Up in Flames (10 page)

“Asshole!” Sophie yelled. Zane probably didn’t hear it above the rising rumble of the loader.

Will did, sending her a sidelong look. “Sorry,” she said, embarrassed. “He makes me so mad sometimes.”

“I thought it was appropriate.” He gave her a thoughtful look while gingerly easing his hands back into his gloves. “What do you say we finish unloading and go get something to eat? My treat.”

“As long as you don’t try to defend him, or talk me out of being mad.”

A grin split his genial face. “Not a chance.”

He was true to his word.

“Zane can be a real bastard with women,” Will said, dumping a pool of ketchup on his plate next to his fries. “I have that on good authority from a couple of his ex-girlfriends who cried their eyes out on my shoulder.”

She had tried not to think about it, but of course there would have been girls in the past ten years. Many girls. “You get that a lot?” she asked, and immediately hated herself for giving in to curiosity.

He flashed her a sly grin. “Not as much as you’d think. It usually takes three dates for a woman to mistake interest for an actual relationship, and most don’t make it that far with Zane.” He bit into his oversize burger, chewing contentedly. “Did you?”

She didn’t bat an eye. “I never said we had a relationship.”

“Zane did.”

She narrowed her eyes over her chicken salad, trying to read his bland expression. Will was as open on the surface as Zane was closed, but she was starting to see that he was cagey, too. “No, he didn’t. Zane doesn’t talk about personal stuff.”

“True,” he conceded, not the least perturbed. “But I asked if you two had a thing, and he said yes, which for Zane is damn close to spilling his guts.”

“I take it you’ve known him a long time.”

Will paused in midbite to give her a slow smile, followed by a nod. “Okay, we’ll talk about me first. Zane and I have known each other since third grade when I spoke up to some bigger kid who was pushing him around. The son of a bitch kicked both our asses.”

“Fighting—the male bonding ritual.”

He chuckled. “It must work; my mom cleaned us both up and invited him to stay for supper, and before I knew it Zane was my best buddy. My parents sort of took him under their wing once they learned about his family. He started spending nights at my house and showing up in the family photos. It changed a bit in high school. He tried to stay home more for his younger brother, Emmett, to protect him from their dad. I’m not sure it helped.”

“Are you talking about that rape charge against Emmett?”

“That and all the run-ins with the law before it. Vandalism, fighting, petty theft, you name it. That kid was always walking the line between right and wrong, and Zane felt it was his job to set a good example. God knows their dad didn’t, that abusive son of a bitch. Zane felt Emmett had a lot of good in him.” Will shrugged. “Maybe he did. I don’t know if Zane was able to find it, but no one can say he didn’t try, especially during their dad’s trial. Watching out for Emmett during that time pretty much wrecked Zane’s senior year.”

Will took a bite of his burger, seemingly done talking. In Sophie’s mind, he’d just gotten to the crucial part, the part where everyone chose the path they’d take through life. Everyone except Zane, who’d had no options.

“Then what?” she asked. “Did you go away to college?” It was the thing that had destroyed her budding relationship with Zane and shattered her ideas about love.

“I joined the army. Guess that’s why I never heard about you; I was overseas.”

Obviously Zane had never mentioned her in the years that followed. She was quietly grateful, as if he’d respected a secret. It hadn’t been something she’d talked about, either.

“I knew your sister Maggie in school, but you didn’t go here, did you?”

“No, I was at a private girls’ school. But I was here during the summers.”

“So you knew about his dad?”

She nodded. Who didn’t? The love triangle gone horribly wrong. A woman had tried to end her abusive relationship with Nathaniel Thorson, and he’d caught her in the act of leaving with another man. He attacked them both with a knife, killing them. The dead bodies in the shabby Thorson home had made headlines for weeks, even at her school fifty miles away. She knew how hard it had been on Zane, because he’d told her when they met three years later. It was the only time he’d talked about it to anyone, he said. The emotional wounds had been deep, even for the boy who’d apparently spent half his formative years with his best friend’s family.

“I’m glad you and your parents were there for him,” she said quietly.

“So am I. I wish I could be more available now with all this shit going down, but I have to go out of town for the next couple of weeks. At least you believe in him—even if you occasionally hate him.” He grinned.

Imagining again the loneliness and pain Zane must have suffered since childhood put a physical ache in her chest. “He doesn’t have any other friends?”

“He doesn’t trust easily.” He pointed a French fry at her. “That’s why I’m curious about you. Zane lowers his guard around you.”

She choked out a laugh. “Is that what you call ‘Go home and don’t come back’?”

