Blue Smoke and Murder

30

SEPTEMBER 15

10:15 A.M.

Jill watched out the window while the plane landed at a small airport on the eastern edge of Salt Lake City. No sooner had the wheels touched the runway than a refueling tank truck headed toward the apron. Three people walked to the tie-down area and waited for the plane. The men were all casually dressed, yet they weren’t lounging around. They looked alert in a way that reminded her of Zach.

As soon as the plane door opened, Zach went down the stairs. He spoke briefly to one of the men, who handed over a set of keys before he started giving orders to the other men. Zach flipped the keys on his palm as he turned back to Jill, who was standing at the top of the plane’s metal stairway. She had changed into black jeans and a silky kind of green shirt that brought out the color of her eyes.

She looked way too edible for his peace of mind.

“Let’s go,” Zach said. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste if we want to be in Taos before dinner. Leave everything on the plane.”

“Taos? Dinner?”

Zach was already walking away. “It will take us about half an hour to get to Snowbird.”

Jill turned back to the plane long enough to grab her belly bag, then ran down the stairs after Zach. No sooner had her butt hit the leather seat of the rental car than he started driving toward Snowbird with a disregard for local speed limits that made her blink.

Very quickly they were in the mountains. Sun poured over the soaring peaks. Aspen burned up the ravines and on the ridgetops like a golden autumn fire. She let down the window, took a deep breath, and then another. Yesterday’s adrenaline roller coaster from fear to safety and back to fear seemed like a bad dream.

The black-haired, whiskey-eyed man who had almost enough stubble to be a beard was watching the road, not the scenery.

“It’s so beautiful,” Jill said.

Zach looked at the mountaintops without really seeing them. His mind was filled with plans he’d prioritized according to various reactions from gallery owners, plus the unhappy necessity of spending more time in the company of Garland Frost’s arrogant, acid tongue.

“Yeah, it’s real pretty,” Zach said absently.

She thought about the plane. “Will the paintings be all right without us?”

He gave her a swift sideways glance.

“Never mind,” she said. “Forget I asked. Control issues. St. Kilda rules and all that.”

Zach smiled slightly and continued to push the new SUV. A discreet bumper sticker was the only indication that the car came from a local rental agency.

Jill inspected the interior of the car. Then she thought about the fast little plane and the three men who had spread out around it in a manner suggestive of sentries. She wondered if the men were armed.

Then she thought of Joe Faroe, Zach Balfour, and St. Kilda itself.

One way or another, the men were armed.

“Who’s paying for all this?” she asked. “Cars, plane, sat/cell phone, research-”

“Take it up with Faroe,” Zach cut in. “He’s the one giving orders on this op.”

“I thought you were.”

“I’m the man on the ground. Faroe’s the one learning how to hold a baby girl.”

“A girl? Oh my.” Jill laughed.

“Yeah, she’ll be keeping Faroe up nights worrying for the next thirty years.”

“Does she have a name?”

“Trouble.”

Jill gave an eye-roll worthy of a teenager. “Somehow I doubt that.”

“I don’t. Faroe might have come late to parenthood, but he’s one protective father.”

“Late? Lane is sixteen.”

“It’s a long story.”

Jill was curious, but she didn’t ask. She came from a long line of long stories. She understood family privacy.

“Well, Joe can’t be any worse than the father of one of my roommates in college,” she said. “Sara’s dad was a veterinarian. After she turned fifteen, he mounted a castrating knife on the front door. Claimed it would work just fine as a door-knocker.”

Zach snickered. “She get many dates?”

“Not until she went away to college.”

Shaking his head, Zach kept driving. Hard.

Jill would have been nervous, but nothing about the car or the man suggested that either was on the edge of losing the road. She settled back, relaxed as she rarely was when someone else was at the controls.

Coordinated, smooth, quick, thorough. Wonder what else he’s good at?

She could think of a few things that would be fun test-driving with him. None of them had wheels.

Very quickly, wild mountain scenery gave way to chalets and chairlifts and empty slopes.

“Okay, time for your game face,” Zach said. “You’re the-”

“Sweet stupid thing,” she cut in. “You’re the kind of man Sara’s father hung the castrating knife over the door to discourage.”

Zach winced. “Not a happy visual.”

“I’m sure it took the rut out of more than one young buck.”

Privately Zach thought it wouldn’t have worked over Jill’s door, but he didn’t say anything aloud. It was bad enough wanting her. Having her know it, and back away because of it, would turn a fairly straightforward op into Grade A goat-roping real quick.

How did Faroe manage to keep Grace alive when he was head over balls in lust with her?

But Zach hadn’t asked his boss when he’d had the chance, and it was too late now.

He opened his mouth to go over the scenario for the gallery with Jill again. Then he thought better of it. She wasn’t stupid. If he had to make adjustments to the game plan in midplay, she was quick enough to keep up with him.

If anything, he should worry about keeping up with her. The lady was too used to leading. Problem was, she could easily go through the wrong door while he was running to catch up. And Zach knew in his gut what Jill knew only intellectually.

Some doors were fatal.