Page 10 of Burning Hearts (Chasing Fire: Alaska #1)

TEN

Logan dug the rake into a pile of retardant-soaked ashy debris and dragged it back. Every sweep, he wondered if he might find Tristan’s body under the remains of the compound. The whole place smelled like accelerant—not a great sign, since he’d soaked that pile of kindling and wood in gasoline and lit it up.

He turned, surveying what remained of the compound.

Even the fence was down, and every building had gone up in flames. But patches of green grass remained in a few places.

“Scorched earth, right?”

Logan glanced at Vince. “That’s pretty close to what I was thinking.” Along with wondering if he was the one who’d started this. “Anything over there?”

Vince said, “Looking for something?”

“You seem to have a good eye at assessing things.”

“And you’ve got all those rescue squad lieutenant skills.” Vince tipped his head to the side. “Are we swapping pats on the back or what?”

Logan had said something that had this guy on the defensive. “Who were you before you became a hotshot and a smokejumper?”

“Born and raised fighting fire.”

“I know your dad was the smokejumper boss before Jade, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” Logan said. Vince didn’t normally want to discuss his father—or what had happened late last season. The memorial for Captain Ramos hung on the wall in the hangar. “Did you ever do anything else?”

Vince had tensed. “What I’ve done in the past doesn’t factor here.”

Jade strode over. “Problem, gentlemen?”

Logan shook his head.

“Just getting to know each other. You know, ’cause we’re both up here in Alaska for the season.”

And they’d both been in Montana last year, so what was the guy’s point? When Logan glanced at Jade, she shook her head, so Logan figured she didn’t know either.

“Guess we should be BFFs by now.” Vince turned and stomped off.

Jade fixed her boss-lady stare on Logan. “What did you say to him?”

He shrugged. “Maybe don’t mention his father?”

Cadee and Skye wandered over then. Cadee said, “Whose father?”

“Vince’s.”

Cadee flinched. Her face paled.

JoJo glanced at her. “Cadee?”

“Whoa,” Logan said. “You okay?” He seemed to be putting his foot in it all over today. “Is everyone feeling all right?” It was that or he was missing something huge.

“Don’t worry about it.” Cadee turned. “I’m gonna go check…something else.” She strode away.

Skye frowned. “She and the captain were pretty close. She was more torn up about his death than anyone.”

Jade had gone to talk to Orion and Tori, giving the rookies some pointers. Vince was at the far end of the compound, picking around in the remains of a building over there, looking like he’d found something.

Skye rubbed her nose. “This place stinks.”

“Sorry. When I poured gasoline on the pile, I didn’t think it would destroy the whole place.” He’d caused enough of a distraction that he and Jamie and Tristan could run, but he’d never expected it would turn into a full-scale blaze that took out everything.

“Bro, you didn’t cause all this.” She glanced around.

“I’m just glad we haven’t found any victims.”

She winced. “Me too.”

Across the compound, Vince jumped up and down on something.

Logan said, “I’m gonna go see what he found.”

“I’ll go round up the others. Make sure they don’t wander too far.” She gave him a fist bump.

If not for Vince doing what he was doing right now, Logan might have figured there was a chance she’d find Vince and Cadee behind a tree, making out. The vibes between those two? If it wasn’t angry tension from all the butting heads, arguing for the sake of arguing with each other, they were giving each other glances while the other wasn’t looking.

Every time he saw it, Logan got an eyeful of far too much regret and a whole lot of longing.

He shook his head, tromping between buildings. Slid out his phone. No new messages or calls from Jamie—not that he’d expect any since she was working.

After the way they’d left things last night, he didn’t know what to expect at all. Would kissing her have really changed anything?

There would still be a whole lot of obstacles between them.

Who was to say it would be any different this time if they did get back together? He wasn’t going to jump into a relationship without thinking it through just because he’d come up here for her.

Vince jumped again.

And fell through the ground with a crash and the crack of charred wood.