He smiled. “That’s Zane being scared, closing down. But earlier today was different. He was as easy and open with you as he was with me. Makes me wonder why.”

“You make him sound socially inept. His interpersonal skills are just fine, when he wants them to be.”

“Right, like with you earlier today.”

“We’ve known each other a long time.” She gave up with a shrug and repeated what he already knew. “We had a thing.”

“Must have been a pretty special thing.”

Oh, yeah. Special enough to sear certain moments onto her brain so deeply she could still see them, clear and vibrant in the orange glow of firelight. Could still feel the roughness of his palm against her breast, and the liquid rush of heat when their bodies met. Special barely began to describe it.

Intensely private did. “It didn’t end well,” she said, the simple way to evade details. She stuck a forkful of food in her mouth.

“So I heard. But I wonder if it really ended.”

She gave him a sharp look as she swallowed hard. “Of course it did. It was ten years ago.”

He laughed. “Jesus, were you sitting in the booth behind us? That’s the same thing he said. The two of you have this story down to the exact bare bones.”

The two of you
. She let the phrase wrap around her, then fade away so that the warmth of it was gone before she answered. “Maybe because there’s not much to tell.”

“Or maybe because there is. Doesn’t matter,” he added before she could protest. “I know the important part—the feelings are still there.” He leaned back in his chair, smiling. “Damn, who’d have guessed? The king of remote and insensitive, all tangled up by love.”

Will might think he knew Zane better than anyone else, but his observations suddenly lost all credence. He couldn’t have been more mistaken. “Perhaps you should replay that last conversation in your mind, Will, the one where he told me to get lost, and I called him an idiot and an asshole.”

“Yeah, he sure is pushing you away hard,” he mused. “I wonder why.”

“Because he hates me.”

“Because you’re under his skin and it’s bothering him something fierce.”

She could only sit and blink. Will had his own interpretation of the facts, and he obviously wasn’t going to change his mind. Maybe it was because he didn’t know about Zane’s parting shot to her ten years ago, quoting his father’s view of women. That had proved exactly what lay under Zane’s skin, and it wasn’t a warm tingly feeling for her. It was mistrust and disrespect.

It was sad that Will Chambers, who knew Zane so well, could be so wrong about him.

Zane scowled at the headlines on the stack of
Mountain News
papers outside the grocery store: “Body Found on Thorson Land Identified.” They just had to throw his name in there, making him even more prominent than the victim. At least they’d put Rena’s photo next to the article, not his.

The small Barringer’s Pass
Echo
, stacked next to the
News
, was even bolder. “Another Death Linked to Thorson Family,” it proclaimed, merrily tripping along the line between libel and news. He was sure they went into gruesome detail recounting his father’s murderous love triangle that had put him in the state pen for life. Emmett’s rape trial probably got a mention, too—the
Echo
would never let a good scandal go to waste.

He could only imagine their delirium if they found out he’d been with Rena shortly before her murder.

There was nothing he could do but ride it out. Setting his jaw firmly, he grabbed a grocery basket. His grocery list held several items, but he’d suddenly lost interest in being out in public. He’d settle for the immediate necessities and get out.

Focused on his objective, he didn’t notice the creepy feeling tingling along his nerves until he paused at the meat counter. A sense of being watched tickled his mind, and he looked up, catching the eye of a woman shopper. She blanched and disappeared down an aisle. Eyes narrowed with suspicion, he looked to his other side. The man behind the meat counter stared back with undisguised hatred as another shopper looked quickly away.

Annoyance ripped along already-sensitive neurons; he’d seen this before and he didn’t have the patience to deal with it tonight. Grabbing a package of ground beef he headed for the checkout lanes. One was open, the clerk eyeing him as he approached. With a look of panic, she shot a hand under the counter and came up with a sign, slapping it on the conveyor belt:
THIS LANE CLOSED
.

Goddamn it. He stared hard enough to make her hustle off toward the break room. He should walk out now, but he really didn’t feel like eating at McDonald’s tonight. Tamping down the anger boiling inside him, he stepped into the next lane behind a young mother and child. She gave him a wide-eyed stare, then pulled her daughter to her side and stepped ahead, placing her cart solidly between them.

Zane breathed harder, having a hard time hanging on to his rising anger. Did she think he’d suddenly grow fangs and fur and swipe her child out from under her nose? It was almost laughable, except the insult was too great to be funny. It was a public slap in the face, and he resented her for it. Resented every one of the people in the store who wouldn’t let him escape the shadow of his notorious family.

