Cold Dawn Part 10

She climbed over a snow bank at the end of the lane. Nick stayed with her, and she led him to a narrow path, the snow disturbed only by the occasional deer and wild turkey tracks. Just past a curve, she saw the old sugar shack through leafless, graceful deciduous trees.

She found herself smelling for smoke, but the air was clear, clean and cold.

Nick moved ahead of her as they came to the small field where the sugar shack, constructed of rough-cut lumber, grayed now with age, was situated above a stream, just through the woods on the edge of the expansive, open meadow behind the lodge. A few days ago, she and Lauren had shoveled out the area in front of the entrance, exposing an outside stone fireplace.

Rose heard the happy squeal of her niece and nephew through the trees and felt her knees weaken in relief, telling her just how keyed up she was.

Nick opened the barn-style door.

"You can go on about your business," Rose told him. "We'll be fine. I'll tell Scott-"

"You're my business." Nick peeked inside the rectangular-shaped shack and asked, his tone deceptively casual, "Does Feehan know what happened between you and Derek Cutshaw?"

She stiffened. "I'm not talking about this with you."

He glanced back at her. "I just saved you from being thrown down a frozen hill."

"You did not. Robert wanted to avoid you. He panicked."

"Right," Nick said skeptically. "Ever take private ski lessons from him or his friends?"

"No. I know how to ski."

"Feehan's good?"

"I would think so if he's giving private lessons."

"But you don't know," Nick said. "Do you know why Cutshaw would be upset because I was in town?"

She shook her head. Her sister-in-law, laughing, ducked around a scraggly white pine, with little Jim and Baylee, in puffy snowsuits and mittens, clinging to the edges of their toboggan.

Lauren pulled the sled up to the entrance and moaned, grinning at the same time. "These kids are getting too heavy for me to haul this far!" She kicked off her snowshoes, then swooped down, scooped them up and leaned them against the door frame. She clapped her gloved hands at Jim and Baylee, who hadn't moved off the toboggan. "Up you go. Say hi to Aunt Rose."

They jumped up, and ran to Rose. She hugged them, but they couldn't wait to play in the snow.

Lauren listened quietly as Rose explained that Scott Thorne was en route and what had happened. Her sister-in-law swallowed visibly but maintained her composure. "Is Nick staying until Scott gets here?"

"I imagine so. Lauren, I'm sorry. If I'd had any clue-"

"It's not your fault, Rose. Show Nick around. I'll hang out here with the kids. I have the radio. I'll let A.J. know what's going on."

Rose started to argue but instead stepped into the shack. She and Lauren had already replaced broken panes in the windows and cleaned them, and they now let in the late-morning sun.

Nick stood next to the old evaporating pan in the middle of the floor. "Looks like something from a postcard out here," he said.

"This is part of the original farm." She pulled off her hat and gloves, wet from when she'd landed in the snow. "We've ordered a new evaporator. It should be here any day. This one's ready for a museum. I'm surprised it's still here, but I guess who would want it?"

"Will the new one also be wood-fired?"

She nodded. "We're bringing in a couple of cords of wood and stacking it on the back wall. It'll stay dry there. We'll collect sap from trees close by and boil it down to syrup. It's about a forty-to-one ratio-forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup."

"That's a lot of sap."

"A lot of boiling, too. The evaporation pan speeds up the process. It creates lots of steam." She pointed up at a vent in the ceiling. "Hence the vent."

"Clever."

"We'll collect most of the sap in buckets. Guests can partic.i.p.ate if they want to. We'll bottle the syrup in mason jars and sell it at the lodge. Any profit will go to our local mountain rescue team."

"A nice little cottage industry."

"I hope so. There's an outdoor fireplace, so we can do some boiling outside. That's really more for atmosphere. The fireplace is made from local stone. I love that, don't you?"

His eyes were on her as he smiled. "A lot of rock in Vermont."

Rose laughed. "Something to keep in mind when you try to argue with one of us." Suddenly warm, she unzipped her jacket. "Nick, if there's someplace you need to be-"

"There isn't."

"It's supposed to get above freezing today. Of course, you're spoiled from living in Southern California and might not realize what an event that is. When are you going back?"

"Sometime. Not today. You forget I haven't always lived in a high-rise condo. Some days..." But he didn't finish his thought and nodded to the open door. "Go on and do what you came here to do. Pick out maple trees, whatever. I'll be right here."

"Scott will want to talk to you."

"No problem."

Rose felt the snow melting in her hair, dripping onto her forehead. Nick struck her as a rich Californian who didn't belong in the middle of the Vermont woods, but maybe it was just her. She'd first met him five years ago, when she was starting out in search management and he and Sean had just formed Cameron & Martini and were struggling to make it work.

Nick had been fearless, confident and s.e.xy, but it hadn't occurred to her to sleep with him.

He'd had his share of close calls fighting wildland fires. She'd run her fingertips over burn scars when they'd made love in June. She'd realized he could be vulnerable, could suffer and bleed. He'd continued to do the work he loved even after he'd taken a hit.

She resisted saying anything else and headed back outside. Jim and Baylee were helping their mother dig snow out of the fireplace. "We have a lot of work to do," Lauren said, her cheeks pink with cold and exertion, "but I think we'll make it before we seriously start collecting sap."

"We should have some warm days coming up to drill tap holes."

Lauren smiled through her obvious uneasiness. "Excellent."

She was clearly holding her breath, hoping Derek's death had been a terrible accident and Robert had simply panicked given the violence of the past few months.

The lodge didn't need another Cameron in the middle of more violence.

