Quinn stayed at the lodge that night in her room, sitting on the bed, holding her, then lying down outside the covers so he didn’t have to let her go. Twice he had to put Spenser on her other side, so they didn’t press the little dog between them. Spenser seemed to be guarding her, too, as if he knew what his mistress had been through.
His mistress. Spenser’s mistress but she would promise again to be his wife as soon as she woke up and was herself. The local doctor had checked her out: dehydration, black and blue bruises, but no concussion.
She’d fallen asleep sitting up while Trooper Kurtz had questioned her, even when the BCI team member asked her about her kidnapping ordeal. The forensic team had gone to retrieve Lyle’s body and survey the scene. It was Quinn who had to tell them where to find the gun in the devil’s club.
Trooper Kurtz had told Quinn, “I’d thought at first Lyle Grayson might have murdered Valerie, but obviously no connection, and we verified he was cross country then.”
So no answer yet to that looming question. Ryker was still a person of interest, and Val’s murder cast a pall over many other people who had been around that day.
When Alex woke, it was still daylight—no, it was daylight again, for she had slept all night. The horror crashed back over her, but she was safe now. Lyle was dead.
Why had he been so sick to stalk her after she’d fled miles away? How did he find her? Someone must have tipped him off. Officer Kurtz didn’t know how, nor did the others at the lodge she had asked before she’d absolutely collapsed from exhaustion.
She squinted at the curtains over her bedroom window and heard Spenser yawn. A new day. A good, beautiful day. Back to normal life—a better one, one with Quinn. She’d hire Josh to get those marks off the outside of her room, then suggest he remove the claw marks by Sam and Mary’s woodpile, if they agreed. Or maybe, in case a person was arrested for Val’s murder, those marks would be needed for evidence.
She shifted her weight and realized she was sore all over. And then she felt a body much bigger than Spenser’s next to her. She opened her eyes a bit, then wider. Quinn! Quinn fully dressed, sprawled on her other side, asleep facing her. Oh, that’s right. He’d been with her when she’d finally gone to bed after all that questioning and more to come. More to come...
As if he sensed that she was awake, he opened one forest-green eye, then both.
“A new day, a new start,” he whispered.
She reached out to touch his cheek. At least two days of beard growth there. She knew he grew a trimmed beard in the winter. She’d seen it when she first looked at the lodge website, which seemed eons ago.
“I came back too fast to bring a ring,” he said. “How about we pick one out together, do a lot of things together—if you’ll say yes.”
“Yes. Absolutely, positively yes.”
His eyes shimmered with tears. “I don’t mind sharing you with Spenser, though I suggest we change his last name from Collister to Mantell soon.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, and lifted her hand to his, palm to palm. Their fingers touched, then intertwined, holding firm and strong.
One month later
Their engagement party on the patio of the lodge reminded Alex of the gathering she’d walked in on the day she’d arrived. Again, Geoff and Ginger were here from New York as well as Brent. The two men kept talking, probably hatching, Quinn had said, trends for the Q-Man show. Also, Trooper Jim Kurtz and his wife, Janice, were here, though Jim looked so different in casual clothes.
It was a salmon bake again, though the fish were not fresh out of a stream but had been frozen since the season was over. Another season, a special one for her and Quinn, had just begun.
On a table separate from the food, Alex had set out little sacks with gifts from her renovated products line. The new art on the packaging Suze had created had pretty forest and wildflower labels.
Spenser was on a spiffy new leash—red, no less—and was getting used to the bungalow in town they would close a deal on next week. The absentee owner, a friend of Quinn’s, had already let them come and go anytime to renovate and furnish the place. Her furniture and other possessions were being shipped from Illinois. With Suze and Meg’s help they had been painting the rooms.
“Oh, this little bedroom will be good for a nursery!” Mary had said when she had dropped by. “Maybe we will raise children together.”
“You know,” Alex had confided in her, “you are not the only one haunted by past family losses. I lost my twin sister before we were born, and I sometimes believe she is still with me, but in a good way.”
“A good way,” Mary had repeated. “That’s how I will remember my lost family now, too.”
