Midnight Sun (Sinclair Sisters) (25 page)

“I’m not proud of what I did to the girl. I was stupid drunk. I know it isn’t an excuse. I got a little crazy, thinking of Betty, I guess.” He cleared his throat, glanced away. “I’m glad you both got out all right. I mean that, I really do.”

Call watched him closely, beginning to believe Buck was telling the truth. Maybe the fire was an accident. It wasn’t impossible, and Buck had certainly done his best to help put out the blaze.

“Old Mose’s cabin is practically a landmark up here,” Buck said a little gruffly. “I couldn’t just sit by and watch it burn. And the woman … she’s paid her dues up here.”

Call nodded, surprised by the note of sincerity. “All right, for now, we’ll assume that’s the truth. If I find out something different, you can expect to be hearing from the authorities.” He wasn’t sure yet what had happened tonight, but he intended to find out. And Buck had better not be involved.

He spoke to Ty, got the same story told with what seemed actual regret, then returned to where Charity sat slumped over on the bank of the creek. He could see she was crying and a muscle tightened in his cheek. They had damned near been killed tonight. It made him feel shaky inside to think just how close they had come.

Too many accidents,
he thought.

Though maybe this one actually was. The cabin was old, propane tanks leaked, chimneys filled up with soot, things happened. Or maybe it was another of Tyler’s pranks that simply got out of hand.

Still, until he knew the truth, he wasn’t taking any more chances. He would call Ross Henderson as soon as he got back to the house, have him get a security team up here as fast as he could.

With that decision made and Buck and Tyler headed back up the path to their house, Call sat down on the grass next to Charity and eased her into his arms.

“It’s all right, baby, don’t cry. The fire’s out and we’re safe. That’s all that really matters.”

She leaned into him, put her arms around his neck, and simply clung to him. He could feel her shaking with silent sobs and his heart squeezed hard.

She looked up at him, her face covered with soot and her eyes filled with tears. “It’s over,” she whispered in a husky, smoke-roughened voice. “We all worked so hard and now … in a matter of minutes … it’s over.”

He looked at the smoldering ruins of old Mose’s cabin. “Did you have any insurance?”

She shook her head. “The cabin was worthless … to anyone but me.” She dragged in a ragged breath and fresh tears ran down her cheeks. “I wasn’t ready to leave. I wasn’t finished with my adventure.” She pressed her face into his shoulder and started crying again and it hit him that she intended to go back to Manhattan.

A dozen different emotions ran through him. Regret, loss, need—others he couldn’t name. One thing was clear. He didn’t want her to go. Not yet.

He stroked a hand over her hair, still mussed from their earlier lovemaking. “Don’t decide anything now. You can stay with me until you get things worked out.” He was thinking of her but also the cabin, thinking that maybe with his help she could rebuild. It’s what old Mose would want.

Charity made a negative movement of her head. “I don’t know, Call. Maybe I should just give up and go home.”

He caught her chin between his fingers. “Is that what you want?”

She glanced down, twisted the hem of her water-soaked tee shirt. “I don’t know anymore. I’ll have to go back eventually. Maybe it would be better if I just left now.”

He didn’t like the way the words made him feel, as if the air was being squeezed out of his lungs. “You don’t have to decide tonight. Take some time … a few days at least, then make your decision.”

She swallowed, mustered a shaky nod. “All right.”

He felt a sweep of relief that made him as dizzy as he’d been in that smoke-filled room. Gathering her close against his chest, he thought again of the fire and their narrow escape. What if the fire had been set? If it wasn’t Buck or Ty, it might be the same guy who sabotaged his plane.

Maybe Charity should go back to Manhattan. Maybe she would be safer.

Maybe she wouldn’t.

He looked over at her and prayed that convincing her to stay was the right thing to do.

It was six o’clock that morning when Toby heard the knock and opened the door to a terrified Maude and Jenny.

“She’s fine,” he said, before they could get out the words. “They both are.”

Relief swept over their faces and they hugged each other briefly. “Thank the good Lord for that,” Maude said.

“Come on in. They’re still asleep. I’m fixing them some breakfast, but I don’t want to wake them yet.”

“How’d it happen?” Maude asked.

“We don’t know yet. They were sleeping. Kodiak woke them up.”

Jenny’s pretty green eyes went round. “Oh, my God, the puppy saved them?”

“Looks that way. Buck and Call used the fire pumps in the creek to put it out.”

“Buck?” Jenny repeated.

“Yeah. Kinda weird. We were all sort of thinking maybe he set the fire, but it doesn’t look that way.”

“What about that no-account son of his?” Maude asked. “Charity said he was spittin’ mad about havin’ to fix the bridge.”

“Call talked to both of them. He doesn’t think they had anything to do with it.”

