Zipper Fall (42 page)

Innocent of murder, yes. But of other things?

I nodded and let him pull me in even tighter. A shiver passed through my body, and his warm hands moved to chase it away. Of course Risby Haus was innocent of murdering Celia. He must have experienced a terrible, desperate panic when he felt Celia’s life slip between his fingers along with that too-thin rope as he struggled to arrest her last fall. Perhaps his focus on philosophical purity as a free-climber didn’t give him many chances to practice using other types of equipment. Maybe the heat of the moment brought confusion, or perhaps he just plain screwed up. The result was still the same: the woman he loved, the one he had wanted to entice to marry him, fell to her death, and it happened on his watch.

I thought back to those times when I had let Jack down one way or another: embarrassing him, endangering his probation status with my reckless disregard for law and society. My stomach clenched in a sick twist and my eyes watered—suppose I’d killed Jack by accident. Darkness descended upon me as I buried my face into his warm, muscled chest.

“Wyatt… shhh.” Jack’s hand wandered from my back up to my hair, and he stroked it as though willing the tension in my shoulders away. “Wanna talk about it?”

I shook my head. If he didn’t lay off being sweet like that, I might break down and cry, and I definitely didn’t want to do that. What an undignified tip-off that would be.

Risby’s world was dark with loss and guilt. Guilt over Celia’s death. Guilt over Toussey’s blindness.

He probably intended to kill him with that bad batch of moonshine. According to Reyna, Tim’s friend had analyzed Risby’s brewing records. Risby knew how to eliminate methanol from his brew well enough. Yet his record indicated experiments in which he had perfected his control over the precise amount of methanol in his final product; regular, store-bought whiskey has about 7 percent methanol in it, and Risby had been playing with controlling the amounts up to the lethal level. That bad batch had been no accident.

I felt his guilt secondhand, maybe because I was unable to feel bad about it. Knowing Jack and his recent conversion to the way of the law, he would have felt that guilt as well—perhaps because he would have seen himself take justice into his own hands, just like Risby had.

At that moment, I resolved to protect him from that unsavory feeling; I’d shoulder all that guilt and pain. Jack would never know—not unless there was an imminent and unavoidable need. Jack would think his sister’s murderer came to his well-earned end by sheer coincidence.

I forced myself to relax, allowing the smallest sigh to escape me.

Jack stroked my neck, playing with my hair and helping me dissolve into a boneless lump of bones.

“Thanks.” I whispered, turning and letting him spoon me the way he knew I liked best.

Dim reflections of nighttime traffic traveled all the way to my sixth story windows, gently teasing my sheer curtains and barely making their way inside. The white walls amplified what little light illuminated the eyes gazing at me in the dark. Soft lips descended onto mine in a soft gesture of affection.

“Why can’t you sleep, Wyatt…?” he asked.

I tried to answer, but he silenced me with another kiss.

“Hush. Let me take care of you.” He soothed my sides with long fingers; a gasp escaped as I felt his rough, dry fingertips slip under my short pajama pants.

“Have you been climbing?” I asked, both surprised and pleased.

He paused to kiss me before he resumed his teasing movement. “Yeah. Gotta keep up with you out there.”

I reached to stroke up his neck and into his mussed-up hair.

He captured my wrist and pressed it against the pillow by my head. “Shh. My turn.” Hot lips traced a slow, sensuous path down my throat. Jack stopped to spend time at his favorite places, like a pilgrim along a path. Every time he elicited a reaction, I felt his grin against my skin. Every time I tried to reciprocate, he’d press me down and hush me, chiding me for being unable to just lie and receive.

My pajama pants were off and a hot, wet tongue circled around the ticklish point of my hip bone. I plunged my hands into his hair, and this time my action was unopposed.

He moved even lower, making me sigh and gasp, and eventually he made me gasp his name. He curled around me as he gave me one last kiss.

