Killer View

“The night of the search and rescue-Randy-I was skiing with Roger Hillabrand.”

“I don’t think that’s any of my business.”

“I was flattered. Enchanted, even. No, charmed. I was charmed.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“He sent a guy of his out to deliver a message. This is after the search and rescue. Late, late, I’m talking about.”

“Fiona-”

“No. You’ve got to listen. You’ve got to help me make sense of this.” She turned away to face the fire. “He invited me to some gala event in San Francisco. He was flying private. I was supposed to drop everything and join him.”

“You and I were at the hospital the next day.”

“Exactly. I turned him down.” She moved to her left, standing in profile now, the reflections of the flames bouncing off her chest and below her chin. Her face flashed orange. “So now he tells me he didn’t go. He canceled the trip because I turned him down. At least, that’s what he told me. This, while he’s inviting me to di

“I still don’t see-”

“Can you just listen?”

The question hurt. Gail accused him of constantly interrupting.

“Please,” she added. A word Gail had seldom used.

“I’m listening,” he said, wishing she would get back in the Subaru and leave him the hell alone.

“He invited me over for tea this afternoon. Tea, just so he could ask me out for di

“Driven?”

“He lives halfway up Baldy. His people drive you up from the bottom of the hill. I’ve got all-wheel drive, but they won’t even let me try it. The gate is locked at the bottom. So I tell his guy Sean-Sean Lu

“And that’s interesting because…?”

She snarled. “Because Roger was going to rip his head off when Roger found out he let me leave.”

“Let you.”

“You know…”

“Maybe not.”

“Are you listening?”

That was another line borrowed from the Gail playbook. He was begi

“My role in this is?” he asked.

“Oh, God. I’m sorry.” Her expression moved through embarrassment to a feverish glance at the door. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to… But… The reason I had to see you… I don’t think he’s as interested in me as he is in you.”

“What?”

“My working for you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I wish it were. But I’m not so sure. He and I have so little in common. I admit that. He flirts with me at a wedding I’m shooting. I wanted to think that was for real, but I’m not so sure. He takes me that same night skiing down Baldy-very romantic-but doesn’t make anything like a pass. I have to leave him because you call me up to the search and rescue. He barely objects, and he isn’t surprised when I tell him I work part-time for you. Not surprised at all. And another thing: I got that wedding at the last minute. Who waits to hire a wedding photographer until the day before? Not in this town. Not in any town. Just isn’t done. Sean, his guy, is waiting for me when I get home that night-this is in a snowstorm, don’t forget. Parked outside the fence. Scares the hell out of me, coming up behind on foot. Says he’s there to invite me on the private jet the next morning. Hello? Ever heard of cell phones? You think a guy like Roger Hillabrand can’t get my cell number?”

“Checking up on you, maybe? Hillabrand could have been trying to find out if you ditched him for another guy. Sends his boy to see how many are in your car, how many cars in the drive. It doesn’t spell conspiracy; it spells hormones. You’re pretty. You sparkle. Men go crazy for that.”

Hearing this from him clearly caught her off guard. “Sparkle?” she asked. “Did you say I sparkle?” She stepped closer, laid her hands on his shoulders. “Listen to you!”

Her palms felt warm through his uniform. She smelled of lilac and ci

A noise from out on the porch surprised them both. He jerked his head in that direction, still skittish from the encounter out back a few nights earlier.

Gail. Her face pressed to the glass and framed by open curtains; her expression that of a voyeur caught in the act. Walt immediately saw the scene from Gail’s point of view: the fire burning. Fiona’s hands on his shoulders, their bodies close. Gail, the most jealous woman he’d ever known. Jealous, no matter what. Almost a matter of pride.

She hurried off the porch. Walt ran to the front door and burst outside, calling her name. The car door thumped shut. Tire rubber whistled on the ice and then gripped. Walt charged up the shoveled path, shouting her name. The car shot back out into the street, fishtailing. He saw only taillights then, as he stood in the middle of the empty street. Still shouting for her to stop.

Since the split, Gail hadn’t come by the house una

A neighbor, Mrs. Shunt, had ventured out onto her porch to see what all the shouting was about. The sheriff, in full uniform, stood in the street without a jacket, shouting at a departing car. A familiar car. The curtains at the Fridlers’ house moved: the old bird had been spying on him as well. The sheriff’s marital problems were well known, but this was the first time he’d been seen chasing his soon-to-be-ex wife’s car down the street and shouting at her.

Worse, when he turned, there was Fiona at the open front door, partially backlit and actually glowing. Looking radiant. He imagined what Gail must have imagined.

He arrived at the top of the steps, wearing the porch light like a crown, a harsh shadow cast down on him, turning his eye sockets black and hollow. He stood there for a second, wondering if his actions had looked as childish as they now felt. Afraid to go inside with her. Too cold to do anything otherwise.

“That was her?” Fiona asked.

“Yeah.”

“You think she… I mean… we weren’t doing anything.”

The last thing he wanted, the last thing he could handle right then, was a discussion.

Then his mouth betrayed him. “She gave me a lecture about not setting the girls against her. This, despite her bailing on them. When they visit her for a night-a rarity-it’s at a friend’s, never at Brandon ’s. She has this all worked out, as long as it’s her way. And seeing us just now… Oh, boy.”

Fiona approached him. He held up his hands to stop her advance. With the porch light overhead, it felt as if they were both on stage, acting out some melodrama.

Fiona had no intention of embracing him. Instead, with a panicked look on her face, she reached through his defensive pose and grasped the CDC biosensor tag clipped to his uniform’s right chest pocket. She angled it up and into the porch light so that they both could see it.

One wedge of the white hexagon-separated by plastic dividers- was a distinct lavender, on its way to purple.

“You’ve been exposed to something.”

For a moment, Walt couldn’t get past the Gail fiasco. Exposed to the wrath of an ex-wife. But taking notice of the purple triangle, the cold intensified.

Fiona instinctively stepped back.

Contaminated.

Each of the six sections represented a different contaminant. He understood what it meant. “There’s this CDC woman; might still be in town. She’ll know what’s next.”