Known (6 page)

His greatest fear was that he’d learn he’d placed his son in danger’s path by letting him move about in public. He had frequent nightmares about Brian’s being in the hands of a killer or snatched off a public street.

He shuddered.

Gianna finished her water. “I’m going back to bed.” She paused. “You should get some sleep.”

“I will.”

She didn’t move, and he felt her disbelief. She opened her mouth and closed it, changing her mind about speaking. Knowing what his sister would have said, Chris guessed she was about to argue with him. Instead she looked toward the drawn curtains. “It’s very dark outside. And too quiet. I struggled to sleep in the cabin because of the silence. I’m used to some sort of noise.”

He understood.

She continued, “When it’s this still, I find myself listening hard for a sound. Any sound. I think it makes my brain work harder and keeps me awake. Then my mind is off and running through a million different things.”

Even in the poor lighting, he saw the stress around her eyes. She turned away and headed toward the ladder back to the loft.

“Good night, Chris.”

She disappeared and he heard her murmur a few words to Violet, and then the cabin was still.

He stood in the silence and listened.

The next morning Gianna poured coffee as she watched Chris scramble eggs.

Somewhere there’s a woman missing out on this guy who likes to cook.

Gianna had been up for five minutes. Long enough to wash her face, pull her hair into a ponytail, and rouse Violet. The odor of coffee had filled the cabin. Violet had refused to open her eyes when Gianna woke her until her brain registered the smell and sound of frying bacon.

“Good morning,” Chris said.

“Good morning,” Gianna echoed. “What’s the weather doing?”

He lifted a brow as he stirred the eggs. “It’s definitely warmer. Doesn’t look like we’ll be getting more snow. The snowplows haven’t come down our road yet, but maybe they will later.”

“Good!”

Chris stiffened and then abruptly turned to look out the window.

It took Gianna a few additional seconds, but she heard the faint roar of an engine. “That sounds like a snowmobile.”

Chris nodded. “A few people have them up here. I’ve been thinking about getting one. It would have been handy yesterday.” He set down his whisk, turned off the stove, and walked over to the window near the front door.

Gianna noticed he stood to the side of the window, out of sight of anyone who might be approaching. Tension had filled the room, confusing her.
Shouldn’t we be relieved someone is out and about?
The engine noise grew louder and Chris stood immobile, his gaze focused out the window. His right hand twitched at his side as if he wished to grab something.

His shoulders relaxed. “It’s one of the rangers. He may have found the note I left in your vehicle. Or he’s just checking on everyone in the area.”

Gianna wrapped a throw around her upper arms and moved to look out the window. A man in a heavy coat removed his goggles as he strode toward the door of the cabin. His coat had patches showing the insignia that identified him as an employee of the US Forest Service. Chris opened the door as the ranger stepped onto the small covered porch.

“Good morning,” Chris said as the ranger stomped the snow off his boots.

“You Chris Jacobs?” The ranger was rather short, with a narrow face and a thick beard. He touched the brim of his hat at Gianna as she peered around Chris, who’d blocked most of the doorway with his body. Chris nodded at the ranger.

“I’m Francisco Green with the forest service.” He paused, looking back and forth between Gianna and Chris. “I found your note in the Suburban at the Abell cabin. What the hell happened over there?”

Chris watched the forest ranger politely accept the coffee Gianna handed him and wrap chilled fingers around the mug with a sigh. He’d asked them to call him Frisco.

The three of them had taken a seat at the small table after Chris invited Frisco inside. The ranger had serious eyes and Chris had yet to see him smile, but he’d shown concern over Gianna and Violet’s escape from the cabin.

Frisco hadn’t mentioned the burning flesh odor, and Chris wondered if he’d looked inside the damaged cabin. Probably not. The cabin shell was an accident waiting to happen.

Violet emerged from the tiny bathroom, her face damp from a wash, and joined them at the table after grabbing a slice of bacon. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head when Chris asked if she wanted coffee.

“We’re not sure what happened,” Gianna said. “My daughter and I were both asleep when the fire started. She woke first and managed to get me out.”

“Get you out?” Frisco repeated. He scowled and scratched at his beard.

Chris ran a hand over his own three days’ worth of light stubble and briefly pictured himself with a full beard.

Nope.

Gianna looked down as she traced a gouge in the table with her finger. “I couldn’t wake up. I honestly don’t even remember her getting me out of the cabin, and then I vomited several times during the night as we waited in the car. There’s a possibility I was drugged.”

“What?” asked Violet, her eyes opening wide as she stared at her mother. “What are you talking about? How were you drugged?”

Chris studied her for any signs of guile; he saw none. The girl seemed sincerely stunned by her mother’s comment.

Frisco’s dark eyes silently scrutinized Gianna, and she squirmed. His stare was intimidating, and Chris figured the ranger didn’t get much back talk while handing out tickets to overzealous fishermen and hunters.

