Beneath a Darkening Moon (16 page)

“This killer is never going to be brought to justice, and you and I both know it.”

Anton raised his eyebrows. “If you’re telling me—”

“All I’m telling you,” Cade cut in, “is that this killer has no intention of being caught like Jontee was.”

“And why would you think that?”

“Because we didn’t catch him the first time.” Cade walked across to the minibar and pulled out a beer.

“You’re obviously not talking about Jontee …”

“No.” Cade popped the top of the beer and took a long drink. “Jontee was behind the killings, but I always thought it was impossible that he’d be working alone.”

“There’s nothing like that in the files.”

“Because the man in charge of the investigation believed there was only one killer—the one we caught.” He shrugged. “The opinions of a raw recruit didn’t matter.”

“Sometimes the ramblings of the inexperienced hold grains of truth a more experienced eye have missed.”

“Now you sound like your philosopher father.”

Anton smiled. “Are your notes on file somewhere?”

He nodded. “In the notes attached to the main case files, but I have the originals with me.”

“Good.” Anton paused, then asked, “Have you questioned Ranger Grant about Rosehall?”

“There’s no need. I read her mind at the time. That’s how I caught Jontee, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean you got every scrap of information she possessed.”

“Believe me, I read her mind quite thoroughly.”

Anton frowned. “But isn’t she from the golden pack?”

“Yeah? So?”

“Well, the golden pack are among the strongest telepaths ever recorded. Even the weakest can generally run mental circles around telepaths from other packs.”

It was Cade’s turn to frown. “I caught her at a very open moment, though.”

“It shouldn’t have mattered. The minute she felt you invading her mind, she would have slammed down as many shields as she could.” Anton’s frown deepened. “You might have caught information about Jontee, but I very much doubt you’d have caught everything she knew.”

But you never actually asked me about what I knew,
she’d said to him yesterday.
You just charged right in and took
.

And he’d been too busy fighting desire and trying to defend his past actions to even pursue the admission.

Maybe she was right. Maybe this investigation
did
need another leader. One with a clearer head who was not so intimately involved. “Where’s Trista?”

“She’s with the kid, cross-checking the names she and Ronan collected today.”

Cade nodded. “What time is Hart due in?”

“He’s returning to Denver to grab one of the mobile forensics vans, so I wouldn’t expect him until morning.”

Cade nodded and glanced at the bagged and tagged items strewn across the table. “Discover anything yet?”

“Nothing helpful. The partial tire tracks match those sold as standard on at least three different makes of four-wheel drives. The shoe tracks we found in the forest don’t appear to match the partial print found near the tape recorder. I’ve scanned both through to the labs to see if they can come up with a shoe make or anything else useful.”

“Let’s hope they find something.” Cade rubbed a hand across his still aching jaw. “I’m going out with Ranger Grant later tonight to find and question the woman who paid the kid to leave the note under her wiper.”

Anton raised his eyebrows. “A woman? Did the kid give you a description?”

“Average height, late teens to early twenties, blond, blue eyes, and buxom.”

Anton snorted. “Every teenage male’s wet dream.”

“Exactly, which makes me suspect she was also paid to bribe the kid.”

Anton nodded in agreement. “You intend to question the ranger while you’re at it?”

“Yeah.” Whether he actually got any information was another matter entirely. She wasn’t exactly happy
with him at the moment. He tossed the empty beer bottle in the trash can. “Call me if you get anything.”

“I will. Just make sure you’ve got the phone turned on this time, or we
will
use the locator.”

Cade ignored the barb, but he heeded the warning as he headed for the door.

“I
CAN SMELL
him on you, you know.”

Savannah glanced at Ronan as they walked toward the blackened remains of the old house. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to continuously shove it in your face.”

His smile was almost a grimace. “I know. It’s just a warning. I may be more sensitive to your aroma, but the others have worked with you for a while and they will notice as well.”

“They’re going to know sooner or later that Cade and I were once lovers.”

He nodded. “But you don’t want them to know the relationship has blossomed again, do you?”