He imagined his scowl truly was frightening by now, and didn’t care. He leveled a direct look at the young woman, one she could interpret as a threat or a perverted fantasy; he really didn’t care which.

A blotch of white stepped into his field of vision. Zane refocused on a man who stood with arms folded across his white shirt and a glare as fierce as his own. A badge on his shirt read,
BOB WISNEWSKI, MANAGER
.

“You’re not welcome here, Thorson,” Bob said, low and threatening. Bob the Hero, protector of women, defender of every man’s freedom to leap to judgment.

Zane spent a long moment considering his blinding fury, his constitutional rights, and his overwhelming desire to punch Bob in the nose. Possible headlines crossed his mind, along with possible jail sentences. Bob was not worth it.

They couldn’t take his pride. Shoving the basket at Bob’s chest, he leaned close enough to intimidate him into a step backward. The manager staggered against the young woman’s cart, bobbling the basket in his arms. Pushing close to the man’s red face, Zane growled, “Fuck you, Bob.” And walked out.

It felt good for two seconds.

He’d acted rashly and solved nothing. Bob would talk, and it wouldn’t help Zane’s reputation. But that had already been flushed down the toilet, so he didn’t really give a shit.

8

S
ophie hadn’t meant
to stop at the Moosehead. Not tonight, not ever in this lifetime. But the sign grabbed her attention as she drove home from Juniper after spending two creepy hours in the morgue, completing her findings for the police. The off-white oval bearing the bar’s name was a dingy beacon on the dark strip of highway between Juniper and Barringer’s Pass, impossible to miss. Next door, a sign for the Pines glowed in green and yellow neon, the two businesses huddled close to the highway on a flat strip of land that backed up to wooded slopes.

She hadn’t thought about where Zane might choose to spend his free time. That it was a bar surprised her; he hadn’t been much for drinking after the drunken rages he’d seen growing up, and from what she’d heard, the Moosehead had always attracted hard-core drinkers. But maybe things had changed.

Another thought gnawed at her mind. If Rena Torres had gone there often enough, someone would remember her. The police would try to track her movements, but would probably focus their attention on the fancy resorts where someone like Alan Bernstein would have hung out. Meanwhile, Rena could have been meeting a lot of men at the Moosehead, not just Zane. Men the police should consider suspects.

Braking impulsively, she turned onto the crumbling asphalt of the Moosehead’s parking lot. The lot was shadowy, lit by the signs and one tall light situated between the bar and the Pines. Glowing neon beer signs on the building gave the illusion of light, but didn’t do much to pierce the shadows. She parked close to the building in the comforting red aura of a Budweiser sign.

She got out of the Jeep, an ominous feeling making her take a look around the shadowy lot. Nothing moved at either business, almost as if they were deserted. But next door at the Pines, a quarter of the units had cars parked out front and lights shining behind drawn curtains. Another eight vehicles at the Moosehead were proof of life inside. The nighttime breeze raised an oily scent from the parking lot, tickling her nose as she made for the entrance.

The inside of the bar wasn’t lit much better than the parking lot. A few spotlights shone directly down on the bar that ran along most of the left side of the room. A dozen tables occupied the right side, with a clear strip of floor down the center leading to an alcove at the back where two doors read
GENTS
and
LADIES
. Sophie doubted any ladies ever came here, and felt her own status slip as soon as she walked through the door. This didn’t look like the kind of place a woman came to alone, not unless she was looking to change that with a quick hookup.

Three men at the bar watched her with interest as she approached. A few more probably watched from the tables to the right, but she didn’t look their way, her attention drawn to the light and the only other woman in the place. At the far end of the bar, a young blonde in a tank top and shorts gave Sophie a cool look as she drew a beer, then turned pointedly away. Sophie took it as a clear message that she could forget any feelings of solidarity. She was competition, and on her own.

A fortyish man behind the bar straightened from where he’d been in casual conversation with a patron. Picking up a rag, he walked to the end of the bar where she’d taken a chair—the end nearest the door. “What can I get you?” he asked, wiping a few square inches of bar in front of her.

Damn, she hadn’t thought about buying a drink, and realized she wouldn’t get far if she didn’t. Sophie glanced at the row of glasses on the other side of the bar and felt an unwelcome stiffness from her private school days come rushing back like an ingrained habit as she wondered how clean they were. She thought she’d left the snobbish ideas from the Herrington School for Girls far behind, but just walking into the Moosehead seemed to have reawakened them.

