Snow River E-Book

Jennifer Bernard

• Herausgeber: Jennifer Bernard
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

In Firelight Ridge, Lila Romanoff's unusual intuitive abilities have stayed (mostly) silent -- until now. When she starts having dream conversations with a murdered local, it’s time to skedaddle. But she only gets as far as the overlook on Snow River before she can’t go any farther, and it’s not just because she runs out of gas (don’t ask). Her gut literally won’t let her leave. Maybe it’s her feelings for her huge hunk of a boss at the local bar. Or maybe it’s the mystery about to unfold around the dead woman on the banks of the river below…

Bear Davis always knew his employee would flit out of town sooner or later. Lila is sunshine itself, and with winter fast approaching, he’s not surprised she’s ready to take her light elsewhere…but he’s also not about to object when she abruptly decides to stay. And when she starts digging into the recent murder on Snow River? Well, as an ex-cop (don’t ask), there’s no one better suited to make sure she stays safe while they nose around.

When the recent death appears connected to a decades-old murder spree that involved Lila’s dream visitor, everything seems to point back to Snow River. As Bear and Lila follow clues that include local lore, old gossip, and even mysterious pranks, the couple gets closer and closer. Both to each other…and to an explosive truth someone will do anything to keep hidden deep in the wilds of Alaska.

Leseprobe

SNOW RIVER

JENNIFER BERNARD

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Also by Jennifer Bernard

About the Author

1

One week ago

The dead woman stood over Lila’s bed. “Wake up, lazybones. Time to get moving.”

“Noooo,” Lila muttered as she turned on her side and pulled a pillow over her head. “Go away.”

“I will not go away until you get your butt out of bed.”

“You can’t tell me what to do. You’re dead.” Even though Lila was still mostly asleep, she knew she was dreaming. But she saw no reason not to play along.

“Do you have to rub it in?” The dream dead-woman looked perfectly normal in her faded blue flower-patterned housedress, the kind you wore over your regular clothes. People didn’t wear that style anymore, which was one of the reasons Lila knew she was dead.

“Were you always this rude or were you nicer when you were alive?”

“I was always rude. Why do you think I came out here to Fangtooth? I couldn’t hack it in the lower forty-eight. Now move it, kid.”

“But why? What’s so important? Just let me be, why don’t you?” Lila could see that it was still dark outside. She’d worked until two in the morning at The Fang last night, and had no intention of waking up any time before ten.

“Hey, I didn’t invite you to move into my house. I was minding my own business.”

“You should keep that up. Why change what’s working?”

“Because we have a problem. And you’re the only one who can do anything about it. I can’t. I’m dead, as you pointed out yourself.”

“And I’m sleeping.”

“Not anymore you aren’t.”

A crash jolted Lila wide awake. She sat up, blinking in the dimness, her heart galloping. It was still night. The rooster at Ben McGee’s place hadn’t even crowed yet. No dead woman was looming next to her bed.

Of course not. She rubbed the heel of her hand into her chest to get her heart to slow down. It was just a dream. She’d known it was a dream during the dream. Which was why she’d been irritated by the woman instead of scared. She often had extremely vivid dreams; they seemed to go along with her intuitive abilities.

But ever since she’d moved to Firelight Ridge, all of that had died down. She still had the occasional moment of premonition, but so much less frequently than before. That was one of the reasons she loved living here.

Fangtooth, the dead woman had called it.

Lila shivered. Fangtooth Gulch was the original name for this tiny town, which came into being to support the miners back in the 1930s, when a thriving copper mine had dominated the local economy. Recently, the name had been changed to draw a different sort of visitor—tourists.

No surprise that the dream woman had used that name, Lila told herself. Her dreaming mind knew the original name of the town just as well as her conscious mind. It had pulled that fact into her dream because that was what the unconscious did.