Mary waved and smiled at her across the mingling guests. Proudly showing a bit of a belly, she was helping Suze and Meg serve salmon sliders and a variety of side dishes. Quinn and Alex thought her weekly psychiatric counseling sessions in Anchorage were really helping her.
As for the Falls Lake ghost, Mary had admitted she had sneaked out to cry and mourn at night, hoping to honor her lost grandparents and praying for a child. Hearing that, Sam had smiled and said, “Was it a prayer to have a son?”
“It might be a girl!” Mary had protested. “One I will name after my beloved grandmother.”
Sam had also confessed to them and Trooper Kurtz that he had been the one to take and hide Mary’s bear claw necklace so that it could not possibly be lost when it was taken to Anchorage to be examined. He was certain, he said, Mary had not harmed Val. The necklace had been examined and given back to her when the claws did not match the marks on Val. Since it had been his wife’s property, no charges had been brought against Sam.
Alex noted that Sam and Josh seemed especially close tonight. No doubt it had been hard for Josh to have Mary choose Sam instead of him when they were younger, but both brothers seemed finally reconciled to that. Everyone was glad to see Josh had brought a date from town tonight, a redheaded waitress from Caribou Bill’s.
Chip was everywhere, still toting his dad’s binoculars, which Meg felt comforted him. The boy looked up at all kinds of planes that flew over, so he did not fixate so much on just one. Surely her dear boy would work his way out of his problems, she’d told Alex and Quinn.
Geoff had managed to patch things up—producer to producer, he’d said—with Gab Fest, and Quinn was being rebooked on the show next week when he and Alex flew to see his mother and her husband, then on to London to visit her parents.
Geoff had insisted on a round of champagne, which he’d arrived with, and his voice cut through the chatter.
“All right, everyone. Raise your glasses. Here’s to our future bride and groom, from all their friends and family!” He lifted his goblet high, and they all—except Chip and Spenser—did, too. “Although the Q-Man TV show will reach out mostly to men, we’re going to have Alex and Mary on it to emphasize that women can be wilderness trackers, too.”
“And anything else they put their minds and talents to,” Ginger chimed in.
“Ah—exactly. That will bring up our viewer numbers with the female demographic.”
Brent shook his head, but Quinn grinned as everyone lifted their glasses and offered best wishes. Alex saw Meg grab a glass out of Chip’s hand he must have snatched from the table.
Spenser barked. Alex and Quinn kissed to cheers and applause. She had never been happier. After all they’d been through, surely they would have smooth sailing ahead.
Everyone went back to eating and chatting. Meg disappeared into the lodge and returned, trailing the local postal carrier, who covered a huge area around the town. Meg gestured to Quinn and Alex, and they went over.
“Certified letter for you, Quinn,” the man said, handing it over along with Quinn’s usual stack of mail. “You got to sign for it.”
He thrust out a form on a clipboard, and Quinn signed.
“Best to you and the new missus,” the man said, evidently thinking this was a wedding party.
“Help yourself to some food before you go, Larry,” Quinn told him.
“Well, don’t mind if I do,” he said, and moved away.
Quinn stared down at the letter with its handwritten address partly obscured by the green form attached to it. He frowned.
“Not just fan mail?” Alex asked.
“I think it’s from Valerie Chambers’s sister. Remember, Val said she lives in Mission Viejo, California, and has the same last name. See—Mission Viejo and Melanie Chambers,” he said, showing her as if she wouldn’t believe it.
“My address is on my website, though most people write through email. I hate to duck out of our party,” he said, “but let’s step inside for a sec and read this.”
They went into the common room, sat on a long couch and huddled over the letter as he opened it. “Yes, Valerie’s sister, thanking the people who knew Val—not including Ryker, she says.”
“Maybe she suspects him of killing her.”
He nodded and went on, “She appreciates Val’s friends here who may have helped her,” he summarized as she saw him skim the letter. Another piece of paper, different from the letter, fell out on Quinn’s knee and Alex retrieved it.
“She thought we should have this primitive drawing Val did,” he went on reading, “because maybe it means something to someone there—kind of strange, and she can’t tell what it is, she says.”
