Chapter 27
Deanna
The latch gave beneath her thumb with a soft click. Unlocked.
She eased the door open, wincing as it creaked.
A narrow hallway stretched before her, its log walls stained by decades of wood smoke. Dirt gritted the plank floor. The single bare bulb hung dark overhead. Stale clove smoke from the Djarum Black cigarettes and the acrid tang of accelerant tainted the air.
Deanna gripped the bear spray low at her thigh, the safety tab still engaged. She stepped inside, wishing she could take off her clunky boots. The floor groaned.
She froze.
A man and a woman talked in another room. Ed and Reeva. “What the hell was that last pass? That was no drop run,” he said.
“Don’t be paranoid. They’re protecting all these cabins from the fire,” said Reeva, her voice wound tight. “We’re in its path, Ed. Haven’t you been listening to the radio chatter?”
A chair scraped across the floor and heavy footsteps moved toward the front of the cabin, away from Deanna.
She crept forward. The hallway bent to the left, opening into the main room through a doorless frame. She halted, turning her head slightly to take in her surroundings.
The short hallway led to the cabin’s main room, where the fireplace mantel displayed a framed, faded photo and a folded flag in a shadow box.
A scarred wooden table stood near one wall, covered in fast food wrappers, whiskey bottles, and a two-way radio.
The front door stood beyond, half open, spilling gray, smoky light into the room.
And in the center sat Kylie, tied to a straight-backed wooden chair with loops of duct tape binding her wrists to the armrests and her ankles to the legs.
A bandanna covered her mouth, and a purple bruise darkened her left cheek while tears had cut pale tracks through the grime coating her face. Her dark hair hung in tangled clumps.
Kylie’s eyes burned with the same calculating fierceness Deanna recognized from every fire they’d fought. Her gaze swept toward the hallway and stopped on Deanna, eyes popping. In an instant, Kylie went from campfire to full-blown crown fire. Recognition, then relief, followed by sheer terror.
Her frantic eyes shot to the front door where Ed had disappeared, then back to Deanna. She gave one desperate shake of her head.
Deanna held up her hand, signaling.
Wait.
Colton’s tanker roared over so low the rafters shook and dust sifted down from the ceiling joists. The windows rattled in their frames. Ed’s boots pounded across the porch outside, his curses carrying through the open front door.
“Zeb! Shoot the son of a bitch down before . . .”
A rifle shot cracked from the ridge. Then another.
Deanna took advantage of the distraction to rush over to Kylie, dropping to her knees beside the chair. Up close, the damage looked worse. Raw red welts circled Kylie’s wrists where the tape dug in, dried blood on her lower lip, and her hands swollen and tinged purple from restricted blood flow.
“Shh,” Deanna breathed, fumbling her folding knife from her pocket and opening it with a thumb flick. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
Water pooled in Kylie’s eyes as Deanna slipped the blade under the tape on Kylie’s right wrist and sawed upward, careful not to nick the abraded skin beneath.
The first loop parted. Then the second. Kylie’s freed hand flew up and ripped the bandanna loose with a gasp that became a strangled cough.
She spat onto the floor, working her jaw like it had rusted shut.
“Behind you!” Kylie’s words shredded, barely a whisper.
Deanna spun. Reeva stood in the hallway entrance, eyes wide, mouth open in a scream that never came.
For one agonizing second, the two women stared at each other across the dim room: the woman who’d sold out Colton’s employer to a grief-stricken conspiracy, and the other who’d dragged her from a crashed helicopter.
Reeva’s mouth worked, but no sound came out.
Her eyes dropped to the bear spray in Deanna’s hand, the knife in the other, then Kylie half freed from the chair.
Her gaze drifted past Deanna to the mantel, where Tom Rader smiled from his framed photo beside the folded flag.
The dead tanker pilot whose brothers had used his memory to justify their actions.
Actions that led to this cabin, this gun, this woman bound to a chair for three days with little food.
Something broke behind Reeva’s eyes.
“Don’t.” Deanna shook her head slowly, silently pleading with a finger to her lips.
Reeva froze, arms wrapped tightly around herself, her gaze fixed on Deanna.
“Hurry, Dee, hurry!” Kylie’s frightened face nearly undid her.
Deanna’s attention turned to the tape on Kylie’s left wrist, sawing faster, the serrated blade catching and jerking through the adhesive layers. Then the ankles, yanking the duct tape from Kylie’s jeans.
