Carla Neggers: Cold Pursuit

Elijah grabbed a neatly split, perfectly dried log from the two cords of wood he’d had delivered at the top of his driveway. He felt no pain or even residual stiffness in his right thigh where he’d been shot. He had tied on a tourniquet himself that long, bad night to stem the bleeding and keep on fighting.

He hadn’t expected to live. The Special Forces medic who’d treated him, and later his doctors, had said it was a miracle he hadn’t bled to death.

He didn’t believe in miracles.

A sudden cold wind blew up from the lake. Even if it took until midnight, he wanted to get the wood stacked tonight.

His help, in the form of two teenagers, apparently had deserted him.

It was dark now, the pines and naked birches and maples on his hillside black silhouettes against the star-sprinkled night sky.

Jo had gone back inside with her glass of wine or whatever it was she’d stood on her rock drinking.

Through the trees, he saw a light come on in her rat heap of a cabin.

Having the Secret Service next door was a complication he didn’t need when he was on the hunt for answers, but Elijah figured he didn’t have much choice in the matter-and at least Jo was easier to look at than the three agents who’d stayed in the cabins a few weeks ago when he’d just arrived back home.

It wasn’t until last week, on a solitary hike up Cameron Mountain, that he’d flat-out decided he didn’t have the full story behind his father’s death in April.

Just as he was starting to push for answers, Jo had to get herself into trouble in Washington and turn up on the lake.

Elijah grabbed more logs. He’d switched on the lights in the lower level of his home, but even so, it was a dark night. He pictured Jo at ten, freckle-faced and full of mischief, scrambling up a tall oak on the lakeshore to cut the rope to his tire swing. He’d sailed out over the water. By the time he swam back to shore, she’d lit out. He never did catch up with her.

He pictured her skinny-dipping in an isolated cove on a chilly fall night at fifteen. He remembered her mortification when he’d stumbled onto her. Then her anger as she’d pelted him with a rock.

Those turquoise eyes of hers.

And he pictured her at eighteen, whispering to him in the moonlight. “I love you, Elijah. I’ll love you forever.”

She’d long since come to her senses.

He’d been a sucker for Jo Harper for as long as he could remember.

He took his load of logs to the lean-to he’d built on the front lower level of his house, under the deck, and lined them up side by side. When he’d bought his five hillside acres three years ago, he hadn’t even considered that it didn’t have any lake frontage. He’d expected the adjoining acreage to stay in the family. He’d worked on his place whenever he could get back to Black Falls, clearing the land, building his post-and-beam house. It was nothing fancy, but he was satisfied with the results.

As he returned to his woodpile, he heard a rustling in the fallen leaves up on the steep, rocky trail from Black Falls Lodge. In another two seconds, Devin Shay burst from the shadows and trees, panting and out of breath. “Hey, Elijah.”

So his help hadn’t deserted him entirely after all. “You’re late,” Elijah said. “Grab a log. Where’s your girlfriend?”

“Right behind me. She’s not-We’re not…” Devin shuffled over to the heap of cordwood. “Nora and I are just friends.”

“It’s dark. Does she have a flashlight?” Devin didn’t, but Nora Asher hadn’t grown up in Black Falls and couldn’t know every rock and root on the lodge trail.

“There’s nothing in the dark that’s not there in the light.” Devin grabbed a log in each hand. He was lanky and surly-and trouble. “Isn’t that what you always say, Elijah?”

The kid wasn’t being funny, Elijah decided. He was being a jerk.

Seven months ago, Devin had found the frozen body of Elijah’s father on the north side of Cameron Mountain. It was three days after he’d disappeared. Rose had been up on the mountain with her search dog. A.J. and his wife, Lauren, were out there. Sean had flown in from southern California. The Vermont State Police search-and-rescue team had launched an official search. But it was a high-school senior who’d located Drew Cameron. The autopsy indicated he’d died of hypothermia.

He had, literally, collapsed in the snow and gone to sleep.

Devin seemed chastened when Elijah didn’t respond. “Nora’s right behind me,” he said.

“I’m here, I’m here,” she called cheerfully, bounding out from the trail. “Don’t be mad, Elijah. I told Devin not to wait for me. Sorry I’m late.”

Elijah eyed the two of them, both eighteen, both insecure and unreliable. But any similarities ended there. Nora was short and a little overweight, attractive with her dark, curly hair and big smile. She’d had her pick of colleges after graduating from her expensive Washington, D.C., prep school in May, but she’d dropped out of Dartmouth College over in New Hampshire six weeks ago and moved to Black Falls to get a job and experience “real life” for a year. That she was living rent free in a guesthouse on an expensive Vermont country estate owned by family friends didn’t seem to interfere with her concept of “real life.”

Nora set to work on the wood. “Come on, Devin,” she said. “Let’s get this done.”

Devin hung back, watching her as if he couldn’t imagine what was so great about stacking wood. He had been in the back of a cruiser a few times, particularly since graduating-barely-in June. Elijah had gotten into plenty of scrapes at that age. Jo’s father, the local police chief, hadn’t cut him any slack, and not just because of Jo, or because Elijah was a Cameron, or because he deserved it. “I’m trying to save you from yourself, son,” Chief Harper would say as he’d slapped on the handcuffs.

Wes Harper was retired now. The new chief didn’t have the same connections to the town he served. If Devin stepped too far out of line, he’d be up on charges. His weakness seemed to be standing up to bullies, which Elijah could appreciate-but he was also convinced that Devin hadn’t told everything he knew about what had happened on the mountain that spring.

“Devin,” Nora said, impatient. “Come on.”

Finally he sighed, glowered at Elijah and got to work.

Devin stacked the logs quickly and ably, automatically crisscrossing them to keep them from toppling over, but Nora had to think, pause, figure out just how to arrange the logs in her arms, how many she could manage at a time, how to unload them without dropping one on her foot. She was enthusiastic, Elijah saw, but inexperienced. She’d been like that in an all-day winter hiking class A.J. had talked him into teaching at the lodge a week ago-eager, naive and yet also a little snotty.

Elijah lost patience after fifteen minutes. “Go on. I’ll finish.”

They didn’t argue with him. He fetched a flashlight off his deck steps and handed it to Devin for the hike back to the lodge. “I can drive you up there if you want.”

“We prefer to walk,” Nora said before Devin could answer. She brushed bits of bark and sawdust off the sleeves of her expensive jacket. “I love the Vermont night sky. The stars are so bright.”

Devin shrugged. “I never noticed.” He nodded toward Jo’s cabin through the bare trees. “Is some new Secret Service agent here?”

Elijah kept his expression neutral. “Jo Harper.”

Nora looked startled, and Devin grinned, his first show of humor since arriving. “Did she get fired?”

“The Secret Service equivalent of being sent to her room.”

“Beth says Jo’s such a good shot now, she can take the eyes out of a crow.”