt and handed it over. “Tucker’s probably still on the channel.” Then he took off, running back into the fire after a crazy woman.

  He was still a dozen paces away when something crashed inside, and flames exploded through the broken window. The fire had spread to the main room.

  “Gigi!” He didn’t stop to think or plan, just boosted himself through the window feet-first like she had, managing to avoid the worst of the jagged points in a practiced move from another lifetime.

  “Matt! Over here!”

  He landed, crouched low and cursed viciously when he saw that she was down, pinned beneath a chunk of counter that had shifted when part of the roof caved in. The fire hadn’t yet reached that far, leaving her in a small pocket of safety.

  A small and rapidly diminishing pocket.

  His mind spun and panic threatened, but he pushed through it and bolted for her, dodging a burning beam and stretching over the tilted counter to yank a small extinguisher from its wall rack.

  “Cover your eyes!” When she complied, he hit several small hot spots near her with short blasts of the extinguisher, adding powdery clouds and more smoke to the already foul air.

  Coughing, he wedged his shoulder under the edge of the counter and levered it up a few inches. “Go!” He had to bite back a groan when something ripped low down in his left side, where the scar tissue was thick and uncompromising. It burned like hell.

  “I’m out!” She dragged herself up, clutching something to her chest.

  “Come on!” They staggered toward the window. He boosted her out first. “Run. I’m right behind you.”

  Of course she didn’t go anywhere, damn her, just turned back and reached for him as he came through. Not willing to take any more chances with her, he caught her by the waist, slung her over his shoulder and headed away from the fire.

  Her wadded jacket—she went back for her freaking windbreaker?—was caught between them as she squirmed and thumped his lower back with her fists, making him wince.

  Pissed off and running on way more adrenaline than he wanted to admit, he growled, “Quit it.”

  “Let me down!”

  There was no sign of Bert, but he had moved her vehicle and the three remaining park service Jeeps well out of the range of the fire.

  Matt headed toward the cars, dumped her next to her SUV and loomed over her. “What in the hell were you thinking, going in there like that?”

  She glared right back and opened her mouth to snarl something at him, but he didn’t give her a chance. He couldn’t listen to an explanation he knew he wouldn’t like, couldn’t stand the fear and anger, the raging emotions he hadn’t felt in years, hadn’t ever wanted to feel again.

  Overwhelmed with relief that she was okay and fury that she was making him feel things when all he wanted was to be left alone, he closed in on her, used his body to push her up against the SUV. And kissed the hell out of her.

  GIGI’S SMARTER SELF would have ducked the kiss, but her smarter self also wouldn’t have gone back into a burning building after a piece of evidence.

  She almost hadn’t made it out.

  Blackthorn had saved her life.

  Oh, God.

  Reaction would set in later, she knew. For now there was only the heat of relief and the pounding burn of adrenaline, which redirected itself the instant his lips touched hers.

  The spark that had ignited the first moment she saw him detonated in an instant, decimating her self-control. She gave in to her primal instincts and kissed him back.

  He groaned approval and took it deeper.

  His mouth seared hers with flames that had nothing to do with arson. He pressed her back against the door of her ride so she felt him, hard and hot and male, with every inch of her body.

  Sizzles raced along her skin and beneath it; electricity flowed in her veins and gathered at the points where their bodies aligned.

  She gripped his forearms and felt his anger, slid her hands to his shoulders and felt his control slipping. Hers was long gone. She was reckless, wanton, only peripherally aware of the world around them.

  The kiss went on and on, until her pulse throbbed and her blood roared in her ears, sounding like the race of an engine.

  An engine.

  They jerked apart just as headlights speared through the darkness, jolting crazily when the driver gunned the SUV over a hummock.

  The vehicle caught air, bounced hard, and swerved into the parking area with a spray of gravel, coming to a rest with its headlights pinned on Gigi. The engine wasn’t even fully dead before the doors flew open. Tucker sprang out and rushed toward them with Jack Williams right behind him.

