Claire headed for the door, talking over her shoulder as she went. “You’re not the type to make eyes at one guy while being intimate with another, and Nitro will figure that out. Eventually. Until then, you might consider smiling less at Hotwire.”
Claire might have a point. Daniel had reacted with unexpected insecurity toward Josie’s friendship with Hotwire. It was probably one of those guy things she didn’t get. She might have spent most of her life surrounded by men, but she didn’t pretend to understand how they related to the women in their lives. It hadn’t been part of their soldier training, and her father had never had a girlfriend around.
She didn’t know how long she had been reading when the sound of slamming car doors caught her attention. Her mind more on what she’d been reading than what she was seeing, she looked out through the sheers covering the big picture window in her living room. It took a second for her unfocused brain to interpret what her eyes were telling her.
A news van and two cars were parked in front of her house. A woman had gotten out of the van, and the driver came around to open the back panel doors. The occupants of the cars got out, too. A couple of them had cameras. One was carrying a tape recorder with a microphone.
She scanned the scene, trying to make sense of it, and saw Claire approaching at a sprint, running in a direct line to the house across the grass. She didn’t slow as she crossed the street either. One of the men from the cars tried to stop her, but she brushed him aside and ran straight to the door. Josie rushed to open it and let her in.
“Claire?”
“There are more of them.” She bent over and panted, her hands on her thighs. “I was across the park, and I saw two more news vans headed this way.” She sucked in air and tried to catch her breath. “I was listening to the radio while I was running. It’s all over the news.”
“What’s all over the news?”
“The explosion at your dad’s compound.”
“For heaven’s sake, why?”
“They’re saying it was done by ecoterrorists. The FBI is involved as well as the State Police and National Forest Service.” She straightened, still breathing hard, which showed how fast she’d been running because Claire was in good shape. “It’s that Homeland Security Act thing. All the federal agencies are in an uproar, and the media is already speculating on who might be responsible for the destruction of the compound.”
The doorbell rang. Josie and Claire both turned to stare at the door as if it would spontaneously combust any second.
“Ms. McCall? This is Alison Spencer from KYTO News. I’d like you to answer a few questions.”
Claire sprang forward and pushed the door lock, then twisted the deadbolt into place with an audible click.
Someone started pounding on the window. Josie couldn’t believe it, but several reporters were trying to peer in through the sheers, and one had a camera up to the window. The utter audacity of the action astounded her. The doorbell rang again, and Josie gave up shock for anger.
She headed to the door, ready to blast the reporters and throw a few people off of her property, when her tank top was grabbed from behind. She was pulled up like a dog on a short leash.
“Hold on, sweetheart.”
Someone knocked on the door while the doorbell rang again.
She glared over her shoulder at Daniel. “Let me go. I’m going to tell them to get lost.”
“You’re not opening that door.” His voice held the implacability of command.
He was not the officer in charge on this mission, and she was more than ready to set him straight. “I’m not?” she asked with interest and no small amount of fury.
“No.”
“We don’t know who all is out that door,” Hotwire drawled in a more placating tone, but with no less firmness.
She turned her defiant stare on him. “A bunch of reporters who have no respect for my privacy, that’s who.”
“Maybe, and maybe one or two of them are involved with the guys who blew up your dad’s compound.”
Daniel hadn’t let go of her shirt yet and actually started reeling her in. “Opening the door and letting you stomp outside in a rage is too risky.” He pulled her around to face him. “We don’t know if the enemy wants to get rid of you and whatever you might know permanently.”
“Like they tried to with Dad?” she sneered. “We McCalls aren’t that easy to kill.”
His mouth quirked as if he enjoyed her feistiness. “I’m glad, Josette, but I’m not letting you risk it.”
“Letting? You’re not going to let me go outside? You’re not going to let me risk it?” she asked, transferring her outrage at the rudeness of the reporters to his autocratic behavior. “Who signed the order papers to make you Major General?”
“Josie, he’s right,” Claire said for the second time in two days, earning a frown from Josie. “Even if ecoterrorists weren’t involved, you can bet they’ll be trying to get some media coverage out of this. You don’t want to become one of their targets either. I read this article on the Internet and—”
“Ms. McCall, we know you’re in there. You owe it to the public to answer a few questions,” a strident voice shouted from outside, interrupting Claire midspate.
“Ms. McCall, can you confirm your father received threats from the Earth Liberation Front before his death?”
She felt the color leach from her face as an appalling thought assailed her. What if they had been looking at this whole thing from the wrong angle—she, Daniel, Hotwire and Claire? What if ecoterrorists were angry about her father’s school in the middle of national forest lands, angry enough to do something about its existence?
They’d considered and dismissed the possibility the attack had been spurred by antiwar activists, but had not even given first thought to it being ELF sympathizers.
Privately held property was always at risk, and her dad had been forced to clear old growth timber to establish the compound before the timber controversy had become such a big deal. Only that had been so long ago.
“Josette, if it were ecoterrorists, why break in to your house and steal the school’s records? It’s possible the real culprits tipped off the press to throw up a smokescreen, but my gut tells me that the people trying to kill your dad aren’t doing it because of his views on the environment.”
She looked up at Daniel, feeling disoriented by how closely his thoughts ran parallel to hers. “Are you reading my mind?”
“Maybe I just know how you think.” He massaged her shoulders, his eyes warm on her in a way that made her feel very special.
Which did not mean she was going to let him give her commands like a raw recruit, but it was possible he’d been right about not going outside just yet.
“It takes a soldier to know a soldier,” Hotwire said, his voice laced with amusement.
“That’s all well and good, but what are we going to do about the zoo in our front yard?” Claire asked acerbically.
Josie’s mouth set with resolve. “We can call the police.”
“Do you think that will do any good?” Claire asked. “There’s the whole freedom of the press issue.”
“It will get them out of my yard. If they want to stand yelling on the sidewalk, that’s their business, but I don’t have to listen to it through my front door.”
Daniel leaned down and kissed her right on the lips, shocking her thoughts right out of her head. “Don’t do anything yet. Let me and Hotwire go around from the back and scope out the scene. I want to see if any of the reporters are acting like maybe they aren’t reporters.”
“How would you tell?” Claire asked while Josie’s brain was still adjusting to Daniel’s public display of affection.
Daniel turned to her. “They messed up breaking in here by not taking the CDs and DVDs. Unless they make better reporters than fake thieves, they’ll give themselves away somehow.”