Read Online Cold Dawn by Carla Neggers - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Carla Neggers
Tags: Suspense
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respond. Lowell Whittaker had placed a crude pipe bomb in Hannah Shay's heap of a car. She narrowly escaped when it exploded, then warned Bowie O'Rourke, who was with Vivian Whittaker at the farmhouse, that they were next.
There was also the bomb Whittaker had used to kill Melanie Kendall, one of his hired assassins in November, as well as the unexplained fire at Myrtle Smith's house in Washington.
Nick sank onto the edge of his four-poster bed, the charm of the room bypassing him. "If Jasper was right, his firebug is still out there. What if he decided to get paid for his work and hooked up with Whittaker?"
"So that's why you're in Vermont," Sean said quietly. "I should have known. It doesn't mean this match-happy idiot killed Derek Cutshaw."
"I show up and someone dies in a fire? That's too much of a coincidence for me."
Nick had observed his friend under stress countless times on the fire line. Sean was levelheaded, committed, careful--not a reckless, glory-seeking yahoo. That didn't work in the wildland fires they fought or the business they were in. It got people killed. Nick was more likely to leap without looking, but he'd learned to rely on his training and experience and to calculate and mitigate his risk-taking nature.
Eliminating risks altogether wasn't possible.
If he thought his presence wasn't a coincidence, the police would be thinking the same thing. Nick had answered their questions and provided them with contact information. They could find him if they wanted to talk to him again.
"Yeah," Sean said finally. "For me, too. I'll talk to Hannah."
He disconnected, and Nick tossed his phone onto the side table.
The radiator again clanked loudly as heat surged into the room.
It'd be a long night. He checked the room service menu. He could order hot cocoa for two and go find Rose's room.
He raked a hand through his hair.
"No, you moron," he muttered. "Are you out of your damn mind?"
No hot cocoa for two, and definitely no finding Rose's room.
Instead Nick stripped to his shorts, dropped onto the sunflower carpet and burned off his energy and frustration with a hundred push-ups and a hundred sit-ups.
Six
Washington, D.C.
R yan "Grit" Taylor had dreamed about tupelo honey, which he didn't think was crazy or anything, since that was his family's business. Still, it had been a long time since he'd dreamed about honey, or growing up on the Florida Panhandle. He sat up in his bed in Myrtle Smith's first-floor guest room at her home just off Embassy Row in Washington, D.C.
Less than a year ago, he'd been a Navy SEAL searching for enemy weapon caches in Afghanistan. Now he was waking up under a fluffy peach-colored blanket and watching sunlight stream through lacy shear panels on a tall window overlooking a dormant flower garden.
Myrtle's house was more traditional and girly than Grit would have expected. She'd probably threaten something untoward if she knew what he was thinking, but he hadn't seen her in a few weeks. She was still up in Vermont, bitching about the cold and snow and baking cookies and scones and such. The front of her house--especially her office--had burned in a suspicious fire in November, but the back was in good shape.
Grit went through his routine to put on his prosthesis, a new one, his left leg having adapted and adjusted to the mechanics of prosthetic use. The procedure was automatic now, at least most days. He seldom experienced phantom pain anymore, either. The nerves in his residual limb were learning a new way to communicate to his brain.
Not that he'd forgotten he'd had his left leg amputated below the knee in a remote Afghan mountain pass, after he'd been shot in an ambush.
A Special Forces master sergeant who'd been with him that day was camped out down the hall in Myrtle's second guest room. Elijah Cameron had taken a near-fatal gunshot wound to the femoral artery and nearly bled out. Only his own quick action to tie a belt around his thigh, creating a tourniquet, had
There was also the bomb Whittaker had used to kill Melanie Kendall, one of his hired assassins in November, as well as the unexplained fire at Myrtle Smith's house in Washington.
Nick sank onto the edge of his four-poster bed, the charm of the room bypassing him. "If Jasper was right, his firebug is still out there. What if he decided to get paid for his work and hooked up with Whittaker?"
"So that's why you're in Vermont," Sean said quietly. "I should have known. It doesn't mean this match-happy idiot killed Derek Cutshaw."
"I show up and someone dies in a fire? That's too much of a coincidence for me."
Nick had observed his friend under stress countless times on the fire line. Sean was levelheaded, committed, careful--not a reckless, glory-seeking yahoo. That didn't work in the wildland fires they fought or the business they were in. It got people killed. Nick was more likely to leap without looking, but he'd learned to rely on his training and experience and to calculate and mitigate his risk-taking nature.
Eliminating risks altogether wasn't possible.
If he thought his presence wasn't a coincidence, the police would be thinking the same thing. Nick had answered their questions and provided them with contact information. They could find him if they wanted to talk to him again.
"Yeah," Sean said finally. "For me, too. I'll talk to Hannah."
He disconnected, and Nick tossed his phone onto the side table.
The radiator again clanked loudly as heat surged into the room.
It'd be a long night. He checked the room service menu. He could order hot cocoa for two and go find Rose's room.
He raked a hand through his hair.
"No, you moron," he muttered. "Are you out of your damn mind?"
No hot cocoa for two, and definitely no finding Rose's room.
Instead Nick stripped to his shorts, dropped onto the sunflower carpet and burned off his energy and frustration with a hundred push-ups and a hundred sit-ups.
Six
Washington, D.C.
R yan "Grit" Taylor had dreamed about tupelo honey, which he didn't think was crazy or anything, since that was his family's business. Still, it had been a long time since he'd dreamed about honey, or growing up on the Florida Panhandle. He sat up in his bed in Myrtle Smith's first-floor guest room at her home just off Embassy Row in Washington, D.C.
Less than a year ago, he'd been a Navy SEAL searching for enemy weapon caches in Afghanistan. Now he was waking up under a fluffy peach-colored blanket and watching sunlight stream through lacy shear panels on a tall window overlooking a dormant flower garden.
Myrtle's house was more traditional and girly than Grit would have expected. She'd probably threaten something untoward if she knew what he was thinking, but he hadn't seen her in a few weeks. She was still up in Vermont, bitching about the cold and snow and baking cookies and scones and such. The front of her house--especially her office--had burned in a suspicious fire in November, but the back was in good shape.
Grit went through his routine to put on his prosthesis, a new one, his left leg having adapted and adjusted to the mechanics of prosthetic use. The procedure was automatic now, at least most days. He seldom experienced phantom pain anymore, either. The nerves in his residual limb were learning a new way to communicate to his brain.
Not that he'd forgotten he'd had his left leg amputated below the knee in a remote Afghan mountain pass, after he'd been shot in an ambush.
A Special Forces master sergeant who'd been with him that day was camped out down the hall in Myrtle's second guest room. Elijah Cameron had taken a near-fatal gunshot wound to the femoral artery and nearly bled out. Only his own quick action to tie a belt around his thigh, creating a tourniquet, had
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