24. Gus
Chapter 24
Gus
A t the shrill ring of my phone, I groaned and opened one eye. It was still dark, and I’d been up late working on a new piece. I’d never considered myself a creative type, but I’d been making chainsaw art for the last ten years. Mostly for fun, but I’d sold a few pieces and gifted several more.
It was an escape.
Wielding a powerful piece of machinery near my face required complete and total concentration.
Every stroke had to be precise. And with my noise-canceling ear protection and the vibrations of the chainsaw, when I was working, I was truly in another world.
Last night, after the ultrasound, I’d been twitchy. Restless.
My heart was bursting with love for this child, along with fear and anxiety about its mom. Where did we stand? Was she staying? Leaving? How could we make this work when she was pushing me farther away every day?
The town rumor mill had come through for me yesterday, but I’d been so close to missing that moment.
How could I prove to her that I was trustworthy? That I was the kind of man who would be there through every high and low?
If she didn’t want me as a partner, I’d have to accept that. But I’d be there as a father, and nothing would stop me.
Since I’d been so on edge, I’d headed out to my shop and had gotten to work on a gorgeous piece of cottonwood. I still wasn’t sure what it would be in the end, but focusing on it meant getting myself into the zone and out of my head.
While my focus was fixed on my art, I couldn’t obsess about Chloe and every single word we’d exchanged. How good she’d smelled, how easy it had been being close to her, the way she looked at me when our baby was on that screen. The way she’d leaned on me when things were scary for a moment.
Nope, I needed to block it out.
And I had. Afterward, I’d fallen into bed, exhausted and filthy.
I slapped a hand on the nightstand, blindly searching for my phone. When I finally found it, I brought it to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Gus?”
It was Chloe, and she sounded panicked.
I bolted upright, now fully awake. “Are you okay? What’s wrong? Is the baby okay?”
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was so small I could barely hear it over the road noise reverberating through the phone. From the sound of it, she was driving. “I just got a call from the police. There was a fire.”
My stomach dropped and my lungs seized. “A fire? Where?”
“In the machine shop.”
I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and hauled myself out of bed. “What the fucking fuck? Did Sam leave something on? Was there an accident?” None of this made sense.
“They aren’t sure,” she said, sniffling. “I’m headed there now. The fire department is on site.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
I was shoving my feet into my boots when we hung up. Then I spun in a circle, searching for my keys. Clem picked her head up from her bed and regarded me.
“It’s okay, girl,” I said, keeping my tone gentle. “I gotta go out. You go back to bed.”
She laid her head back down, not remotely concerned about why I was running out at two a.m.
God, this was the last thing we needed. We’d brought in so many critical pieces of equipment for summer maintenance. My hands shook as I gripped the wheel. Someone could have been hurt, or worse. After the random break-ins and vandalism, this was a huge escalation.
As I pulled into the parking lot, several police cars and both of our town fire trucks came into view.
I jumped out and jogged over to Chloe, who was standing with Chief Souza.
JJ and Karl, who was wearing Cookie Monster pajama bottoms, were standing at the edge of the lot as firefighters cleaned up debris and checked the other buildings.
“It’s out,” Chloe said, looking up at me, her face etched in fear. She was wearing sweats and was bare faced, that fiery hair pulled back into a low ponytail. She looked young and small and vulnerable without her heels, makeup, and fancy black clothes.
Thanks to the expensive lighting we’d installed last year, the parking lot was bright, making the devastation on her face obvious. More than anything, I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and make everything better. Hold her and comfort her. Fix all this shit so her life would run smoothly forever and she never had any reason to look so terrified again.
“Are you the owner?” Warren Mitchell, the fire chief—dressed in his turnout gear, with his helmet under his arm—strode our way. The Lovewell fire department was tiny. The staff consisted only of the chief, two full-timers and a stable of volunteers. But their response times were excellent, and they were good people.
From the concerned look he was wearing, it was clear things were bad.
“Yes,” Chloe said, reaching out her hand to shake his. “Chloe LeBlanc. Do you know what could have happened?”
“Normally, I’d wait for the results of an official investigation,” he said. “But this one’s pretty easy. It appears as though someone wanted to send a message.”
She gasped, and I clenched my fists and bit back a curse.
“We found containers of accelerant in the woods nearby. Lt. Vargas confirmed it. We’re not a big enough department to have a dog, but the investigation team will use canine detection as well.
I took a step back, forcing air into my lungs. This was bad. Really bad. I’d need to get in there, assess the damage, and figure out what was salvageable.
When Sam arrived a few minutes later, he was distraught.
“Can I get in there?” he asked, his hands shaking.
“Not yet,” Chief Souza said firmly. “We need to assess for structural damage. But you’re welcome to take exterior photos. The fire was confined to one side of the building.”
