Flirting with Disaster & Fanning the Flames

by Victoria Dahl

  Tom knew he shouldn’t smile, but he couldn’t help it. “Oh? You went to see Jill?”

  “You can stop looking so pleased with yourself. Some young piece of ass was leaving her house when I pulled up.”

  Tom shook his head, unable to pair Jill with a young piece of ass. “A woman? Must have been a niece or something.”

  “Unless she gives her niece goodbye kisses on the mouth, I doubt it.”

  “Oh,” Tom said. “I see.”

  “Yeah, well. At least Jill looked embarrassed when she spotted me driving by.”

  He cleared his throat. “So she went on a date. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask her out.”

  “Tom. Be serious. You’d date someone who lives six hours away and sleeps with younger men? You’d compete with that?”

  He thought of the painting above Isabelle’s couch. “Yes.”

  She shook her head and left, muttering something about men under her breath that he couldn’t hear.

  “I think I’m being reasonable!” he called, but she didn’t return to the doorway.

  On any other day, he probably would have followed her and tried to talk sense, but not today. Today he had a good lead, and now he had the time to follow up on it. Tom pulled out a map of the entire Jackson Hole valley and marked an X on the National Forest campground.

  The park rangers had followed the tracks to a dirt road that serviced an active logging area, so the tracks had been lost there. The ranger Tom had spoken to had guessed the guy was driving a large truck outfitted with studded tires, based on the tracks that had been left. There were plenty of forest roads and unnamed country roads around here, but only a few that would be passable in winter, even with a well-outfitted vehicle. And the thing was, there weren’t very many ways to approach Jackson itself at this time of year.

  Saul had to come by the highway, and if he was coming from the north, he had to catch the highway somewhere above Moran. There weren’t any other options.

  If it was Stevenson, he could be in Jackson already, but the ranger had said when he found the fire, it had been smothered by snow, but still warm at the bottom of the pit. It hadn’t been put out at 6:00 a.m. More like noon. Only a couple of hours ago.

  Ten minutes later, Tom hung up on his contact at the sheriff’s office and grabbed his jacket. He stepped into the hallway just as Hannity and Mary were assembling their teams. “Hannity,” Tom called, “you’ve got transport under control?”

  Hannity gave him a thumbs-up.

  Tom spotted Agent Gates leaning against a wall and ignored him. “Mary, want to take a ride?” With another car from his team on their tail and the promise of more backup from the sheriff’s office, they were on their way.

  “I decided to go with my hunch,” he said to Mary as they pulled onto the road out of town. “I don’t think he would have shown his face the first few days. We’d be too alert. He’s waiting for our guard to drop.”

  “It’d be the smart thing to do,” she said stiffly.

  “Yeah, this guy might not have gone to school past eighth grade, but he’s wily as hell.”

  “Yeah,” Mary said.

  Tom shot her a puzzled look as they drove past the elk refuge on the outskirts of town, but she didn’t look back. She stared out the window at the large herd of elk gathered around a pile of hay.

  “Hey, I’m sorry about Jill,” he tried.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Is Hannity giving you shit again? I know you don’t like the way I handled that, but this is my team and—”

  “I spoke to that FBI agent.”

  Tom’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel until they went numb, but he managed to keep his face blank. “Yeah?”

  “I wanted to know why the hell he was hanging around being useless.”

  “He’s keeping an eye out for another suspect,” Tom said carefully.

  “Tom. He showed me photos. Asked me to keep it quiet. He wanted to know if anyone looked familiar.”

  Fuck. Of course he had. He’d probably asked Hannity, too, but Tom couldn’t recall any time Isabelle would’ve interacted with Hannity. With Mary, on the other hand... “I’ve got it under control,” Tom said.

  “Yeah? Then maybe you could clue me in on why you’re lying to the FBI about a person of interest in a police shooting.”

  “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Her father shot a cop, and she may have helped him get away,” Mary said, sounding pissed now and still not looking at him.

