Alex trembled as she approached the murder site again, even though the troopers and two EMTs carrying the gurney and tarp were with her. She completely understood why Quinn had refused to leave Val’s body. The murderer could have returned or someone might tamper with evidence.
Surely Val could have made the same descent down the crooked path they took now, but had she been killed here? Or thrown from above—or even hiked in from the compound, since the stream flowed from near there to Falls Lake?
The two EMTs stayed back as the troopers split up, each going around a different way to converge at the body. They bent over it—her. Quinn put an arm around Alex’s shoulders. Muted daylight flickered as the tree branches shifted and the stream seemed to scold.
Trooper Hanson said, “Looks like a bear attack to me, but an autopsy will be the last word. You say that wasn’t the cause of death, Quinn, I believe you.”
They came back the long way around again. Quinn removed his arm from her.
“Ms. Collister,” Trooper Kurtz said, taking out a small notebook, “I’m sure you’re pretty shaky, but let me take a few notes of what you recall seeing when you first found her. You were looking for someone else?”
She explained about Sam looking for Mary, who was pregnant and feeling ill. “So I had just seen where Mary went—I thought so, anyway. Of course, she could have cut off, back to camp toward their house where she is now and not come clear out here at all.”
“Please just stick to what happened,” the trooper said.
“Oh, right. I thought I heard a voice, but I guess it could have been the stream—like a murmur.”
She realized she had just given an opinion again, but this all seemed so unreal. “So I hurried closer to this outcrop and came farther and looked down to the stream. I could only see her legs and feet, or I would have seen that—that she was blond and not reddish-haired, but her head was back and drooped down and foliage partly obscured my view.”
She knew she was nervous. Was she babbling?
“I guess I called out Mary’s name again,” she went on, “then knew I had to go down to the stream on that path we just took. I ran to her—and saw it was Val—and those horrible bear claw scratches, at least that’s what I thought they were.” She darted a look at Quinn. She wanted to throw herself in his arms, to have him hold her. “I didn’t see her bag then, but Quinn did—later. Of course, a bear wouldn’t take it.”
She continued. “I—I was horrified, but thought about the scratch marks outside my room at the lodge, too. Oh, sorry, I know you’re not asking about that.”
“Marks like that?” Trooper Kurtz asked. He stopped writing and looked at Quinn.
He nodded and said, “Back at camp, I have photos Alex took, and printed for me at my request. I saw that scene, too, but it was at night, and the tracks were too scuffed to ID or follow—and here, with the stream and the stone...”
“Right. Ms. Collister, we’ll talk to you more about the victim back at Quinn’s camp where we will question everyone else, so you’re dismissed right now. Quinn, you’ve never been on the payroll but volunteered on our searches, and that makes you semiofficial, so hang around a bit, okay? We’ll have you examine the area with us a little more, then we’ll let the victim’s fiancé see her before we take the body and—”
“They weren’t engaged,” Quinn said. “They were together, but not engaged.”
“I see,” Trooper Hanson said, as if he really saw a possible problem there. Wait until he learned, Alex thought, that Ryker and Val had just argued. But for that matter, wait until he heard that not many people here liked Val or wanted her around at all. Her stomach cramped. She would hate for Mary or Sam—even Josh—to be suspected.
“Before I help you case the area,” Quinn said, “let me get Alex back to the camp to wait in my office until we’re done here, or she’ll be besieged by the students, and she doesn’t need that right now. I’m the one who should explain to them. I’ll be right back,” he added without giving them a chance to say no. He took her wrist and pulled her gently away.
“I’m so sorry,” she told him as they climbed the now-familiar path. “For Val, for Ryker, for you and your plans today.”
“And I’m sorry you found her like that. Sam should have gone looking for Mary himself, not sent you.”
“I offered, because I haven’t been sure I was much more welcome by them than Val was here.”
“Of course you are.”
They saw Brent Bayer, and Quinn gestured to him. “Brent, would you walk Alex to my office where she can rest until we’re done here? Brent’s been staying in my guest room,” he told her. “I suggested the lodge, but he wanted to be close. The troopers need me, and I should get back to them, but Alex came first.”
“Sure, I’ll walk her there,” Brent said. “Do you need a lawyer while you or the staff answer their questions? I’ve seen officers manage to misquote a suspect—not that I’m calling you or your staff suspects.”
