Carla Neggers - Cold Dawn

Nick stepped toward him. “How do you plan to set it off?”

He held up his left hand. “Dead man’s switch in my glove.”

Nick knew it was possible. He saw that Rose knew, too. She gulped in a breath. “Nick.”

“Don’t get too cocky, Griffin,” Nick said and decided on his own bluff. “Elijah Cameron’s at the café. He headed straight there after Grit Taylor and Sean reported in about Trent Stevens. Think a Special Forces master sergeant is going to miss your little bomb? Other people know about bombs around here. You’re not that special.”

He knew that would get Brett. “Trent Stevens is a self-absorbed idiot. He knows nothing about fires. He was happy to brag about Marissa Neal. Her fire was an accident. Jo Harper’s heroics saved the day.”

“That’s how you became obsessed with Marissa Neal,” Rose said.

Brett inhaled through his nose. “Don’t think you’ve won.”

“What’re you going to do,” Nick said, “set yourself on fire?”

Brett snapped his elbow against his side. Nick smelled gas and realized Brett had broken open some kind of container under his jacket.

He remembered Jasper’s words a year ago: “This guy will want to go out in a blaze of glory. No prison for him.”

Moving fast, Nick leaped to Brett just as flames erupted from inside his jacket, flashing brightly against the white and gray landscape. He locked his eyes on Nick in defiance.

Unimpressed, Nick dropped Brett with the mallet and shoved him facedown into the snow, snuffing out the fire in a matter of seconds.

There was no dead man’s switch in Brett’s glove.

Rose was barely breathing. “You knew he was bluffing.”

Nick winked up at her. “Myrtle Smith survived one of this bastard’s fires. She lives above the café. Think she doesn’t sweep the place for bombs?”

“She told you?”

“Yep.”

“That Myrtle,” Rose said, just as Ranger reappeared along with her two brothers and Jo Harper, her gun drawn, right behind him.

Twenty-Eight

Beverly Hills, California

Three days later, Nick was stretched out on a lounge chair at Sean’s pool in the Southern California sun. Grit Taylor was there. Sean and Hannah. Beth Harper, still.

Grit stood at the edge of the pool in his cargo pants and lightweight sweatshirt and glanced back at Nick. “The mountains of northern New England call, don’t they? You and Rose are a smart and dedicated pair, and you’re rich. You’ll figure it out.”

“What’s rich got to do with it?” Nick asked him.

Grit shrugged. “The transcontinental thing. Vermont and California. Long way between them.”

“You must have been hell on a battlefield.”

“Us navy boys,” Grit said with a grin.

Sean was more pensive. “Jasper didn’t screw up. Neither did we. He got beat by a bad guy.”

“Jasper was right about a serial arsonist,” Nick said. “Brett enjoyed setting fires, but he was never a firefighter or tried to become one. It wasn’t that he could or couldn’t cut it.”

“Jasper never suspected you, Nick,” Sean said. “Or at least not for more than three seconds.”

Three seconds too many, but Nick didn’t blame Jasper. He blamed Brett Griffin. “Griffin was from Chicago. Abusive father, narcissistic mother.”

Grit glanced around at them. “So? No excuses.”

Nick nodded. “His photography allowed him to move freely. He started passing himself off as Feehan last year. He’d already been contracting his services as part of Lowell Whittaker’s network. Griffin’s the only one of Lowell’s killers to figure out who he was.”

“Griffin knew the Whittakers had a place in Black Falls,” Sean said. “He’s why Lowell panicked. Lowell knew he had a committed arsonist on his hands who’d kill him if he left any loose ends. I doubt Lowell had any idea who it was.”

“Griffin manipulated Derek Cutshaw and Robert Feehan.” Nick pushed back images of their two burned bodies. “Scott Thorne and Jo found pictures at Griffin’s house that he’d taken of Rose with me last June. We figure he used them to get under Cutshaw’s skin. He and Feehan were asking too many questions, becoming a problem with their drug-dealing.”

“Griffin used your arrival in Black Falls as a way to get rid of them and give you Jasper’s firebug,” Sean said.

Grit looked up from the pool. “Griffin had an excuse to set those fires. More fun for him.”

Nick rolled to his feet, restless. “He liked being apart, watching the action.”

The SEAL stared again at the clear water of the pool. “He loved the drama he created.”

“He made sure that boy wandered off last year.” Nick remembered the alert going out, having no idea then, that Rose would be the one who found the boy, or even would be a part of the organized search for him. “He wasn’t supposed to survive. He and Rose were supposed to die in the same fire as Jasper.”

“Brett liked the drama,” Grit said, “and he liked showing up you smoke jumpers. You two played a key role in stopping that fire from spreading.”

Beth finally spoke. “Jasper Vanderhorn died, but Brett didn’t want what he saw as a partial victory. You and Rose spoiled his fun.” Her turquoise eyes leveled on Nick. “When do you go back to Vermont?”

He didn’t answer, just picked up his keys and left.

He drove over to his condo in a high-rise just off Wilshire Boulevard.

They’d caught Lowell’s most elusive and mysterious killer. It was over.

Nick walked into his bedroom and everything there reminded him of Rose.

Hell, he thought. Nothing was over.

Grit drove with Beth Harper down to Coronado, showing her where he’d trained. “I was a different man then. A kid, really.”

“You got the name Grit here?”

“Yeah.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“Another SEAL. We trained together. Michael Ferrerra.”

Beth’s eyes were clear, and she didn’t look away. “He’s the SEAL who died in the firefight that almost killed you and Elijah.”

“We called him Moose.”

Grit took winding roads to a simple neighborhood in San Diego. Moose’s widow was on the front steps of her stucco bungalow, waving a bubble wand for a baby boy, less than a year old, sitting on a blanket. The baby grinned and tried to catch the bubbles as they floated above him.

“His name’s Ryan Cameron Ferrerra,” Grit said as he slowed the car.

When he looked at Beth this time, she was crying.

He continued past the house and on to Beverly Hills. He and Elijah would visit Moose’s widow when the time was right.

Finally he glanced over at Beth, still red-eyed from her tears. “You’re finally going home, aren’t you?” he asked her. She nodded.

“Charlie Neal found out his sister Marissa has a crush on your brother Zack,” Grit said.

“Are you bothered?”

“Nope.”

“There’s someone out there for you, Grit.”

“I believe that. I didn’t a while ago. I do now.” He smiled at her. “Thank you.”

Beth flew back to Black Falls with Sean and Hannah the next day. Grit stayed in San Diego to finish his navy business. She wasn’t sure anyone would figure him out, but someone, surely, would fall in love with him. She’d never met a better man.

She entered Three Sisters Café. It was cleaning night. Bowie, Dominique, Myrtle and Rose were there. Myrtle was going home to South Carolina. Her niece was having a baby. Myrtle wanted to be there. She insisted she only stayed in Black Falls as long as she did because she liked being around other people who were home.

She was trying to talk Jo and Elijah into buying her house in D.C., furnishings and all—except her teacup collection. That would go with her to South Carolina.