Nest in the Ashes (18 page)

Another bullet slammed into the rock, this time from the west. The shooter was moving counter clockwise along with them.

“Go,” Eric ordered Lark. “Keep moving.”

They scampered around the end of the boulder, adrenaline driving them through the shrubs and brush on the downhill side of the rock. Squeezing between the boulder and a gnarled mountain mahogany, Eric felt a tad safer. It would be hard to see them in this cover. Harder yet to hit the target.

“Lark,” he whispered, drawing her in close beside him. “I’m going to distract him. I want you to head down the mountain. Go as fast as you can. When you reach the road, get to the truck and radio for help.”

Lark clutched his arm, her eyes bright with fear. “I won’t leave you.”

Eric’s hand stroked back an errant strand of her hair, the curl soft in his fingers. “I want you to go.” Bending down, he swiftly kissed her. “Please.”

She brushed the back of her hand across her lips. “I’m scared.”

“Me too,” Eric said, then he looked her square in the eye. “Do you remember how the green-tailed towhee operates? He runs along the ground, with his tail held high, creating a diversion. Like a fleeing chipmunk, he scampers into the bushes and hides. He’s safe. But more importantly, he’s drawn the predators away from the nest.” Eric gripped her shoulders. “Our best chance is if you go and get us some help. Will you do it?”

Lark pursed her lips and nodded.

“Good.” Eric positioned himself near the mountain mahogany. “Go on the count of three.”

He lifted one finger at a time, his hand gripping a branch of the gnarled mahogany. On three, he signaled to Lark and shook the tree.

A shot ricocheted off the rock above him, and Eric moved, praying that the shooter wouldn’t realize Lark had bolted in another direction.

“Nettleman?” he shouted, drawing the attention to himself. “Or is it Paxton?”

Crouched near the rock, his back pressed to the boulder, Eric waited, knowing he had to move. The shooter had been pushing him in a circular motion. Another fifty feet and the shooter would round the boulder and be on the side where he and Lark had started. He had succeeded in inching along the rough rock away from the attacker, but at some point the shooter would double back making Eric a sitting duck.

Unless… What if the diversion hadn’t worked?

The thought paralyzed him. Then a bullet slammed into the rock next to his head. A shower of granite pelted his face, and relief washed over him.
He
was still the target, which meant Lark must have gotten safely away.

Another shot came on the heels of the last, and Eric realized he had to move—or die. Somehow the shooter had gotten below him. For the first time, Eric realized he couldn’t continue to move counter clockwise around the rock. A large pine tree snuggled up close to the boulder, preventing him from shinning around the granite. If he tried stepping out and moving around the tree, he’d be an open target.

How many shots had been fired? Not that it made any difference. Without knowing the type of gun being used, it was impossible to know how many rounds the shooter had available. Even if Eric found one of the spent bullets, he didn’t know types of ammunition well enough to determine the kind of gun being fired. And there were a variety of magazines available.

Face it, Linenger. You’re screwed
.

That determined, it was better to do something than die cleaved to the side of a rock. Still squatting, he groped the ground for loose rocks, his fingers plunged deep in the duff. Pine needles and twigs bit his flesh, and rough granite scraped his knuckles. Finally he located three or four softball-sized rocks. He hadn’t grown up playing baseball, but he’d learned to pitch softball in college, and he had a pretty good arm. Good enough to make someone think twice about coming too close. Even better, he might be able to convince the shooter he was on the run.

Eric pitched the first rock downhill and to his left.

A bullet slammed into the tree below him.

He pitched another rock, aiming slightly below the spot where the first one had landed. The gun fired, chipping a branch off the silver maple fifteen feet below him.

Eric repositioned himself. The bushes around him crackled, and he sucked in a breath. It was now or never.

He pitched another rock and moved down around the base of the pine tree, staying low to the ground. He heard the shot, then felt searing heat as the bullet skimmed his forehead. Blood gushed into his right eye, blinding him momentarily.

Realizing he had to keep moving, Eric clambered to his feet and ran for the safety of the trees on the opposite hillside. Shots rang out. He heard the sound of glass shattering.

Dull thuds in the dirt behind him drove him farther into the woods until, spent, he dropped to the ground near the summit of the ridge.

Blood puddled and caked on his shirt. The world turned.

He listened, hearing only the static in his head and the sound of blood pounding in his ears. He forced himself to lay quietly, forced his breathing to slow. Closing his eyes, he waited for the world to right itself.