Alex stiffened and nearly gasped. Quinn a suspect? No, she knew where he’d been the whole time they’d been out here in the woods. She could vouch for that. But as for Mary, but especially Sam, Josh, even Ryker, who knew? And what about this man Quinn was entrusting her to? He was, no doubt, here to take care of any problems. Had he seen Val as someone who might lure away Quinn’s videographer? He surely wanted Ryker to stay in his job, dedicated, not distracted.
And worse, did Val’s horrid, bloody scratches, which resembled those outside Alex’s bedroom, mean someone saw her as enough of a distraction, too—not for a cameraman but for the star of the show?
Quinn hurried back to help the troopers check around the body for any tracks besides his, Alex’s—and now the two officers’.
“You know,” he told them, standing up straight at last after crouching to study Val’s sprawled corpse again, “she said she wouldn’t leave the compound, but she obviously did. Rather than coming on the paths, maybe she followed the stream from behind the camp property to here, but the obvious deduction is that she fell from the outcrop. Still—those bear claw marks. I’ll bet she got scratched up after or when she was dying, because her hands don’t look bloody or messed up—no defensive wounds,” he said, frowning. He didn’t say so right now, but he hoped no one had forced her out of the compound. She and Ryker had been arguing.
“We’ll probably need to have you testify in court, my man,” Trooper Kurtz told him. “So someone wanted it to look like a bear attack, so they...what? Used an unattached bear’s paw to scratch her up?”
“Though bears have been in these woods, there are no tracks around here lately. I saw a few almost a week ago—a single, old bear, not near here and not since.”
“But,” Hanson said, “it would make sense a bear might be here to drink from the stream.”
“Of course,” Quinn countered, “but they seem to prefer the lake.”
Trooper Kurtz cut in. “We’d like to see those photos of the scratch marks near where Ms. Collister lives.”
“Actually, outside her bedroom window. You can see the real thing if you want, or you can see the photos.”
“We’ll be busy here for now, questioning everyone, starting with Valerie Chambers’s boyfriend, but yeah, soon. We’ll be here late, check things out. Guys, thanks for your patience,” he called to the men with the gurney. “Once you get her up to the compound, I’m gonna let Mr. Ryker have a couple of minutes with her before you take her, but make sure he doesn’t touch the body. We’ll wait here, too. And we’ll bag that purse of hers for forensics.”
Before he turned away, Quinn told them, “I’ll send him in if he’s come back out from camp—or send for him. This won’t do my class this week any good. Or my camp, or the Falls Lake area.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Trooper Hanson called after him. “This weird phantom bear attack gets out, you’ll get some TV reporters from Anchorage, maybe beyond, behind every bush.”
To Quinn’s surprise, he ran almost immediately into Brent on the path and told him, “I’ve heard Geoff calls you his fixer. Wish you could fix this. You got Alex back to camp?”
“Safe and sound.”
“Don’t I wish.”
Alex was drained and exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. She sat in Quinn’s desk chair for a while, then paced around his office. It was a small area in comparison to the big building that held the dining hall, but his house was compact and neat inside. And it somehow reeked of masculinity.
The only touch of domesticity in this room was a leather sofa that definitely looked slept on. It was probably long enough to accommodate his height, sunken a bit to the shape of a body, with a bed pillow at one end. A quilt was tossed on the back of it.
His desk, however, was perfectly organized and looked all business. A laptop was open and a yellow legal pad lay there with notes. Perhaps he wrote his tracking books here.
The house had two bedrooms, probably as small as this room. There was a bathroom, a galley kitchen with two stools to eat at a breakfast bar and a small living room with another fireplace. She’d barely glimpsed a little screened porch outside.
She walked over again to the fireplace mantel and studied the covers of the paperback books he’d written, then the photos he had lined up there. One was of an attractive woman somewhere in her sixties who must be his mother. Love you, always, the neat writing in the bottom corner read, but the photo wasn’t signed. No other pictures of adoring women, though she felt she might almost qualify for the role. Next to that, the picture of the man who was—had surely been—his father, since Quinn resembled him. No photo of Quinn as a boy with his little Scottie dog.
Also a photo of Sam and Quinn, both maybe in their late teens or early twenties, and a tall man between them, pointing down a path at something. Trapper Jake was printed below.
