Page 85 of Into the Fire

“All true.”

“So put me back on the board.”

“No.”

We stared at each other.

“You believe me.”

“Yes.”

“You also believe somebody fucked with my chute.”

“I do.”

“Then put me back on the board.”

“No.”

I took a deep breath.

“Walk it through with me,” Boone said. “Somebody inside this fence opened a packed rig behind a locked door and closed it clean enough that four of us handled it the next morning and saw nothing. I don’t know who. I don’t know if they’re finished. Every piece of equipment you’d wear tomorrow has spent time in a building that a person can walk into with a reason. I’m not putting you in a door at three thousand feet wearing gear that’s been sitting within that person’s reach.”

It was a good argument. It was loving and rational, and I hated it.

“When do I jump again?” I asked.

“When we know who did this.”

“And if the deputy and the special agent and everybody else with initials after their name don’t find him this week? Next week? My appointment runs out in less than three weeks, Boone. Am I only safe enough to have my job back when I leave Silvertip?”

“You jump again when I know nobody on my base is trying to kill you.” His voice dropped. “I stood in that stubble and watched you spin, and there was nothing I could do but count. I’m not risking you that way again.”

There it was.

That way. Boone would send me toward a fire, but if the threat were human—

“Dante, there is a man inside this fence who opened your bag. I watched you fight that canopy to eleven hundred feet, doing everything right, and it almost wasn’t enough. I am not going to stand on that ramp and watch you climb into an airplane. I can’t.”

It was the whole truth. He wasn’t lying. He told me what it had cost him. I’d seen his face in the stubble, felt his hands bracketing my head while Hollis worked the helmet strap.

He was scared, and I loved him, and he’d taken the fear and made it a rotation decision.

“I know what today did to you,” I said. “I was there for what it did to me. And I’d still be on that board tomorrow if it were up to me. That’s the whole problem, Boone. It’s not up to me. The one thing Carson Ridge left me was knowing what I saw, and the one thing I got back this season was deciding what I do about it, and you just took the second one off a whiteboard in front of my crew.”

“To keep you alive.”

“I don’t need you in front, blocking for me. I need you beside me.”

Neither of us said anything for a while. The compressor kicked on behind the loft and ran and shut off.

“I’m going to Kessler,” I said. “Tonight. The motel.”

“You’re driving off this base alone with—”

“The motel in Kessler,” I said again, before it could become the next fight. “That’s the location. My phone’s on. If it rings, I’ll answer it. I’m back tomorrow, seven o’clock, same as any workday, because I still work here.” I wanted to kiss him, but I couldn’t. “I’m telling you where I’m going, Boone. Both of us know I’ve left this base one other time in my life. Notice the difference.”

“Dante.”