The catch of an engine shattered the calm. The engine revved. He heard the sound of dirt spinning off a wheel, splatting against the bark of a tree. The noise receded, and Eric rested his face on the sun-baked dirt.

Eric had no idea
how long he’d been lying there when he heard Lark call his name. He jerked, scraping his face on the hard earth. The sudden movement made him reel, and he fought the nausea that accompanied the pain.

“Eric!” she shouted. He could hear the anxiety in her voice.

“Up here.” He barely choked out the words. Lifting his head off the ground, he tried again. “I’m up here!”

As he sat up, his head reeled. When he tried standing, his legs refused to hold him. Elbows to knees, he cradled his head in his hands.

In moments, Lark appeared, a strand of loose blond hair from her braid falling across her cheek. Her blue eyes were narrowed in concern. Tall, thin, dressed in jeans and flannel, and backlit by the sun, she looked like an angel.

Then Vic loomed behind her, hand on his gun. “You hurt?”

“Not too bad,” Eric said, focusing on his feet and discounting the headache. “I’m alive.”

Lark’s fingers probed the wound on his head.

“It’s just a nick,” Vic said. “He’ll live.” The sheriff glanced around. “What happened?”

“We were shot at.”

“I can see that. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Eric told him everything he could remember, up to the point where he collapsed on the ground. “Either the guy couldn’t find me, or he ran out of ammunition. I heard a vehicle fire up, and that’s the last I remember until I heard Lark shout.”

“You need to see a doctor,” she said.

“He needs soap and water,” Vic said. “Why don’t we head up to the Youth Camp? We can talk there and get you cleaned up.”

“He
needs
to see a doctor,” insisted Lark. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“It’s a head wound. They always look worse than they are.” Vic extended his hand. “Here, let me help you up.”

Standing between Vic and Lark, Eric gimped to the boulder. Collapsing against the knobby surface of the rock, he rested while Vic nosed around and Lark retrieved their packs.

“Thanks,” Eric said when Lark pitched him his. Pulling out the bandana, he soaked it with water from his water bottle and dabbed at the dried blood on his face.

“Here, let me do that,” offered Lark. With skillful fingers and a feather-light touch, she cleaned the wound on his head.

“Ouch,” Eric said when she hit a sore spot.

“Vic’s right. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“It still hurts,” Eric complained.

“Don’t whine.” Lark doused the bandana with more water. “Hold still.” This time she scrubbed, and he winced.

It occurred to him that Lark had gone for help and only brought back Vic. “What happened after you left?” he asked. “Where’s the backup?”

“Probably huffing up the hill.” She pushed his head sideways and dabbed the wet cloth against his hairline. “I made the road in record time, but I wasn’t sure which direction to go for the truck. I flagged down a passing motorist and used their cell phone. As it turned out, Vic was at the Youth Mountain Camp. He got here quick, so we came on ahead.”

“That was brave, or stupid, considering someone was up here shooting at us.”

“I was worried.” She sounded defensive. “Besides, Vic made me wait down below until he was sure the shooter was gone. We only started looking for you after we knew it was safe.” She dropped her arm and sat back on her heels. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m glad
we’re
okay,” he answered.

“Ahem. The sheriff stood ten feet to their left, slightly around the curve in the rock. “Is this where one of the bullets struck?” he asked.

“Could be,” Eric said, unable to see exactly where his hands were. “Several shots hit the boulder.”

Stooping, Vic patted his hands on the ground. “Ah.” He reached his hand into the duff and retrieved a bullet, holding it up to the sun. “From the looks of it, a.45.” He slipped the slug into his shirt pocket. “I found what looks like ATV tracks on the hill over there.” He pointed south. “Of course, they’ll be darned near impossible to track.”

The mention of the ATV triggered Eric’s memory. He had heard something. A cracking sound. His mind was blank, like an Alzheimer’s victims, and it dawned on him this was how Wayne must have felt sometimes. Like a sieve, things came in and passed through, no longer retained.

Allowing his mind to wander away from the task of remembering, it suddenly dawned on him what he wanted to remember. “Glass! I heard shattering glass.”

The sheriff raised his eyebrows. “I suppose there’s an off-chance whoever was up here clipped a mirror on a tree. If we can find them, the glass fragments might help us prove we have the right vehicle. Provided, of course, we put our hands on the right ATV.”

