White Fire by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Author:Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2013-11-12T05:00:00+00:00

After Corrie had filled out an incident report, the sergeant behind the desk promptly showed her into the chief’s office. Apparently, she was now a person of importance. She found Chief Morris behind his desk, which was heaped with three-by-five cards, photographs, string, pins, and glue. On the wall behind him was an incomprehensible chart that was no doubt related to the arson killings.

The chief looked like death warmed over. His cheeks hung like slabs of suet on his face, his eyes were sunken coals, his hair was unkempt. At the same time, there was a severe cast to his eye that hadn’t been there before. That, at least, was an improvement.

He took the report and gestured for her to sit. A few minutes went by while he read it, then read it again. And then he laid it on the table. “Is there any reason you can think of that someone might be unhappy with you?” he asked.

At this Corrie, shaken as she was, had to laugh. “Yeah. Like just about everyone in The Heights. The mayor. Kermode. Montebello. Not to mention you.”

The chief managed a wan smile. “We’re going to open an investigation, of course. But…listen, I hope you won’t think I’m trying to brush this off if I tell you we’ve been looking for a poacher up in that area for several weeks now. He’s been killing and butchering deer, no doubt selling the meat. One of his wild shots went through the window of a house just last week. So what happened to you might—might—have been a stray shot from his poaching activity. This happened early in the morning, which is when the deer—and our poacher—are active. Again, I’m not saying that’s what happened. I’m just mentioning it as a possibility…to ease your mind more than anything.”

“Thanks,” said Corrie.

They rose, and the chief held out his hand. “I’m afraid I’ll have to impound your car as evidence—do a ballistics analysis and see if we can recover the round.”

“You’re welcome to it.”

“I’ll have one of my officers drive you where you need to go.”

“No, thanks, I’m just going around the corner for a Starbucks.”

As Corrie sat sipping her coffee, she wondered if it really had been a poacher. It was true she had annoyed a lot of people early on, but that had blown over, especially with the start of the arson killings. Shooting at her car—that would be attempted murder. What kind of threat was she to merit that? Problem was, the chief was so overwhelmed—as was everyone else in the police department—that she had little faith he would be able to conduct an effective investigation. If the shooting was meant to intimidate her, it wasn’t going to work. She might be frightened—but there was no way she’d be frightened out of town. If anything, it would make her want to stay longer.

Then again…it might be the poacher. Or it could be some other random crazy. It could even be the serial arsonist, switching M.O.’s. Her thoughts turned to Stacy up in the ravine, probably still asleep.

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