The sound of whirring helicopter blades was the most beautiful sound Shane had heard in a month of Sundays.
The sun had risen that morning to reveal bright and clear skies. With the fresh blanket of snow, everything was crisp and fresh and new. The windswept drifts came to razor-sharp points.
The short days meant they had to work quickly before nightfall descended once more. They’d cleared a space in the overflow parking lot at the edge of the property for the helicopter to land. The moment the skids touched down, three men exited the belly. Bent at the waist with their heads down, they jogged to where Shane was standing beside a borrowed SUV.
When they’d cleared the safe distance, one of the officers stuck out his hand. “I’m Captain Banks from the ABI. This is Fritz and Miller. I heard you’ve been busy up here.”
Shane liked him immediately. “Yep.”
Banks wasn’t quite as fit as the other two men, and his nose was bulbous at the end, making him look as though he was a caricature.
The four men scrambled inside the SUV. Even with the clear, sunny skies, the temperature was still below freezing.
They drove the short distance to the resort, and Shane led the men inside.
“I’ve got a conference room set up for you,” he said. “Any updates on the road?”
“Now that the weather has cleared, we should have the road plowed by this afternoon,” Banks replied. “We’ll be able to move trucks in and out as soon as that’s done. We were able to clear the road as far as Mr. Tsosie’s already.”
“And the guests?”
“Your safety officer is sending additional troopers in on snow machines. They’ll take statements and begin preparing for the evacuation once the road is clear. With two murders and no one in custody, we can’t risk anyone staying. Not to mention, now that they know there’s been a second murder, I doubt anyone wants to stay. That’s about all we can do for now. Unless more evidence comes to light, we can’t hold anybody.”
“And the deceased? The geologist?”
“We’ll fly him out first thing. He’ll be transferred to the medical examiner in Anchorage. The helo will return for my team. You said there’s a witness to Mr. Tsosie’s shooting?”
“She was there at the time of the shooting, but she didn’t see the perpetrator. I’d like to fly her out with you guys. The threat to her is credible.”
“I’ll see what I can do. I need her back at the scene to map out the shots. Since we managed to get the road cleared as far as Mr. Tsosie’s house late yesterday, we have some initial findings. The coroner isn’t confident the bullet will be viable for ballistics. The team wasn’t able to search for any additional discharged bullets because they ran out of daylight. If I can get your witness up there, I’ll have a better chance tracing the shots.”
The idea of taking Kara back to the scene made Shane uneasy. “I’ll speak with her.”
“How’s our access?”
“Not good,” he said, picturing the route to Walt’s. “You won’t be able to get an ATV through the avalanche areas, but snow machines are an option.”
“What about cross-country? I looked at the terrain from the aerial. It’s less than a quarter of the distance as the crow flies.”
“It’s possible.” There weren’t many people in Kodiak Springs able to navigate the trail in these conditions. “The witness knows the trails better than anyone.”
“All right. We’ll get an ETA on the team coming from town. I don’t want to wait on them. We’re burning daylight and I want all the time I can get to search for evidence. I’ll need you with me, as well. You’re the most familiar with the events.”
“That means we’ll be leaving resort security in charge.”
Banks considered the problem. “All right. I’ll leave Fritz. The troopers Jeff is sending are only about an hour behind us. You’ve been alone for two days—Fritz should be all right for an hour.”
“I’ll hook him up with resort security. Tell him to keep an eye on the manager, Mark. I’ll point him out. He’s a person of interest.”
“This is the plan,” Banks said. “We’ll need about an hour of prep. Get us some transportation and we’ll do a sweep for evidence. Forensics will be able to reach the house from the highway. Keep the shelter-in-place order on the guests until all the interviews are conducted.”
“Will do.”
“We’ll need to interview the employees, as well.”
“It’s arranged.”
“Good. Let me know when you’ve got our transportation sorted out.” The captain started toward the lounge with his team close on his heels. When he reached the door, he pivoted. “Good work, sergeant. Not the kind of thing they see in the lower forty-eight. Alaska tests a man.”
Shane lifted his chin in acknowledgement. “That it does.”
He turned toward the front desk. For the first time since Walt’s death, he felt a spark of optimism. The weather had cleared, and he finally had backup. Until he knew the identity of the killer, delivering Finn’s body to the coroner and collecting evidence was paramount.
The only hitch in the plan was evacuating the guests. If the interviews didn’t reveal any obvious suspects, they’d have to release them. Once people scattered, the logistics of bringing them back to Alaska to face a possible trial became complicated.
He tapped on Kara’s door.
She greeted him with a smile that took him aback for a second. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her smile. Everything else was the same. She was wearing the same sweater and jeans the hotel had been laundering each evening. Her hair was pulled back into the same long ponytail, and her eyes were the same warm butterscotch.