  “Something isn’t right with this case, Mary,” he said. “You trust my hunches. You always have. I was right that Isabelle was hiding, and I’m right that—”

  “Beth,” she interrupted, finally turning to look at him. “You mean Beth.”

  Tom held her gaze for a moment before looking back to the road. She looked pissed but not furious. She was willing to listen. “Fine,” he agreed. “Beth Pozniak left everything behind and ran fourteen years ago. She’s not with her father. She doesn’t have any other family. She’s hiding.”

  “You’re involved with her, Tom.”

  He thought of denying it for a moment, but if he wanted Mary’s help, he’d need honesty. “I got involved before I knew.” He held up a hand when she started to speak. “Yes, I had suspicions, but I thought they’d pan out to be nothing. You know that. By the time I realized who she was...”

  He saw from the corner of his eye that she was staring at him. “So you did sleep with her.”

  It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t bother answering.

  “This Gates guy is asking around. Showing her picture. He’s going to find someone who knows her.”

  “No. He doesn’t want to alert her. He only showed you the photos because you’re with me.”

  “He’ll get to that eventually.”

  “I’m hoping he’ll give up before then. The only reason he’s here is because I stumbled onto a flagged file. That’s it.”

  “So he’s got good instincts, too,” Mary said darkly.

  Shit, she was right. Tom didn’t like the guy, but Gates wasn’t an idiot. “You didn’t tell him,” he said quietly.

  She turned to look out at the hills again for a long moment. Finally, she sighed and shook her head. “He’s a smarmy asshole, and you’re not, so I figured I’d give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  “I’m honored,” he said, going for sarcastic, even though he really meant it.

  “If you aren’t being honest with Agent Gates, you have a good reason. I’ve known you too long not to trust that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Plus, you’re my boss, and I didn’t want to be fired.”

  He managed to huff out a laugh. “All right. Just give me twenty-four hours. I want to get her side of it. I’ve been hoping she’d open up, but...”

  “You might not have twenty-four hours, but I won’t be the one to say anything.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mary shrugged. “She’d better not be hiding a whole gang of fugitives in her basement, because I’ll throw you under the bus and take your job. Now, tell me what we’re planning once we get to Moran.”

  He told her. And he hoped to God that Gates had given up on White Ridge Road.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SHE’D PAINTED ALL NIGHT. Not because she’d been inspired, but because she was worried she’d need money for lawyers soon, and she wanted to get this commission done before she was taken to jail. Of course, the FBI might not even let her have the money when they found out she’d been working under a false social security number. But she’d made sure to pay her taxes. She’d overpaid, really, just to be sure she’d never be audited.

  Her entire career was courtesy of a sympathetic art professor who’d had no reason to help her. Professor Cervaz had spent two of Isabelle’s college years trying to steer her away from premed and into medical illustration. She’d loved the work, but she’d resisted him out of fear of what others would think. Her father, because he’d
been so exuberantly proud of his daughter being on the path to becoming a doctor. And her fiancé, who’d said so many times what a dynamic team their marriage would be. A district attorney and a doctor, both of them children of Chicago cops. They would have been a dream couple in the political circles he’d been so fond of.

  But a medical illustrator? What the hell was that? Nothing to be proud of. It was something weird and obscure and a little creepy.

  So she’d resisted. But when she’d been thinking of running away from everything, she’d gone to her professor and asked if he might have any work. Anything he could farm out to her, even if he wanted to claim it as his own. She needed money, she’d confessed, and he’d understood right away. It wasn’t as if her family’s situation was a secret. Everyone knew.

  It had been risky, but the only alternative would have been working at low-paying jobs her whole life. She didn’t have any other skills, and her fake identity wouldn’t have withstood a background check.

  Her professor had sent her anonymous work for a year. And when she’d finally given him a new name—Isabelle West—and asked him for some introductions, he’d obliged.