Logan picked up his pace to a run and sprinted to him. When he got to the building, he called back over his shoulder to the others, “I need some help!”

Jade and the others were already running. Jade stepped onto the far side of the burnt building. Logan put up his hand. “Don’t come any closer! It could be unstable.”

She halted.

“Get me a rope.” He lay down on the ashy section of drywall and scooted toward the opening. “Vince!”

“Hang on! I think I found something.” His voice drifted up from a floor below.

Logan slid to the hole and looked down into the dark. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Do you have an exit strategy?”

“Not really.” Vince didn’t seem too worried about it. This guy had been hanging out with the Trouble Boys way too much.

Logan looked at Orion, who had a flashlight in one hand and rope in the other. He waved for it, and the guy tossed the flashlight over. Logan aimed the beam down into the hole. Black. More black. What looked like a metal table. Logan saw a tan-colored tube and a couple of white buckets.

Vince said, “Thanks, that helps.”

“Bro, what are you looking for?”

Jade set her hands on her hips. “I’d like to know the answer to that as well.”

“Boss isn’t happy,” Logan called down into the hole.

“I’ll be done in a second.” Vince paused. “Oh, yep. There it is.” An orange bucket launched out of the hole.

Logan rolled to his back and looked up at the cloudy sky.

Two more buckets flew out. Then a piece of PVC pipe and a box that formerly had two hundred coffee filters in it.

Logan blinked and watched a passenger jet make its way across the sky, leaving a jet trail behind it. “Are you done?”

“Yep.”

Logan rolled back over. “I can throw down a rope.”

“Great,” Vince called up from the dark of the hole.

Orion had come around to Logan’s side. They had no trees to tie off the rope. “We’ll have to pull him up.” He measured out a third of the rope and tossed the end in the hole. “Vince, tie this around your chest, right under your arms.”

“Got it!”

Skye was looking at the buckets. JoJo, standing beside her, picked one up.

Orion, Jade, Cadee, and Tori got in line behind Logan. “Everyone ready?” After they’d all confirmed, he said, “Vince?”

“Ready!”

Logan said, “Pull!”

They backed up. Wood snapped. The rope slid across burnt wood, and Logan prayed it wasn’t going to break before they got the big man out. Finally, Vince’s dark hair appeared. He planted his elbows on the edges of the ground-level floor, breathing hard. Blood trickled down the outside of his arm between a tear in the sleeve of his shirt.

“You got hurt?” Logan didn’t let go of the rope. He kept pulling. “Thought you said you were okay.”

“You’re the one who got shot.”

“It was a graze. You’re the one who cleaned it for me.” He’d been bracing with his off side this whole time, but thinking about the injury made him focus for a second on the raw skin he had covered with a bandage.

“Guess we’re both fine.” Vince flashed gritted teeth and pulled himself the rest of the way out of the hole.

The rope slacked, and Logan ended up sitting on the grass.

Orion clapped him on the shoulder.

Jade brushed off the seat of her Nomex pants. “This team is out of control. It’s anarchy.”

“Come on, boss,” Logan said. “It’s not that bad.”

“Vince and Cadee don’t get along. Orion and Tori think no one has noticed the tension they’ve got going on. JoJo probably found wolf tracks somewhere out here. Skye’s on the phone—” Jade swung her arm out.

Skye lowered the phone from her mouth. “Rio needs to know they had a meth lab up here.”

Logan’s brows rose.

Jade continued like that last comment had never happened. “Vince just goes and jumps in a hole, and you ?—”

“What about me?” Logan didn’t see a reason he needed to get caught up in this sweep.

“You came all the way up here for a woman, and you’re gonna let her walk away? Are you insane? Jamie’s great!”

Logan just stared at her. When there seemed to be a moment of calm in the storm, he said, “You’re doing a great job as jump boss, Jade. Living up to the Ransom name.” When his sister got like this, it was best to just hand her chocolate and back away.