“I know it sounds ridiculous,” she said. “But I didn’t take any medication, and I’m nearly positive I had one glass of wine last night. I didn’t do anything that should have rendered me nearly useless. The only conclusion I can come up with is that I was somehow drugged.”

“Nearly positive?” asked Frisco.

Annoyance flashed across Gianna’s features. Twice the ranger had simply repeated what she’d told him. Chris understood. The man didn’t want to put words in Gianna’s mouth, but he wanted more answers.

“I can’t remember. I know better to drink more than one glass. I’m tiny; alcohol can knock me on my ass with two glasses. It’s ingrained in me to never have more than one drink.”

“It sounds like you were knocked on your ass last night,” Frisco stated. He took a long look at Violet, who stared right back at the ranger. “You see your mom drink?”

“I saw her with a glass of wine. That’s normal.”

Gianna coughed.

“I mean, it’s not odd for her to have a glass of wine in the evening, but I’ve never seen her drunk,” Violet amended.

“How do you think the fire started?” Frisco asked.

Violet raised a shoulder. “When I saw it, most of the flames were in the kitchen area. Something went wrong there. Maybe some bad electrical?”

Chris held Gianna’s gaze and tipped his head in Violet’s direction, hoping Gianna understood he wanted to bring up the odor in the cabin but wasn’t sure about doing it in front of her daughter. She glanced at her daughter and shrugged.

“Did you look inside the cabin?” Gianna asked Frisco before Chris could speak.

Frisco shook his head. “I read the note that everyone got out and headed right over here. I wasn’t about to go near it. It looks ready to cave in.”

“Chris thinks there’s a dead body inside. He stepped inside and could smell it.”

“What?” Violet reeled back in her chair. “What are you talking about?”

Frisco’s gaze shifted to Chris.

“Something with burned flesh is in there. I could smell it. They didn’t have any pets, and I can’t imagine that a wild animal headed in after the fire was already started. That tells me something human has to be in there.”

“That can’t be right,” said Violet. “How could someone have died in there? It was just the two of us . . .” Her voice trailed off and she met Chris’s gaze. “That’s why you were looking at that other path. You think someone was there.”

“What other path?” asked Frisco.

Chris told him what they’d seen outside the cabin.

“I think I need to go take a look and see for myself,” said the ranger.

“Can we get out to the ranger station to make some calls?” asked Gianna. “The fire department should also be notified if there is a body in there. They have the professionals to investigate how it started.”

“Nothing’s been plowed but the main highway. And they did part of it only because of the accident. I’m doing all our patrols by snowmobile today.”

“What accident?” asked Chris.

Frisco lifted his brows. “Big pileup about ten miles west of here. About twenty big rigs and a dozen cars. No traffic has gotten through since last night. What a fucking mess. It was all that damned ice.” He looked to Violet and Gianna. “Pardon my language.”

“The highway’s only two lanes wide out there,” Chris commented.

“Yep. Didn’t take much to block it and create the biggest snarl I’ve ever seen. You can’t even head east and cut to the north, because they’ve closed the highway along the gorge due to ice. South is the only option, but that’ll take you four hours out of your way—if you make it. My understanding is that the ice is even worse down there.” He glanced around the cabin. “How are you set for food and heat?”

Violet paled. “We’re stuck here? For how long?”

“It’s supposed to warm up. Not too much longer.”

“We’ve got plenty of food, wood, and propane,” Chris said, mentally taking inventory. “But that also means we can’t get the police out here.”

“I want to look inside that cabin before I call the sheriff’s department. Who knows what could have made that smell,” said Frisco. “The county has a big enough mess with that wreck. And things are a general mess back in Portland, too. According to the news, the city has a lot of power outages and several of the streets are impassible from the ice.”

“Can you get another person on that snowmobile?” asked Chris. “I’d like to go with you.”

“No, I should go,” asserted Gianna. “I’m the best person to take a look if there’s a body.”

Surprise crossed Frisco’s face. “And why is that, ma’am?”

“I’m a medical examiner. Dead people are my business.”

He stared at her for two seconds before shrugging. “No arguing with that.”

Frisco was a daredevil on a snowmobile. Full speed ahead with no concern about anyone coming around a turn. Gianna hadn’t ridden one in years and clamped her arms around his waist in a death grip. Memories of a wild high-school boyfriend with a motorcycle popped into her head. The same boy had taken her snowmobiling countless times. Looking back, she wondered how they’d both survived.

She’d never autopsied anyone who’d died in a snowmobile accident, but that was because she’d worked in Manhattan. No doubt an examiner from Montana or Idaho would have interesting snowmobile accident stories to tell.

They made it to the cabin within a few minutes; the winding curved driveway to her rented place stirred up her nausea as Frisco cut the hairpin turns as tightly as possible. Her heart stopped as they came within sight of her vehicle. Someone had smashed the driver’s window.

All of Chris’s concerns from the previous day shot through her brain.