  He’d been the only connection to her old life. She might have suspected he’d been the one to turn her in this week, but he’d died three years before.

  She still felt guilty about the relief she’d felt when she’d seen the news on one of the tight-knit artist forums. The man had been so good to her. So absolutely kind. It had been so wrong to feel relief, but she hadn’t been able to lie to herself about that. He’d made her life what it was, and she’d been relieved when he died.

  Maybe that made her too much like her father, happy that someone else’s death could make her life easier. She looked at the picture of the flayed thigh attached to her easel. Hell, maybe that philosophy was her entire career.

  Isabelle set down her paintbrush and stretched hard. It was 7:00 p.m., and she still hadn’t heard from Tom. She’d napped from noon to three, but she was still exhausted, and she hoped he wouldn’t be too much longer.

  Lauren had called, hoping they could have dinner in the next two days before Sophie left, but Isabelle hadn’t known what to say. She didn’t know if she’d still be in Jackson herself.

  She checked her phone one more time, feeling like a desperate teenage girl, but it was more than just wanting to hear from the boy she liked. The torture of wondering if she’d be found out was so acute that she was half inclined to confess.

  What if he already knew? What if he’d just found out who she was from the FBI agent and that was the reason for his lateness? What if he came over and got a call from the feds while he was here, and she had to look at his face while he learned the truth?

  What if this was all just paranoia?

  She took a deep breath, trying to calm her fear, but it wasn’t just fear now. It hadn’t occurred to her to worry about Tom, but if it came out and he hadn’t known, he was going to look like a fool. He could even be in trouble. She should have thought of that before she’d gotten involved with him. She should have thought of a million things.

  Her deep breath had turned into another and another, and now she was close to panting. She closed her eyes and told herself to calm down.

  The FBI agent had asked about an old man and a woman. That was all. He could be searching for anyone. And the simplest explanation was that it had something to do with the ongoing Stevenson case. Of course it did.

  But Isabelle jumped at every sound. She cringed when her phone buzzed. She watched from darkened rooms whenever a truck drove slowly past, searching for fugitives or for her.

  The FBI guy hadn’t come back, and wasn’t that a good sign? He’d only been canvassing the neighborhood, doing a boring job, and now he was done.

  But just in case, she put the last touches on the last painting and went to get her packing supplies. The final two paintings would need to dry overnight, but she could box up the others, get them labeled and get them into her truck for the morning.

  Her good intentions flew out the window when her phone rang. She dived for it then tried not to weep with disappointment when she saw Jill’s name. Still, if Jill was calling with gossip about her ill-advised night, Isabelle would listen. She wasn’t that far gone.

  “They got him!” Jill yelled.

  “Who? What?”

  “They caught Saul Stevenson! I just saw it online!”

  “Really?” Isabelle breathed.

  “Got him up near Moran around four today. He had a rocket launcher!”

  “Holy shit.” That was why Tom was late. That was why he hadn’t called. It had nothing to do with her.

  “I’m sure glad they finally found him,” Jill went on. “A rocket launcher. No team of marshals could’ve stopped that. Poor Tom.”

  “Is he okay?” she gasped.

  “Yes! I just don’t like thinking about what could have happened.”

  “Me, either,” Isabelle said, her throat thicker with emotion than it should have been. “Wow.” When her phone beeped, her heart skipped. “I think Tom’s calling. I’d better go. Thank you so much for telling me.”

  As soon as she clicked over, Tom said, “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “I just heard!” she squealed. “You did it!”

  “We did it,” he said, sounding deeply pleased.

  “God, Tom. I’m so happy for you. You’re okay? Everyone is okay?”

  “We’re fine. I’ve got about another hour of processing ahead, and then I’m sending my whole team to bed.”

  “Including yourself?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice softer.

  Her heart fell a little. “You must be really tired.”

  “I am. Will you take me in?”

