When they got back to the compound, Trooper Kurtz pointed Quinn toward the murder site, so Alex assumed the forensic team was here. In a way, they had been practicing forest forensics out here today. The idea of search and rescue Quinn had just lectured about in the woods could even include tracking a criminal.
The two men began to whisper to each other while she waited for Quinn. He nodded, then shrugged, shaking hands with the trooper as students streamed past into the dining hall. Then Quinn headed straight for her.
“The forensic team is going to work straight through, even if it gets dark,” he explained. “So we’re not to worry if we see lights anywhere out there tonight. They’re from Alaska BCI, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Anchorage, and they have a tight schedule. The troopers are still keeping the media out. But once the forensic team is gone, the troopers will have to open up the area.”
“Too bad,” she said. “I kind of liked the peace and quiet—no shouted questions. Quinn, I know you’re really upset about the necklace but can’t you phone Sam and Mary and just ask them if they took it back?”
“I think they would have let me know. And I don’t believe he would have let Mary out of his sight right then so she’d have time to sneak in and take it. The door was locked, but my staff—all but Ryker—have a key. Besides, Sam and Mary have enough on their minds without him telling her it’s missing and her freaking out even more. Let’s go back with the students. As for Val’s death, I’m still hoping something turns up in the autopsy report.”
As the two of them hurried toward the dining hall, he added, “After everyone takes a rest break, I’m going to talk about forest therapy and forest bathing.”
“Really? I read your topics of study and activities online and I saw nothing about either of those.”
“After dinner just take a seat in the dining hall, Queen Alexandra. Forest therapy is of current interest, something I’ve had questions on before. As for bathing, we’ll worry about that later.”
With Spenser asleep in her lap, Alex sat listening raptly, as did most of the others, as Quinn talked from the heart about how much the wilderness meant to him, how in a way it was a family heritage of love. Not just preserving nature, but allowing it to be therapy for the body, mind and soul. Nothing was new age about it, he stressed, only common sense.
She thought again of Thoreau’s quote that he went to the woods because he wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life—and didn’t that include love? To her amazement, Quinn quoted part of that, speaking for himself but citing the author. Had he read her thoughts? It terrified her that they could be that in touch with each other—without touching.
As he recited the quote, his voice was quiet, almost raspy at the end, and she saw him blink back tears. No doubt, he was thinking of his father, too, who loved the woods, who was attacked there...when it came time to die...
Poor Val had died in the forest, too, evidently by a human hand, someone she might have known, someone who could even strike again.
When Quinn finished and stood silent before them, some students began to clap. Herman stepped even closer with his camera, maybe zooming in on Quinn’s face. Slowly, a few, then the rest of the class, stood to give their leader and teacher—their Q-Man—a standing ovation. Alex cried, not only at the power of that Thoreau quote, but because she had reminded him of it.
And tears burned her eyes, because she could fully admit something to herself: though she’d been in this special place such a short time, it was long enough to bond with a place, the people...and one special man.
“So, about forest therapy—being outside among the trees can renew and relax you,” Quinn was saying with a gesture for them to sit down. “It’s not hocus-pocus. It’s rooted in the Japanese belief in Shinrin-yoku, which more or less means ‘forest bathing.’ Just like here, you can take other classes with trained guides to understand it more. The forest bathing idea suggests you should immerse yourself in the sights, sounds and smells of the woods, to relax, to get in touch with your deepest self.”
She saw Herman still had his camera running. She heard a gentle whir from it as he walked behind her, then tilted it this way. Oh, no! Maybe she’d been so relaxed, so at home here, that she’d forgotten to keep out of his shot. Mostly, he’d had the lens trained on Quinn. She’d have to remind him to review it to ensure she wasn’t in the final cuts.
“So, maybe it’s time,” Quinn was saying as she hurried toward the back of the room to at least now get out of camera range, “for everyone to hit the showers—another kind of forest bathing—after our trek today. Tomorrow covers wild animal tracking, nine a.m. sharp, hopefully with no wild animals in sight. After that final lesson and another dose of forest therapy for everyone, we’ll be saying goodbye. Hard to believe the week is almost over. Thanks for your patience with the tragedy that occurred here this week. I’m not sure if I’ll have any news from the police and forensics before they leave, but I’m sure the media will be reporting soon, anyway. See you tomorrow morning!”
Alex stood in the rear, rocking a contented Spenser like a baby, as people talked and filed out. Her little dog had been so glad to see her and had behaved very well this evening, fussed over by most of the students before he fell asleep. So many wanted to know how he’d lost an eye, and she’d told them she didn’t know but that his first owner had abused him. One person had said, “There’s so much we don’t know, right? Like even here—life and death, the past, present, especially the future.”
Quinn spent another half hour answering individual questions until the students were gone. Several times, she could tell, he looked to be sure she was still there, waiting for him.