Relief washed over me. My father had spared no expense when he’d built this shop, so the place was enormous. Hopefully, the damage was minimal.
Sam and I moved closer to the structure, leaving Chloe to speak to the police, both of us shaking our heads, silently trying to make sense of all of this.
“We responded quickly,” Jake, one of the firefighters and a buddy of mine from high school, explained. “Those state-of-the-art alarms likely saved the rest of your property.”
Two other firefighters were taping off the entrance as we approached. The shop was a large steel structure with garage bays lining one side. The roof was partially collapsed, and there was debris everywhere, but it was impossible to see the extent of the damage, even beneath the bright lights. We’d have to wait until morning to take inventory.
“What was parked in the big bay?” I asked Sam, hands on my hips, praying it was nothing terribly expensive. Whoever did this knew which side of the building would do the most damage.
Sam’s face fell. “The feller.”
Fuck . As reality set in, I had to fight not to punch something. The feller was one of our largest and most expensive pieces of equipment. We’d sold off our other one last year and were planning to get through the next few seasons with just this one.
Sam roughed a hand down his face. “Do you think it’s someone on my team?”
“No idea,” I said.
Sam oversaw the guys out here. There were only a few left, but they were loyal employees. Sure, hours had been down recently and there had been some turnover, but he had good instincts.
“But,” I continued, “that’s the cops’ job. We need to focus on saving what we can and repairing the damages.”
It was daybreak by the time we disbanded. Both the police and the fire department had done their work. We’d pulled security footage for the cops, and Sam and I had taken as many photos as we’d been allowed.
We’d put in the security cameras last year—thank fuck Owen had insisted on it—and while a person appeared on screen, between the dark clothing and hood, I wasn’t optimistic that we could identify them. And I didn’t have a lot of faith in the local cops.
I’d already arranged to have a dumpster delivered later in the day, and I’d texted our field crews to come in. We had a lot of cleanup and cleanout to do.
My plan was to go home, shower, change, and take care of Clem. After that, I’d head back for cleanup and damage control. But first, I needed to check in on Chloe.
I found her sitting on the grass, staring out at the mountains.
“You okay?”
She turned, her red-rimmed eyes locking on me. Fuck. Why did knowing she’d been crying gut me so much? My every instinct was screaming to make everything better for her. But I couldn’t.
I reached down and offered her a hand, and when she slid her palm against mine, I gently pulled her to her feet.
“What the fuck, Gus?” she asked, back to surveying the mountains. “I was willing to overlook the vandalism and thefts. That’s not so out of the ordinary and relatively tame in the grand scheme of things. Especially when some of it was your own brother.”
I blanched. Cole’s downward spiral wasn’t a topic we tended to mention. He was doing better now, getting help, but he’d only been arrested a few months ago.
“And then the assault.”
She paced a few feet away, then turned and stomped back.
“What kind of business is this? Why is this happening?”
She threw her arms out.
“They’re just fucking trees!” she shouted into the void, her voice echoing through the forest.
“I wish I knew,” I said softly. “I wish I had answers for you. Did you call the FBI?”
She nodded. “Yes. Spoke to Agent Portnoy. Damn, I hate that man, but he’ll be here this afternoon to take a look. What did I get myself into?” she asked, pressing the heel of her hand into one eye. “What the fuck was your dad doing?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, tucking my chin and roughing a hand over the back of my neck. “We’ll deal with this. We’ve got the FBI now, and while that will make operating difficult, giving them access protects us and the business.”
She nodded. “When does it end, though? Do we really have any hope of getting criminals out of these woods?”
No. Unfortunately. This was the largest undeveloped forest in the eastern US. Over ten million acres in the northern part of Maine, and no one, least of all a small, family-owned logging company, could control everything that happened there.
But I couldn’t tell her that. And I couldn’t let her down. I had to believe that we could get through this and rebuild the company.
With a long breath in, I racked my brain for a way to soothe her, but before I could speak, a shout rang out, echoing off the buildings.
Officer Fielder stood down the hill near one of the storage buildings, waving.
With a look at one another, Chloe and I headed down there.
“Didn’t see this until the sun came up,” he said, holding up a small item. “There are easily a hundred of them.”
As I got closer, the item came into focus. A camera. I took it from his hand and studied it. It was the same make and model as the one Chloe and I had removed from the woods a couple of weeks ago. The same type of cameras the FBI had found when Chloe gave them permission to access that sector. Shit.
We followed him around the shed, and sure enough, there was a large pile of the game cameras. And taped to the one on top was a folded piece of paper.
Chloe picked it up and unfolded it.
One word.
Large black letters.
Stop.
We locked eyes, and as my stomach dropped, her face went ashen. This was a message. Someone knew what we’d found. And they were not happy about it.