Page 14 of Deadly Attraction
Chapter Four
Mitch used Emma’s CB radio to get hold of the local police, who were able to get a message to Victor Dupé. He kept it short and sweet:
Collins refuses to leave.
I’m staying.
Whether or not Dupé sent reinforcements was up in the air. With the current situation, getting anyone to the ranch to relieve him might take a while. Knowing Cooper Harris and the SCVC Taskforce, someone would show up eventually, even if they had to walk through fire to do it.
At least he had Will and the dogs to help with security. He’d worked with less and made it out alive.
The good doctor had taken her shotgun and gone to bed. For some strange reason, Salt and Pepper had stayed with him.
Emma didn’t seem the least bit worried. He liked that about her. Most people would have freaked out and been eager to go to the safe house. His job would have been easier from that standpoint. Her refusal made the situation more challenging, but also more interesting.
Whatdidfrighten her? For some reason, the question kept circulating in his head.
He retrieved his laptop from his truck with the footage Dupé had sent the previous day of their potential arsonist.Could be a long night.Might as well get started on his real assignment.
He took the laptop, a fresh cup of coffee—better now that Collins had doubled the grounds—and headed up the wooden stairs to the second floor. Better vantage points from up there. Emma’s bedroom was the best, but she was sleeping, and he didn’t think she’d appreciate his presence.
Across from her master bed and bath were two decent sized bedrooms and a guest bath. Both bedrooms had sweeping views of the ranch. He could see the entire drive stretched out below, as well as the barn, pasture, and horse runs. A stream ran on the east and south sides of the property at the foot of the hill. Woods along the east side as well, intermingling with the stream.
He put Pepper in front of Emma’s bedroom door and told him to stay. He’d finally learned their names before Emma had retired. The Lab stretched out across the threshold of the closed door, laying his chin on his paws. Salt followed Mitch to the first bedroom, a large, airy space that had been turned into an office.
Bookshelves lined one wall. A sturdy Arts & Crafts desk sat facing a bank of windows that overlooked the driveway and valley beyond. Under the window was a big, comfy couch with pillows and a folded afghan draped over one arm. Next to the couch was a matching chair and ottoman. Probably where the doctor grilled her patients when they weren’t riding horses.
Horse therapy.Yippee ki yay.
Mitch peered outside. All was dark out, a blanket of ash and fog rolling into the low spots. In the distance, the orange glow of fires threaded across the top of the hills.
Mitch set up his laptop and opened the video file. The security camera footage was clear enough, but the man’s face was half hidden by a baseball cap and hoodie drawn up over it. The FBI’s facial rec program had identified him as Sean Gordon.
Gordon was on foot, carrying nothing more than a small backpack, entering the park at dusk.
Mitch calculated the distance from the entrance to the point of origin of the fire. Three miles. Six miles, round-trip.
Even sticking to the main roads, a six-mile round-trip through a national park at night was no picnic. Using the trails, seasoned hikers and campers had been known to lose their way, run into wild animals, twist an ankle. Though around the holidays, there were fewer visitors in general.
The drought had caused massive wildfires throughout the northwest and extended the fire season beyond normal. Millions of acres from Washington State down through California up in smoke, lost lives, homes and businesses destroyed.
Mitch fast-forwarded the footage, estimating the time it would take Gordon to reappear leaving the park. He reran the footage and watched again.
Nada. The man in the hoodie never left, at least not on foot through the main entrance.
Had someone been waiting for Gordon inside the park to hustle him out after he started the fire? Had he taken a different way out? Was he still inside the 1800 acres of pine and cedar trees?
The motorcycle gang the man belonged to was part of a survivalist/homegrown terrorist group who called themselves The Reckoners. They claimed to live off the grid and yet their group ran several websites and blogs for doomsday preppers and survivalists, recruiting more people to their cause via social media. A few of their members had been busted for gun running, sales going down inside the park in some of the lesser traveled areas.
Mitch clicked the laptop to connect to Emma’s wireless network but the slow satellite service struggled to find a local tower. He sat back and watched the bars on his laptop’s digital antenna fade in and out.
If he’d had his kit, he would have set up a mobile hotspot and boosted it with his own portable satellite dish. Emma’s house had a nice southern exposure that would have worked great. Unfortunately, the kit and satellite dish were back at his hotel, two miles from his childhood home.
Whatever gods existed took pity on him, and the fog in the atmosphere momentarily cleared enough for the satellite hookup to work. Sitting up, he connected to the Internet and typed in a search.
The wildfires were headline news across the country, right under the breaking news about Chris Goodsman. The actor’s escape had trumped the danger to people. Go figure.
Scrolling past the Goodsman news, Mitch found links to dozens of articles on the wildfires as well. Expert analysis was mixed in with plenty of opinions on how the fires had started and the best way to put them out.