The delicate lines of fatigue feathering from the corners of her eyes highlighted her fragile appearance. His mouth went dry and his heart thumped in his chest.
When she caught him staring, she plucked at her sweater. “I’m going to throw this thing away when I get home. You must be as sick of looking at it as I am.”
“Right back at you.” He ran his hand down the front of his uniform. “I haven’t been out of this thing in forty-eight hours.”
She tweaked his badge. “I like it.”
Something had shifted between them. He’d noticed the change when they were sitting with the puppies. He’d thought the difference was an anomaly. A litter of sleepy puppies had a way of mellowing even the toughest people.
Her smile was soft and open, and there wasn’t a hint of the tension she usually carried with her when he was in uniform. He’d thought she was joking, but maybe she actually liked how he looked.
Suddenly forty-eight hours in the same outfit didn’t seem quite so bad.
“Come in.” She stepped aside and made a sweeping motion with her arm. “Looks like this will be my last round of room service. I figured I might as well enjoy it.”
She picked up a carafe and held a coffee cup aloft with her other hand. “Like some?”
“Sure. But only a quick one.”
She didn’t ask if he needed sugar or cream, and his heart did another rat-a-tat-tat in his chest. He’d never appreciated the casual familiarity of knowing someone well until now. He’d never stayed with anyone long enough to reach the stage where they spoke in shorthand. As he watched her add cream to her own cup, he realized that he’d learned more about her in the past two days than he had in all the time they’d dated.
She was finally opening up to him, the one thing he’d wanted all along. Had it come too late?
“We’ll all be getting out of here soon, right?” She spoke over the brim of her cup. “Graham said the road should be cleared by this afternoon.”
“That’s the plan. Even if they run into trouble, we’ll be out by tomorrow.”
“Don’t get me wrong, this place is nicer than my house and the food is top-notch, but I’m ready for my lumpy couch and dinner from a can.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “You and me both.”
“You think we can visit the dogs again before then?”
“About that.” His good humor fled. “The helicopter just brought in the team from ABI.”
“What’s ABI?”
“Alaska Bureau of Investigations. They want to see if they can get ballistics on one of the bullets from Walt’s house.” He didn’t mention that the slug in Walt had been too damaged for a good identification. “They want you on scene.”
Her face drained of color and she lowered her coffee cup to the table. “When?”
“Now. They’re still plowing the road, and we don’t have much daylight to work with.”
“You want to take the shortcut, don’t you?”
He thought he saw her fingers tremble before she clenched her hands. “We don’t have to. If we follow the road, it’ll only take us another half an hour by snow machine.”
“More like forty minutes. And that’s each direction. The trail is the best choice.”
He’d gone and blown it with her again. He hadn’t considered how taking the trail might make her feel. The last time she’d visited Walt’s had been the day of his murder. Had he lost any ground he’d gained with her?
He hitched his thumbs into his security belt. “I shouldn’t—”
“It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it.”
She leaned forward to straighten some papers on the table and bumped her coffee cup with her elbow, splashing liquid over the surface. As she reached for some napkins, her hands visibly shook.
“I should get a towel,” she said, her voice pinched.
She stood and nearly collided with him in her haste. He took the wad of napkins from her clenched fingers and dropped them over the mess. Her arms circled his waist and she pressed her cheek against his beating heart.
He put his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head. “It’s going to be all right. Maybe not today. But someday.”
“I know.” She sniffled, the sound muffled against his shirt.
Away from the resort and with a police escort was probably the safest place she could be right now. The thought didn’t comfort him as much as he’d hoped it would.
He set her away from him but kept his hands loosely draped on her shoulders. “The sooner we get this over with, the better. The sooner we get back to some semblance of normal, the better.”
The pressure in his chest had alleviated now that he knew there was help coming from town.
“What is normal? I don’t even know anymore.” She glanced up at him. There were little pools in the corners of her eyes. “I thought I could handle anything by learning to manipulate my own mind. When it’s cold and snowy and it doesn’t seem as though the sun will shine in the sky, I read books about the desert. After I treat an abused animal, I watch something uplifting on TV. I thought I was good at coping. I don’t think that anymore.”
He cupped her face and ran the pad of his thumb along the delicate skin on the apple of her cheek. “Everyone has a breaking point.”
“Even you?”
“Even me.”
“Tell me?”
“It’s not a happy story.”
“I don’t expect you to always tell me happy stories.”
He dropped his hands and crossed to the window, staring into a day that was bright enough to make his eyes burn. “My first year working in Kodiak Springs, I executed a wellness check on my buddy’s mom. I found her slumped behind the wheel of her car in a tightly closed garage. She’d dressed in her best outfit before starting the engine. I went home that night and decided I was never going back. The job wasn’t for me.”
“Something must have changed your mind.”
