Fire And Ice

A brute, Liam decided. Crafty rather than smart, fearless, and as devious as the day was long. Everything about Wolfe was a little too well controlled, giving the impression that there was a great deal there to be controlled, as if it might go out of control without a strong enough hand on the reins.

Liam, falling back into his habit of assessing everyone by what crime they would be most likely to commit, decided that anyone who took that grin at its face value did so at his own peril. Wolfe was a predator out only for himself, who would flatten anyone in his way and wouldn't care who he hurt or what laws he violated in the process. He would have strong appetites, for money, for power, for toys.

The water stopped ru

And for sex, Liam thought. Definitely a strong appetite for sex. Especially when faced with this kind of hors d'oeuvre.

She looked vaguely familiar to him, and then he had it. It was the impatient blonde in the bar from the day before. Her impact was much stronger and more visceral at closer quarters. She had hair like spun gold and skin like a velvet rose with just a hint of the dew on it. Her eyes were a dark velvety brown and widely set on killer cheekbones, her mouth red and full-lipped, her neck a long and graceful stem that flowed into graceful shoulders. Today she wore a white T-shirt whose soft knit fabric lovingly cupped the large, round breasts beneath, and did nothing to hinder the jutting nipples that crowned them, either. The T-shirt was tucked into a pair of chinos cinched in at the impossibly small waist with a woven leather belt. The long, lithe pair of legs that were made to lock around a man's waist and stay there for the rest of his natural life was just a bonus.

Liam made a heroic effort and managed to get his tongue back into his mouth. She didn't do anything to help, standing hipshot, chin down, one thumb hooked into her belt, staring at Liam with an up-from-under look designed to smelt steel. When the steam dissipated a little, his professional instincts kicked in, and something in him went on alert.

Laura Nanalook was trembling. It was a fine, almost imperceptible shaking that he wouldn't have noticed, and didn't at first, until she had cause to lean slightly against the arm of the couch to steady her knees. He looked back at her face with a cop's eye. Her lower lip was slightly swollen beneath its coat of red paint. Her wrists had the begi

He turned to look at Cecil Wolfe and caught the man in the act of giving her a warning stare, filled with menacing promise. Liam noticed something else that he hadn't noticed before, too: Wolfe's shirt had been a little too hastily tucked into his jeans-one corner of the hem was caught between a button and a hole of his fly.

He looked at the room again. The cushions on the couch had been pushed to the floor, and the slipcover of the couch wedged deeply down into one crack, as if the couch had seen some recent rough and hasty use.

Liam took a smooth step forward, inserting himself between the two of them, and smiled down at her. "Excuse me, ma'am, we haven't been introduced. I'm Liam Campbell, the new state trooper assigned to Newenham."

"Trooper?" Her head whipped up and a panicky look came into her eyes. "Why are you here? What do you want? I didn't call you."

"Well," Liam said, and shuffled his feet, giving her his best aw-shucks, apologetic look. "I'm investigating the death of Bob DeCreft."

The panicked look faded, and her shoulders slumped infinitesimally. "Oh."

"You're Laura Nanalook, is that right?"

"Yes."

She volunteered nothing further. This was worse than pulling teeth. Liam produced what had never failed him before, his trusty pad and pencil. "And you lived here with Bob DeCreft."

She eyed notebook and pencil without interest. "Yes."

"Just what is the problem here, officer?" Wolfe said. Liam looked around and found himself nose to nose with the other man. "Little Laura here and I are friends. I'd hate to think you thought she was in any way responsible for the awful accident which befell poor old Bob."

Wolfe was crowding him, physically and verbally. Liam regarded him thoughtfully without moving, and without answering. Wolfe was unaccustomed to this kind of response, and his look intensified into a glare.

With superb indifference, Liam turned back to Laura. "I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Nanalook, and I'm very sorry to have to bother you at a time like this, but in cases of this kind, I'm afraid there are questions that must be asked."

"Cases of what kind?" Wolfe said.

Liam, careful to keep his voice as neutral as was humanly possible, said, "Mr. Wolfe, just what is your interest here?"

He regretted the words as soon as they were out. Wolfe looked at the blonde, and smiled, slowly, a predatory smile full of anticipation and arrogant assurance. She didn't flinch away from that look, but Liam did. He said, "I understand Mr. DeCreft was spotting herring for you, Mr. Wolfe."

Wolfe's smile faded. "What of it?"

"Had he worked for you before?"

Wolfe's eyes narrowed. "This was the second year. Him and that flying dyke of his. And he wasn't working for me, he was working for her."

It didn't take an Alaska state trooper with ten years of investigatory experience behind him or a prior relationship with Wy to deduce that Wolfe had come on to Wy and been summarily dismissed. In spite of the situation Liam had to bite back a smug smile. Ah, testosterone, he thought, and this time the i

Wolfe was surprised. "And how would you know that?"

Liam shrugged, and waited.

"Yeah, he worked for me, spotted for me, one season about six years ago. So what?"

The woman moved away, navigating a large, careful circle around both men, and subsided into a straight-backed chair pushed against one wall. She folded her arms, hugging herself, knees pressed tightly together.

Liam turned to find Wolfe looking at him with a speculative gleam in his eye. "When was the last time you spoke to Mr. DeCreft?" Liam said.

Wolfe gave a careless shrug that was a little too studied for Liam's taste. "I don't know, probably the last time they were in the air for me."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"I don't really know," Wolfe said, still careless. He was watching Liam from beneath lowered brows, an intent, speculative gaze. "Might have been last year when I settled up with the two of them." He added condescendingly, "You see, officer, in herring fishing you don't ever have to see your spotters. They're up in the air, telling you where the fish are. You're on the water, going after the fish where they tell you."

"How do you settle up?" Liam was curious to know how Wy had been earning her living.

"What with the quotas nowadays, the seasons never last long. Chouinard usually met me at the dock. I'd show her the fish tickets"-some hidden joke amused Wolfe for a moment-"we'd add up the to

"And she'd settle with Mr. DeCreft."

"That's how it works." Wolfe looked around and found his jacket, a leather bomber jacket with a fleece-lined collar that had never seen the inside of a Flying Fortress. "I'm off. Laura? Thanks for the-visit. I'll catch you later."

He emphasized the last words. Her head snapped up and he gri

With difficulty Liam remembered his sworn oath, and managed to refrain from taking out that grin, and the man along with it.

The door slammed shut behind Wolfe, leaving the little cabin vibrating in his wake.

Liam crossed the floor to kneel in front of Laura Nanalook. "Ms. Nanalook. Ms. Nanalook, are you all right?"