Alex opened it carefully and smoothed it flat on her knee. It was small and crisscrossed with creases. She bent over it, then sat straight up. “What?” Quinn asked as he moved closer to study it.
“It’s a sketch of the bear claw carving outside my bedroom window—like the one outside Sam and Mary’s. But why would Val’s sister in California have this? Val must have sent it to her, but why? And why is it so...scrunched up?”
He turned back to the letter. “Near the bottom, she writes that she’s sorry the paper’s a mess, but she found it hidden beneath the lining of Val’s purse, which was returned to her with her other things. Just wait,” he muttered, frowning, “until I tell the troopers their forensic team missed this when they emptied her purse.”
“So could Val have copied the design from this to carve it outside my window and on Sam and Mary’s house? But I can’t see her trekking around to do that—and then she ends up with something similar scratched on her body. I don’t get it. But look, there’s some really tiny writing scribbled next to some of the marks.”
He took it from her and held it up to the window light. “I think it says, Worth it! Then $50,000 and LA here we come!”
“Let me see,” she said, crowding close to him. “You’re right—and over on these other claw designs something else. Is that...a phone number? And there’s another sentence here—I think it says ‘Use only b. paw Br bought in NYC, not Ry’s—then give back.’ Quinn, I’m not sure, but do you know what that could mean?”
He kept squinting at it. “We have to be sure. Have you seen a magnifying glass around here?”
“I think Suze might have one in the junk drawer.”
She got up and went into the kitchen, which was in some disarray as a storage and serving place for the food outside. She checked some drawers but found no magnifying glass. She’d have to ask Suze, but they needed to return to their guests. She heard Quinn come in behind her. “I can’t find it, but maybe we found the murderer.”
“It can’t be him. Too long distance. Too far out in other ways.”
As if their fears had summoned him, she spun around to see Brent standing alone in the doorway. Starting to tremble, she told him, “We’re coming right back out.”
“Someone overheard you received something from poor Val’s sister,” he said. “A bear claw drawing and what else?”
The reality of her fears hit her like a punch in the stomach. “Oh, just a thank-you for our finding and caring for her body before the troopers and squad could get here.”
“I see.”
“And I see, too,” Quinn said. “I just managed to pick out a New York area code and phone number I recognized on Val’s drawing of bear claw designs. I’ll check it on my phone to be sure it’s yours, Brent, but she also had a large sum of money listed alongside the words worth it.”
“She asked me for my number in case she ever needed a lawyer for Ryker, since he was acting erratically. She was afraid he might try to dump her one way or the other. I still believe he’s the one who killed her.”
“Really?” Quinn said. “I can’t picture her making the bear claw marks in the dark and walking the woods at night, but if she had a diagram to follow and had been promised a large sum of money—and a job for Ryker in LA, that might have been enough to make her do it.”
Brent was facing Quinn, but Alex could see the older man tensing his body, as if he would run. He flexed his fists while Quinn didn’t move from blocking the door. She prayed he didn’t have a gun. Quietly, carefully, Alex opened the drawer again where she’d seen a rolling pin.
Quinn said, “Trooper Kurtz isn’t in uniform, but let’s get him in here and in on this.”
“And ruin the festivities?” Brent demanded, his voice rising. “I think you both had better get back out there.”
Alex felt they knew the truth now. Brent Bayer had not wanted to get his hands dirty or possibly get caught for making the bear claw threats, so he’d bribed Val to carve the claw marks, promised her money and a job in LA for Ryker. Then something had gone awry—she wanted more, she threatened to tell, something. Or she just wanted to give the bear claw back which he’d brought from New York so it couldn’t be traced here.
But when he saw he’d misjudged, Brent had either not been willing to lose the series videographer, or he just wanted to be rid of Val—and scare Alex away from Quinn with marks outside her bedroom at the lodge. Then to make it possibly seem like a ghostly curse, he’d decided to have Val do the same to the wall outside Sam and Mary’s place. Maybe in Brent’s mind they were expendable for the series, too, so he could isolate and control Q-Man.