  She wasn’t sure which was worse: that she had been kissing Blackthorn in the middle of a crisis, or that she resented the interruption. But who would have guessed that Ranger Surly could kiss like that?

  Her senses boiled and desire bounded through her with the thick, heavy beat of her heart. She could have died.

  Which she hadn’t, thanks to him.

  The detectives advanced on Blackthorn, who squared off to meet them. He was sweaty and soot-streaked, and his uniform shirt was torn and burned along one side, the skin beneath abraded and angry. And he had lost his hat. Without it, he stopped looking like a cowboy throwback and started looking more like a security professional. Which, she supposed, he was in a way.

  “Everyone’s out,” the ranger reported, voice rasping. Behind him, the station was fully ablaze, sending a thick column of dark smoke into the sky.

  Tucker’s eyes fixed on Gigi, dark with concern. “You okay?”

  She was still pressed flat against her vehicle, and hoped to hell she didn’t look as thoroughly kissed as she felt.

  Taking a deep breath that did very little to settle the churning in her stomach, she pushed away from the SUV and tried to find some semblance of her professional self.

  Looking down, she said, “Well, I think these pants are shot, but the rest of me should be salvageable.”

  Tucker relaxed a little. “Good to hear. Alyssa made me promise to bring you back down to the city in one piece.”

  “Then take her with you now and keep her there,” Blackthorn said tightly. “She went back into the damn building for her coat.”

  She rounded on him, arousal souring at the sight of his face set in hard, uncompromising lines. He was only a few paces away, but it suddenly felt like miles.

  And he was trying to get her off the scene. Off the case.

  She bristled. “I needed—”

  Two low-flying planes roared suddenly overhead, drowning her out. The surrounding rock had shielded their approach, but now amplified the propeller noise as the planes skimmed low and dropped their payloads of gritty reddish fire suppressant.

  The first load hit the station, dousing a large portion of the flames. The second painted a barrier line between the fire and the trees immediately downwind, snuffing the few small fires that had been starte
d by flying sparks.

  Radio static echoed, and a stocky figure stepped into the distant reaches of the headlight wash to wave at the planes. “Right on target,” Bert said into his radio. “Thanks for making the detour.”

  His voice echoed strangely, coming from the receiver in Tucker’s vehicle, but Gigi was reassured by the sound.

  They were all out, all okay. That was what mattered. Not the kiss, how much faster Blackthorn had recovered, or the fact that he was trying to get rid of her now.

  “Okay, it was a stupid move,” she admitted. “But I think you’ll agree that the payoff was worth it.” Turning to Tucker and Jack, she said, “The guy who knocked me down said something about the fire taking care of ‘everything,’ which suggests that Tanya got her hands on something they want to keep off the radar. And when I was in her room, I found this hidden in a book.”

  She scooped her windbreaker up off the ground, dug in the pocket and pulled out the evidence bag holding Tanya’s worn sketch. Both the bag and the sketch were worse for wear, but she could still make out the guy sitting in front of the waterfall.

  She offered the evidence to Tucker. “Call me crazy, but that looks like Jerry Osage to me.”

  Osage had been killed during a jailbreak a few years earlier…one that had freed terrorist mastermind al-Jihad and sparked a flurry of terrorist activity in Bear Claw City. Although Osage had seemed to be an innocent bystander, the new rash of attacks could mean otherwise… And if that was the case, they weren’t just dealing with aggravated assault. They might be looking for a terrorist cell.

  Chapter Six

  Matt cursed under his breath as Tucker took the evidence bag and stared at the sketch, brows drawn together.

  Jack looked over his shoulder and whistled. “I’d say Gigi-girl did some serious homework on old cases in Bear Claw.”

  His too-familiar tone got under Matt’s skin the same way Gigi had, leaving him stirred up and pissed off.

  Kissing her had been an impulsive move, an effort to burn off some of the fear and frustration that had been riding too high in his bloodstream, but he was the one who’d wound up burned. Her sharp, enticing flavor was branded on his neurons, the feel of her imprinted on every part of his body that had come into contact with hers.