Page 88 of Into the Fire

Nothing else. He didn’t ask me to come back. He knew better.

I typed the rest of the story.

Dante: Might’ve been followed coming in. Lost them at the elevator loop. No plate, no look at the driver. Could be nothing.

The phone rang before the second message showed as delivered.

I didn’t answer it right away. I stood, crossed to the window, and moved the curtain an inch. The lot lay still under the pole light.

The phone rang again.

I answered it.

Chapter twenty-two

Boone

Dante picked up on the third ring.

“I’m fine,” he said before I could say anything. “That’s the headline.”

I stood in my kitchen with the phone against my ear and my keys already in my other hand. I set the keys down when he said he was fine.

“The vehicle,” I said. “Tell me more.”

“Headlights followed me. They were a quarter mile back through both turns and held the interval. I ran Shep’s elevator loop, and it didn’t shake them. Somewhere before Main Street it was gone.” He paused. “No plate or make. The headlights were too bright. It could have been a rancher taking the long way home while I drove forty miles watching my mirror.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“I believe it’s one of two things, and I can’t tell you which. That’s my honest answer.” A heater rattled somewhere behind his voice.

“Where’s your truck?”

“Under the pole light. There are two other vehicles in the lot. My room’s second from the office. I have the door locked and my phone charged.”

I looked at my keys on the counter. Dante was forty minutes down the valley. I could be in that gravel lot by eleven, but if he wanted me there, he’d ask.

“Did you eat?”

A short silence.

“At the Sawtooth. Had a burger.”

“How’s the hip?”

“Iced. The machine here works.”

I didn’t want the conversation to end. “The truck run all right?” I asked. “It was pulling when you—”

“Boone, are you done checking on me?”

“Yes,” I said.

A beat. Then, “Good.”

Neither of us said anything for a second. The heater rattled again on his end, and he must have kicked it because it quit.

“One change,” Dante said. “The special agent called me. Vasquez, out of Missoula. He’s got the rig, and he wants my statement before anything else, so I’m meeting him at nine. Some conference room at the county building. I’ll be at Silvertip by noon.”