Into the Inferno - Earl Emerson [127]
By some miracle I got a grip on the rope and swung almost in slow motion out over the black, moonlit pool. I could feel Stevenson brushing my backside. And then I was free. Free and swinging. Below, I heard him splash noisily into the pool. I could still hear him shouting and wallowing in the cold water long after I jogged downstream along the bank.
Forty minutes later I found myself in the brush off Reinig Road near Miss Squiggly’s favorite spot on earth. We locals called it Unemployment Beach; the county called it Three Forks Park. Easily one of the most panoramic sites in the area, Unemployment Beach was a sandy spot where the three forks of the Snoqualmie fed into one another; another mile and a half downstream, the river dropped almost three hundred feet over Snoqualmie Falls.
Several vehicles came past, including a volunteer fireman returning home from my place, a fire engine, and the tanker that had responded from Snoqualmie.
When I saw Holly’s red Pontiac, I stepped out into the headlights and waited. As the car pulled alongside, I leaned down to the half-open passenger-side window and greeted my sleepy daughters in the backseat. I looked at Stephanie, who said, “I know. I agree. Totally. Your time is too short. They knew that. They were being assholes. Excuse my French, girls. Where to?” Stephanie asked, after I climbed in.
“The Sunset Motel.”
“Oh, no. We’re not going to—”
“Just a visit.”
“You’re not going after them?”
“They have to be the ones.”
“Why can’t we just go to a hotel? What are you going to do? Beat them up?”
“I have no idea. Just go by the Sunset.”
We headed toward Snoqualmie on back roads. I was sore all over but hadn’t felt it until now. I had five or six smallish burns, including my knees, where I’d crawled over hot spots in the fire. My left knee was aching as a result of our footrace in the dark. My feet were wet and cold from crossing the river.
I turned around and peered into the backseat. Tilted against each other like stuffed animals on a shelf, both girls had fallen asleep under the blanket I’d tucked around their legs.
“They out?” Stephanie asked.
“Sawing z’s.”
“We were so damn lucky. Somebody tried to kill us. All of us.”
“I think I know who.”
“You think Hillburn and Dobson killed . . .” Stephanie looked over the seat back to ascertain whether the girls were really asleep.
“You saw them tonight. They looked guilty as hell. And Donovan was all over town asking questions. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t have known about her.”
“Jim, if you go there tonight, they’ll find you. You’ll be arrested. I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”
“You mean something I’ll regret for the rest of my life?”
Stephanie followed my directions and drove through Snoqualmie, past the high school, and back to North Bend on the old highway. I would be surprised if they hadn’t checked out, but if they hadn’t, I had no idea what I was going to do.
The Sunset Motel was lit up like a carnival ride, three county police cars crowding the street and entranceway, along with our own North Bend aid unit. Stephanie drove past while I slid down in the seat until only my eyes were above the window ledge. Hillburn and Dobson were standing outside in slacks and T-shirts, talking to the female evidence technician we’d seen at the fire.
“Maybe they’re arresting them?” Stephanie said.
“Not likely.” I saw a Latino man with blood on his shirt, a couple of hysterical Latina women screaming at him from across the courtyard. “There must have been a fight.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know why those bastards are still hanging around.”
“Let’s go to Seattle and put the girls to bed.”
“They must have figured their frame-up was perfect.”
“We’ll find a nice hotel with a pool.”
“It has to be them. The coincidence of the events in Chattanooga and here is too much. The syndrome is discovered. An explosion wipes out most of the survivors or, in our case, almost wipes us out. There’s a house fire in which key investigators are killed. Jane’s lies to me every time I talk