“It wasn’t a mirror that broke,” insisted Eric. “I heard a shot, then the glass shattered, then the ATV’s engine started. The vehicle was parked when the glass broke.”

“You know, son, there are a lot of things up here,” Vic said, settling his hands on his hips and scanning the area, “but there’s not a lot made of glass. Like, nada.”

Once working, Eric’s mind reeled through the events of the past few days. Wayne’s murder. The attack on Linda Verbiscar. The tape.
The camera!
“He shot out the camera.”

“The shooter is Forest Nettleman,” Lark and Eric said in unison.

“Whoa,” Vic said waving his hands in the air. “Hold your horses and back up a little there.”

“At the last EPOCH meeting, Nettleman explained to us how the Wildland Center uses video cams to monitor wildlife,” Eric said.

“He vocally condemned the burn,” Lark said. “And the rumor is, he’s filed a lawsuit against the NPS
and
Wayne Devlin’s estate for the damages to the Wildland Center.”

“He and Linda Verbiscar would have been the only ones who knew where the cameras were located.”

“You’re sure of that?”

Eric and Lark glanced at each other, then nodded.

“What about Dorothy?” Vic asked.

Eric grimaced. “She might have,” he conceded. “But somehow I can’t picture Dorothy MacBean bashing Wayne Devlin over the head.”

“Or wielding a gun at me and Eric,” Lark said.

Vic chuckled. “I have to admit, that’s quite an image.” His face sobered. “But what about Charlie, Verbiscar’s cameraman?”

Eric had forgotten all about Charlie. “Him too.”

“So really, anyone who knew about the tape would know about the camera.”

“Ja.”

Pushing back his hat, Vic scratched the sweat-lined ring around his head. “Okeydoke, first things first. Let’s see if we can find it. Then, depending on how easy the task, we can determine a course of action.”

Eric struggled to his feet. He worked his way around the boulder, keeping one hand on the rough granite to steady himself as he scanned the trees. His head throbbed, but the more he moved, the steadier he felt on his feet. Maybe moving around helped get blood back to his brain.

Once they knew what they were looking for, the camera wasn’t hard to spot. Eric found it perched high in the unburned trees below the boulder. Shots had been fired to incapacitate it—one to shatter the glass lens, and one to destroy the cassette holder. The impact from the second bullet had left the camera dangling at an odd angle, making it impossible to know who was up there today or where the lens had been pointed on the day of the fire.

Vic marked the location of the glass fragments near the bottom of the tree. “We’ll get a team up here to work the area, but I don’t expect they’ll find too much.”

From Eric’s perspective, what they had was enough. “Nettleman must have discovered Linda had the tape and put two and two together.”

Vic rested a hand on Eric’s shoulder. “There’s only one problem with your theory, son. Nettleman couldn’t have started the Eagle Cliff Fire. He had an alibi.”

Eric’s head snapped up, and he shut his right eye against the flash of pain. “Nettleman has an alibi? But Dorothy said that he was at the Wildland Center in the morning.”

“And so he was. He was also in Boulder by ten-fifteen. He had an appointment with someone who could vouch for him. A therapist.”

Lark exchanged glances with Eric. She looked more surprised than Eric. “As in, psychiatrist?” she asked.

“No, some new-age therapy. It seems he’s got himself a Reiki master. He wants to ‘rid himself of anger, balance his chakras, learn to communicate on a higher plane.’” Vic swirled his hand in the air.

“Anything would be an improvement,” mumbled Eric. He tried envisioning Nettleman prone on a table while someone cleansed his energy, but the effort made his head hurt. “I guess that leaves us with Paxton.”

“That’s a leap. Besides, we have nothing to go on,” Vic said.

“We have motive—the insurance money,” argued Eric. “We have the nail, the bullets fired, and I know he has an ATV. I saw it.”

“Has? Or had?” Vic pulled off his hat, jabbing the brim toward Eric while he ruffled his hair with his other hand. “Son, there’s no way to tie the nail to Paxton. There’s no way to prove he drove his ATV up here. And we don’t even know whether Paxton owns a gun.” Vic shook his head. “We’d need a warrant to search his place, and no judge in his right mind would issue a warrant based on that sort of circumstantial evidence. Hell, no sheriff in his right mind would ask for one.” Vic slumped against the boulder. “I’m not saying Paxton isn’t our guy. He might be. But there’s not enough evidence here to question him.”

