The Ides of Matt 2015 Page 10

  “I think, brother mine,” she said it with all of the managerial authority she’d learned from imposing her vision on an entire television network, “that it’s time you started earning your keep.”

  Paul looked at her in confusion.

  Rikka narrowed her eyes to even finer slits than they normally were, then they shot wide and she started cursing.

  “I have to work with that?” she jabbed her finger so sharply at Paul that she almost skewered his nose with a chewed-short fingernail.

  Rikka had always been smart.

  6

  “Hi, ladies. I’m sorry we weren’t able to announce this sooner,” Paul scanned the ten chefs tastefully arrayed on sofas and settees. The living room, like the rest of the place, had been designed to entertain, not live in. The white marble flooring had large throw rugs scattered across it. On each rug, a circle of seating and small tables were gathered. From a tasteful area for six to lounge comfortably in a wood-paneled corner, to the main area that could hold twice their present number with equal ease.

  You could also hold a rumba competition down the center.

  Wet bar, bad paintings, and an impressive array of glass cases filled with Dee Dee’s artfully-lit cooking competition trophies.

  “I was unsure if I’d be able to make it down here in time from a prior commitment,” Paul continued. It had been a rather sultry redhead who he’d met at a fundraiser when Katie called. “But I’m thrilled that I was able to get here. I’ll be the host of this competition.”

  There was a little round of applause. Some looked eager, some avaricious, some neutral, and Tennessee still ranked as enigmatic. She had neither foofed hair nor excessive makeup. Her brunette hair hung straight to her shoulders, her nails were unpainted and her lips barely so. Soft brown eyes that simply followed him and the events in the room.

  He also knew from what Katie said that she was one of the best cooks in the room and a solid performer on air, just not the flashiest.

  “The best light for filming out at the grills won’t be until after lunch. So what we’d like to do is a series of personalized interviews this morning. You, me, the camera,” he waved toward Rikka without giving her the finger. What was so wrong about having to work with him anyway?

  “Dee Dee has offered to let us set up in her kitchen. Each interview will only be a few minutes. A chance to get some good shots. Because we only have the one camera, we’ll sometimes stop to take some video of me asking the questions. Things like that.”

  Everyone was nodding and smiling.

  Two hours later, he’d been propositioned three times on camera. Had a woman’s foot run up his leg under the table thrice more, once by one of the women he’d read as a “good girl.” And neither from one of the five that he’d tagged as pure-to-the-core bitch on his first arrival, Priscilla Danz. He still wasn’t willing to change his assessment of her, no matter how much he admired the extent of cleavage the Red Hot Grill host chose to display. Dangerous woman even by his standards.

  And he had learned absolutely nothing new except their names; though it was still easier to think of them by state. Though when he’d found out that the enigmatic Tennessean’s real name was Wilma.

  “There’s a reason I go by my middle name of Annie.”

  He liked Annie, rather hoped she wasn’t the killer, but her thoughts were as elusive as the others were blatant.

  “I don’t know what else to say, Katydid.” He, Kate, and Rikka had moved off to the side to confer. No one had picked up any real clues.

  “Let the cooking begin,” Rikka suggested.

  Katydid shrugged her acceptance.

  “Fine,” Rikka picked up her camera. “But you aren’t going to find me doing any taste testing.”

  7

  “What are you doing here, James?” Dee Dee sounded surprised.

  “Come to watch my little gal win, of course.” Kate watched as he pulled his wife against him in a side-hug and kissed her on the temple. “No offense to you other fine ladies, of course,” the tall, handsome man offered a charming smile around the gathered circle before retreating to a chair in the shade and an afternoon Wild Turkey on the rocks.

  And they were off.

  Kate scooted Paul ahead.

  Rikka had him and each of the chefs wired for sound. There were also a couple of general ambiance mikes to fill in background noises so the air didn’t sound too dead.