But buying information required sacrifices. “A Coors Light, please,” she said. “In the bottle.” She didn’t really want it, but she didn’t have to drink it.

She did have to pay for it, though, and a frisson of panic touched her, realizing she had only two dollars in her purse. She did some rapid figuring and had a credit card ready when he returned with the beer. “Do you take credit cards?”

“MasterCard and Visa.”

She handed it over. “Put thirty dollars on it.”

He paused to take a closer look at her. “You planning to be here awhile?”

“No. But I’d like to talk.” Thirty was all she could afford to part with; she hoped it was enough.

He did another silent assessment, no doubt wondering what kind of information she was after. “If you’re looking for your boyfriend or your husband, I have a bad memory for names and dates. Faces, too.”

She smiled. “Not that kind of talk.”

He considered that, too, then took the card with a shrug. “It’s your money.”

Once she’d signed for the transaction, he leaned one arm on the bar, putting his back to the customers farther down. “Okay, what’s your deal?”

She’d thought it over while he charged her account, and decided his bad memory made him smart enough not to tell tales about his customers. But Rena hadn’t been in B-Pass long, and she was never coming back. There was no reason not to talk about her.

She fingered the beer bottle as she talked. “I’m a reporter,” she said, the most harmless lie she could think of to explain her questions. “I’m looking for information on that girl whose body they found.”

“Rena something.”

“Yes,” she agreed calmly, nearly jumping for joy on the inside. If he knew her name, she might have been here several times. Or maybe he just listened to the news. “Someone told me she came here a lot.”

“Not a lot. But a few times.” He narrowed one eye. “You ain’t thinking someone from the Moosehead killed her, are you?”

“Oh, no. I’m just trying to learn what kind of person she was. You know, a profile piece. Like was she polite or rude, loud or quiet? Would you say she was friendly?”

“Friendly?” He snorted a laugh. “You could call it that.
Real
friendly.”

“She, um, liked to socialize?”

“She liked to party. Nothing bad—a few drinks, a lot of flirting. The girl liked attention. Gave it back, too, if you know what I mean, but don’t ask me who she gave it to, ’cause I don’t know.”

“Right, bad memory.” She hoped his memory was just as bad if the police ever questioned him about it; it could save Zane’s ass. But counting on anyone in B-Pass to protect a Thorson was a feeble hope. “How many times was she here?”

“Three or four, I guess.”

“Do you happen to remember the last day she was here?”

“Nope. Told you, no dates.”

It probably wouldn’t matter, anyway. The cops would either prove Zane had been seen with her, or they wouldn’t, and if he had been, the date wouldn’t matter. Being placed with her once after denying he knew her would be enough to point a giant finger of guilt at him. It would be better to find out who made a more likely suspect than Zane.

“I guess she, uh, made friends easily.”

He smirked. “Pretty girl, friendly—yeah, you could say that.”

“Was there ever anyone she acted afraid of? Or someone she got mad at? Maybe someone who came on too strong and didn’t like it when she blew him off?”

“I told you, no—”

“No names, I understand. Just tell me if there was someone.”

He sighed at her persistence, then rubbed his rough stubble as he gave it a moment’s thought. “Nope, can’t think of anyone. And I’m pretty sure I’d remember that. What I recall is the place was always rockin’ like a party when she was here.” A tiny smile touched the corner of his mouth. “There’s only one person who wasn’t happy to see her, but telling you who would require a couple more thirty-dollar beers.”

Sophie slipped off her chair. “You don’t need to tell me.” She already knew. If the blond woman serving drinks didn’t like seeing Sophie walk into the Moosehead, she could imagine the kind of reception she’d give a Hollywood starlet with a desire to party. She gave the young woman a thoughtful stare. “The question is, would she go so far as to kill?”

“Nah.”

She met his eyes, surprised by the quick, sure response. “You’re that certain?”

He grinned without an ounce of humor behind it. “She’s my ex. But if you want to get her arrested on suspicion of murder, I don’t mind.”

“You’re a real prince. Thanks for your time.”

“No more questions?”

She’d love to ask if Rena had talked about giant beetles or spiders, but Cal had warned her not to. “No more questions,” she told him, heading for the door.

She’d learned something important, even if she didn’t have names—Rena hadn’t focused exclusively on Alan Bernstein while she was in Barringer’s Pass. She’d met a lot of men, and possibly been intimate with them. If she’d had an ulterior motive, like prostitution or robbery, Zane hadn’t said. She had a feeling he’d snap her head off if she asked, too. The only way she’d find out was from another man.

