DESI'S RESCUE Read online

  "Oh," she said, waving her hand, "just a glass of white wine. I'm waiting for Bill to finish a business deal. Some real estate something or another."

  He nodded, fetched the wine for her and a dark, hearty ale for Zara and introduced them to each other. A news crew had followed Elsa—her fame as a model had not died when she retired to Mariposa to find herself a rich man—and they settled at the other end of the bar. "What can I get you, mate?" Tam asked.

  The man ordered a beer. Tam waved to the menu, chalked on a scoreboard behind the bar. "We got what you like, mate. Pick one."

  "Stella Artois," he said.

  Tam filled a couple of orders for servers, rang up some tickets, hustled to the back to fetch more stock for the front coolers and tried to stay away from Elsa's realm. She had that sulky, looking-for-trouble pout he'd grown to be wary of, her perfect chin in her long-fingered hand, her lips plump as raspberries. With her free hand, she twirled a pen around and around.

  Let Zara talk to her.

  It was only after twenty minutes that he realized Zara probably wouldn't be doing the talking. Tactical error. He headed down the bar to do some damage control, and there was Elsa, leaning close to Zara, who listened, wide-eyed, to what was no doubt a whole load of barely verified gossip. "Hope you're not giving her too much truck, Zara," Tam said with a grin he hoped was winning. "She likes to talk, Elsa does."

  Elsa straightened indignantly. "I don't tell lies, Tamati, if that's what you mean."

  He raised an eyebrow. "Just embroider the facts a bit, do you?"

  The pink lips curled slightly. "Only a little, to make it more interesting."

  Zara scowled. "So where's the embroidery in your stories just now? Is this woman a murderer or not?" she waved to the canister soliciting donations for wolves. "It's been on the news for three days."

  A blister of fury burned in Tam's throat, but he glanced down the bar toward the reporter and held his tongue. "The woman is innocent, Zara," he said mildly.

  Elsa rolled her eyes. "Tam just wants to think so because he's—shall we say—interested in her." She tossed a lock of long blond hair over her shoulder and cocked a perfectly arched brow. "They found her blood on his clothes. If she didn't kill him, how did that blood get there?"

  "Is that true?" Zara asked.

  Tam didn't know. He barked, "No," and his fury doubled when Elsa laughed.

  "Yes it is. That part is an absolute fact, Tam. It's in the police report."

  "How would you know that?"

  She smiled her canary smile. "Oh, I just know."

  Despite himself, his resolve to listen to nothing she said, his gut fell. Could Desi really have killed Claude Tsosie? Not that he blamed her, but it could put a crimp in any kind of future they might have together. "I don't buy it," he said stubbornly, and headed down the bar to wash glasses.

  "Time will tell," Elsa sang out. "Time will tell."

  * * *

  Desi argued with herself all the way down Black Diamond Boulevard

  . She should just go on up the mountain, tuck in with her dogs and get some sleep. Tam would wait.

  If he even wanted to see her, which she wasn't entirely sure about, after all. He hadn't called.

  But neither had she.

  But she wasn't the one who'd left first thing this morning.

  Irritably she made up her mind to let it go, all of it, and put the truck into gear—and then saw there was a parking spot right in front of the Black Crown, which was lit up and cheery like a beacon in the cold night. She was a grown woman and didn't have to wait for a man to call her. She could call him.

  Or stop in and say hello.

  She had the excuse, after all, of the geothermal studies Juliet told her about. She could talk to him about his knowledge of the subject. Surely he had some ideas, since he'd lived in Rotorua as a boy—one of the all-time hot spots for hot springs in the world, almost as active as Yellowstone.

  It wasn't until she'd pulled open the door to the pub and stood just inside, blinking at the noise and lights and music that she remembered she'd never really been a pub kind of person.

  But … well, here she was. It would look pretty stupid to turn around and walk out. How did you just walk in and sit down, like you knew what you were doing, when you didn't?

  And this was a thousand times worse, because everyone in town knew her and probably knew she had her eye on Tam and would be noting their interaction in great detail.