  Kate’s job was to follow along wearing headphones as if she was doing something with the sound for Rikka’s filming.

  What she was actually doing was listening to all of the open microphones. They were each recorded and stored separately for later use in final sound mixing, but it allowed her to have a far wider view of what was happening around them than the camera or even a set of eyes offered.

  Florida and Arkansas were trading recipes. And it sounded as if Kentucky and Virginia might be trading men, but most of it seemed innocuous enough.

  Unable to settle on the contest’s cooking order, Kate had finally forced them to draw names from a hat. West Virginia led off and did a credible job with her opening of grilled-game Burgoo stew and griddle-baked Johnny Cakes. No television star, but the recipe sounded good.

  Arkansas’ presentation was much sharper, but her grilled catfish spice rub sounded awful. She’d been a Mary Kay cosmetics saleswoman only recently moved to the kitchen. Her makeup, however, was awesome.

  Priscilla Danz of the Red Hot Grill did a great job. Her presentation was sharp and funny. She made she-crab soup and grilled Vidalia onions sound both simple—once you knew her secret tricks that she was going to demonstrate later—and delicious.

  She was actually a little terrifying though and Kate didn’t know if she’d be able to sell the woman. Every gesture and move was calculated to place her chest front and center. Her side comments about her competitors moved her to the top of Kate’s suspect list. She was one of the seven deadly sins incarnate: avarice lived and breathed inside that plus-sized chest.

  Dee Dee was hard pressed to follow Priscilla’s act and she knew it, but she put on a brave show. Her Frogmore Stew of grilled sausage, corn, crab, and shrimp did sound delicious.

  Then, as each had done, at the end of the introduction moment with Paul, she bent down to light her grill. It clicked loudly as had the others, but there was no answering soft thump as the gas caught fire.

  She tried again and it didn’t work.

  “I can’t get my grill started,” then she looked up at the camera aghast. “You can cut this out, can’t you, dear?”

  Rikka nodded and mumbled something reassuring.

  Kate was so glad that she’d palmed the woman off on Rikka.

  “Is your gas on?” Paul asked. Like he’d have a clue about anything mechanical. He could barely work the television that he’d insisted on buying for their shared condo.

  “Let me help,” Priscilla Danz moved over beside Dee Dee, tossed her hair, and squatted down, making her cleavage even more dramatic.

  “Prissy! No!” The call hadn’t been very loud, but it had been alarmed.

  Nobody reacted.

  In an urging tone rather than a panicked one, “Prissy, move away!” sounded in her ears.

  In Kate’s ears.

  It was over one of the open microphones and she was the only one listening to them all.

  A man’s voice.

  The only men here were Paul and…

  Kate shouted for them to back away from the unlit grill.

  8

  Daddy James ran.

  Rikka tripped him.

  Paul sat on him.

  And when Kate informed Dee Dee that her husband had intended to blow her up so that he could have all her money and keep sleeping with her best friend Priscilla, Dee Dee kicked her still prone husband in the balls. Very hard. With the pointed toe of her Jimmy
Choo.

  They had to wait for him to stop screaming before they could work out the rest of it.

  The deaths of Penelope and Tessie had been to set a pattern, so that no one would suspect him when his wife was toasted by her malfunctioning grill.

  “And he knew Priscilla, as Dee Dee’s best friend, would be above suspicion,” Rikka added to the discussion.

  “It was just a summer fling, James,” Priscilla practically shouted down at the man. She planted the point of her Chanel right where Dee Dee had landed her Jimmy Choo. Apparently James had misread Priscilla’s intentions. “I’m between husbands is all, Dee Dee. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  In moments the two women were bonding over the troll of a man they were both done with.

  Kate really didn’t want to know these people.

  And by the time the police were done taking statements, none of them wanted to know her either.

  There had been four other counts of adultery on the recorded sound track, three more of trading tips about how to cheat on taxes, and innumerable discussions of random lovers.