“I don’t want a repeat of last year.” She set her hands on her hips. “When we get back to base, we’re gonna do some team-building exercises . ”

Vince shuddered. “And this day was going so well.” He held out his hand and hauled Logan to his feet.

“Vince!” Skye called out. “Rio said he wants pictures of the meth lab!”

* * *

Jamie leaned back in the chair. “This one.”

Deputy Mills got up from his seat across from her and came around to the spare desk. He’d parked her in front of a computer so she could look at mug shots of local guys, all to try and identify some of the men from the compound.

“Him?”

Jamie nodded. “They called him ‘Snatch,’ and I never heard anyone use another name for him. I don’t know if that’s a nickname or what. He’s the only person I recognize from the compound.”

No images of her brother. Thank You, God.

Neither had she found one of that other guy, Crew, in the local booking photos. Maybe it was just too small a pool of images and they needed to widen their search parameters.

She pushed the chair back, needing to stretch her legs since she’d actually found an image she recognized. How many had she looked through? A hundred?

Felt like it.

She stretched her arms, bent her elbows, and laced her fingers behind her head. Samuel had emailed twice. Jamie hadn’t explained to Mills why she had to get on her phone, and he’d looked at her like he was interested in her business. Thankfully, he was too polite to pry.

The Copper Mountain Sheriff’s Department had a deer head on the wall beside a huge wooden shield with their emblem. File cabinets in rows along one side butted up against a massive printer. The matronly woman who wore brown shoes and a gray skirt with a pink sweater set and pearls had a job that seemed to consist of looking over her reading glasses in Jamie’s direction while manning the front counter. Sunlight streamed in the windows, between the vertical strips of the blinds.

Jamie went to the midcentury coffee pot and poured herself a cup.

“Ah, found ’im.” Mills clicked the mouse and said, “Thanks for your help, Ms. Winters. This was a big assist.”

She’d explained to Deputy Mills the why of her coming up here and Tristan’s attempt to save her. However, she’d left out the part about how her brother had shot the man they had at the coroner’s office. She wasn’t going to incriminate him when it was self-defense. If Tristan wanted the cops to know, then he would inform them himself.

Her phone buzzed.

She sipped the coffee and wandered over to the desk to see what was going on at the office.

Mills peered at her screen. “Says ‘Logan.’”

She swiped up the phone. “I should be getting back to the smokejumper base.”

“Ah.” Mills sat back in his chair. “We took so long that the sheriff went out. I’m the only one here, so I can’t drive you back there I’m afraid.”

She dipped her head to her screen. “Guess I’ll have to call a rideshare.”

The matron snickered. She tugged off the glasses and dropped them to hang from a string around her neck.

“Ain’t no rideshare out here. Closest you’ll get is hiring a tourist chopper to fly you back there.” Mills eyed the phone on his desk.

“That would certainly be faster than walking.” Jamie smirked, and he blinked.

The confusion on his face cleared. “Sorry it took so long, but thanks for your help. You gonna get back okay?”

“I’ll figure it out.” She gathered her backpack and zipped up her sweater. It was past lunch, and her stomach rumbled. She turned back at the door. “Is there somewhere close by to get lunch?”

The matron looked up from her files. “Oh, uh, there’s a pizza place down the street.” She pointed to her left with a pen.

“Thank you. Have a nice day.” Jamie pushed outside.

A diesel truck coughed, passing by her on the street, mud caked on the mudflaps and two big malamutes in the back.

Two older women with black hair and tanned skin talked on the sidewalk in front of the bank.

Jamie passed them, nodding when they acknowledged her. She wandered until she found Starlight Pizza and ordered a huge roast beef sandwich with fries on the side from a slender woman in white sneakers, jeans, and a black Starlight Pizza shirt.

The server had her hair tied back, but she’d spent time on her makeup and added eyelashes. The effect made her look older than…Jamie guessed early twenties. She didn’t bat an eyelash when Jamie opened her laptop and did work while she ate.