  She spied the reporter from the parking lot this morning sitting at the bar, and mentally kicked herself. What had she been thinking?

  Was it too late to turn around and head out? And yet, maybe it wasn't so stupid. He'd tossed out the question about geothermal features that had finally revealed some answers about what was going on with her land. How had he known? With a new sense of purpose, she headed toward that end of the bar.

  It was only then that she spied Tam, behind the bar, talking to two women, both willowy blondes. He was nodding, paying close attention to something one of them was saying—

  Get a grip, Desi told herself. He ran a pub. Women would talk to him all the time.

  And yet as she crossed the room, which seemed to take ten thousand years, she really saw him in his natural environment. A big, rugged man with a dashingly exotic face and a sparkle in his eye. A man whom women would always find powerfully appealing. Around him was the evidence of his history with rugby and his passion for his native land, in the jerseys hung on the walls and photos of silvery ferns and the New Zealand curlicue.

  Before him were two beautiful women, well tended. Very thin. Younger than she, both vying for his attention.

  And she was suddenly, fiercely, reminded of Claude, who knew just how to play a roomful of women.

  In her mind Ellen's voice said, Just your type … a big, sexy kind of ethnic guy. Dark and charming.

  Great. Just great.

  Hadn't she learned anything?

  And if that were not enough, he looked up just then, and Desi saw the exact instant he caught sight of her. He startled, guiltily, and glanced at the woman to his left, a tiny thing with yards of yellow hair.

  Desi halted, halfway across the room, pinned by his pale fern gaze that seemed both accusatory and hungry. Standing there in her work jeans, her big hands at her sides, she felt like a cow that accidentally wandered into a field with a bunch of gazelles.

  She wanted to turn tail and run. But everyone was watching. This moment would be reported all over the place tomorrow. Squaring her shoulders, she turned her attention to the reporter. A way to save face.

  And maybe, if she turned the tables, she could smoke out her enemies and finally be done with this mess. It gave her stride purpose, and she settled down next to the reporter. "Hello," she said, and held out her hand. "Desdemona Rousseau."

  He took the proffered hand. "Good to meet you officially. Mick Reed."

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tam approaching, and took one second to warn him off with a fierce look. He had no trouble interpreting it. He backed away. Desi looked at Reed. "How did you know about the lake beneath my land?"

  "I got a tip," he said. "Anonymous."

  Desi rolled her eyes. "Please. That's not even original."

  He smiled slightly. "All right. I stumbled on something a couple of months ago, about new ways to generate electricity and a particular developer who was being a bulldog about it."

  She raised her eyebrows. "Bill Biloxi, by any chance?"

  "You got it. When I saw that he'd bought land up here, I was curious. Seemed like there might be a story in it." He pointed to the empty space on the bar before her. "You want something to drink?"

  Desi shook her head. "I can't stay. Just tell me."

  "What are you going to do for me in return, sister?"

  "I'll give you an exclusive—but not tonight. Just tell me what you know."

  He measured her. "Not a lot more to it," he said. "I heard about the murder, and your land was right next to Bilox
i's and it seemed to me there might be something going on here." He sipped his beer and gave her a wink. "Besides, I like to ski. It's not as though a story like this takes tons of time."

  She took a square cocktail napkin from a stack on the bar and wrote her name and cell phone number down. "I'd like to know your sources. In return, I'll give you an exclusive, tomorrow at noon. Fair enough?"

  "Absolutely." He took the napkin and tucked it in his pocket. "You won't be sorry."

  Desi swung off the stool and headed for the door. Behind her, Tam called out her name, but she ignored him, and by the time she hit the street, she was at a dead run. She jumped into her truck, managed to get it started and was down the street without having to say a word to him.

  She should have known. She just should have known better by now. You could trust dogs. You could trust nature to do what it did.

  You could never, ever trust human beings.

