Page 75 of Fire Peak

“It’s almost always broad daylight here. What does that have to do with anything?” he said over his shoulder.

She didn’t want to run, not with her leg wound, but she picked up the pace and reached the cabin a few moments after him.

Hailey was working on a puzzle on the coffee table. She rolled her eyes while Nick set down new rules for her—no one except Elias was allowed in the house. Don’t go out alone. Either he or Elias had to be with her every time she left the house.

Charlie went out to Nick’s Jeep while they hashed that out. A third party didn’t seem helpful, although she would have advised Nick to be more open about the reason for the new rules.

If he’d been more open about what he’d done for her father, she’d appreciate it more.

She did appreciate it. But one thing kept bugging her. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to keep her from doing that job for Hobbs. Was there more to that part of the story?

Still, he’d taken care of the situationwithout her having to get her hands dirty. That was pretty amazing.

Looking a little worse for wear, Nick slid into the driver’s seat about ten minutes later. “I do not have the proper training for this teenager gig,” he growled as he started up the car.

“You’re doing just fine.” She patted his knee, then let her hand linger there for a microsecond before she took it away. “Also, thank you for not laughing off Lila’s abilities.”

He met her gaze, his going dark as the usual electric connection flowed between them. “I don’t know Lila well, but I trust you. Of course I’m going to take it seriously.”

Her heart squeezed. “Thank you.” She waved the slip of paper between her fingers. “Now how about some chemistry lessons?”

“We could probably give those,” he murmured as he steered the car along dusty Pioneer Boulevard.

She couldn’t disagree with that.

Solomon lived in a trailer that had seen better days, maybe sometime in the sixties. Rusty rigs were scattered nearby—old ATVs, snow machines, ancient trucks rotted down to their frames, and pieces of equipment Nick figured were for mining.

They sat around a fire pit where coals smoldered—to keep away the mosquitoes, Solomon explained as he pulled up lawn chairs for them all. This deep in the woods, they were voracious. Poor Charlie already had a bite swelling on her left cheek; he wished he could soothe it with a kiss, but that probably wouldn’t work as well as DEET.

Also, he wasn’t sure where he stood with her anymore.

It turned out that Solomon knew all about the elements listed on the notepaper. He’d been a chemistry teacher before he’d decided to make his fortune in mining.

“These are all what we normally see around here,” he said after scanning the paper. “Iron, magnesium, copper, traces of gold. But this one, I don’t know what this is doing here.” He flicked the piece of paper. “Ain’t no perilium in this area.”

“What’s perilium? I’ve never heard of that.” Nick didn’t remember much from his high school chemistry. There were probably plenty of elements he hadn’t heard of.

“Perilium’s a mineral, kind of like lithium. They’re experimenting with it in batteries for solar systems. It’s safer, doesn’t degrade. It’s good stuff.”

“Is it pretty valuable?”

“Probably. Or it will be. Right now everyone wants lithium, but perilium could be the next big thing.”

Nick caught Charlie’s eye. If this perilium existed around here, that would explain why there was so much interest from outsiders.

“What about Fire Peak? Does it have any perilium?” Charlie asked.

“Can’t say for sure, not having ever done a sample there. Fire Peak was always off-limits to us miners.”

“Why?”

“The Ahtna. It’s one of their sacred spots. That’s why April built the lodge where she did, on a lower slope, not near the peak. Before she dug a single post hole, she met with the Ahtna to get their blessing.”

Nick felt that familiar goose bump feeling that meant he was closing in on something important. “So the miners never went near Fire Peak?”

“Never did. But I never heard about no perilium anywhere around here.”

Nick reached into his pocket and extracted the plastic baggie with the shard from Charlie’s thigh. “Would you have the right equipment to test this and see if it’s perilium?”

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