Free Fire and ice by Dana Stabenow

take a hike." He wiped a hand across his face and it came away wet, mostly from the rain. "I didn't have much left but the job, Wy. I took the transfer. I'll get back as often as I can."
    Her voice was a ghost of sound. "I'm sorry, Liam. I'm so sorry."
    "So am I."
    "Do you ever sometimes wonder ..."
    He looked at her. "If she won't come back because she knew about us?"
    It had been like that from the start, the instantaneous communication, the link between them, one beginning a sentence only to have the other finish it. "Yes," she whispered.
    "She didn't know," he said strongly, willing himself to believe it. "She didn't know; she never knew. We were always careful. No one knew."
    A stifled sob made him turn. A tear slid down her cheek. "It's the worst thing I've ever done in my life," she whispered. "Sleeping with you when I knew you were married."
    He couldn't answer, because he knew she was right. And besides, it was the worst thing he'd ever done, too. He thought of Jenny, laughing, loving Jenny with the light brown hair. She had deserved better.
    "I have to go," she said. "It's so late, there's --I have to--" She couldn't or wouldn't finish the thought.
    Again, he caught the pickup's door before it could close. "You have to come down tomorrow, and make out a statement."
    She stared at him, uncomprehending. "What?"
    "You were Bob DeCreft's pilot, Wy. He was your spotter. You would have all the opportunity in the world to sabotage your own plane. Shit, you're probably my prime suspect."
    Her voice distant, she said, "You think I killed him, then?"
    He wanted to slap the stony expression right off her face. "No," he said through his teeth, "no, I don't think you killed him. I don't think you've got it in you to kill anyone. But I still have to find out who did, and you're an eyewitness to some of his last moments alive."
    Her face relaxed. "All right. I'll come down in the morning."
    "You don't have to fly?" he said, in belated concern.
    "I don't know. I won't know until I check the schedule, see what Fish and Game has decided." She reached again for the ignition.
    "We're not done, Wy," he warned her.
    She stared out the windshield, delicate profile silhouetted against the merciless rays of the halogen light. "I know," she said finally.
    It was enough for now. He closed her door. She turned the keys, the engine rolled over, and she drove away.
    Liam, light-headed with a mixture of emotions he could neither separate nor quantify, was in the Blazer with his hand on the shift when he realized he had no place to sleep. Oh well, it wouldn't be the first time he'd slept in an office chair. Of course, first he'd have to find the post again before the sun came up.
    Sighing, he started the Blazer and put it into gear. As he started along the tarmac, tires hissing through the returning rain, a figure detached itself from the shadow of the terminal and moved down the runway toward the small plane tiedowns. Liam let up on the gas, watching. It was a hulking figure, ogre-like in shape and size, but that could have been the magnifying effect of the dim light. It was moving stealthily, ducking from shadow to shadow, working its way steadily forward.
    Liam gave the Blazer enough gas to keep moving, drove around the terminal out of sight and sound of the figure, parked, and hotfooted it to the other side. The figure had vanished into the gloom. Liam walked forward, threading his way between parked planes, ears pricked, eyes roving from side to side. The planes all looked alike to him so he tried not to look at them, tried instead to register what was out of place in his peripheral vision.
    He heard a sound like the ripping of fabric. He stopped, the better to hear it. It stopped, too. He waited. There it was again, and he walked toward it. It stopped again, and he stopped again. Footsteps then; careful, quiet footsteps, soles slapping gently against pavement, then crunching against gravel, then pavement again, then a repeat of the ripping