Chasing Fire

opinion of me. So you can just—”
    The shrilling siren sliced off her words.
    “Looks like me and my crappy opinion have to get going.” Gull turned his back on her and walked back to the ready room.
    It was almost more than she could swallow, standing on the ground again while the plane flew north.
    “If this keeps up, they’ll have to send us up.”
    She glanced over at Matt. “The way my luck’s going, L.B.’ll cross me off and send Marg if we get another call. How did you rate the basement?”
    “He feels like I’m too twisted up about Dolly, because of my niece. Maybe I am.”
    “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
    “It’s okay. I keep expecting them to come back, say it’s all a mistake.” He held his cap in his hands, turning it around and around in them and leaving his floppy cornsilk hair uncovered.
    “It can’t be right, you know, for a baby to lose her father before she’s even born, then her mother so soon after.” He turned to Rowan, and she thought he looked unbearably young and exposed.
    “It isn’t right,” she said.
    “But things, I guess things just aren’t always right. I guess . . . it’s like fate.”
    He leaned into her a little when she hooked an arm around his waist. “It’s harder on you, maybe,” he said, “than me.”
    “Me?”
    “You found her. If it’s her. Even if it’s not, finding whoever it was. It’s awful you were the one who found her.”
    “We’ll both get through it, Matt.”
    “That’s what I keep telling myself. I keep thinking of Shiloh, and telling myself that whatever happens, we’ll make sure she’s okay. I mean, she’s just a baby.”
    “The Brakemans and your family will take care of her.”
    “Yeah. Well, I guess I’ll go up to the loft, try to get my mind on something else.”
    “That’s a good idea. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
    She went back to her quarters first, locked herself in. Though she knew it was self-pity, that it was useless, she sat on the floor, leaned back against the bed and had a good cry.

16
     
    T he cry emptied out the temper and the self-pity. For a trade-off she accepted the splitting headache, and downed the medication before splashing cold water on her face.
    One of the problems with being a true blonde with fair skin, she mused, giving herself the hard eye in the mirror, was that after a jag she resembled someone who’d gotten a brutal sunburn, through cheesecloth.
    She splashed some more, then wrung out a cold cloth. She gave herself ten minutes flat on her back on the bed, the cloth over her face, to let the meds and the cool do their job.
    So she’d overreacted, she thought. Beat her with a brick.
    She’d apologize to her father for sticking her nose in his business since he now had business he didn’t want her to stick her nose into.
    And she damn well expected the same courtesy from a certain fastfooted, hotshot rookie, so he’d better come back safe.
    She checked her face again, decided she’d do. Maybe she didn’t look her best, but she didn’t look as if she’d spent the last twenty minutes curled up on the floor, blubbering like a big baby.
    On her way toward Operations to check on the status of the crews, she caught sight of Special Agent DiCicco walking toward her.
    “Ms. Tripp.”
    “Look, I know you’ve got a job to do, but we’ve got two loads out. I’m heading to Ops, and don’t have time to go over ground I’ve already gone over.”
    “I’m sorry, but I will need to speak with you, as well as members of the crew and staff. The remains you discovered yesterday have been positively identified as Dolly Brakeman.”
    “Hell.” Sick, Rowan pressed her forehead, and rubbed it side to side. “Oh, hell. How? How did she die?”
    “Since some of those details will make the evening news, I can tell you cause of death was a broken neck, possibly incurred in a fall.”
    “A fall? You’d have to fall really hard and really wrong. Not an accidental fall, not when she left her car one place and ended up in another.”
    DiCicco’s face remained impassive, her eyes level. “This is a homicide investigation, coordinated with an arson investigation. Your instincts on both counts appear to have been right on target.”
    “And being right makes me a suspect.”
    “I’m not prepared to eliminate anyone as a suspect, but you have an alibi for the time frame. The fact is, you and the victim had an adversarial relationship. It’s an avenue I need to