It was nearly dark outside when they headed toward his house. She noted the back door to the compound was not only still unlocked but ajar. Even though the forensic team were in the sunken area when Val had been found, their lights caught in the trees above and made a faint halo in the dark night.
“Trooper Kurtz is going to stay out there with them,” Quinn told her, seeing where she was looking. “And one of the new troopers is out in front, one by that back compound door. Let’s see if we can relax a bit, wait to learn what they can tell us—if they tell us anything. By the way, Josh is staying in the compound tonight, bedding down at Sam and Mary’s.”
“Quinn, he said he saw and knew that Val played fast and loose in town, apparently when Ryker wasn’t around. So that could mean she knew other guys who could have been upset with her for flirting or worse, or her sharp put-downs and—”
“Yeah. But I just don’t think Ryker would snap to the point that he would hurt her. He could have gotten rid of her by just insisting she leave, that it was over. He’s not an idiot, though he’s acted like it, keeping her around so long.”
He unlocked his front door. She knew he regretted having to do that in his little Eden that had now been invaded by a serpent. He’d said no one locked anything around here, but now things were different.
And with the two of them alone in his house, but for Spenser—well, that was different, too.
Quinn boiled a huge kettle of water for Alex to use for a sponge bath, while he waited to get into the bathroom for his usual quick, cold shower. When he really wanted a hot shower, he drove over to the lodge, but that must be crawling with those media hawks now.
He realized this house was not anything that would attract most women, probably not even Alex for very long as adaptive and receptive as she’d seemed about this lifestyle so far. He wondered if that bungalow in town that had caught his eye was still on the market. In its neighborhood, it was almost a palace.
But Alex had mentioned once that she’d fallen for her fiancé’s lifestyle and lovely home, so had she changed enough to live like he did here? Granted, she could go with him every other month to New York City for a few days, but wouldn’t that trip make all this look even worse by comparison? Of course Brent had put his two cents in on that, suggesting she’d be homesick for city life. Val she was not, but that still worried him.
He and Alex had only known each other just over half a month, so was he an idiot to want her that fast, to fall that hard? They’d had nothing but problems together, but here she was in his home and he was scared that he needed her and wanted her so bad—because he had no idea if she’d stay. And unlike some quick-hit and quick-release guys he knew, he didn’t intend to share himself with a train-passing-in-the-night kind of woman.
They met in the kitchen where she had opened a can of minestrone soup and was heating it on the stove. They’d been so busy serving everyone a dinner they hadn’t taken time to eat. She’d also pulled some things out of the fridge and cupboards: bread, peanut butter and jelly. It was hardly what he’d love to wine and dine her with whether in Anchorage, New York or the ends of the earth if she’d just let him.
“Thanks, sweetheart, but I could have fixed stuff for you,” he told her.
“You’re hungry, and I am, too.”
“That’s the truth,” he said, steeling himself from putting his arms around her or kissing the nape of her neck as she bent over. He was hungry, not just for food, but the timing could not be worse. A murder nearly on his property, his team temporarily disbanded, maybe under suspicion, and he was desperate to try to woo and win a woman in the wilds? Nuts. Stupid. And suddenly of the utmost importance in his life.
They ate side by side, talking about the day, about what they might learn tonight before the forensic team left. He’d just added some store-bought cookies and ice cream to their meal when he heard a knock on the front door.
He went to unlock it. Trooper Kurtz stood there with three men. “They have permission to take both of your prints in your office,” Kurtz told Quinn as Alex came to stand behind him. “I know the drawer where the necklace was and the office layout, so I’ll go with them, show them.”
“I understand. All right,” Quinn said.
“And they’ll need your prints and Ms. Collister’s, anyone else’s who might have had access.”
“As you know, Mary and Sam are in Anchorage. I can call Sam early tomorrow, have them stop by for prints or at least tell you where to find them. Another guest who stayed here last night should be landing at JFK Airport in New York soon, but Josh, who works on-site, is in Mary and Sam’s house tonight. I don’t know how he’ll feel about getting printed.”
“He works for you, he was on-site for the murder—he’ll have to play ball,” Kurtz said.
They sat down in the kitchen again to eat their cookies and melting ice cream. In fifteen minutes the forensic people were back. Quinn knew fingerprints weren’t taken with smeared ink anymore, but he wasn’t sure how the current system worked. He soon saw they needed to just press one of their fingers on a silicon reader for a scan, which then displayed all sorts of digital information.
“The back door that leads from the compound to the forest is padlocked,” Kurtz told them as they prepared to head for Sam’s house to take Josh’s prints. “The other two troopers will stay here tonight and take down all barrier tape in the morning before they head back, but I’m going to ride to Anchorage with these BCI guys.”
“Oh, sure,” Quinn said, actually wishing he wouldn’t go, as he’d become a sort of security blanket here. Now, it was all on him, including taking care of Alex, and he planned to do just that.