  She sighed, letting go of the disappointed breath she’d held inside her. “Yes.”

  Yes, she’d let him in. To her house. Her body. Maybe even her confidence.

  She shook her head at her own thoughts. No. She couldn’t do that. It didn’t matter that she’d been fantasizing about a relationship with him. She couldn’t let it matter.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he promised.

  Isabelle hurried through packing the first few paintings, but her heart was no longer in it. She got the first box into her SUV and then rushed to her bedroom. She’d already showered and pulled up her hair, but she suddenly wanted to look nicer.

  He’d caught Stevenson. He’d be moving on soon, and she couldn’t follow. A few more nights with him, and that would be it. A few more really good nights, and she would let him go.

  It had been stupid to ever engage him. Stupid and dangerous, and she never should have done it, but God... She couldn’t quite regret it.

  She’d told herself she was never lonely, but maybe she had been. Lonely for that deep, primal connection that wasn’t exactly sex. It was a profound demand to be wanted and seen and desperately needed. Something she’d never had and so hadn’t known she was missing.

  This was that thing that kept a woman connected to a man she couldn’t have. The thing that kept a man with a lover he could barely stand. Some animal vibration that hit all of your chords with the exact right note. She barely knew him, but her body craved him already.

  Maybe it hadn’t been stupidity that had led her to get involved with a man so likely to learn her secrets. Maybe she’d wanted him to see her. Everything about her. Maybe she was tired of the lie.

  That was too bad. Tired or not, now that she was looking exposure right in the face, she wanted to gather all her secrets tight to her and hold on to them forever. If the FBI didn’t know about her, that was the end of her risk taking. She had to end it with Tom. Just not tonight.

  She tugged on jeans and quickly painted her toenails bright red. Then she put on a blue shirt that looked deceptively modest, but she loved the way the loose, draped lines parted occasionally to reveal a deep, narrow neckline that dipped low between her breasts. She didn’t bother with a bra. He loved her breasts, and she wanted him thin
king about them.

  She added a little color to her cheeks and her lips, and hoped that would be enough to make her look younger, prettier, more rested...whatever it was she was going for. She just wanted him to need her. To take one look and remember the taste of her on his tongue. That was all. Just the kind of need that would make him remember that taste forever.

  She finally heard the low rumble of an engine and the grind of tires against snow. Not inclined to be reckless, she watched carefully through the blinds as headlights approached up her driveway. She’d never gotten around to plowing, unwilling to help that FBI guy get to her any faster, but the SUV approached steadily, if slowly, over the mounds of snow.

  It pulled close to the walk, but it was still too dark to see inside. She moved to turn on the porch light, but then hesitated. If it was that FBI agent, she’d pretend she wasn’t home. Turning on the porch light would give her away.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the interior light of the SUV finally came on, and Isabelle watched as Mary got out of the passenger side and came around the back just as Tom opened the driver’s-side door.

  Isabelle laughed as she shoved her feet into boots, turned on the porch light and rushed outside. “Congratulations!”

  They both looked strangely subdued when they turned toward her. “Thank you,” Tom said, but Mary just stared. Isabelle still wasn’t sure what Mary’s feelings were, but if Tom said they’d never been intimate, she’d have to take him at his word.

  “You two had a damn good day,” Isabelle said.

  Tom finally smiled. “That we did.”

  “Is it over?”

  “Nothing is certain, but there’s no evidence that there was a backup plan.”

  Isabelle crossed her arms as the wind caught her. “A rocket launcher, huh?”

  Tom laughed. “That’s a new one.”

  “Well, it was a productive day all around, then. I didn’t catch even one domestic terrorist, but I did finish my last painting. The commission is done.”

  Tom’s eyebrows rose. “If I’m happy for you, that doesn’t mean I have to look, does it?”

  Isabelle was laughing when another voice rang in the dark. “Good thing I brought champagne!” Jill called. “Sounds like we have a lot to celebrate.”