Quinn said, “You were wrong, Brent, about not featuring women on the show or building an audience for them. But you wanted to draw more viewers in by exploiting the ghost angle. I think you and I need to sit down right now with Geoff and Trooper Kurtz to hash this out—”
Brent ducked and tried to lunge past him. Quinn went off balance, reached out to snag his arm, to stop him, but the man vaulted through the door and ran across the common room toward the front of the lodge. No wonder he’d driven his own rental car from the airport for once and parked it right outside.
Quinn was right behind him, with Alex leading up the rear, rolling pin in hand. Suddenly, Kurtz arrived, too. “What’s going on in here?”
“Brent bribed Val to do his dirty work, then she rebelled or wanted more money, threatened to expose him,” Alex said. “You killed her, didn’t you?” she shouted at Brent, throwing the wooden rolling pin at him as he reached the front door with Quinn in pursuit.
The rolling pin bounced off Brent’s shoulder. Quinn grabbed him, swung him around. Kurtz helped Quinn subdue the struggling man, who shocked them all by bursting into tears.
“She had it coming!” Brent exploded. “Can’t trust women at all, any of them! You’ll learn that, Quinn—they’ll screw things up one way or the other. This messed-up world is letting women take over! Glad I tracked down Alex’s jilted fiancé. I understood the poor guy she’d deserted...made him an offer, too, but of course she ruined things again!”
“You can make any statement you want after I read you your rights,” the trooper told him.
Alex realized the pieces all fit now, broken and awful as they might be. She bet Val with her big purse and Brent with his backpack had met just outside Quinn’s property to exchange money—or a bear paw. Maybe she’d asked for more, maybe she’d said she’d talk—and he’d killed her and scratched her up, thinking a bear would be blamed.
She scrambled for a clothesline rope so Kurtz and Quinn could tie up Val’s briber, hater and killer, the man who had betrayed Alex to Lyle so she was almost murdered, too. A powerful, bitter man who hated women because a woman—maybe more than one—had hurt him.
When she got back with the rope, Quinn pressed Brent to the floor, and they tied him, then the trooper used his cell to call for backup. “Yes, murder suspect, under arrest...” was all she heard as she and Quinn moved away. “I’m going to read him his rights now,” she heard Kurtz say into the phone. Brent kept glaring at her and Quinn, standing arm in arm.
She knew then the best, maybe the only, thing she could do to help punish Brent for killing Val and siccing Lyle on her—besides testifying at his murder trial someday—was to let him see how much she loved Quinn. She recalled Quinn had said that Brent’s wife had betrayed and left him. Was that the cause of all his bitterness toward women?
She wrapped her arms around Quinn’s neck and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
“Hold that kiss!” Ginger said, suddenly appearing. Geoff trailed behind along with Sam and Mary. Gasps and questions followed when they saw, across the room, Brent tied on the floor.
Hadn’t Ginger and Geoff’s marriage—Sam and Mary’s, too—shown Brent that there were love matches that lasted through tough times? But maybe that had made him even more bitter.
Quinn kissed Alex again and tugged her away, gesturing to the curious onlookers to go back outside, too, that he’d explain everything soon.
Suddenly her pounding pulse began to slow. She felt peace and happiness surround her as Quinn’s arm encircled her and steered her outside, away from the noise and questions. Despite the chilly night, she and Quinn went out on the back patio where they had first met and held tight to each other.
“Sad someone could be so sick and hateful—at women in general,” she whispered, cuddled close with her head tucked under his chin. “I’m sure the world’s recent strides toward women’s equality made him more desperate.”
“I don’t feel desperate anymore—except to marry you. I’m more than willing to let you take over my world.”
“And the same to you, my love.”
She lifted her face for a kiss. Overhead, stars glittered in the sky to match the diamond on her finger. Despite past dangers, deep woods and the desperation of sad, broken people, with her hand now in Quinn’s, she was safe at home.
If you enjoyed this story, don’t miss the next book in
Karen Harper’s Alaska Wild series,
Under the Alaskan Ice.
Coming soon from MIRA Books.
Keep reading for a sneak peek!