Neither Lark nor Eric spoke. Wind whistled through the trees, felling dead snags. The hawk keened. Branches snapped and popped, sounding like gunshots. Finally Lark broke the silence. “Paxton doesn’t know that,” she said.

Eric and Vic both stared at her.

Clutching at the glimmer of hope, Eric said, “You know, she might be on to something. If we could convince Paxton there was enough evidence to convict him, he might talk.”

“A bluff?” Vic squinted and rubbed his fingers and thumb along his jawline. Eric could tell the idea appealed to the sheriff.

“I see only one problem with that,” Vic said.

“What?” Eric braced himself for disappointment “Jurisdiction?”

“No, I took this call as a courtesy to the Larimer County sheriff. And the case ties back to Linda Verbiscar, which falls under my auspices. I’m covered there.”

“Then what?” Eric demanded.

Vic jammed his hat back on his head and elbowed himself off the rock. “How do we find Paxton? Last I knew he was living at Shangri-La. In case you’ve forgotten, it burned to the ground five days ago.”

“Someone has to know where he is,” Eric said.

“What about Mandy Hathaway?” Lark asked. “She’s his secretary. If she’s anything like Velof, she knows where to find him.”

Eric nodded. “Lark’s right; Mandy would know.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Does anyone have a cell phone?”

“In the patrol car.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

“I still say you need to see a doctor,” Lark said, falling in behind Eric.

“Later. I promise I’ll go.”

“Yeah, right,” Lark said. “At the very least, you need to wash it with soap.”

Vic chuckled. “Isn’t that what I said?”

Halfway down the mountain, they ran into Deputy Brill and two officers hiking up. Vic gave them a quick rundown on the situation, then held up the two-inch nail Eric had found. “I need you to search for more of these. Track the ATV if you can, and collect the camera. You might need a ladder.”

Brill groaned. “Which means…?”

“I guess one of you has to go back down,” confirmed Vic.

Brill sent the other two officers on ahead, then led Eric and the others back to the base of the mountain. Eric’s headache increased with each jarring step, the steep pitch forcing them to sidestep down the hillside more than once. When they finally reached the road, they came out half a mile upstream from the truck and patrol car.

Brill flashed them a wave and struck out toward his vehicle. Vic, Lark, and Eric turned downhill, skirted the edge of the asphalt, and headed for the patrol car. After radioing the dispatcher, Vic dialed Mandy Hathaway’s number.

“Hi, Ben. It’s Sheriff Garcia. Mandy around? Huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okeydoke. Thanks.” Vic clicked off.

“Well?”

“Seems that a little thing like a fire doesn’t stop an enterprising man like Paxton,” Vic said. “He’s already hauled a new trailer onto the property and set up shop. Ben told me Mandy’s at the office. Do you want to drive with me, or follow?” Eric and Lark chose to follow in the pickup.

Turning into the subdivision, Eric noticed that the sign marking the entrance to Shangri-La still stood. The huge billboard—blackened by smoke, with the paint blistered and one leg charred—still proclaimed, “Buy a Slice of Utopia.” Beyond the gate, a scattered group of slab foundations rose from the ashes like the ruins of Pompeii. Houses that once sprawled against the landscape were now piles of rubble. As if in testament to their former grandeur, fireplace chimneys rose out of the charred debris.

In contrast to the ruins, Paxton’s new office looked opulent. A double-wide, cream-colored, three-bedroom trailer with thermal-pane windows and a wraparound deck. A small shed stood off to the side with Gene Paxton’s dusty blue pickup parked next to it. Beside that was parked a red ATV.

Vic pulled up in front of the office. Eric followed suit. He started to climb out of the truck when Vic stopped him. “You two stay here. Let me go in and talk to him.”

Eric started to protest, but Vic held up his hand. “Let me see if I can convince him to let us have a look around.”

Slouching back against the seat, Eric watched Vic climb the steps to the wraparound deck. “What do you think?” he Lark asked.

“What choice do we have?”

When Paxton answered the door, Eric turned the key to auxiliary power and rolled down the window.

Dressed in clean blue jeans and a T-shirt, with a signature baseball cap perched backwards on his head, Paxton looked surprised to see Vic. “Hey ya, Sheriff. How ya doin’?”

“Good, Gene.” The sheriff placed his hand on the butt of his gun. “Mind if I ask a few questions?”

Paxton scratched his beard. Leaning out the door, he looked in both directions, then stepped outside and shut the door to the office. “Like what?”

Vic pointed toward the red ATV. “Does that belong to you?”