On the opposite wall of shelves were rows of more books and a few great photos of the area. If she ever wanted to give Quinn a gift to thank him for his kindness, she’d give him one of Suze’s paintings. Yes, she’d do that soon.
And a large photo between two pictures of Falls Lake with the mountains beyond was of a stream that looked like the site of the—the murder. Did that place mean something to him, something happy, which would surely be ruined now?
She jumped when Quinn came in, knocking quietly on his own door.
“I should have told you to use the bathroom and or the kitchen,” he told her.
“I did use the first, not the second. I—I don’t think I could eat.”
“Me neither.” He came straight for her and pulled her into his embrace. She linked her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his chest. They stood there, just breathing, just being together for a moment.
“Poor Val,” he said. “And what happened to her makes me even more upset about those claw marks outside your window. When your cousins hear about this, maybe they can switch your room.”
“All of them have windows, though.”
“Yeah, well, even if you want fresh air, keep yours closed. And I think we should tell the troopers that your name and face need to be kept as private as possible, even though Falls Lake is a long ways from Chicago.”
“Thank you. Even the local news isn’t local anymore. If there’s some terrible event clear across the country, the media reports it like it’s right next door.”
“I’m sorry you found her, sweetheart, sorry I asked you along today.”
Sweetheart? She cherished that but hardly believed it. Yet it scared her that she wanted to believe it had slipped out because he meant it.
“Stay put here for a few minutes,” he said, his breath moving her hair, “then I’ll follow you home.”
“Quinn, you don’t have to do that.”
“I’ll come right back. It’s going to be a long, crazy night here. The German guys already told me they think we should all go out and fine-comb the woods for clues tomorrow—like they were supposed to report on today. So, I’ve got to stop them because a forensic team is due early tomorrow. I’ve also got to call Geoff back. Brent phoned him, and he’s been trying to get me.
“At least I’ve managed one good thing,” he went on, still holding her tight. “The officers have agreed that the camp and adjoining area where you found Val will be off-limits to any press or curious onlookers that show up. They’re going to put up a roadblock with a trooper car and cordon off the road. They’re sending two extra troopers from Anchorage to guard the area until they release it after their forensics team and Kurtz and Hanson are finished there. So that should save us from the invasion for a few days. I don’t need this bunch of students giving interviews for something they know nothing about.”
“I wish we could cordon off the lodge, but Meg and Suze need guests before the winter hits. Quinn,” she said, looking up at him as he finally set her back with his hands still on her waist, “let’s face it. Val wasn’t well liked. She even argued with Ryker just before we all went out. The other day, I overheard Mary and Sam say they wanted to get rid of her.”
“Glad you didn’t say that to the troopers, because they surely didn’t mean it that way. They’ll talk to them. That reminds me, I heard Brent Bayer say he’d like to get Val off Ryker’s back, and I’ll bet if we checked with people she knows in LA that she wasn’t Ms. Charm there, either. But let’s let this play out legally. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car and follow you home, because I need to come back here fast to oversee things.”
As they started to leave, he stopped her at his office door. He lifted her chin and kissed her, gently, then firmly, then nearly crushed her in his arms as his lips took hers and she gave back with a passion she didn’t know was there. His lips slanted, giving and taking. One hand cupped her bottom, almost lifting her, pinning her against him, and she loved it.
They were both breathless. “You’re amazing,” he rasped out. “Needed that. Need you.”
They jumped when Sam knocked on the door that stood ajar and called in, “Medics leaving with the body, Quinn.”
Feeling flushed and a bit faint—so maybe it was good Quinn was going to follow her home—Alex went outside with him and the staff as the EMTs carried Val’s body away on the gurney, encased in a bright blue tarp, which they slid into the back of their vehicle. They placed her Gucci bag in the back, too, wrapped in plastic. It probably had the sales receipt from the gift shop for the bear bells she’d quickly made into a necklace. Had they jingled when she died?
Troopers Hanson and Kurtz stood at attention as if they would salute, but they did not.
Next to her truck, Alex saw the state trooper car they had come in. It was a blue and gold SUV with the words Guardians of the 49th on it. She jolted to see what was on the central shield of blue: the big, golden face of a bear staring right at her.