Page 98 of Fire Peak

”We made a deal. He always had a soft spot for me.” She grabbed onto one of Nick’s wrists, and he felt her panic. “He’s going to ignite the perilium. Those kids shouldn’t be around the fumes. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I never wanted that.”

“You have to stop it then. Tell Solomon to let the kids go and put an end to this.”

“There’s no service down there. I can’t get word to him.”

“Goddamn the service here!” He just about exploded from frustration.

The timer on Charlie’s phone went off. “The five minutes is up. What should I tell them, April?”

“It’s too late now,” April said in a fearful tone. “Look.”

She pointed out the gazebo’s window. Nick followed her gaze to the back wall of the kitchen, where a low line of flames flickered along the grass, clearly following a line of accelerant.

Charlie’s laptop pinged. “Nick, I located them,” she cried. “They’re on the edge of Chilkoot land, by the creek.”

“Let’s go.” Nick pulled away from April’s grip and headed for the door, with Charlie scrambling after him, laptop in hand.

“What about the fire?” she asked, breathless.

April wrenched her gaze away from her lodge and flung her arm toward the door. “You two grab a four-wheeler and get the kids. I’ll deal with the fire. Go!”

41

Nick snatched Charlie by the hand and raced out of the gazebo. He grabbed the first four-wheeler he saw and swung into it. Charlie took the shotgun seat, her laptop was open on her lap.

“Can you get me there fast?”

“Yup, we can go practically straight downhill. Do exactly as I say.” He revved the machine and roared across the lawn. “Head over the edge of that cliff, where the trail disappears.” Without questioning those directions, he charged past the crowd gathered on the lawn, then down a steep trail that wound through thick alders. “Well done!”

He glanced up as a helicopter passed overhead. “Is that the fire department?” He wrenched his gaze back to the trail as they hit a branch that had fallen across it. This trail was intense, barely any switchbacks, nearly straight down the mountain.

“I called them a while ago. The Chechens said they’d be monitoring the emergency services frequencies, so I shouldn’t even try it.”

“But you did anyway?”

“I found a back door.”

He shot her a quick grin. She shrugged it off with one of her jaunty gestures.

“It’s what I do. It’s a good thing I called when I did, they said it takes them at least an hour to mobilize out here. I told them to bring a police officer with them too. Hopefully they’re in time. If not, I’ll probably be in deep shit. I turned off the sprinkler system. I unlocked a door to the furnace room. If the lodge burns, it’s on me.”

He wished he could hug her close, but going thirty miles an hour downhill on a four-wheeler was not the time.

“Fuck that. If anyone tries to mess with you, they’ll have to come for me first. Worse comes to worst, we’ll disappear into the wilderness for the next forty years.”

She laughed. Then stopped, when he didn’t join in. “You’re serious?”

“Completely. It’s you and me, babe, and you’re not going to prison.”

“You might not have a say in it…”

“I know some of the best defense lawyers in the country. I have contacts in the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, and even the secret service. You were being coerced. You were trying to save my daughter. It’s not even a close call.” Thinking of Hailey made him choke up.

She put a hand on his knee. “Hey. Nick. Those kids knocked out a crazy mountain man and stole his sat phone. Don’t count them out.”

He didn’t answer, mostly because he couldn’t. His throat was tight with worry and guilt for what Hailey had gone through.

“You’re a good dad, you know,” Charlie said, almost as if she knew what he was thinking about. “None of this is your fault.”

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