The Rescuer

“I have a lot to do,” Herb said, going to his truck and rummaging through the rusted toolbox in back.

Colin had been trying to pin his grandfather down these past few days, but somehow Herb always managed to avoid a serious conversation. Maybe now that they were stuck on this mountain together, Herb would have to talk.

“Lillian’s worried about you,” Colin said.

“What’s she got to do with anything?”

“Knock it off, Herb,” Colin said mildly. “I know you and Lillian are seeing each other.”

Herb shrugged. “She’s the one who wants to keep it a secret. She thinks it’d be a big scandal, a fifty-nine-year-old youngster like her having a fling with the seventy-six-year-old mayor of Sobriety.”

Colin knew that Herb didn’t mind mentioning his age because he was still fit enough to scramble through mine tunnels—and obviously still fit enough to have a fling.

“Okay, she wants it to be a secret,” Colin said. “Which means she must have been pretty upset to call me long-distance and spill the beans about being your girlfriend. Not that I have the story straight yet. Lillian’s been a little obscure. Something about you running around town at midnight in a sheet—”

Herb chuckled. “Hell, if you want to know what happened, why don’t you just come right out and ask? Lillian and I were down at the mining museum late one night, having a good time so to speak. When Rose Bradshaw almost walked in on us, I tried to make my escape like a gentleman. Is it my fault Rose caught an eyeful of me in that sheet and started spreading rumors that she’d seen a ghost? Good old Rose. Serves her right for being too vain to wear her bifocals.”

A jay flapped by, making a racket as it landed in a nearby tree. Colin realized the absurdity of the conversation. “Look,” he said, “it’s not that night Lillian’s so worried about. It’s what came after... namely, your half-baked scheme to make people think the museum really is haunted.”

“Nothing half-baked about it,” Herb said selfrighteously. “I planned the whole thing out. Made sure Rose had another sighting of her ghost... spread a few rumors of my own. Town’s getting a kick out of it, and tourism’s already up—exactly what we need. The way I see it, I’m only doing my duty as mayor. I’m supposed to encourage what’s good for business, aren’t I? Well, seems a ghost is good for business.”

The whole thing was ridiculous, but Colin had promised Lillian he’d have this talk with Herb. He couldn’t very well stop now. “Okay, so you’re having a little fun. But if it comes out you’re behind the hoax, you’ll be the town laughingstock, to use Lillian’s term. It’ll ruin your career as mayor.”

“No one’ll find out,” Herb said confidently. “Lillian worries too much. Never thought you did, though. Are you telling me you flew all the way out from California for this?”

It was more complicated than that. Sure, Lillian’s phone call had reminded him he was overdue for a visit to his grandfather. But it had also given Colin an excuse to take some time off work and get out of California for a while. The old restlessness had driven him—a dissatisfaction that came upon him every couple of years or so, telling him it was time for a change...time to raise the stakes, time to push himself and find a challenge more difficult than the last.

“Herb,” Colin said now, “I thought being mayor meant a lot to you. Why mess with it?”

Herb got his stubborn look. “This town needs some stirring up. People like a ghost story. And if it’s good for business, it’s worth the risk. Maybe it’ll even be good for morale. Things just haven’t been that great around here since...” When he fell silent Colin knew Herb probably wasn’t thinking about the town anymore. No doubt he was thinking instead of the son he had lost some twenty-five years ago. Thomas McIntyre...Colin’s father.

Herb gripped the side of the truck bed, staring off into the distance. The sadness and regret in his expression were unmistakable. He was thinking about his son, all right. Thomas, the Vietnam War hero who’d died tragically young in an automobile accident. Colin didn’t think Herb had ever recovered from that loss. Maybe nobody in the family had.

Thomas was the real ghost haunting the McIntyres.

IT COULD HIT ALEX at the most unexpected times.

Take right now, for instance. She was driving along the streets of Sobriety, Idaho, when just ahead she saw a young couple stopped in the middle of the sidewalk—the man speaking earnestly, the woman with her arms crossed, a resistant expression on her face.

They might just as well have been Alex and Jonathan. Only, Alex would have been the one talking so earnestly, Jonathan the one resisting. Their marriage had been like that throughout—Alex playing suitor to her husband’s emotions, trying to draw them out. And Jonathan hoarding his feelings, as if they were some rare coinage and he a collector. Except, all along Alex had believed Jonathan needed to be close to her. If only either of them had known how to make it happen...

The sense of failure was so strong this time that she had to pull over to the curb for a moment. She sat there in her rental car, staring out the windshield. The couple on the sidewalk passed, the woman with her arms still crossed, striding just ahead of the man. Alex’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. A man and a woman out of step. That was how she and Jonathan had been...always out of step.