“Blossomed is definitely the wrong word,” she said dryly. As was
relationship
. “And no, it’s not something I want everyone in town to know.”

The old gate creaked as he pushed it open, and he stood aside to allow her through first. At the back of the blackened wreckage of the house were two fire engines, their red and blue lights washing the night with an eerie brightness. She couldn’t see Manny Johnson, the head of the local fire department, but she knew he was here somewhere. Ripple Creek didn’t get many emergency calls, and as gruesome as it sounded, she knew Manny wouldn’t have missed it.

“Can I ask why?” Ronan asked softly.

She frowned up at him. “Why what?”

“Why don’t you want the town to know about you and Cade?”

“Because it’s against the code of conduct.”

“Not really. We are, but you and Cade are not.”

“He’s here on a case. A murder case.
That
makes it against the rules.”

Ronan’s expression suggested he didn’t think it was. “Are you ashamed of what you did with him?”

Startled, she glanced up at him. “Of course not.”

His gray eyes were intent, yet his expression was touched by something close to sadness. That made no sense, considering what they were discussing. “So are you ashamed of what you did at Rosehall?”

“No. But, by the same token, I don’t want the whole town finding out about it, either.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am no longer that person. She died long ago.”

“Did she?” he mused. “Or did circumstances merely force her into hiding?”

She opened her mouth to deny his statement, but the acrid smell of smoke and death swirled around her, catching in her throat and making her cough, which was probably just as well. She couldn’t deny something she knew deep down to be true, as her reaction to Cade these last few days had proven. That part of her
hadn’t
died. It had merely waited for the right person to bring it back out.

It was such a goddamn shame that the right person just happened to be Cade again.

A big man stepped from the side of the ruined house, smiling grimly when he saw them.

“We’ll finish this discussion later,” she murmured to Ronan, then held out her hand to the approaching fire chief. “How have you been, Manny?”

“I’ve had better days,” the older man said wearily, shaking her hand, then wiping a sooty forearm across his brow. “Old Lana Lee died in the fire.”

Savannah swore softly. She’d known this was Lana’s house, but she’d thought the widow had gone to the Bitterroot reservation to visit her daughter. She had said as much to Manny.

“Yeah,” he said. “Apparently she returned yesterday.”

“Damn.” She’d gotten to know the old woman over the years, simply because it was Lana who owned the flower shop below Savannah’s apartment. While they’d never been more than pleasantly polite, she’d liked the older woman. Liked her style. “Has the coroner been called?”

Manny nodded. “And the state fire marshal. The body has been bagged and sent to the medical examiner for the cause of death ruling.”

“Your guess?”

“Asphyxiation.”

“So the body showed no sign of trauma?”

“Not according to the coroner. Doc Carson’s home, if you want to talk to him.”

Savannah glanced at Ronan, who nodded and reached for his cell phone as he stepped away from them. “And the fire?” she said, looking back at the fire chief.

“Suspicious.”

“Why?”

“It started in the bedroom—a lit candle left too
close to the lace curtains. The fire quickly moved into the roof, and from there—in an old house like this—it was only minutes before the whole place was ablaze.”

“But Lana hated candles.” She’d hated them since her son had died in a similar accident when he was five years old.

“Exactly,” Manny said. “So how did the candles get there, and who lit them?”

And why would they want to light them? Who’d want to kill Lana, for God’s sake? She might have been independently wealthy, thanks to her dead husband’s insurance policies and the regular income she got from the flower shop’s lease, but she lived frugally, and she had few material possessions. She hadn’t even stepped into the TV age, let alone the DVD years. She’d preferred her music and books to all those “newfangled toys,” as she called them. “Is the building safe enough for us to poke around in?”

Manny nodded and swung into step beside her as she moved toward the skeletal remains of the house.

“Were the front and back doors locked?” she asked, stepping carefully through the remains of what was once the living room wall. The ceiling in this section was gone, leaving the living room open to the elements. Burned rafters arched skyward like broken fingers reaching for the stars. Her gaze followed the burn line across the rafters to the wall—which, though it still stood, was skeletal, revealing the bedroom next door. The roof had collapsed there, too.