“Maybe it was an accident,” Jenny said.

“Maybe.” But Toby didn’t really believe it and he didn’t think Call did, either.

“I guess we ain’t got a job no more,” Maude said with a downcast shake of her head. “And we was just gettin’ close to somethin’ big. I could smell it.”

Call and Charity wandered into the room just then, Call in a clean pair of jeans and a white cotton tee shirt, Charity wearing one of Call’s robes.

“I don’t see why you have to stop,” Call said to her. “The dredging equipment still works. You didn’t lose anything you need to run your operation.”

Charity didn’t look convinced. In fact, she looked downright heartsick. “I’ll think about it.”

“Buck called Mose’s cabin a landmark,” Call said casually, though Toby had the feeling it wasn’t a casual remark. “Mose once told me part of the original structure dates back to the Gold Rush days. I think it’d make him feel real bad if it didn’t get rebuilt.”

Charity looked up at him, alert for the first time since she had walked into the living room. “I can’t rebuild. I don’t have that kind of money.”

“I do,” Call said.

“I can’t take your money, Call. I won’t. Not even for that.”

“All right, if that’s the way you feel. Maybe we could work something out … an option or something. You’re planning to leave eventually. I’ve always wanted to buy the place. Maybe you could agree to sell it to me when you’re ready to head back to the city.”

He said it as if the idea had just cropped up, but Toby knew him better than that. Call had the money to rebuild the cabin and he knew how much Charity had come to love the old place. And whether Call was willing to admit it or not, he wanted Charity to stay.

“I-I don’t know.”

“Grama and I would help,” Jenny said excitedly. “And if Mr. Hawkins doesn’t mind, I’m sure Toby would pitch in, too.” She looked at him as if he were the kind of man she could count on and Toby felt an odd little quiver around his heart.

“Jenny’s right,” Toby agreed. “All of us would help. It might be fun to build a real log cabin—and part of it is already there.”

“You’ve got time to decide,” Call said gently. “You don’t have to start building today.”

“That’s right,” Maude said. “Next week would be just fine.”

Toby looked at Jenny and both of them laughed. Charity actually smiled. Then her smile slowly faded. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll still need some time to think about it.”

Call frowned and Toby inwardly grinned. McCall Hawkins hadn’t become one of the most successful men in the country by taking no for an answer. Toby wondered how long it would be before the first truckload of logs came rolling up the hill.

Though still hot in places, the blackened, water-soaked wood had cooled enough by late afternoon to allow them inside the cabin. While Call made a second pass around the burned-out shell, Toby poked around in the living room and Charity worked in the bedroom, trying to salvage some of her clothes and possessions.

“Hey, Call, come over here a minute.”

At the sound of Toby’s voice, Call tossed away the burnt piece of wood he was examining and joined the younger man in what had once been the living room. The kitchen was completely gone, the wood plank floor burned almost all the way to the fireplace. An area in front of the hearth remained intact and that’s where Toby stood, holding a burnt scrap of carpet.

“What is it?”

“A piece of the throw rug Charity had in front of the sofa.” He handed the blackened remnant to Call. “Smell it.”

Call bent his head and took a whiff. His insides tightened at the distinctive odor of gasoline.

“The front-room windows don’t have any locks,” Toby told him. “All you’d have to do is push them up and you could get in. I think the guy opened the window, threw gas on the sofa and curtains, and tossed in a match. This wasn’t an accident, Call.”

His fingers tightened around the burnt chunk of carpet. “No, apparently it wasn’t.”

Charity walked out of the bedroom just then, her arms filled with water-soaked clothes. She stuffed them into one of the plastic bags they had brought to hold anything they might be able to salvage. She pocketed the heavy gold nugget she had rescued from her scorched dresser drawer and looked up at their solemn faces.

“All right, what’s going on?”

Call handed her the chunk of carpet and headed for the bedroom. Charity followed him in.

“This window is locked,” he said, checking out the old brass mechanism, as solid as the day it was first put on. “The one we escaped through last night was locked, too. I remember having trouble with the latch.”

He walked into the bathroom, found that window solidly bolted as well. “Did the kitchen window have a lock?”

“Yes, but it was broken. The living room windows never had them. I meant to put some on after what happened with Buck, but I never quite got around to it.”

“Maybe you should have.”

Her look turned uncertain. “Why?”

“Smell that piece of carpet you’ve got in your hand.”

She took a whiff. “Oh, my God—gasoline!” Her hands started shaking. “You think Buck or Tyler—”

“No. To tell you the truth, I don’t think they had anything to do with this. The things Ty did were pranks, fairly harmless, nothing as lethal as this. Of course, I could be wrong.”

“But if they didn’t do it, who did?”