  With a head-splitting sense of weariness and disappointment, Desi drove up the mountain. Her head actually hurt with a red pulsing anger, the sudden, sharp accumulation suddenly more than her circuits could bear. The attack against the wolf center, then the attack on poor Alex who'd done nothing except take care of the wolves; the reporters, the geothermal studies, the harassment, the judge…

  Her cell phone rang but she ignored it. There wasn't anything Tam could say to make that expression any easier to bear. He didn't trust her, wasn't sure about her, and she'd had enough of that.

  She'd had enough.

  Period.

  She drove up the mountain and fed the dogs, then paced irritably for a half hour, wandering from one end of the small cabin to the other, her thoughts whirling.

  It had not been rejection of herself as a woman that she'd seen in Tam's eyes, but doubt about her. Maybe her innocence. Maybe—whatever. She didn't care. She was fed up, fed up with everything. She'd come to this place looking for her home, and she believed she'd found it in the kindness of the town's people, in the acceptance Helene had offered.

  Then—through no fault of her own, because of the lack of integrity of others—she'd lost it all. Lost the warm sense of community she'd loved. The pleasure of being a respected and honored member of the town. She had belonged somewhere for the first time in her life, and now she didn't and it was infuriating.

  And what could she even do?

  How could she make them all see that she was the same woman they'd loved and honored? How could she make things right again?

  Suddenly she threw her arms and head back and howled out her frustration. Her anger. Her sense of outrage.

  Don't you want to tell your story?

  With a sharp sense of purpose, she marched right back into the back room where Claude's things were stored, and started hauling them out. The dogs, seeming to sense her hell-bent-for-leather mood, hovered nervously around the perimeter, but didn't get in her way as she carried it all, armload by armload, out to the truck. Armload by armload, she dumped it all in the bed without much concern for damage—clothes and paintings, sketches and pencils and paints.

  Her phone rang again. She ignored it.

  With methodical precision, she went around the entire house, rooting out the last of anything Claude had put his hands on. The dogs whined softly, and she distractedly patted their heads to reassure them but didn't slow down.

  The phone rang. And rang again. She ignored it. And ignored it again.

  With a huge sense of satisfaction, she finally took a mop and a bucket of water into the room Claude had claimed, and mopped it with bleach water. The sharp clean smell blotted out everything else, and it felt almost as if she'd been bleached clean herself. Sweaty and satisfied, she stood in the doorway and surveyed her handiwork. Tecumseh whined behind her, his head down, and Crazy Horse nudged his head under her hand.

  "What is it, guys?"

  Sitting Bull was gone, bolting out the dog door without a sound, and Desi frowned. "What—"

  She listened, but heard no cars on the road.

  Her phone rang again, just as there was a frantic knock at her door. "Doc!" cried a hoarse male voice. "We got a fire."

  And then, finally, she smelled it. What the dogs had been smelling for five minutes—smoke. Thick smoke, wood smoke.

  Fire!

  She flung open the door, and three wolves rushed inside, yipping and circling. Her dogs joined them, panting, frightened. Charles, Helene's brother, stood there, his face smeared with soot. "It's the cabin at the center," he said. "We called the volunteer firemen, but they're not here yet. You want me to call the tribal police?"

  Desi was already picking up the phone. "Yeah. Call 'em. Call everybody." She punched in the speed dial for Juliet, and when she answered, relayed the news. Then she called the number that appeared on her phone history seven times in the past hour. When Tam answered she said, "The wolf center is on fire. I need you."

  He said, "I'll be right there."

  Desi turned to Charles. "Lock the dog door. I'll bring the wolves down the hill."

  "Paul's already bringing 'em," he said in his gruff voice.

  "Good," Desi said. "Good."

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  « ^ »

  After the wolves were carefully settled inside the house, Desi drove her truck to the top of the hill, feeling sick at the flames leaping into the sky above the trees. Who would do this?

  The little cabin was entirely engulfed by the time she arrived, and despite the volunteer firefighters who had arrived, it was plain it would be a complete loss. Desi huddled into her coat, watching the flames eat the darkness, sparks flying upward—dangerous, but not as terrible with snow on the ground as it would have been later.

