Framed in Fire
(eBook)

Nominated for a 2023 Lefty Award An April 2022 Loan Stars Top 10 A shallow grave, a missing person, and near-fatal arson keep Lane, Darling, and the Nelson police on high alert in the latest mystery in this Globe and Mail bestselling series. It's early spring 1948 and Lane arrives in New Denver to find that her friend, Peter Barisoff, is not at home. Instead, in a nearby meadow, she encounters Tom, an Indigenous man in search of his ancestral lands. Lane is intrigued. Unfortunately, once Peter returns home, the day takes a gloomy turn when the trio uncovers human remains next to Peter's garden, and Lane must tell her husband, Inspector Darling, that she's inadvertently stumbled into his professional domain-again. Back in Nelson, the Vitalis, Lane and Darling's favourite restaurateurs, are victims of arson. Constable Terrell's investigation suggests prejudice as a motive, and the case quickly escalates, as the Vitalis receive increasingly threatening notes of warning. Meanwhile, Sergeant Ames works a robbery while alienating Tina Van Eyck in his personal time, and a swirling rumour sets the entire station on edge and prompts an RCMP investigation into Darling's integrity. Amid the local bustle series readers have come to love, Framed in Fire is bound up in difficult questions of community and belonging, and the knowledge that trusted neighbours can sometimes be as sinister as a stranger in the dark. PROLOGUE The man stopped the car. He got out and, standing for a moment, gazed along the edge of the forest. The evening was almost golden, the way the clouds filtered the setting sun. Even the air, with the March chill closing in, felt fresh, just as he loved it. There was another car nearby, its hood shining in the sun. Someone fishing, no doubt. He could hear the creek cascading over the rocks toward the lake. He went along the path he knew so well. Approaching the cottage, he didn't think about what he would say. He pushed open the small gate and walked up the two steps to the door. A crow called out from somewhere in the forest, its voice rising over the sound of water. He listened to that call-gravelly and dark, the way crows are-and smiled. He did not think it a warning. He turned and rested his hand on the doorknob. There was a male voice, and the door was thrown open. A tall man filled the doorway. "What do you want?" The voice low and furious, the "you" emphasized, as if the man had warned him off before. And then the man in the doorway turned his head slightly without removing his eyes from the man on the step and called out, "Get me that rifle." The surprised man put up his hands, chest high, palms outward. A gesture of calm. He wanted to say, "Take it easy," but the rifle was pointed now. What the hell was this? He stepped backward down the steps, his hands still up, in an attempt to calm. "No need for that," he managed. He heard a scream, and a shot exploded into the silence. The crows flew up out of the tender trees that grew in a circle near the cottage and raised their voices in anger and fear. CHAPTER ONE March 1948 Lane was jolted awake in terror, her body seized by the certainty of death. She found herself sitting up, gasping in great draughts of air, her heart pounding in the dark. Her eyes focused on the faint drift of the curtains, lifted by a gust of cold air coming in through the open window. It was an ordinary movement. She was not dying. But she still felt herself taking in air as if she had somehow stopped breathing in her sleep. Darling was, amazingly, still asleep beside her, lying on his side so that his back was to her. How had he not heard the commotion of her gasping? She was grateful he hadn't. She swung her legs off the bed and reached for her dressing gown, slipping it on as she crept out of the room. Once in the hallway, she could see the cold stretches of light from the full moon comi