Page 64 of Fire Peak

She rolled to the other side of the bed and pushed herself off. Her thigh really did feel better. But her mood was worse. She didn’t like being in the dark. She didn’t like Nick knowing more about her life than she did.

“I suppose you didn’t want to fuck a criminal,” she said bluntly.

He scrambled into a sitting position. His hair was a wild mess, a sheen of sweat on his chest. “That’s not fair.”

“Then why were you so worried about me doing a job for Hobbs?”

“I didn’t want you to be coerced into anything.”

“You mean, into doing the kind of thing I’ve already been doing?” She wrapped a robe around herself and went to close the window. Now that the sun was dipping behind the ridge, the air was much colder. “I am what I am, Nick. That’s not going to change.”

“People change all the time. I changed when I became a father out of the blue.”

“You’re saying you want me to change? You want me to become a good little girl who follows the rules?”

“I don’t want you going to prison,” he blurted. “I’m not sure I could handle that.”

She sucked in a breath, because she knew damn well what it was like to see someone you cared about in prison. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone. In Nick’s dark eyes, in the tense set of his jaw, she saw how serious he was. It was romantic, in a way. I care about you and I don’t want you behind bars.

Her antagonism melted away. This man was something special, and she’d be a fool to push him away.

“I can understand that.”

“So we’re okay?”

Can you find a way to let it go? Accept the good news and move on?

“We’re okay,” she said finally. Her father was safe. That was what mattered.

“Phew.” He fell back onto the pillows in an exaggerated collapse of relief. “Can we talk about that little baggie now?”

“Yes, and all the other clues I’ve been gathering.” Jumping at the change in subject, she sat cross-legged on the bed and filled him in on everything—the Chechens, what they’d said on the recording, the mysterious Vasily, everything that April had told her, what she’d seen on the video from the helicopter.

“You’ve been a bad girl,” he scolded her. “You’re supposed to be healing, not investigating. Great job.”

“It’s a good distraction.” She grinned, amazed at how much better she was feeling already. She was getting better, and her father was safe. She was ready to spring into action on whatever their next step would be.

“I got something too.”

“What’s that?”

“A solid stranger-with-a-Russian-accent spotting.”

“Oooh, let’s go!”

He laughed and pulled her close to him, toppling her onto his chest. “Sweetheart, it’s one in the morning.”

“It is?” Shocked, she checked her phone, then the pearly light outside the window. “Midsummer in Alaska. There’s nothing like it.”

28

In the early hours of dawn, before even the kitchen staff was stirring, Nick borrowed one of the lodge’s Polaris rigs and headed down the trail they’d taken to the meadow. His ultimate destination was the creek and the encampment he’d videoed, but he took a short detour to the meadow.

He didn’t expect to find anything helpful there, and he was right, because someone had cleaned up every dead bird. Maybe it was simply nature taking care of business, but two days ago, they’d been rotting. Now they were gone.

That was a human being’s doing. Someone didn’t want any evidence to be found.

He didn’t even have the dead bird he’d gathered the other day. In their flight from the shower of arrows, he’d dropped it, and now it was nowhere to be found.

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