Cold Dawn Part 28

"Some, but I didn't expect an answer to every letter. Even if he hadn't been a soldier, that would have been unrealistic. The long silences didn't come until later, when he became a Green Beret." The sky had cleared and was a bright winter blue against the white and gray landscape. "He bought this land three years ago and worked on this place whenever he was home."

"He did a good job."

"Pop would come down and help. He knew Elijah always wanted to return home to Black Falls. I think Pop left Jo the lakefront property because he believed she and Elijah were meant to be together. He discovered them in one of the cabins. Running off with Elijah was the only time Jo veered off the path she'd set for herself and did something crazy. Elijah says he'd have ended up in jail if he hadn't gone into the army when he did."

"But your father felt guilty," Nick said.

"Not in the beginning. He came to believe he'd interfered with something that was meant to be. I think leaving Jo the cabins was a way for him to make amends. She wouldn't have been here in November if he hadn't. Who knows if or when she and Elijah would have gotten back together again." Rose glanced at Nick, realized his gaze was on her, not the view. "Do you have a place you want to be? A place you think of as home?"

He shrugged as if he had never really considered such a question. "My father was career navy. We bounced around when I was growing up. I'm used to making a home where I am." Humor played at the corners of his mouth. "I didn't grow up in a small New England town where my family had lived for generations."

"Not all Camerons stayed. For instance, some took off for Ohio after a brutal winter in the early nineteenth century." Rose wasn't letting him off the hook. "If you closed your eyes, clicked your heels together three times and whispered, *There's no place like home,' where would home be?"

"It's not a place. It's an att.i.tude. It's the people who'd be with me."

His tone made her breath catch, but she saw more police cars arrive on the narrow lake road. "I should go check on Dominique. Nick, I was so scared. First Dom. Then...I thought it was Bowie in the burning cabin."

"I know, sweetheart." He slipped an arm around her. "I know."

She leaned her head against him, his muscles taut, still tensed from wielding the splitter, carrying out first Dominique and then Robert. "I can't imagine what Robert was thinking. None of this makes any sense. What about you? Are you okay?"

"No worries." He drew her closer still and brushed his lips over the top of her head. She hadn't even realized she'd pulled off her hat. "I'll snowshoe back up to the lodge. I want to take another look at the campsite. The police are there now."

"Dominique can't be up to driving. I'll take her back to town in her car. Someone there can give me a ride back to the lodge. Would you mind taking Ranger with you?"

"Sure. Ranger and I have bonded."

"Say his name, then give a one-word command. Stick to basics." Rose smiled. "Be the alpha dog. He'll behave."

"I love being the alpha dog."

The humor helped her to absorb the events of the morning. "Nick..."

He slipped her hat out of her pocket and tucked it onto her head. "Soon, Rose," he said softly. "We'll figure all this out soon."

Nineteen.

D ominique put on an evergreen-colored canvas ap.r.o.n in the cafe kitchen. She'd wanted to go right back to work. Rose hadn't argued and watched her friend hop onto a stool at the butcher-block worktable. Dominique was visibly trembling, still ashen from her ordeal at the lake.

Rose stood across the worktable from her. "Dom, what's going on?"

"We'll have a late lunch spurt because of the fire. It'll bring people out." She placed her hands on the clean wood and splayed her fingers, as if she weren't sure what to do with herself. "I just have to think a minute."

"The police want to talk to Bowie."

She nodded. "Of course. It only makes sense."

"Were you meeting him? Is that why you chose the lake for your run?"

Dominique looked up, her dark eyes clear, shining. "I wouldn't say I was meeting him. I knew he'd be there. Excuse me, Rose. I really have to get busy."

"Sure."

As Rose started out of the kitchen, Dominique jumped off the stool and gave her a hug. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank Nick Martini for me, too."

"Dom..."

She stood back, smiling, trembling even more. "Cooking's my refuge."

She returned to the worktable, and Rose went out through the swinging door to the dining room, where, in fact, business was picking up. Myrtle was behind the gla.s.s case, filling an order for fruit salad and house-made yogurt. "Dom's back?"

"Yes," Rose said. "Thankfully she wasn't seriously injured. She's more shaken up than anything."

"She'll make soup. It'll be good for her."

Rose noticed a coffee spill on the counter and grabbed a cloth and wiped it up. "Myrtle, did Dom tell you why she was going out to the lake?"

"She said she was going for a run." Myrtle handed the fruit and yogurt to a teenager from town, took her money and turned back to Rose with a sigh. "If Andrei could see me now."

Andrei Petrov was the Russian diplomat whose death Myrtle had looked into, bringing her to Lowell Whittaker's attention. The result was the fire at her house-and, ultimately, her presence at Three Sisters Cafe on Main Street in Black Falls.

Myrtle fussed with the tie on her ap.r.o.n as she continued. "You'd think a serial arsonist who sets fires for his own pleasure and contracts out as a paid killer wouldn't end up burning himself to death in a falling-down Vermont cabin." She straightened, her lavender eyes clear, incisive. "I suppose it could have been suicide, but he didn't exactly go out in a blaze of glory, did he?"

"Good points." Rose helped herself to an apple from a plate on the counter. "Any idea what Dom's hiding?"

"She might not be hiding anything. She just might be keeping her business to herself. She's pleasant to everyone, but she's reserved. She doesn't blab about her private life."

"Myrtle, are Dom and Bowie seeing each other?"

"I don't know," Myrtle said as a couple from town walked up to the gla.s.s case.

Rose ate her apple as she walked down to O'Rourke's. She found Liam out back, taking off his winter gear. "I was out snowshoeing," he said. "If it's above zero, I like to get out before work. Just has to be above zero. I heard sirens and called a friend. I heard what happened."

