This Fallen Prey (Rockton #3)(35)

“He had symptoms other than vomiting. They were consistent with poison.”

She’s not the first person to mention this possibility. Each time someone suggests that Brady faked it, I feel a nudge at the back of my mind, the one that says You’re missing something.

“Could it be environmental?” Isabel says. “God knows, there’s enough in our forest that can kill you.”

“We do have water hemlock and false hellebore,” I say. “Which vie for the title of most poisonous plant in North America.”

Isabel sighs. “Of course they do.”

“Hey, at least it’s not Australia. Everything’s poisonous there.”

“I would rather face a kangaroo than a grizzly. Or a cougar. Or a wolf. Or a wolverine. Or a feral dog, feral pig . . .”

“There are no feral pigs in the Yukon.”

“Just the ones Rockton released. Like the dogs, the cats, the hostiles . . . Because our forest really needed more threats.”

“Water hemlock’s rare,” Dalton says. “Only seen it twice this far north. False hellebore is the problem. Which is why I don’t tell folks that real hellebore is edible. Can’t take the chance. The symptoms fit, though.”

“But it’d be tough to get and mix into his food or drink,” I say. “That’s why we’re looking in town for poisons—”

There’s a shout from outside. Then what sounds like . . .

“Is that the bell?” I say.

We installed a bell this winter. Another of my suggestions, after a fire burned down the lumber shed. Dalton resisted—there hadn’t been a problem alerting people for the fire, and I think he didn’t like the intimation that he needed a bell to make residents listen. A bell wouldn’t have saved the lumber shed, so I didn’t get one . . . until after Nicole was taken and rousting searchers five minutes faster might have helped.

“If that’s another goddamn prank . . .” Dalton says as he strides from the brewery.

Shortly after we installed the bell someone rang it in the middle of the night. Drunk, obviously. Rang it and ran . . . leaving boot prints in the snow, which I matched to a perpetrator, whom Dalton then sentenced to go to each and every person in town and say, “I’m the fucking idiot who rang the fucking bell at two in the fucking morning. I’m sorry.”

No one has touched the bell since.

As Dalton jogs out, I hear “Eric? Eric!” from several directions.

Jen races around the corner and sees us. “Finally. The lumber shed is on fire.”

Dalton stops so abruptly that I bash into him. I know exactly what he’s thinking. That the lumber shed cannot possibly be on fire nine months after we rebuilt it. Jen must be making a very bad joke. And yet one sniff of the air brings the smell of wood fire.

He shouts for everyone to “get to the goddamn fire,” infuriated that they went looking for him rather than tackling the actual problem.

As we run, Jen explains that Anders is already at the shed, with as many people as he could gather. He sent her to find Dalton and me.

People join us as we run. They hear the bell and smell smoke and see us running, and they fall into our wake. This is Dalton’s success as a leader. People don’t smell that smoke and retreat. They join the fight.

As we run, Dalton barks questions. How did the fire start? When did it start? Who saw it first? How bad is the damage?

Jen doesn’t know. She wasn’t first on the scene. Dalton keeps questioning; I retreat into my head, into my own questions.

There is no chance that the lumber shed accidentally caught ablaze. We are a town made of wood surrounded by a forest of the same. Whatever dangers lurk in the wilderness, none approaches that of fire.

On the drive up from Whitehorse, one of the most memorable sights I saw was the markers by the roadside, memorials to past blazes. Each was labeled with a year, and I hadn’t really understood the power of fire until I saw those signs and the forest they marked. Vast swaths of wasteland left by flames that had blazed before I was born. Dalton would point out the signs of rejuvenation in that seeming wasteland. He’d even say that fire served a purpose in the forest: rebirth. He saw hope and new life; I saw death and destruction.

The precautions we take against fire border on insane. Smoking is prohibited. Only a select few can use kerosene at night. Candles are restricted to certain areas, like the Lion and the Roc, where the staff can ensure they’re put out at night’s end. Fireplaces are inspected weekly. Bonfires are permitted only in the town square, only on designated days, and only with supervision and sand buckets. The list goes on. Before the lumber shed, the last fire had been years ago, when lightning struck a building.

This is arson, as it was before. That fire had been set to cover a crime. This time . . .

There is only one explanation.

“Eric,” I call as I jog up to him.

He looks over as if startled, having been too busy to notice that I’d fallen behind.

“I need to . . .” I trail off. “To check something.” Which is not an excuse at all, and any other time, he’d call me on it, but he’s focused on that burning shed.

“I’ll be right back.” I turn to Jen. “Make sure he watches his arm.”

A nod from her, and she will, if only because she’s one of the few who’ll tell him off. Whether he listens is a whole other matter, but the risk of him injuring his arm is minor compared to what I fear.