  A couple of them went home with their husbands and their grills. A couple remained wholly unapologetic.

  And Annie from Tennessee had spent the long afternoon and evening beside Paul.

  “I’ve invited her to come cook for us, Sis,” Paul informed her.

  Kate slumped back in her steel patio chair as the last of the police left with the complete set of recordings and James DeRue in tow.

  She looked up at Annie from Tennessee. She was one of the three who had done nothing offensive in the last twenty-four hours.

  The woman was very presentable and would film well. Her long form and nice figure would play well to the camera without counters chopping her off at the waist and making her look too short. Rachel Ray’s counters were decidedly lower than the norm because the woman was only five-three. But the lowered counters often made her guests look gawkily tall.

  “Are you a good cook?” Her reputation was still small but very good.

  “You’ll let me know after you taste my food.”

  “Fine,” Kate like the simple statement in place of any bragging. She started gathering her belongings. “When’s that?”

  “Well, Ms. Stark,” she reached out and took Paul’s hand. “Your brother invited me to come stay in your New York condo for a while. I’d be glad to make you breakfast tomorrow morning.”

  Rikka snorted as she passed by Paul with her camera case and “accidentally” smacked it into his knee.

  As Paul began hopping about in pain and sending curses to follow Rikka across the lawn, Kate looked back at Annie.

  She looked straight back, perfectly poised despite the sudden distraction of a man hanging onto her shoulder as he hopped up and down on one foot, using her like a crutch for balance.

  “Well, Annie. If you can survive my brother, you certainly have the poise to be on the air. It will be a pleasure.”

  They shook hands on it.

  Fire at Gray Wolf Lookout

  This is the second story in my Firehawks Lookouts series. It wasn’t until I’d written this that I realized I was writing a short story series. This was the first time I’d done that, where the stories were connected more to each other than to the novels that inspired them.

  The Firehawks series is about the heli-aviation wildland firefighters of my Oregon-based Mount Hood Aviation team. That primary series, which will be gaining (has gained) its fifth novel in late 2016, spun off other series.

  The Firehawks Smokejumpers series was three novels covering the love stories of those heroes willing to jump out of perfectly safe airplanes to parachute into active fire zones.

  Then in short stories, two series broke off: Fire Lookouts and Hotshot crews.

  For this story, several pieces came together. I write a lot of alpha heroes in my romantic suspense series (both male and female alphas). In Fire at Gray Wolf Lookout I wanted to write about two normal people with unusual occupations.

  He is a fire tower lookout.

  She is a wildlife biologist specializing in wolf behavior. She is based on an actual wolf biologist. She met her husband, another wolf biologist, over the radio during scheduled check-ins. It was months before they met in person. This character isn’t her; Patty Dale is very much her own person.

  1

  The view of the Lolo National Forest on the Idaho-Montana border spread for a hundred miles in every direction. And Gray Wolf Summit fire lookout tower commanded one of the most beautiful and most remote regions of the forest. From his perch Tom Cunningham could see much of the Lolo, a big chunk of the Clearwater, and even the north tip of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

  Despite being in his mid-twenties, he felt like the luckiest kid in the U.S. Forest Service. No one was watching, so what the heck, he spit off the edge of the tower. Like a twelve-year old, he watched as it was the light breeze carried it past the cliff and down into the canyon—he watched it as long as he could.

  The whole acting-his-age thing had never really worked for him anyway, and someday he’d have to apologize to his parents for that. Both professors at the University of Washington—English lit Dad and Mom the chemist—and Tom had used his degree in geology to be an auto body shop mechanic.

  His rut was obvious, didn’t need to be on the outside to see it, Tom could feel it from the inside just fine. Like the crippled vehicles that streamed through his shop door, he couldn’t seem to drive straight down any path…and that was on the rare occasions when he got running at all.

  Screw that!

  Last winter he’d gotten so sick of himself that he figured the best solution was to get away—way away!