I inhaled, breathing in his scent that mingled with mine, barely able to keep my eyes open. “Thank you, Jack. I didn’t even know I needed that.” I paused, then yawned. “Now let’s see about you.”

“It was my pleasure,” he whispered, and I heard satisfaction in his voice. “I’ll take a rain check. Go to sleep, Wyatt.”

Who was I to argue? Pulled in tight, I melted into his embrace and closed my eyes, my last words a sated whisper.

“I love you, Jack.”

A
UTUMN
had passed into winter and winter into spring. The weather turned downright hot, leaving me distractible. I yearned for fresh, green leaves on the trees in the city park right outside. I wanted to just kick back and lie down on the edge of the water fountain, willfully endangering my stiff office suit, and watch the white clouds pass overhead as they soared in the sky—its vibrant blue reminding me of the color of Jack’s eyes.

Except I couldn’t.

“What? What the hell’s so urgent right now?” I snapped at Rick Blanchard, dreading another interruption. I’d been rewriting a particular paragraph for two days; I’d even taken to hiding out in Jack’s conference room on the theory that my boyfriend’s dull office would present fewer distractions than my apartment… or Jack’s apartment… or the library… or even Starbucks.

“Jack needs to see you right now.”

I looked up to meet Rick’s watery eyes with irritation. “I’ll never get this done, Rick, and your buddy Louis will rake me over hot coals if I’m late again.”

“It’s personal. Everyone’s there.”

Great. Another stupid birthday party.

My hair felt too long and steamy again, hanging over the collar of my shirt and trapping too much heat. I entered Jack’s office without knocking, as I always did. There he was, his own collar unbuttoned and tie loose, white sleeves rolled up his well-muscled arms in deference to spring fever. Yet the wild smirk was absent, yielding to an impassive, focused expression.

Louis Schiffer and Rick Blanchard stood by the wall, their eyes trained on Jack’s unexpected guest. She sat in the client chair, short and round and unassuming in her Carhartt pants and a short sleeve shirt.

“Wyatt, this is Lucy Baranoff from Alaska. She lives in a small village on a creek right under Mt. Saint Elias…. She was Celia’s friend.”

I approached her as she stood and extended my hand in greeting. “Uh… nice to meet you,” I said.

She didn’t shake my hand, and her dark, vaguely Asian eyes didn’t rise above my chin. She nodded. “Good to meet you,” she said in a soft, almost inaudible voice full of alien gutturals.

That’s when it hit me. The guide. Celia’s guide she wrote about in her letter—wasn’t she Tlingit? So English was one of at least two languages she spoke; thus the light accent.

She sat back down, and I backed away, taking the seat next to her.

“Go on,” Jack prodded her.

“Anyhow, as I said,” she continued her narrative, her black and shiny hair framing her tan face with high cheekbones and full of sun-wrinkles. “Risby Haus was up our way last fall. He lived at his claim, and it was getting too late in the year to work it. He wanted to go hunting, he said. He had to put some meat in the cache for the winter. And there was wood to split—lots of work to do before winter set in. We all watched him, wondering what he’d do with Celia gone. They had planned to do all this together, to live through their first Alaskan winter up there.”

Her soft, lilting voice was spinning a tale with undercurrents of long-set plans thwarted, of great love unfulfilled. Lucy was a good storyteller and we were her rapt audience.

“Risby was obsessed with trying that climb Celia and I had attempted the previous spring. It was fall already and too late in the year to risk the storms coming in off the bay. I told him to wait ’til summer, but he was restless. Then he told me to deliver this package to you if he didn’t come back by breakup—that’s when the arctic ice begins to thaw and crack. We’re past breakup now and… well… he’d left enough money for me to travel on and deliver this, and I’ve never been Outside before, so… here it is.”

Lucy bent down and produced a small package, which had sat under her chair until now. She handed it to Jack.

He pulled a knife out of his pocket and flipped it open, then cut the package’s tape. There was a letter inside, addressed to both him and me. Underneath it sat a large Ziploc bag full of old letters; some of them were written in elegant, cursive handwriting, others contained poetry. Then, a small jewelry box covered in red velvet.