“Maybe someone who wanted Buck or Tyler to take the fall. Or at least come under suspicion.”

Charity frowned. “If that’s the case, that person or persons would have to have been watching the house. They’d have to know about the sand in the engine and what Ty did to the bridge.” He noticed that she was trembling and inwardly cursed, knowing he was probably responsible for what had occurred last night. The thought made his insides tighten.

“That’s right, they’d have to know,” he said. “And they would have known I was staying in the cabin last night.”

She glanced around the blackened walls of what had been her home. “You’re not … you’re not thinking this is the same person who sabotaged your plane?”

He followed her gaze around the bedroom and a memory returned of the little dog’s frantic barking and the room filled with deadly smoke. “It’s beginning to look that way. We figure out who tampered with my plane, we’ll know the answer to this.”

Charity came toward him, her face drawn and pale. “You’re scaring me, Call. What are we going to do?”

He couldn’t resist reaching out and pulling her into his arms. “Ross Henderson is already on it. He’s putting together a three-man team. They ought to be here by tonight. Once they are, we’ll have protection round the clock.”

He led her outside, into the fresh air and sunshine. Though being outdoors made him feel better, he found himself surveying the surrounding hills. Knowing their assailant might be somewhere out there, he guided her behind the protective cover of a nearby tree.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said, Charity, about going back to Manhattan …”

“You think I should leave?”

“It might be safer.”

She looked up at him. There was something in her face he couldn’t quite read. “It seems to me that
might
is the key word here. There’s still no way to know for sure that the threat has nothing to do with me.”

“No, there’s no way to know that for sure. At least not yet.”

“Then I’d rather stay here.”

Call felt oddly relieved. As certain as he was that his pursuers were only interested in him, Charity
had
been involved in both attempts. He could set up protection for her in Manhattan, but if anything happened, he would be thousands of miles away. He felt better having her here, where he could watch out for her safety himself.

It bothered him to think that she was now his responsibility, that at least for the present her protection was up to him. Susan’s image flickered in the back of his mind, but he forced it away. He wouldn’t fail Charity the way he had Susan. No matter what it took, he intended to keep her safe.

With a hand at her waist, he led her back to the house, Toby walking beside them. Charity headed for the washing machine in the mudroom to launder whatever soggy, smoky clothes she had been able to retrieve from the cabin, and Toby went in to thaw something for supper.

As soon as the two were gone, Call checked the doors and windows to be sure they were secure, then took his rifle down from the gun rack. He checked to see that it was fully loaded and placed it back in the rack. He needed to get Toby down the hill and out of danger, but he wouldn’t let the boy out of his sight until Ross and his men had arrived.

Knowing the security team was on its way and needing to do something useful, Call headed for his office. His first phone call went to the Dawson City police. The Mounties promised to get there as quickly as they could. Next he dialed a camera surveillance firm in San Jose that he had done business with before.

Thinking of another destructive blaze in the not-too-distant past and never a believer in coincidence, he phoned the Seattle Police Department and asked for Karl Miller, the head of the arson squad.

“I’m glad you called,” Miller said. “We just wound up our investigation on that fire in your lab. You were right. We located a spot where the wiring was tampered with. It was an electrical fire, all right, but it had a little help getting started. The guy was a real pro or we wouldn’t have missed it the first time.”

With that information, several pieces of the puzzle slid into place. It wasn’t problems with Datatron, Ransitch, and Wild Card that were behind the first attempt on his life. Someone wanted to stop MegaTech from developing a cheaper, more efficient method of hard-disk storage.

He hadn’t believed the discovery would be motivation enough for someone to want him dead. Obviously he had been wrong. First the lab had been destroyed, causing a temporary setback. Then Peter Held was mugged, putting the young chemist out of commission, at least for a while. But ultimately, it was Call they needed to eliminate.

The question now was, who?

“Any ideas who might have set the fire?” Call asked Miller, forcing his thoughts back to the man on the other end of the line.

“Not yet, but we’re on it.”

Call thanked the detective for his help, hung up, and dialed Steve McDonald. He told the P.I. about the arson fire at the lab and the nearly fatal blaze in the cabin.

“Sounds like we’ve been looking in the wrong direction,” Steve said.

“That’s what I’d say.”

“You talked to Peter Held?”

“No, but I intend to. As soon as he gets back to Seattle. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find him. See if you can track him down, will you?” Call thought of the mugging Peter had suffered—or at least allegedly suffered. He was beginning to think Held knew more than he was willing to admit. Call had some hard questions for Peter. He wanted them answered—and soon.

As he disconnected the phone, he thought of Charity at work in the laundry and knew he wouldn’t rest easy until Ross Henderson and his team arrived. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, more tired than he should have been. He wouldn’t get a good night’s sleep until this whole thing was over and there was no way of telling when that might be.

