Page 85 of Fire Peak

“Oh, she said plenty. She more or less admitted that she’s being blackmailed.”

Charlie dug into her sandwich as she thought about everything her crotchety boss had said. “But she’s digging in her heels. I’m not surprised about that. She’s stubborn. It takes a tough woman to survive out here for over forty years.”

“Do you believe her that she didn’t kill Bulldog?”

“I do. But Vasily and the Chechens must have something on her. Or maybe it’s not Vasily. She said she hadn’t talked to him. What if it’s someone else blackmailing her?”

“Any ideas?”

She washed down a painkiller with a long sip of ice tea. “It must be connected to the past somehow. She’s a hermit. Her whole life is Fire Peak Lodge.”

“The guardian of Fire Peak,” Nick murmured.

“Exactly! I like that. The hermit guardian of Fire Peak.”

“You know, I think Solomon has a thing for April. I noticed it the first time I hung out at The Fang.”

“Should we go back and interrogate him some more?” Charlie wondered out loud. “Maybe he held back something to protect April.”

“Nah, something tells me he’s not hanging around his trailer with frozen blueberries on his head anymore. He’s probably trying to find that perilium vein.”

She waved her tuna sandwich in the air. “Speaking of which, where do you think it is? The skiff!” she exclaimed at the same moment that he said, “the boat.”

They smiled at each other.

“Look at us, partners in crime-solving,” she said brightly. “And here I thought you worked alone.”

He held her gaze. “I do, normally. You’re different.”

Damn, those dark eyes really pulled her in and made her forget why she was angry with him. “I’m a lone ranger, too. Or I was. It might be time to move on to a different occupation.”

“Not because?—”

She shook her head. “No. Not because of you. Because of me. I was ready to change things up when you chased me into this town. When I was hiding out at Gunnar’s, I made that decision.”

He absorbed her words but showed no reaction. Maybe he was afraid to say the wrong thing, like “oh good, I won’t be exposing my daughter to a criminal anymore.”

“What will you do for work?” he asked.

“Work is the wrong word. Purpose. I need purpose. That’s more important to me than work.”

Her words seemed to strike a chord. He abruptly sat up, then rose from the bed and paced to the window. “Purpose. That might be the key to this whole thing. April has a sense of purpose—to preserve Fire Peak. The Chechens might be trying to help their people. Maybe they’re desperate and can’t wait. That trace of perilium that ended up in your thigh…. do you think they’re already taking samples?”

She set her plate back on the nightstand and got to her feet to join him. The painkiller she’d taken was doing its job, and she barely felt a twinge now. “Maybe it’s more than that.” She was thinking hard now, gears turning. “There’s something I learned during my Robin Hood days.”

“Shoot.” He made a face at his choice of words. “I mean, what is it?”

“To do things in a way that no one will notice.”

“People notice you, Charlie Santa Lucia. I’m sorry if this is news to you.”

She gave him a light swat on the arm. “I’m being serious. People notice me, but they don’t notice what I’m doing under the radar. I’ve had people think that I’m a gold-digger, a fortune-hunter, a con artist, a model, a royal from a country no one’s heard of. I make people notice me because it keeps them from seeing me. No one ever thinks I’m a secret nerd who’s been obsessed with coding from an early age. I can hack all I want, and as long as I cover my tracks, no one connects the dots.”

“Hobbs did,” Nick pointed out.

“True, but that was because I made a mistake and acted out of both revenge and worry about my father. I took too much. Until then, no one figured it out.”

She could tell that it was starting to dawn on him now. “Below the radar. Low profile.”

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