Rose heard someone coming through the woods, but it was just Scott Thorne, arriving along the same path she and Nick had taken from the lane. He wore his state trooper's parka over his uniform, his expression tight and serious as he approached the old fireplace. "No sign of Feehan," he said.

Lauren herded the kids into the sugar shack with her. Rose, feeling the cold again, rezipped her jacket and told Scott about her encounter with Robert Feehan. Nick joined them outside and related what little he'd witnessed.

Scott glanced up at the cloudless sky once they finished. "All right," he breathed, then sighed at Rose. "If you see Feehan, call 911. Don't approach him." He shifted to Nick, whose eyes were unreadable. "You, either."

"Scott," Rose said, "do you have any reason to believe Robert's a danger to anyone?"

"You mean other than you?"

"I told you-"

"Just do as I ask, Rose," he said. "No argument, okay? For once?"

She smiled. "Sure, Scott."

He trudged through the snow back to the path. Rose watched him disappear around a curve before turning to Nick. "You look cold," she said.

"That's because it's twenty-six degrees out."

"It's a beautiful winter day. Lauren and I will be fine. Don't let us keep you."

"If I got lost, would you come find me?"

"You won't get lost."

"Bet you're a good skier. I'm okay with s...o...b..arding and alpine skiing, but Nordic skiing-that's work."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you? You think we're quaint."

"Quaint?" He sputtered into incredulous laughter. "No, not quaint. I'd put A.J. up against any Los Angeles businessman I've ever dealt with. Three Sisters Cafe would clean up on Wilshire Boulevard." He placed a foot on the icy, rough edge of the stone fireplace. "And you, Rose. I know you've been offered jobs in Southern California."

"Only two jobs, both in emergency management."

"But you don't want to leave Vermont," he said quietly.

She shivered from a sudden light breeze, but her mind was on the other side of the continent, on a hot, dry, windy day in June. Without looking at Nick, she said, "We did what we could to save Jasper. We all did. If his death is related to Lowell Whittaker's network of killers and Derek somehow found out and that's why he freaked out when you showed up-"

"We don't know that Feehan was telling the truth."

Rose pulled her hat out of her pocket and put it back on, yanking it down over her ears. "I don't know. I wish I did."

Nick frowned at her. "Your knee hurts, doesn't it?"

She hadn't noticed but realized her right knee did, in fact, ache. "Some. I must have twisted it when Robert shoved me."

"You should ice it."

"Thanks, Dr. Martini, I will."

"I have EMT training."

But he didn't press the issue as Lauren emerged from the sugar shack. "A.J.'s meeting us with the car out on the road," she said. "He's got the lodge on alert for Robert Feehan. No sign of him as yet."

She tucked her snowshoes under one arm and got the kids back on the toboggan, which Nick pulled as they hiked back to the dead-end lane. Rose spotted Brett Griffin out on Ridge Road with her brother and went ahead of Nick, Lauren and the kids. A.J. gave her a quick glance as he ran down the lane to his family.

Brett was decked out in winter gear, his camera hanging from a cord on his neck. "I just told A.J. that Robert Feehan flagged me down a few minutes ago."

"Where?" Rose asked.

"Up the road, not far from the place I'm staying. He jumped out of the woods. Scared the h.e.l.l out of me. He asked about you. He said he wanted to talk to you. I know he's upset about Derek, but he really wasn't himself. I told him he might want to calm down before he saw you."

Rose grimaced. "Too late."

"Ah. He found you already. I wondered. I gather it didn't go well."

"As you saw yourself, he's on edge. Do you have any idea where he might be now?"

"No, sorry. He ran up the road. I didn't follow him. I think he might have had a car up there. I heard an engine start."

"He didn't drive back by you?"

Brett shook his head. "He must have gone in the other direction. I don't have a cell phone-I borrowed A.J.'s and called 911. I know the police want to talk to him about Derek's death."

"Robert could be anywhere."

"I wish I could have delayed him but I had no idea what was going on." Brett tilted his head back and sighed. "You don't look so good, Rose. Did Robert hurt you?"

"No, but he was out of control."

"Yeah. It's crazy. I think he wishes now he hadn't gotten mixed with up Derek, too, but Derek had his good qualities. He thought he could do anything."

"He could put on the charm," Rose said tightly, "but he could turn it off in a heartbeat. Brett, you're house-sitting just up the road. Could Robert have come out here this morning to talk to you, too?"

"I suppose so." Brett fingered a b.u.t.ton on his camera. "I got the feeling he was hiding in the woods and jumped out on impulse when he saw me. I wish I could be more help. Robert didn't say so in as many words, but he obviously thinks Derek went to the Whittaker place to kill himself."

Rose's stomach twisted, but she said nothing.

"So that you would find him," Brett added.

"Did he say why he thought Derek might be suicidal?"

Brett shook his head. "He really wasn't making much sense."

"If Robert knows anything," she said evenly, "he should tell the police."

"Yeah, I know."

She followed his gaze down the road as Nick walked out from the lane carrying the empty toboggan. A.J. was behind him with a child on each arm, Lauren next to him.

"I hope Derek didn't commit suicide," Brett said. "I hope he just wanted to talk to you, and the fire was an accident-just one of those dumb things. From everything I hear, Lowell Whittaker's the type to leave flammable stuff around."

Would he put a volatile, highly flammable liquid into a kerosene lamp and just leave it for anyone to light? Rose shuddered at the thought. "Given what else he's done, I suppose anything's possible."

"He puts a whole new spin on the term *gentleman farmer.'" Brett gestured toward Nick as he loaded the toboggan into the back of A.J.'s SUV. "Who's that? Got a new boyfriend, Rose?"