Shoving back his chair, he made his way to the mudroom. Charity closed the dryer door, looked up at him, and he realized she was as worried as he.

“I guess going for a walk would be out of the question,” she said.

God, he could use a good long walk himself. “It wouldn’t be the best idea. At least not until security gets here.” He reached for her, drew her gently into his arms. “Toby’s working on supper. Maybe we can find something to do in the meantime.”

She showed a spark of interest. “How about a game of King Cobra?”

Not exactly what he had in mind, but it would have to do. “I don’t know if you could handle it. I’m pretty tough to beat.”

Charity went up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, nibbled softly on his earlobe. “There’s a different kind of game I’d like to play first.” She caught his face between her hands and gave him a deep, open-mouthed kiss.

He didn’t have time for this. He needed to go over the list of companies who would be hurt by MegaTech’s hard-disk development project, but he had done it once already and he had let business ruin his life before.

Call kissed her back. Lifting Charity into his arms, he started toward the hall, mentally rearranging his schedule.

Stan Grossman stood hidden in the trees near the top of the sloping hill at the back of the house. Through the branches off to one side, he could see the burned-out remains of the old log cabin.

Stan swore softly.
Sonofabitch.
Tony was gonna shit a brick when he found out Stan had botched the job again.
For chrissake, who’da figured the damn dog would wake them up?
But Stan had heard the little dog barking. They must have gone out the window before the neighbors arrived to put out the fire. To make matters worse, the way Hawkins had been prowling around the place this afternoon, there was a good chance he had figured out it wasn’t an accident.

Stan would have preferred to wait, take a little more time to prepare, but Tony was getting impatient and when the opportunity had arisen, it seemed like the perfect solution. Fire, in one form or another, was his favorite method of dealing with a problem. It was fast and neat, real reliable if a guy knew what he was doing.

He had taken the calculated risk that the old, dry logs would burn so cleanly there wouldn’t be enough left to suspect foul play—or even if there was, the two bumbling fools on the property next door would get the blame.

Maybe they still would.

Stan fiddled with his cellular phone as he started along the crest of the hill toward his rental car, which was parked out of sight behind a copse of trees about a mile down the road. Stan knew he should check in with Tony, let him know what was going on, but he just couldn’t make himself dial the number.

No telling what Tony would do when he found out he had failed again. Pull him off the job, maybe, or give him his walking papers—or worse. Tony paid him very big money, and most of the problems Stan was called in to solve were more easily dealt with than this one, more like what he’d done with Held.

Stan hated to lose such a lucrative position and in the back of his mind, he was toying with another idea, one that would solve everyone’s problems.

Doyle Sanders and J. B. Brown were old ex-army buddies he worked with once in a while. He hadn’t used them in a couple of years, but he knew where to find them. They didn’t do the neat, sanitary work he usually liked, but they came fairly cheap and they were efficient.

Come to think of it, he had used them on the Hawkins job four years ago. It hadn’t gone quite the way they’d planned, but in the end the result had been the same. Hawkins had holed up out here in the middle of nowhere; King seemed satisfied and let the matter drop.

Stan didn’t like to think of that job. The way it turned out had always made him feel kind of bad. Maybe it was poetic justice that Doyle and J. B. come in on this job—make up for screwing things up before.

If Stan called them in, he wouldn’t make as much money, but this time Hawkins would be out of the picture for good. Afterward, he’d arrange for a chopper to pick them up—Doyle always seemed to know someone with more greed than morals. They could disappear across some remote section of the Alaskan border and that would be the end of it.

Stan stopped in the shade at the top of the hill and began to punch in numbers.

The security team arrived around eight o’clock that evening. The sun was still up, would be for hours yet. Charity recognized Ross Henderson’s bulky frame from the meeting she had attended with Call in Seattle. He and two other dark-suited men climbed out of a brown rental car and started toward the house.

“Good to see you, Ross,” Call said, shaking the big man’s hand as he walked through the front door. “You remember Ms. Sinclair?”

Ross tipped his head politely in her direction. “Ms. Sinclair.” Ross’s attention shifted to the two men with him. “This is Randy Smith and Jim Perkins. They’ve been with the company more than six years. You can count on them to know what they’re doing.”

Each of them shook Call’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hawkins,” Jim Perkins said, a lean, sinewy man with black hair and a slightly pointed nose. Randy Smith was shorter, with a nice, vee-shaped build and curly blond hair. Both of the men had bulges beneath their coats, obviously weapons. Since handguns were illegal in Canada, Charity figured they must have had some kind of permit.

“We’ll be pulling two-man, six-hour shifts round the clock,” Ross told them. “That way everybody stays fresh and alert.”