I knew that box, and blanched.

Jack opened the letter first and glanced at me for permission. I nodded, and he began to read aloud.

Dear Wyatt and Jack,

If this letter finds itself in your hands, then I trust Lucy Baranoff is sitting right next to you. Treat her well; she is the last friend who has seen me alive. Be advised that nothing will please her more than a juicy steak and fresh strawberries; however, she will prefer a milkshake to alcohol. Both Celia and I were proud to call her a friend.

You won the lottery, Jack! You get a disorganized jumble of love letters, travel narratives, and poetry, which your sister and I exchanged during our too-brief courtship. I had hoped to present her with the ring in the red box; it is yours now to do with as you please. Keep in mind it’s an engagement ring. Don’t delay, for destiny may have plans of its own. Don’t screw it up, my friend.

As for me, I’m burning all my bridges, ready to give karma another try.

Live hard, love harder.

Risby

The silence in Jack’s office grew oppressive. I wanted to break it and relieve the awkward discomfort of being in the presence of the words written by a man whom I now presumed to be dead. One didn’t go climbing in late fall in Alaska and disappear only to show up come spring, alive and all in one piece. My thoughts drifted to the meal he cooked for me—Celia’s recipe, he had said—and to his book by Julius Caesar I never returned before he disappeared.

Maybe Risby couldn’t live with his guilt for Toussey’s blindness. Maybe Risby couldn’t live without Celia. Maybe Risby—

“Was there a body?” Jack’s voice ripped through the room.

“No,” Lucy replied, her eyes still downcast. “No body. Just things.”

“Did he seem like he wanted to kill himself?”

She shrugged. “He seemed happy when he gave me the package for you. Like he expected you to receive it. He said to say hi to your guy.” She shrugged, confused, not knowing whom that might mean. The reference warmed my heart, and I could feel my eyes itch along with my nose.

Damn spring allergies.

“There was no body… but the land will claim its own. No body, animal or human, will last long in the bush.”

“Grizzlies?” I asked, suddenly revolted.

“Among other things.” She nodded.

I sat stunned while speculations about Risby’s fate abounded. Rick Blanchard offered to take the short woman out to lunch, while Louis mentioned a concert she might enjoy, going on tomorrow in a large Victorian greenhouse—everyone wanted to take Lucy out somewhere and have her try something she’d never see back home.

She gave a faint smile. “Don’t take me where there are people. This city is too… too busy for me.”

“Would you like to use my apartment?” I asked. “I often stay with Jack. It’s empty—you will have privacy.”

She thought hard. “If it’s not an inconvenience….”

“You’re staying at Wyatt’s, and Rick’s taking you out to lunch,” Jack declared as though it was a done deal.

For the first time, Lucy raised her deep brown eyes to mine and smiled.

“Dammit,” I said after everybody left, blowing my nose in Jack’s now-empty office. “I hate these spring allergies, you know.”

He lifted his blue eyes up from a letter Celia wrote while she climbed some obscure, smaller peak in Mexico. “C’mere.” He patted his lap and leaned back after setting the package onto the table.

I scowled; I wasn’t a dog to come when called, and said so.

“Wyatt?” His voice was plaintive and needy all of a sudden, and I was drawn to him, letting him pull me into his embrace. “Sit up, will ya?” he said, stretching so he could reach past me to grasp the red velvet box. He leaned back and opened it. “It might fit you, you know.” His eyebrow was cocked at me, gauging my reaction.

“No way. Too expensive and way too girly. I’d just lose it or trash it.”

“Let’s see anyway.” He removed the white gold and platinum band out of its satin seat and stroked my left hand. “Your fingers are almost as slender as hers.”

“But I climb. It leaves them gnarly.” My protest was of no use.

Jack exerted himself to force the engagement ring almost all the way down on the correct finger. “Looks good,” he decided.