“I ran into someone I’d arrested in the grocery store. She actually thanked me. Something I’d said to her had resonated. That’s when I realized that nothing given from the heart is ever truly gone. A smile, a reassuring word or sympathetic ear can bring someone back to the surface. I can’t save everybody, but I can save somebody. That’s what keeps me going.”
He’d never told anyone that story. He felt lighter, as though a weight had been lifted from him. He’d thought he was healed, but there’d been a part of him that was still carrying the burden of that awful day. He turned away from the window, and flashbulb spots from the sun crowded his vision.
“This community is fortunate to have you,” Kara said. She crossed to the double doors closing off the bedroom and paused with her hand on the knob. “I know you’ll find out who did this. I’ve never doubted that.”
She slipped behind the door before he had a chance to reply. She had more faith in him than he had in himself these days. Nothing made sense. Nothing fit. One thought kept grinding through his head. They’d been here for two days. Someone had killed Finn in that time. They had to have seen the person. There was no other way. No one was hiding in the outbuildings.
The killer was staying in the resort, Shane was certain of it. They’d probably passed each other in the corridor and sat near each other in the dining room. While he’d done his best to protect Kara, there’d always been a weakness in his defense because he was spread too thin.
The grinding thought forced its way to the surface once more.
If someone wanted to kill Kara, why wasn’t she dead yet?
An hour later, Kara followed Shane to the lobby, where he stopped to speak with Mark.
The arrival of the three men from ABI had changed the mood of the resort. With news that additional law enforcement was being sent in from town, the gravity of the situation was settling over the guests like a dark cloud.
A relentless tension had taken hold of everyone, as though the resort had become a runaway train and they were barreling toward some inevitable tragedy.
Graham and Mark had gone hoarse from reassuring panicked guests that everything was under control. One of the more vocal guests was incensed that the helicopter had taken off without any additional passengers. He seemed to have one particular guest in mind: himself.
Kara borrowed some duct tape from the front desk and repaired the hole in her snow pants. She’d need her warmest gear today. She dug a hat and a pair of gloves from the lost-and-found box. A scarf might have been nice, but the box had given up all it had to offer.
When she joined Shane outside the shed where the snow machines were kept, he was speaking to two men. She used the time to search out a suitable helmet.
When Shane caught sight of her, he waved her over. “This is Dr. Kara Riley. Kara, this is Captain Banks and Sergeant Miller from the ABI.”
The captain gripped her gloved with a single firm pump. “Sergeant Miller and I need you to take us through what happened the morning Mr. Tsosie was shot. The more evidence we’re able to locate, the quicker we can arrest someone.”
She liked Captain Banks immediately. He was a clean-shaven, burly man in his fifties with a full head of gray hair and eyes that didn’t miss a detail. She’d been talked down to enough in her lifetime to appreciate when someone treated her as an equal.
“I’ll do my best,” she said.
Everything had happened so quickly that morning, she hoped she’d be able to remember enough details to help them.
The captain tugged his gloves over his wrists. “I hear you know these trails like the back of your hand.”
“Better,” she replied confidently.
The backcountry trail was one of her favorites, and not simply because it led to Walt’s. The terrain was challenging but not impossible, and the view as she wove in and out of the tall pine trees was spectacular.
“Excellent,” the captain said. “That’s what I was hoping for. We’ll follow your lead.”
She looked over the three men with a critical eye. They’d all dressed adequately for the cold. A good start.
The chill was already stinging her cheeks, and she stomped her feet to keep the blood moving. “There’s a foot of snow on the trail and it’s not well marked. It’s a tough sled ride through two narrow canyons. Stay in my tracks. Digging someone out only wastes time.”
“I’ll ride with Kara,” Shane said. “Once we reach the clearing around the house, we’ll drop back and let you guys take point.”
“All right,” Captain Banks said, turning to Sergeant Miller. “Even though the storm has wiped out any visible tracks, I want minimal contamination of the scene. Single file on sight. You have the metal detector?”
“Already loaded on the snow machine.”
“Good. Let’s get moving. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can turn this around. Clear enough?”
Everyone nodded their agreement. The three snow machines were lined up and ready to go. Kara dropped her visor into place and swung her leg over the seat of one. For an instant she flashed back to her escape from Walt’s. The emotions hit her as though she was reliving the scene: grief and terror spiked with adrenaline.
Had she missed something in her frantic escape? Would walking through what happened knock loose the memory of an important detail?
Shane’s weight settled behind her. “Ready?”
She set her jaw. “Ready.”
Shane was a good passenger. His hands loosely clasped her waist to keep his balance without dragging her backward. He understood when to lean into the turns and when to shift his weight forward on the steep inclines. His size made him a decent windbreak, as well.