  He’d grown up in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, side-by-side housing that would be suburbia if it wasn’t now tucked well inside city limits. It was also saved from that awful fate because the houses were fifty to a hundred years old rather than tract built pillboxes.

  However, his experience with the great outdoors was limited to a couple of trips out to Snoqualmie Falls, a two hundred-and-fifty foot waterfall up in the Cascades. A good place for taking a girl on a nice date as the lodge had an excellent brunch.

  His present situation, atop a Montana fire lookout tower, had been Lucy’s idea. After six months of sharing a bed most nights she’d told him to go jump into a fire—not her exact words. Something about his total lack of either direction or ambition. Hearing this from his parents he could tune out. Hearing it from a hot brunette as he watched her fine behind departing his third-floor apartment for the last time, that was a bit harder to ignore.

  He’d hopped on the Internet. And when he’d looked up fire—for lack of anything better to do—an image of wildfire had caught his attention. Somehow, that single glimpse had led to enrolling in a fire lookout certification course and quitting his job as a car mechanic.

  “Now you’ve done it, buddy,” Tom looked out at the view and decided that whether stupid, whimsical, or psychotic, it had been a damn fine decision—perhaps the first good one in his adult life.

  He clamped his hands on the heavy wood rail and gave it a shake—not even a wiggle. His new home was as solid as the rock it stood on.

  The Gray Wolf Summit lookout tower was perched at over seven thousand feet. The valleys fell away on three sides down to three thousand feet and then soared vertically back up, though few of the peaks reached his lofty height. To the north, the ridge descended less dramatically, giving him a long slope of hikeable terrain.

  He’d never done much hiking, but couldn’t wait to try it out. Per Forest Service training, he had his bear-sized can of pepper spray, supposedly the safest and most effective solution to stop a bear. Same size as a can of spray paint, it shot a cloud of pepper that was the most effective way to stop a charging bear—far better than a big gun, the numbers said. He still would have liked a big
gun, but since he’d be as likely to shoot himself as the bear, he’d decided against it.

  Beneath his boot soles, he stood on a planked walkway twenty-three feet above the rocky summit ridge; the true summit—a rounded crown of rock—lay fifty feet west and half as high as his tower. The forest fire lookout tower that would be his home for the next five months was a heavy wooden structure. Massive beams of rough-hewn dark wood formed the crisscross framework that supported the tower. Thirty-seven steps made of two-inch thick planks of Douglas fir led up to the fourteen-foot square glass-windowed “cab” that was now home. Those old Depression-era CCC guys really knew how to build something to last; most of the towers and lodges in the Pacific Northwest and Montana had been put up by those “back to work” crews.

  He breathed in the air and held it as long as he could. He wanted to savor its taste, its clarity, the complete absence of any hint of civilization or old motor oil. He was so sick of all the people who thought their car was so darned important. It’s a machine, people, use it, don’t marry it. He was glad to be away from them.

  He was almost as sick of them as he was of himself, which was really saying something.

  The true extent of his aloneness he was less comfortable with.

  Tom’s next nearest neighbors were Tess and Jack on Cougar Peak lookout fifteen miles to the north, Swallow Hill twenty miles to the southwest, and—according to his radio plan—Old Crag equally far to the east.

  Gray Wolf Summit wasn’t on some through-trail, or a trail to anywhere at all except Gray Wolf Summit. It had been a long eight-mile hike with a gargantuan pack that had him cursing in the first mile as he crested a thousand-foot climb only to descend into an even deeper valley.

  Vic, the Forest Service ranger in charge of the Selway-Bitterroot and Lolo lookouts, had warned him that his likely visitors over the summer would be the mule skinner who delivered the bulk of his supplies, his substitute who would come up for two days out of every two weeks, and one or two extreme fire-lookout tourists. Gray Wolf, perched at the end of a dead-end trail, was a brutal enough hike to discourage all except the most dedicated.