“The front door was locked,” Manny answered. “The back door wasn’t.”

“Meaning Lana had let someone into her house?”

“Possibly. The old girl was meticulous about locking
her doors, and she even held conversations through the closed door.”

Savannah grinned. “I had a ten-minute discussion like that with her last year. It was snowing, and she was afraid opening the door would let out too much heat.”

“She always was a bit of a character,” Manny agreed. His gaze swept around the room, and the amusement in his expression faded. “But she was a gentle old soul who wouldn’t have harmed a gnat. She didn’t deserve this.”

“No.” The question was, why had her life ended like this? “Where’d you find her body?”

He pointed toward the end of the house that still had most of its roof intact. “In the kitchen, slumped over the table with her coffee.”

“Were smoke detectors installed?”

“Yeah, but the batteries were dead. Or at least, the one in the kitchen was.”

Savannah headed down the hallway. “Wouldn’t she have smelled the smoke? Seen it?”

“One of the boys was telling me that Lana’s sense of smell was pretty bad. Apparently she’d left the gas on a few times without knowing it.”

“But still, the smoke would have been fairly thick, wouldn’t it?”

“This old house exploded pretty fast. Given the fact it was dusk and none of the lights were on, she might not have seen the smoke until it was too late.”

And she obviously hadn’t if she’d been found at the table. Savannah stopped just inside the kitchen doorway and looked around. Most of the damage in here was either smoke- or water-related. Her gaze swept
the small room and came to rest on the table. Soot had outlined where Lana had slumped in death, and anger slithered through Savannah. Why would someone do this to a harmless old woman?

“When was the fire reported?”

“Seventeen-forty-five. By that time, it had reached the roof and pretty much destroyed the house.”

“Who reported it?”

“Rex, the neighbor to the right, saw the smoke and gave us a call. Apparently it wasn’t long after that the living room roof collapsed.”

Meaning there might have been accelerants involved, as well as the candle. But they wouldn’t know that for sure until the fire marshal arrived. She walked over to the sink. There were no extra cups, no spoons, nothing to indicate that Lana had shared her coffee with anyone else. She walked toward the back door. Old slippers, summer sandals, and a worn pair of lined rubber boots stood in a tidy line to one side of the doorway. In the doorway itself, mud tracks proliferated. Most were from the boots of Manny and his men … except for one. She frowned, stepped to one side, and squatted in front of it.

The footprint wasn’t small, nor was it as fresh as the others. And it had a different print pattern. She pointed at it as she glanced up at Manny. “Any of your men wearing different boots today?”

He frowned and shook his head. “Regulation down the line.”

She picked up one of Lana’s boots and flipped it over to study the heel and sole. There was mud caked on, indicating Lana had gone outside earlier, but the pattern was different from the muddy ones on the
floor. “You want to keep your men away until we can get a photo of this?”

Manny nodded. Savannah rose and headed back out to the car. Ronan met her at the gate.

“The doc confirmed what Manny said. There doesn’t appear to be any obvious signs of injury, beyond those related to the fire.”

She nodded. “But Lana had a visitor before the fire started.”

“Did the neighbors tell you that?”

She shook her head and opened the door. “No. I found a boot print that didn’t match either Lana’s boots or the ones used by Manny and his men.”

Ronan reached into the back and grabbed the crime scene kit. “That doesn’t mean it belongs to the person who set the fire.”

“No, but it might. You want to go interview the neighbors while I take a few photos? Rex, the neighbor on the right, reported the fire.”

“I’ll start with him, then.” Ronan hesitated and looked around, as if to see who was near, then added softly, “There’s something I need to say.”

Her stomach clenched. She knew it was about Cade, about what they’d been talking about before, without even skimming his thoughts—not that she ever did that with Ronan. Or any of the other rangers, for that matter. “Can’t it wait?”

He shook his head. “I know you think Cade coming back into your life is a bad thing, and if I’m looking at it from a purely selfish point of view, I tend to agree. But I really don’t think it is.”