Her skis floated along the powder and kicked up a fine spray in her wake. The fresh air felt good after being cooped up in the hotel for so long. She ignored the ache in her leg from bracing her foot. It was a small price to pay.
She glanced behind her to find the two officers were following instructions and keeping to her tracks. They were both experienced riders. The wind bit into her cheeks and her eyes watered behind her protective visor.
At the crest of the hill, she slowed. The two officers pulled beside her. Kara peeled off her helmet and pointed.
Flanked by a crescent of mountains, the Da’nai Valley stretched out before them. Eons ago, a glacier had carved its relentless path, hollowing out steps and benches in the mountainside. The resort was visible in the bowl of the valley, a scar on the otherwise pristine landscape. Barely visible in the distance, a slight shadow marked where the service road wound through the valley.
The four of them took a moment to admire the stunning view. There were times when she grew complacent about the scenery. The past few days had reminded her to treasure the beauty of God’s bounty. The scenery was like an unexpected burst of joy filling her heart. Alaska was both brutal and rewarding.
Without speaking, she replaced her visor and revved the throttle. The tall pines gave way to the small clearing surrounding Walt’s house. She pulled to a stop beside the snow machine she’d overturned two days ago.
Shane stood first. He inspected the crash and shook his head. “You’ve snapped a ski. It’ll have to be towed.”
Walt’s house and the kennels were visible through the tangle of scraggly pine branches. There wasn’t much of a clearing around the two buildings.
Captain Banks retrieved a pair of binoculars from his saddle bag and scanned the area. “I don’t see anything. No recent tracks from a vehicle. No footprints. Doesn’t look like anyone has been here since the day of the shooting. That’s good. You never know who’s listening to the police scanner. The last thing we need is a bunch of lookie-loos tearing up the place.”
He traded out the binoculars for a bag of gear and Sergeant Miller did the same. The two of them donned their snowshoes.
“Hang back and try to stay warm,” the captain said, his head bent as he adjusted one snowshoe. “I’ll signal you when we’ve secured the perimeter. I want to make sure no critters, animal or otherwise, have decided to take up residence. I’ll take a few pictures, then we’re clear to break out the metal detector and see what we can find.”
The two men marched single file toward the house.
Kara curled her toes deeper into her boots, then pulled her hat tighter around her head. Shane stomped his feet and slapped his hands.
“You okay?” Shane asked.
“It’s strange, but I’m almost relieved. I don’t have to dread going back for the first time anymore.”
“There are going to be a lot of firsts for you this year. Some of those firsts are going to be harder than others. When things get tough, you can always talk to me, you know?”
“I know.”
He focused his attention on the officers, giving her a chance to study his profile. She’d started to build a bridge over the chasm between them—a path to the friendship they’d shared before. The more time they spent together, the more she realized that Shane was building a bridge, as well. He’d never confided anything as personal as what he’d told her earlier.
She felt as though they were each revealing pieces of themselves, then scurrying back to safety. What a pair they made. They were so different, yet in a lot of ways, they were too much alike.
Without Walt, there was nothing tethering her to Kodiak Springs. Her practice was doing well, but veterinarians were in demand in lots of other small towns. There was Homer. Located on the Sterling Highway at the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula, there were epic views of both the mountains and the sea. The last time she’d visited, she’d ordered crab legs in one of the restaurants on Homer Spit. She’d watched as the fishermen brought in the catch of the day.
But when she tried to think of what her life might be like without Shane, the picture grew blank. She’d have to leave. There was no other way. Now that her cover was blown, Kodiak Springs was no longer safe. There was no way to make the relationship work, but they could at least part on a good note.
Wearing snowshoes the officers made slow progress toward the house, each of them searching for any sign of a disturbance that might give them a better picture of what had happened two days ago. They’d only been able to retrieve the body before nightfall.
Everything was peaceful today. There was no sign of the violence. The wind whistled softly through the pines and the branches popped and creaked. The mountain breeze had a crisp, fresh scent that no air freshener could ever capture.
Kara inhaled deeply and watched for the officer’s signal to join them. The captain was in the lead, and something caught his attention on the way to the house. He knelt in the snow and the sergeant peered over his shoulder.
Kara exchanged a questioning glance with Shane, who shrugged. There was no way to tell what they were looking at from this distance.
The next instant, the sergeant bolted upright, yanking the captain to his feet. The two men backtracked across the clearing. His hands waving frantically in the air, the sergeant shouted something that was lost on the wind as his cumbersome snowshoes slowed his frantic retreat. The captain tripped and went down.
Kara started toward him.
She’d barely taken a step before Shane planted his hand in the middle of her chest and shoved her hard. The backs of her legs hit the snow machine and she tumbled over the seat into the soft pillow of snow. Temporarily stunned, she stared at the sky.
A pop sounded, and the next instant, the world exploded around her.