Burn Season novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Behind Her Back
Walker's POV
The rookie was waiting at the helipad with his phone in his fist and a pale, sleepless face.
Moss had radioed ahead from the air.
"I made a copy last night," the rookie said. "Two. In case."
"Send me one."
"Mr. Dunleavy, Rory said not yet."
"I know what she said."
He sent it.
My phone buzzed against my leg, and I stood on the concrete in the morning wind and knew exactly what I was doing.
Rory had told me, three years ago, in the first week we lived together, that she hated being handled.
She had said she'd rather be told a hard thing and left to carry it than be protected from it by someone smiling.
I had said okay.
I walked across the base to the manager's office with the clip in my pocket and my ankle screaming, and I did not turn around.
He sat behind a steel desk with a mug and a stack of fire reports, and he looked up with no surprise at all.
"Dunleavy. Shut the door."
I shut it.
"I've been expecting someone," he said. "I thought it would be MacLaren."
"It's me."
"Sit."
"I'll stand."
"You're limping. Sit."
I sat.
He turned his screen a few degrees toward me.
"The Fairbanks program officer sent me something on Wednesday night," he said. "An email she'd gotten from our squad leader. She asked whether I had any comment on a jumper who froze on a fireline."
"Rory didn't freeze."
"I know that. I was on the net when she called the north flank." He rubbed his eyes. "What I don't know is why a squad leader would write to Alaska about a woman she just publicly called a friend."
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