Carine went still. "Manny suspected Louis and Jodie were having an affair before he got to Boston?"
"Yeah. I think so. Carine? Is that you?"
Ty snatched the phone. "Val, what the hell's going on?" He listened a moment, then said, "Open the damn door for the police. Do what they tell you. For Christ's sake, don't argue with them. Do you have a gun in the house? Val-" He glared at the phone then sighed at Carine. "She's gone."
"Did you get anything more out of her?"
"I need to check my e-mail. Jesus, those two." He looked ready to kick something. "We don't know what Manny's told the police. Goddamn it, we don't know anything."
Carine knelt down to see if she could revive the coals in the fireplace. She blew on them, and a few glowed red. She lifted a skinny log out of the woodbox and laid it on the coals, trying not to suffocate them, the familiar work only a partial counter to her tension.
She'd found Louis dead, but the Carreras were Ty's friends more than they were hers. He and Manny had been in combat together.
"Go on," she said. "Check your e-mail for what Val sent. I'll join you in a minute."
But Ty came behind her and hooked an arm around her waist, lifting her to her feet and kissing her softly, unexpectedly.Hethreadedhisfingersgentlythroughher hair. "This'll all work out. You know that, don't you?"
She wondered if he was trying to convince her or himself, but she nodded. "Manny's a rock. Val, too, in her own way."
He headed to the den, and Carine returned to the fire, the log catching with no additional effort on her part. Nate could have called last night and encouraged her to go mountain climbing because he'd found out Louis's murder involved blackmail, extortion, an adulterous affair-people with connections to her and Cold Ridge.
She set another log on her reborn fire, then made her way down the hall to the den. With the gray sky, it seemed more like late afternoon than midday. Ty didn't look up from the monitor. "I downloaded Val's file. It looks like some kind of personal log Manny kept."
Carine resisted the temptation to read over his shoulder. "I'll leave you to it."
She returned to the kitchen and put another larger log on the fire, then stood in front of it, her fingers splayed out over the flames. She remembered those crazy few days last November with the shooting and the Ran-courts' rescue, Ty grinning at her and calling her babe, telling her she had pretty eyes, as if he'd never noticed her in all the years they'd known each other. He and Manny Carrera sneaking around after the shooters and pulling Jodie and Sterling Rancourt off the ridge like it was no big deal-and Hank Callahan, the retired air force officer, the senate candidate. They'd all gathered in front of the fire here in Ty's kitchen and eaten chili and drunk beer, talking late into the night-she remembered Ty insisting on walking her back to her cabin as if it wasn't something she'd done on her own a thousand times when his mother was alive. It was cold and so still they could hear their footsteps on the dirt driveway, and when they got to her door, he kissed her good-night.
That was when she should have fled to Boston, not six months later after the damage was done.
He walked into the kitchen and pulled out a chair, turning it so that he could face the fire. He sat down, sighing heavily, collecting his thoughts. "Manny figured going into business for himself would be good for Val and Eric, that it'd give him more freedom to make his own schedule. But he hates it. He doesn't like the work, he doesn't like the people he has to work with. He'd have given it up if the Rancourts hadn't hired him."
"Funny how these things work out sometimes," Carine said, still on her feet.
"He was in Cold Ridge in September to visit Eric. I wasn't here. Neither were you. Gus was on a hiking trip. While Eric was in class one morning, Manny drove up to the Rancourt house to see if anyone might be up there, get the lay of the land so he could make recommendations. It was just something to do, really." He paused, glanced up at Carine. "Guess who was there?"
"Jodie? She's come up here on her own a number of times."
Ty nodded. "Yep. She was here. With Louis Sanborn."
"In September? But the Rancourts only hired him two weeks ago. I didn't realize they already knew each other. Louis acted as if they didn't-"
"Sterling Rancourt didn't know Louis. Only Jodie."
"Oh." Carine sank onto a chair, wincing at the implications. "Ouch."
"Somehow or another, the rescue last fall made Sterling feel vulnerable, so he started paying more attention to his personal and corporate security. He hired Gary Turner, then Louis Sanborn. He got Manny in to consult."
"If Jodie and Louis were already having an affair, you'd think she would have tried to stop her husband from hiring Manny."
"For all we know, she tried. Manny met with Sterling Rancourt, Gary Turner and Louis Sanborn in Boston a few days after Sanborn was hired. He realized right off the bat that Sanborn was the same guy he met in September."
"Did Sanborn say anything?"
Ty shook his head. "And Manny was pretty sure Jodie Rancourt introduced Sanborn under a different name. Tony something. Italian."
"Jesus-so she knew he was using an alias? Then why hire Manny? If he'd already met Louis under a different name why take the chance? Unless there's an innocent explanation for the alias and no one was worried about it."
"Manny couldn't swear to what Jodie told him in September, at least according to the log." Ty sighed, leaning back in his chair. "You should see this thing. He's not a talker on a good day, but there are places he's downright cryptic. A lot of it's in military lingo. No wonder Val couldn't make much sense of it."
"He must have told the police all this."
"I'm not making any assumptions at this point. He decided something wasn't on the level and started digging into Sanborn's background. Nothing added up. He already knew the guy sure as hell wasn't southern-"
"That was an act?"
"According to Manny. He's a Texan. He thinks he can smell a Yankee at a thousand yards."
Carine smiled. "Why isn't the reverse true?"
"Because we Yankees don't give a rat's ass." But Ty's humor was strained, and he leaned over and, without getting up, grabbed a log and pitched it one-handed onto the fire. It landed hard, the sparks just missing Carine's toes. He went on, settling back in his chair. "Manny thought Sanborn might have a Cold Ridge connection."
She shook her head. "I'd have recognized him if he did, wouldn't you think? The way he acted, I'd be surprised if it had occurred to him I might recognize him- I'm sure it didn't. He played the southern guy who thinks fifty degrees is cold. How far did Manny get in his background research before he went up to Boston?"
"Not far enough."
Ty was silent, and the fire hissed, one of Carine's logs breaking up into red-hot chunks. She watched it, trying to piece together different conversations she'd had with the Rancourts in the weeks since she'd started working for them, with Louis-or whoever he was-before he was killed. But there was nothing. She'd had no idea anything was going on beneath the surface until she walked into the library on Wednesday afternoon and found Louis dead. And even then…
But she realized Ty had drifted into silence. "What else?" she asked quietly, knowing there was more.
"Speculation."
"What kind of speculation?"
"Carine-it could all be nonsense. We don't know."
"Okay, with that caveat, what kind of speculation?"
"If Manny's right…" Ty sank back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his head, then sighed, plunging on. "He made a note in his log about the weapons the Ran-courts have up here. Expensive rifles. Bolt action and semiautomatic. Scoped. Jodie Rancourt had them out, showing them to Louis the day Manny met them up here. Sterling told him about the guns when he discussed what training he wanted Manny to do."