“Son of a—” Kylie sucked in a ragged breath, moving her feet. “I’m gonna kick his ass. Just give me thirty seconds with him.”
Deanna shot her a crazed look. “Not now, Ky. Can you stand?” she whispered, steadying her best friend.
“Yeah.” Kylie pushed herself to stand, wobbling.
Deanna grabbed her by the waist to help her walk. They almost made it to the back door when the front door banged open.
“Stop right there!”
Ed Rader filled the doorway, blocking the gray light. Gangly and flushed, his chest heaved from the sprint inside. The Glock 19 in his right hand pointed at them with the careless aim of a man too furious to be accurate but too close to miss.
“I told you not to leave her alone!” he snarled at Reeva, who stood frozen, a spectator to her own disaster.
Deanna shoved her knife back in her pocket, then pushed Kylie behind her and hid the bear spray behind her back. Ed’s focus tracked to her face and her yellow Nomex. “Who the hell are you?”
“Deanna Brooks. I’m Kylie’s jump partner.”
“How’d you get in here?”
“Your back door needs a better lock.”
“Another damn smokejumper. You smug people make me sick.” Ed’s lip curled. His attention skipped past her to Kylie, and the gun barrel dipped a fraction as he took in his new situation.
“Sit on the floor. Now.”
Deanna lowered herself to the floor, placing her body between the gun and Kylie, who sank down beside her.
“You jumpers aren’t so tough, are you? This actually works out better,” Ed said, pacing near the door, the gun loose at his side but pointed in their general direction. “Two instead of one. More leverage.”
Reeva’s voice drifted over, thin and shaking. “What about the money?”
“Should be in the account by now.” Ed yanked a handheld radio from his belt with his free hand. Yellow plastic case, with a familiar six-digit property number stenciled on the back.
Deanna kept her tone even. “Nice Forest Service radio you got there. Did you take it from the supply cache, or did your brother?”
“Why am I not surprised you know about that? Nosy freaking smokejumpers,” he muttered. “Yeah, we helped ourselves to four of them. Saved us the trouble of programming a scanner.”
“And the cache lock?”
“Bolt cutters and a midnight schedule. Westlake might want to think about installing cameras.”
So that explained the air ops frequency. Programmed handhelds straight from the fire base supply cache, sitting on every channel the fire base used.
“You’re the sicko who sent me those disgusting texts, aren’t you?” Kylie spat out. “You and your pathetic brother!”
Deanna jabbed her with an elbow. “Don’t piss him off, Ky,” she breathed.
Ed gave her a creepy smirk. “You liked that, didn’t you, sweetheart?” Ed keyed his radio. “Zeb, you there?”
Only static. “Zeb! Answer me!” Nothing but more static. “Dammit, where the hell is he?”
“Smoke columns mess with radio signals,” said Deanna, eyes glued to his Glock. “Especially this close to a big fire. He’d need line-of-sight to the cabin or a high relay point for VHF.”
Ed barked out a dry laugh. “Well, aren’t we a know-it-all? I fly helicopters, sweetheart. I know how the goddamn radios work.”
“Then you know he probably won’t answer,” she reasoned.
“He’ll answer. He’d better.” Ed keyed the radio. “Zeb, dammit! Get on the air!”
Deanna had to buy time until help arrived. Next to her, Kylie tensed, her breathing ragged but steady.
Keep him talking.
“You know they’ll never pay,” said Deanna. “Precision won’t, and the FBI doesn’t negotiate with kidnappers.”
“Shut up!” The gun swung toward her face, scuff marks on the barrel. “They’ll pay. They have to. We’ve got firefighters. Heroes.” His bitter laugh sounded like a wound that had festered for years. “The public will crucify them if they let their heroes die.”
“Is this what it’s about?” asked Deanna. “Being a hero?”
Ed’s voice dropped. “Don’t try your psycho-babble bullshit on me.”
“Your brother Tom died fighting fires—”
He cut her off with a step forward. “Tom died because Precision Aviation didn’t maintain their aircraft!” he hollered. “Because they cut corners to save money, then they threw pocket change at his widow and called it even!”
“Ed, please,” pleaded Reeva from the hallway. “Let’s take the money and go.”
“We’re getting more than money.” His eyes glazed.
Grief and vengeance had warped this guy into a gun-toting fanatic with a wildfire closing in and two innocent women trapped on the floor. Deanna couldn’t decide whether to pity him for the brother he’d lost or despise him for kidnapping her best friend and betraying everyone who fought fire.