  In the darkness she finally found Charles, Helene's brother. "What happened?"

  His lips turned down, and he shook his head. "Me and Daniel were walking the fence, and they must've got in here and torched it while we were out. It was just that fast, like a spirit did it."

  Desi tried to quell her irritation. She could buy a lot of spiritual ideas, but not a spirit lighting things on fire. "But why would a spirit be mad?"

  He shrugged. "Maybe it was a wolf spirit, come to let the others go."

  "The only wolves in here are—" she caught his expression "—oh. You're giving me a hard time."

  He chuckled, the sound loose and old in his chest. "Yeah." He pointed with one arm to the forest. "Daniel went after somebody. He's a good tracker. Maybe he'll find something, or somebody."

  A pickup truck with the Mariposa Ute seal rumbled into the driveway, and Desi recognized Juliet's fiancé, Josh, behind the wheel. The shadows didn't allow her to see who else was there until he climbed out, decked in a fire coat and a hard hat, his sturdy legs carrying him to the perimeter. He carried an ax.

  Tam. Of course. She folded her arms as he approached. "You were here?" Tam asked Charles.

  "Yeah. No spirits though. A man crashing through the forest. Daniel went after him."

  Tam gave the older man a crooked smile, and nodded. "How long ago?"

  "Maybe a half hour. Not that long."

  He looked over his shoulder. "That's gone up in a half hour?" He pursed his lips. "Somebody made sure it would burn fast."

  "You mean, like soaked it with gas or something?"

  "Not petrol," Tam said, "because you'd smell it. But something, yeah." His pale fern eyes were impassive as they met Desi's. "They were aiming to scare you, too, without doing any real damage. Snow break there would have kept the animals safe, unless there was an accident or a tree caught fire." He scanned the tree line. "Not likely in these conditions."

  Desi raised her eyebrows. "And?"

  "They knew what they were doing. That's all I'm saying." He walked away, leaving Desi to stare after him.

  "He's your man, huh?"

  Desi gave Charles an annoyed glance. "No!"

  Charles nodded. "Oh."

  Just then Daniel came crashing through the trees, yelling, "I got him! I got him!"<
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  Desi and Charles and Tam ran toward him, Daniel holding fast to his prisoner, a fox-faced man in his forties with badly scarred cheeks. The man stumbled into the clearing and fell.

  "'Bout time you caught a break," Charles said, looking down at the man. "Now maybe you'll get some answers."

  "I hope so," Desi breathed. "I certainly hope so."

  * * *

  By midnight the excitement was mostly over. The wolves had been resettled, and although they would likely be nervous and noisy for a few days, they seemed none the worse for wear. The fox-faced man was the arsonist, though he had yet to talk about who he was working for. The charges against him were not, at this point, serious, after all. Why spill the beans on a good client?

  The county police did agree there was enough danger that Desi required help watching the perimeter until the parties behind the arson had been ascertained and apprehended. Desi nodded with a secret smile when Jimmy Rineheart told her this. Ascertained and apprehended, ran through her head for an hour afterward—it was so silly. Why didn't the police speak the way everyone else did?

  She was unlacing her boots when a knock came at her door. The dogs didn't even lift their heads, so she knew she was safe with whoever it was, and she assumed it would be Juliet, coming to make sure she was safe.

  Or maybe she didn't assume that. Maybe she opened the door because she knew it would be Tam standing there, glowering down at her. "Can I come in?" he said, leaning one hand on the doorjamb.

  "What do you want?" she asked.

  "Can I come in?" he repeated.

  Desi crossed her arms. "What do you want?"

  "Where did the blood come from, Desdemona?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  His mouth looked hard. "They found traces of your blood on Claude."

  Desi narrowed her eyes and debated whether to answer or tell him to get lost. Her traitorous body, the infinitesimal cells of her skin and through her body were dancing in anticipation of a party. "We had a fight early in the day. He knocked me down and I even had to get stitches, which Helene will verify if you want her to. Not that it's going to get you any closer to me." She stepped back and tried to close the door.