She paused at the door, scanning the dim room. The men here didn’t look like prime specimens for a girl looking for a good time. A couple guys had to be past sixty, and more intent on the glasses in their hands than anything going on around them. Another two sharing a table were in their twenties, cowboy types in jeans and boots who seemed a little too free with their hands as they joked with the bartender’s ex. Another man by himself watched the two cowboys with a disdainful gaze that shifted to meet Sophie’s.

Stunned recognition hit his face at the same time it hit her. She stared. “Manny?”

He whipped the cap off his head and got awkwardly to his feet, a gentlemanly gesture she hadn’t expected, and found touching in a place like this. “Sophie?” He blinked as if to clear his vision. “What are you doing here?”

She hesitated, on the verge of making something up, then changed her mind. Running into Manny was a golden opportunity. If she wanted to learn the names of men who might have been with Rena, she needed a source other than the closemouthed bartender. She not only knew Manny, he almost qualified as a friend.

She walked over to him, waiting expectantly for an invitation, but his polite manners seemed to have ended at standing up. She touched the chair beside him. “May I?”

He looked slightly distressed by the request, then gave a jerky nod.

She sat, confused. “I’m sorry, if you’re expecting someone—”

“No, no, not yet. I meet someone about a job later. I do other work when Zane does not need me.” He sank onto his own chair, still looking uncomfortable. “It is just . . .” He trailed off, searching for words. “Sophie, you don’t belong in this place.”

She relaxed. “Thanks for that. Believe me, I’d rather not be here.”

“Then you must leave.”

He looked so concerned, she knew he hadn’t meant to sound rude. “I can’t, Manny. I need information, and this is the only place I know of to get it.”

“Information?”

“About the girl whose body I found.” She didn’t offer to explain, because they both knew that finding Rena’s body was the reason Manny had missed the past couple of days of work. She leaned closer, speaking earnestly. “Manny, Zane had nothing to do with that girl’s murder. I don’t know who did, but I know Zane, and I know he’s innocent.”

He looked embarrassed, his gaze dropping to the scarred table. “I think you are right.”

The sincerity in his voice puzzled her. “Then why haven’t you been at work? He needs help.”

He shook his head. “You would not understand.”

“Try me.”

He paused for so long she’d nearly given up when he started talking. “Zane is a white American man. Cory and Hooter are white American men. I know they are not the nicest men, but some things we cannot change. I am a brown man with an accent. Often, when a crime is committed, the police look at the brown man with the accent, and they think he did it. Then he has to try to prove he is innocent.”

The sad truth of his words felt like a heavy weight. She didn’t bother to tell him that the American legal system didn’t work that way, because for some people it did. She’d like to think it wouldn’t happen that way in Barringer’s Pass, but she couldn’t swear to it, not after seeing how many people were ready to convict Zane without the benefit of proof or a trial.

That was the irony that protected Manny—Barringer’s Pass was so suspicious of anyone named Thorson that it topped any racial and cultural prejudice that might have affected Manny.

Sophie shook her head with a bitter smile. “Obviously you haven’t lived here long enough to have heard the stories about Zane’s family.”

Manny frowned. “What stories?”

“Let’s just say Zane’s father and brother were not beloved citizens of Barringer’s Pass. His father is in prison and his brother narrowly avoided it, but some people won’t be happy until every Thorson is behind bars. So that situation you were afraid of? That’s what’s happening to Zane.”

Sympathy touched his eyes. “I am sorry to hear that.”

She was going to have to settle for that. If guilt or sympathy brought him back in a day or two, great. But if not, she understood his fear.

“The police will find you anyway, Manny. You worked for Zane, so they’ll need to question you. But you were right when you said sometimes you have to prove you’re innocent. I think Zane might need to do that, and the only way I can think of is to show that other men had the opportunity to kill that young woman, and maybe had a reason. I know she came here. Did you ever see her here?”

He spread his hands. “How would I know? What does she look like?”

Manny was more sheltered than she’d realized—not only hadn’t he heard about the Thorsons, he apparently didn’t watch TV or read the papers. Rena was all they talked about lately. “Her name was Rena Torres. Pretty, long dark hair, dark eyes, full lips. The picture they’re showing around is a glamour shot—she was an actress. Sound like anyone you’ve seen here?”

His thin smile didn’t reach his eyes. “The women who come here, they might make up their faces and wear nice clothes, but they do not have glamour.” His eyes flicked to the blonde, who had moved on to one of the older guys and was leaning close to him, laughing loudly. “They have no pride,” he said, narrowing his eyes in judgment.