Sean turned to Grit. “Whoever this guy is, it’s not the Robert Feehan who died yesterday. We need to get in touch with Jo. Marissa Neal’s in danger.”
Grit nodded. “So is everyone else in Black Falls.”
Twenty-Seven
Black Falls, Vermont
N ick stood next to Rose’s Jeep and squinted up the steep hill at a trail of footprints. Then he saw a streak of gold, and Ranger leaped off a boulder to him.
“Where’s Rose?” He had no idea what the dog understood and opened up the Jeep, grabbed a scarf she’d left on the front seat and let Ranger smell it. “Find Rose.”
The dog ran up into the dense woods. Nick grabbed a mallet from the Jeep. It was old, chipped. It had seen a lot of use among the waste-not Camerons. He tucked it in his jacket pocket. The mallet wasn’t a gun but it would do as a weapon if he needed one. He’d talked to Sean on his way out there: “Whoever passed himself off as Robert Feehan had to be close in build and have access to Feehan’s ID, as well as the have the freedom to move around the country.”
Nick had pulled Robert Feehan’s body out of the burning cabin. He’d been tall and lean, with long hair with a bit of a wave.
Very much like his and Derek Cutshaw’s quiet friend.
“We need to find Brett Griffin,” he’d told Sean.
Nick followed Rose’s retriever. They were off-trail, but footprints led in several different directions. Ranger bolted away from the tracks, down a narrow ravine. The snow was deep, and evergreens predominated. Sunlight didn’t hit this part of Cameron Mountain often. Nick moved through the still shadows, the golden retriever taking him over the rough ground he and Rose knew so well, as focused on finding her as Nick was.
He refused to allow his fear to get hold of him. Brett Griffin was house-sitting nearby. His photography work allowed him to go anywhere in Black Falls without anyone thinking twice about running into him. He knew Derek Cutshaw and Robert Feehan, had manipulated them and used their failings to advance his own agenda.
And Brett had killed them.
A disorganized, impulsive arsonist was hard enough to track. An intelligent, patient sociopath who chose and planned his operations with detail and care would be damn near impossible.
Ranger paused, looking back at Nick.
Snow on a sheer rock face had been disturbed, as if something had rolled down from the top of the cliff. An icicle had broken off, just its base hanging from a chunk of jutting granite.
Nick didn’t breathe. “Find Rose, Ranger,” he said quietly. “Find her.”
The dog barked again. Nick realized he was missing something.
Then he saw it—a glove in the snow under a hemlock. He picked it up.
A woman’s glove.
“Rose,” he called. “Where are you?”
She came around the hemlock then, her face red from cold, snow and exertion, her hair wet, dripping as she shivered. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m not hurt—”
Nick caught her in his arms. He didn’t want to let her go. Not ever.
She clung to him. “You’re so warm,” she whispered, but stood back from him. “We have to find Brett before he kills anyone else.”
“I know,” Nick said.
“He’s going after Marissa Neal. I’m sure he is. He plans to do it at winter fest. Maybe he still thinks he can pull it off.”
“He knows how to take over someone’s identity and disappear.” Nick ran the tip of his finger under a scrape on Rose’s forehead. “Did he hit you?”
“No. It’s nothing. I think I took out an icicle when I jumped from up there.” She glanced up at the rock cliff. “I didn’t have many options. Brett faked a fall to get me to come to him. He didn’t admit anything. He’ll say I’m being hysterical.”
“Is he armed?”
“I don’t think so. He didn’t have a pack with him. He could have hidden one, though.”
“Elijah and Jo are right behind me. They’ll have talked to Sean by now. He and Grit Taylor found Trent Stevens, the missing actor.”
“Alive?”
Nick nodded. Ranger barked, the ridge of hair on his spine standing up. He growled, uncharacteristically. Nick saw the branches of another hemlock stir and immediately put himself between Rose and whoever was coming around the tree.
“Nick,” she said, getting Ranger back to her side.
He eased the mallet out of his pocket. “I see.”
Brett Griffin emerged from behind the hemlock, stumbling—pretending to—in the snow. “Rose, thank heaven. Are you all right? What happened?”
“Keep your hands where I can see them, Griffin,” Nick said, raising the mallet. He wondered what this murderous pyromaniac had on under his jacket, in his pants, his gloves, his shoes. He’d want to get them close and then make his move. “I’m a real firefighter. I’ll nail you in a heartbeat if you so much as breathe wrong.”
Brett seemed mystified. “What did Rose tell you? I took a tumble and she was kind enough to come help me. Then she fell and I came down here to help her.”
Rose was having none of it. “You bastard, you came down here to make sure I’d bashed my head against a rock and wouldn’t get in your way anymore. Were you going to set me on fire if I wasn’t dead?”
Brett straightened, wincing as if he were in pain. “I think I banged my knee pretty good. Rose, yeesh. What’s got into you? I thought you were dead. You’re damn lucky you’re not. Was it something I said?”
Nick pointed the mallet at him. “Just stay still.”
“Rose is hysterical.” Brett sniffled as if he were winded. “I can see now that my friendship with Robert and Derek has finally come back to haunt me. I was afraid it would. I never should have come back to Black Falls.”
“You can tell your story to the police,” Nick said.
“Fine, I will. I’m not even insulted. Tell them I’ll meet them at my house.”
Nick couldn’t detect any odor of gas in the crisp air. “You’re good, Griffin. Jasper said you were. He said you know how fire works.”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“Fire moves to find oxygen. It’s like it’s alive, isn’t it?” Out of the corner of his eye, Nick noticed that Ranger had eased off into the woods, back down toward the road, undoubtedly on Rose’s command. “To control fire and make it do what you want it to do takes real skill.”
“I’m a photographer,” Brett said calmly. “I don’t know anything about fires. I’m not even that good at lighting a woodstove.”
“Jasper Vanderhorn was a friend of mine,” Nick said. “He was an arson investigator. You killed him. He was closing in on you, wasn’t he? He wasn’t just an irritant. He was a threat.”
Brett continued playing his role as the meek, injured, misunderstood photographer. “I’m going home before I come down with hypothermia.” He nodded to Rose. “You should, too. We can talk after you’ve had a chance to calm down. I know how jumpy everyone is around here. I am, too.”
“We have you, Griffin,” Nick said. “We know you stole Feehan’s identity.”
“You’re talking crazy.”
“You killed Robert Feehan and Derek Cutshaw. They were fools to you, weren’t they? Nuisances who interfered with your plans.”
“Just because you’re a rich smoke jumper doesn’t mean you can bully me.”
“I’m not bullying you. I’m telling you. You were in California earlier this week. You killed Portia Martinez. You knew she’d figure out you weren’t who you said you were. Had she already? Did she threaten to call the police?”
Brett steadied his gaze on Nick. “I’ve never heard of Portia Martinez.”
“You’ve been worried about me for a while. Once Trent told Portia I was on my way East, you knew you had to act. But you always knew you’d kill Derek and Robert.”