Her words came out like gravel. “Your brother wouldn’t have wanted this.”
Ed spun toward her. “Don’t you dare claim to know what my brother would want. You didn’t know him!”
Deanna looked through a dirty window as several figures emerged from the trees. She couldn’t make out who they were through the grimy glass, only that they were coming.
Ed caught the direction of her glance, moved to the window, and looked out.
“You called the county cops, didn’t you?” The agitation drained from his face, replaced by a resolve far more terrifying than his rage. “I told you what would happen.”
He raised the Glock, pointing it at Kylie.
Deanna’s hand came up with the bear spray, her thumb snapping the safety tab free in the same motion. She fired a continuous blast at Ed’s face from six feet away.
The orange cloud erupted between them. The capsaicin hit Ed’s eyes, nose, and open mouth.
His scream ripped through the cabin, raw and animal-like, and the Glock bucked in his hand, the report so loud in the confined space Deanna’s hearing collapsed into a high-pitched ringing.
Splinters exploded from the ceiling joist above their heads, showering them with dust.
“You bitch! You’re not leaving here alive!” Ed reeled backward, clawing at his face with his free hand, the gun gripped in the other, firing a second time as his body twisted. The bullet punched through the cabin wall somewhere to their right.
The spray’s blowback filled the enclosed room with a fog of liquid fire.
Deanna’s eyes slammed shut, tears pouring, her throat seizing as the capsaicin coated her airway.
Each ragged breath drew the chemical deeper into her lungs.
Beside her, Kylie gagged, coughing so hard her body folded in half, both women desperate for air.
“Get outside!” Deanna choked out, seizing Kylie’s arm. With her eyes squeezed shut, Deanna’s free hand swept the air as she tugged Kylie toward the back door.
Behind them, Ed slammed into the furniture, shouting obscenities as Reeva’s panicked screams cut through the chaos. The acrid spray scorched Deanna’s throat and lungs, turning every breath into fire. Half-blind, tears streaming, she dragged Kylie outside, into the open air.
Wildfire smoke wasn’t much of an improvement, but after the chemical cloud inside the cabin, it tasted like freedom.
They stumbled a couple of yards before Kylie’s legs gave out.
Both hit the ground hard, collapsing into the dirt and pine needles, coughing until they gagged.
Tears and orange residue streamed down their faces.
“Breathe shallow,” rasped Deanna. “And don’t rub your eyes.”
Kylie rolled onto her side, coughing spasms racking her, when the back door burst open.
Ed staggered out after them with a hand clamped over his eyes. His pistol was locked in the other fist, and he swung it blindly through the smoky air.
“You think you can do this to me?” he bellowed. “I’ll make every one of you pay!”
“Oh, no, you won’t!” Sergeant Mills rounded the corner, his command cutting through the chaos. “Drop the weapon! On the ground, now!”
Blue and red lights strobed through the smoke as two more county patrol vehicles skidded to a stop beside the cabin.
Ed fired one more round into the air in a futile act of defiance. A taser crackled, and he pitched forward and crumpled to the ground. Officers swarmed from both vehicles. Within seconds, he lay face down in the dirt, hands behind his back as the officers cuffed him.
Reeva stumbled out after him, coughing, hands raised high. She dropped to her knees without being told.
Deanna tugged Kylie closer, both on the ground, eyes burning, lungs scorched.
The world reduced to a blur of flashing lights and shouted commands as the advancing roar of the fire charged toward the clearing.
Embers drifted through the air like fireflies, landing on their shirts, their hair, the dry grass around them.
None of it mattered.
Kylie turned her head. Through swollen, streaming eyes, she found Deanna’s face.
“You came for me,” Kylie rasped. “You actually came for me, and I’ll never, ever forget it.”
“Of course I did, Ky.” Deanna’s throat burned raw, scraped down to nothing. She squeezed Kylie’s hand. “You’re my partner. Not to mention my BFF.”
Kylie’s face broke open. The composure she’d hung onto dissolved. Tears mixed with the orange residue on her cheeks as she buried her face in Deanna’s shoulder, her body shuddering with sobs.
Deanna wrapped her friend in a fierce hug and held on.
With dirt beneath her, smoke in the air, bear spray burning her lungs, wildfire closing in, and sirens wailing through the trees, she held on.
This time, she wasn’t letting go.