After taking a day off from her laptop to track down Tristan, her list of tasks had piled up. She started with the quick ones and knocked out a handful, then got started on a longer report Samuel needed her to go over.

She sipped her drink, then reached for a fry. They were gone.

The drink was gone too.

Her server set down a full one and took the empty. “If you sit here much longer, I’ll have to give you the dinner menu.”

“Sorry for taking up a table.” She glanced around, but only a couple others were occupied, and one older man sat at the counter drinking coffee.

“Not a problem.” The young woman smiled. “You someone important or something?”

The nametag said Anna. Jamie had to give her credit; she was interested but she didn’t peek at the laptop screen. “I’m good at math. I made it into my job, and now I basically have homework every day for the rest of my life.”

Anna wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t sound like fun.”

“Is your job fun?”

“Good point.”

Jamie smiled. “Fun is what you do with the money you make at work.”

“And the more you make, the more fun you can have.” Anna snorted, gently nudging Jamie’s shoulder. “Right?”

“As long as it’s legal and nobody gets hurt.” At least, that was a start.

If she got into the weeds of how a person should live their life, she’d probably be hypocritical, considering how she barely lived what she was supposed to believe.

Why was it always easier to tell someone else what to do than to actually follow your own advice?

“Legal fun?” Anna snorted. “You aren’t from around here, are you?”

She wandered off. Jamie pulled a fifty from her wallet and got a pen. She wrote safe fun only on the bill and tucked it under a glass. She gathered her things, and right when she lifted her phone, it rang.

Logan calling.

“Hey.” She smiled, pushing open the door and stepping outside again. This time a red pickup truck passed her.

“You’re in town? Tucker said the deputy came by.”

“And I’m stuck in Copper Mountain with no way to get back.” Not that she hadn’t considered a tourist ride in a chopper. That could be cool. She hadn’t seen much of Alaska since she got up here.

“We’re driving through on our way back to base. We can pick you up.”

She was just about to answer when he continued, “Actually, everyone wants to go to the Midnight Sun Saloon and grab dinner to go first. Their wings are amazing. ”

She said, “I’m outside the pizza place.”

“Go south toward the gas station. Keep walking. We’ll pick you up.”

Jamie held the phone to her ear and started in that direction, raising the zipper on her sweater to beat the afternoon chill. “The roast beef sandwich at Northstar is excellent. Not sure I’ve got room for wings in me.”

“Shame. I would’ve shared with you.”

She smiled at the warmth of his voice in her ear. “Shame.”

A white van pulled into the gas station and parked up at a pump on the opposite side from a truck packed with tools. A guy in jeans, boots, and a neon sweater paced up and down, talking on his cell phone.

“You know, this town is nice.” She wouldn’t call it quaint, but it had backwoods charm. “Not that I’m going to open a new branch of the company up here, but maybe I’ll get a vacation cabin. Something by the river.”

“I’d like that.”

She bit her lip, still walking. “You’re gonna stay up here after the season ends?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Jamie stopped at the edge and waited for the light to change.

“We’re pulling into town now.”

“I’m at the corner of…” Jamie looked around for a street sign. “Smokey Mountain Street? By the Presbyterian church.”

Logan relayed that to someone else. “Couple minutes.”

Finally, the crosswalk turned green. Jamie was almost across when a van screeched to a stop behind her—some idiot who hadn’t seen the red light until it was too late.

She glanced over her shoulder.

The van door slid open, and three men jumped out. They rushed at her and grabbed her arms. She tried to scramble back but didn’t get far. Her phone fell to the ground, and she heard it shatter.

“Logan!”

One of the men lifted her off her feet. She kicked her legs out, scratched at his arm, and tried as hard as she could to get free of his punishing grasp.

She screamed, “Logan!”

They tossed her in the van. Her hip hit the metal floor, and she bent her wrist before her elbow smashed under her. She cried out.

The door slid shut.

The driver hit the gas and set off.