Page 17 of Fire Peak

“It’s diabolical!” Charlie was so sick of being trapped inside this place, she could scream. But that would give her away. “Fucking Nick Perini.”

“He seems really nice,” Lila said tentatively. “Are you sure you shouldn’t just talk to him?”

“He’s a liar. He tricked me, he followed me, he outwitted me. You can’t trust him, Lila. Swear to me you won’t tell him anything important.”

“Of course I wouldn’t.” Lila crossed her heart in a gesture left over from their school days. “I mean, I wouldn’t plan to. But he’s really good at getting people to talk. I listened to him talk to Martha about her missing sheep, and now I know that she named each one of them after a different Barbara Cartland heroine. You know that romance writer who wrote like a thousand books? She’s read them all, multiple times. Good old Martha, I never would have?—”

“Lila, can we just focus for a minute?”

Charlie didn’t have time for one of Lila’s tangents. Scratch that, she had plenty of time. She just didn’t have the patience. “I’m going to lose my mind if I stay in here much longer. Nothing against your place,” she added quickly. “It’s the most interesting hardware store I’ve ever lived in.”

Lila sighed and looked around her place happily. “Isn’t it, though? I love being surrounded by so much history. I don’t even mind the ghosts.”

“Ghosts?”

“Metaphorically,” Lila said quickly. “Nothing to do with that dress.” She gestured at a faded house dress displayed on a mannequin just visible through the door to the living room. “Oops.”

“Lila,” said Charlie sternly. “You can’t tease me like that. I need to know everything now.”

Lila’s eyes lit up. “Are you sure? Because it’s a wild story. There was a mass murder here in Firelight Ridge back in the eighties. The dress belonged to one of the victims. She was just meeting the mail plane, minding her own business. Her husband was so grief-stricken that even after he sold the place to the town, he insisted that her dress be displayed so no one forgot about the murder spree.”

“Sure. Makes sense.” Charlie shook her head because it made no sense to her.

Lila fixed her with a wistful look. “Charlie, a lot of strange things have happened around here, that’s one of the reasons I like it. No one pretends to be normal here, so I don’t have to, either.”

Charlie felt like throwing her arms around her friend, so she did. “Normal is overrated. What does it even mean?”

Whatever it meant, Lila definitely didn’t qualify. Her intuitive abilities were off the charts, and had literally saved their lives back in high school, when she’d insisted they all skip a track meet that had ended in bloodshed.

Charlie shook off that memory. There was enough peril in the present moment, no need to dredge up more.

Lila pulled away from the hug. “I’m just saying, if you’re going to hide out in Firelight Ridge, you have to know what kind of place it is. We’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s no law enforcement to speak of.”

“Sounds like a selling point right about now.”

“Okay, I get that.”

Charlie had explained to her friends that she’d made a big mistake, but had reversed her error, and would provide details as soon as she felt safe. Thank God she’d put that two million back so it didn’t haunt her conscience.

Lila moved on. “In a crisis, we generally only have each other to help out, since there’s no police or firefighters or sheriffs. It’s especially tough in the winter. The number of people who’ve gotten lost in the wilderness and frozen to death…”

Charlie shuddered. “I intend to be long gone by winter, so no chance of freezing to death.”

“Never say never. I mean, about the staying, not the freezing to death,” Lila added quickly.

“As soon as I get home, I’m going to send you a shipment of sub-zero snow gear. I’m not going to let you freeze to death either.”

“You’re such a darling.”

“You know you’re the only one who thinks so, right?” Most people thought she was intimidating, or a smartass, or an elusive jet-setter.

“That’s because they don’t know you the way I do. And that’s because you don’t let them.”

Trust Lila to see right through to her core. “Let’s get back to my problem, shall we? I can’t stay in here forever.”

“Right. I had an idea about that.”

“I’m open to anything. Anything except talking to Nick.”

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