Now, after eight years of marriage, it was almost over—the divorce almost final. Eight years gone, with nothing left but inadequacy and heartbreak. Alex felt as though there was a soreness inside her that would never heal. She’d loved Jonathan... seemingly desperately at times. And surely he’d loved her. So how was it that they’d both failed so utterly?

Alex laughed humorlessly. The irony was too painful. Dr. Alexandra Robbins, psychologist... mender of other people’s emotional blights, yet totally unable to mend her own. At least she had one consolation—no one was likely to recognize her here in the northern reaches of Idaho. Unlike Chicago. After appearing on a few local talk shows last year, she’d suddenly had complete strangers coming up to her, asking for advice. What would those people say if they knew the disaster of her personal life?

She restarted the car and pulled away from the curb. These past few difficult months, one thing alone had kept her going—her research. It had given her an excuse to stay late at the office instead of going home to an empty house. It had kept her thoughts on rescuers... instead of the marriage she hadn’t been able to save.

But then she’d received the video of Colin McIntyre, and suddenly her research was no longer an uncomplicated refuge from the realities of life. Every time she watched that video something disturbing happened to her. She’d see the image of flames burning orange-red on the screen, and her heart would pound uncomfortably. Then the camera would swing down, focusing on Colin’s face...grim, angry, soot-covered. Alex would stare into the clear, startling blue of his eyes, and her heart would pound all the more, an unfamiliar anxiety washing over her.

It didn’t make any sense at all. Why would an image on a television screen affect her that way? Alex had learned that Colin belonged to an elite emergency services team in California, trained in mountain search-and-rescue, helicopter evac, earthquake relief—in short, just about any type of rescue required. She was convinced he’d give her study the spark of life it needed. Yet something warned her to stay away from him. Something dark and confusing, and almost frightening...

“What is it?” she whispered. “What’s wrong with me?”

She hated unanswered questions. Maybe that was why, at this very minute, she was on her way to find Colin McIntyre.

After turning down another street, she parked in front of a quaint old house built of honey-colored stone, with a green-shingle roof that looked like thatch in need of mowing. Alex got out of her car and went up the walk. Learning that Colin’s grandfather lived here hadn’t been all that difficult after Alex discovered the citizens of Sobriety liked to chat about one another. That was why it had been so easy to find Colin at Maggie’s Diner earlier today. Now she climbed the steps of the porch and lifted the old-fashioned brass knocker. After a moment the door swung open, and a shaggy white terrier came shooting out.

“Oh, hell,” said a gravelly voice from inside the house. “Grab him, will you? He knows I want to give him his medicine. Won’t let me near.”

An elderly man appeared at the door, and Alex obligingly scooped up the little dog. It squirmed in her arms but then peered at her curiously.

“Hey, you’re adorable, aren’t you?” she murmured.

“He already knows that,” said the man. “Makes him think he can get away with murder.”

Still cradling the dog, Alex examined the old man, who had shaggy white hair of his own. He was unmistakably Colin’s grandfather—the clear, intense blue eyes were exactly the same. So, too, was the straightforward, no-nonsense manner.

“Bring him along, will you. He answers to Dusty,” said Herb McIntyre, obviously not concemed about other introductions.

Alex followed him down a hall and into a spacious kitchen with porcelain sinks, checkerboard tile and an honest-to-goodness wood-burning stove.

“Sit down,” said Herb.

Alex sat the dog in her lap. Herb approached with a pill in hand. Dusty buried his head stubbornly.

“Maybe you should disguise the pill,” Alex said. “You know, hide it in some food.”

“Tried that,” said Herb. “Too smart—he knows. Just eats around it. Now, think you can hold his mouth open while I pop it in?”

“Well...” Alex began doubtfully.

And just then Colin McIntyre appeared. He was tall, as she’d thought, and seemed to fill the doorway. Right now he was gazing at her with something she could only call disfavor.

“So,” he said. “You and Herb have met.”

“Of course we have,” said the old man. “From the look of her, she’s that pretty psychologist Denise told me about, the one you had breakfast with this morning.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Colin told Alex, “news travels fast in Sobriety.”

She nodded, unable to say anything at the moment.

“Have to get this damn medicine down somehow,” Herb said. “Vet’s orders.”

“Maybe he just needs a little distraction,” Colin suggested.

He pulled up a chair next to Alex. Their knees brushed as he petted the little terrier. Odd that he had such powerfully built hands, yet they could be so gentle...