She leaned in the doorway, every inch of the tidy back room lined with shelves and hooks for supplies, tools and Liam's personal outdoor gear. "Where were you snowshoeing?" she asked him.

"Cameron Mountain." He leaned his snowshoes and poles against the wall. "I ran into Lauren, as a matter of fact. She was on the way to the sugar shack. She seemed preoccupied."

"Was anyone with her?"

He pulled off his coat and shook his head. "She was meeting the guys delivering the new evaporator for the shack. I can't believe you all are getting into sugaring."

"It's more for fun than profit."

"Impractical," Liam said.

Probably true. Rose thought. "Did you see any smoke from the fires at the lake?"

"Yeah, I didn't know what was going on. I drove straight back here." He frowned at her, his face still red from the cold and exertion. "You interrogating me, Rose?"

"Dominique was attacked, Liam."

He went very still. "Dom? Is she okay?"

Rose quickly explained what had transpired earlier at the lake. "Dom says she was meeting Bowie. He wasn't there."

"I haven't seen him today."

"Robert was camping up in the woods. You didn't run into him?"

"No. I didn't snowshoe in that direction."

"When the Neals were in town-"

"d.a.m.n, Rose, you think I had anything to do with the Neals when they were here?"

She reined in a burst of impatience. "Did anyone ever brag about seeing them? You know, tales told to the bartender?"

"No one said anything to me about the Neals, beyond talk about Charlie Neal's prank on Jo Harper last fall that got her back up here. Everyone thought that was hysterical."

Which would mortify Jo. "What about me?" Rose asked quietly.

"You mean has anyone been crying in their beer to me over you? There was gossip about you, but you're a Cameron. There's always gossip about you all. You're out there, Rose. You do search and rescues all over the country."

"My work's not glamorous, Liam," she said, feeling defensive. "I'm doing more and more training and consulting these days. I don't want to give up the volunteer work, but Ranger's getting on in years. I haven't decided yet if I want to train another dog for myself. I think he prefers wilderness work. Disaster work is hard on both of us."

"It'd be hard on anyone." Liam seemed to relax slightly and hung his jacket on a metal hook. "A lazy life with a bone by the woodstove is in Ranger's future. Was he a help this morning?"

"He's always a help."

Rose stood up straight. "I wish someone had whispered a secret in my ear that would explain everything and stop more violence and tragedy."

"Did you think Derek was getting his act together?"

"I'm not sure he was capable of reforming," Liam said, changing out of his winter boots to regular shoes. "I don't know what to say, Rose. Getting pounded by Bowie may have helped Derek get some perspective. He hadn't been in trouble since then that I know of."

Rose thanked him and went out the back door and around to Main Street, debating a moment before heading to the cafe. She entered the building through the center-hall door and peeked into the dining room, where Myrtle Smith was still alone behind the gla.s.s case, dealing with the lunch crowd and looking restless. Rose continued down the hall to the ladies' room.

Her reflection made her grimace. She peered into a mirror that Hannah and Beth had found at a yard sale and saw that she had smudges of soot on her face. Her skin was windburned but pallid, with dark shadows under her eyes that showed the strain of the morning.

Figured no one had told her she was a mess.

She cleaned up and slipped into the kitchen. Dominique was alone, her cheeks flushed as she pulled a pan of steaming roasted vegetables from the oven.

Rose tried to stay out of the way. "How are you doing?"

"How am I doing?" Dominique slammed the pan onto a cooling rack on the counter. "A man is dead, Rose. I'm lucky I'm not dead."

"Dom, you and Robert weren't-"

"We weren't anything. He'd come in here. I'd see him. Same with Derek. Not often." She tossed her pot holders onto a pile by the stove. "I told the police."

"Were you friends?"

"Friends? What's a friend? Lowell and Vivian Whittaker used to come in here, too. They acted as if we were their friends. We were all taken in." Dominique washed her hands in the stainless-steel sink. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude."

"Something's going on with you, Dom," Rose said quietly. "Whatever it is was there even before you went out to the lake this morning."

Dominique briskly dried her hands with a soft cloth. "Nothing's going on. Forget it. I have work to do. Please excuse me."

"Dom-"

"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time this morning. I surprised Robert. He panicked." She s.n.a.t.c.hed up a long-handled spoon and stirred the vegetables. In summer, she'd use fresh local produce when she could. "If he and Derek were preying on vulnerable young people, selling them prescription drugs..."

"Were you trying to expose them?"

"I'm not a police officer. I'd heard rumors. Bowie had, too. I told the police everything I know, which, fortunately or unfortunately, is very little."

Dominique set the spoon on the counter and returned to the worktable, making it clear she didn't want to talk, but Rose continued to press her. "You were at the Whittaker place yesterday and the cabins this morning-"

"I know where I was," Dominique said irritably.

"Why were you there, Dom? I've never known you to run out at the lake."

"I signed up for a half marathon in June. Jo and Beth Harper run there. Beth showed me their route." She stared down at her hands on the butcher-block table. "And because I wanted to talk to Bowie. I wanted to see if we could figure out where Robert was."

"Why?"

"I wanted to convince Robert to talk to the police before he ended up like Derek."

"Then you don't think he killed Derek and accidentally killed himself?"

Dominique, calmer, shook her head.

"Robert could have fooled everyone," Rose said. "He could have pretended to be a carefree ski instructor when, in fact, he was one of Lowell Whittaker's killers. He could have realized he was caught and went out the way he wanted to."

"I don't know whether it's more frightening to think that Robert was one of Lowell's killers, or that he wasn't. If he wasn't, there's someone else still out there."

Rose leaned back against the counter. "You tend to stick close to home."

"I've been working on my house."