She remembered the noise that woke her up. That definitely hadn’t been part of her dream. Biting her lip, she debated whether it would be safer to stay where she was or check out the sound. Chances were that a raccoon had gotten into the house again. It had happened before.

But so had humans; a few months ago someone had searched it for a document she hadn’t even known existed.

She held her breath and listened for any more sounds coming from the living room. Her place had been the hardware store back in the mining days, and the couple who ran it had lived in the back, right here in what was now her bedroom. The store area, complete with glass storefront, was now the living room. All was quiet out there, the quiet that came with no electric appliances and no street traffic—the vast quiet of the Alaskan wilderness.

She picked up her phone from her nightstand. Service came and went here; at odd times suddenly a single bar would appear. If she did have a connection, she could call one of her friends. Molly was with Sam at his house, and Ani was staying with Gil McGowan at his brother’s place. Charlie and Nick were about to leave town, a fact that made her very sad.

But she probably wouldn’t call any of them. She’d call Bear. Her boss at The Fang would be here in a flash if she reached out to him. Based on how he dealt with misbehaving customers at the bar, any threat would be eliminated in no time.

But no bars at all appeared on her phone. She was on her own.

Lila didn’t consider herself to be the bravest person around. She tended to act on instinct—what some would call “whims.” They weren’t whims, just strong feelings, and sometimes they were based on fear. A sense of dread or impending doom would come over her, and she’d have to leave that apartment, or that job, or that city.

It’s probably a raccoon.

She repeated that mantra as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. In her pajamas, soft flannel with a pattern of clouds and sheep that she found comforting, she tiptoed toward the door of her bedroom. The tongue-and-groove planks of the floor were cool under her feet. Fall was here, temperatures were dropping, and pretty soon she’d have to make up her mind about whether to stay here for the winter or not.

She used the flashlight on her phone to light her way. Somewhere, there was a headlamp that Bear had given her, but she was pretty sure she’d left it on the vintage whisky cask that served as a catchall.

The bedroom door creaked as she swung it open. She held her breath, listening for more sounds. Raccoon paws scrabbling against the floor, a human footfall, that sort of thing. All she heard was the soft whine of a rising wind finding cracks in the old siding of this creaky old building.

The wind. The noise must have come from wind knocking something over. She relaxed and took an easier breath. Her place had plenty of mining-days relics that a gust of wind could have blown to the floor. There was that snowshoe made from willows mounted on the wall. A hurricane lamp missing its wick. Many tin utensils. As long as it wasn’t her fishbowl, home to Goldilocks, there wasn’t much she was worried about.

With her light, she found the fishbowl—intact, on its perch on a vintage painted hutch from the nineteen-forties. A flash of orange told her Goldilocks was just fine. So what had made that loud crashing sound?

She made her way toward the light switch. Out here in the wilderness, there was no electrical grid. Everyone had either solar panels or a generator, or both. People tended to be quite conscious of how much power they used, and she usually preferred to use a lantern or a candle at night.

But investigating a strange sound in a dark house by candlelight seemed a little too “horror movie” for her taste. So electricity it would be.

She found the switch and turned on the light, and immediately stumbled backwards, luckily hitting a wall instead of empty air.

A dress form lay flat on the floor, face down, like a person who had been pushed from behind. That form had belonged to Allison Casey, who had lived here in the nineteen-eighties and loved to sew.

In fact, she’d made the dress that was currently displayed on the dress form—a faded blue housedress with flowers around the hem.

Lila knew all about that dress. So did everyone in Firelight Ridge. When Allison’s grieving husband had signed the house over to the township, he’d stipulated that the dress form stay exactly as it was. After all, his wife had been wearing that dress the day she died. The day she was murdered. It had bullet holes in the back, and a splotch of faded bloodstains.

Allison Casey had lain face down in the snow by the airstrip while her life drained away. She’d gone to meet the plane that brought the mail to Fangtooth Gulch. But a man who’d spent the last six months camped in the wilderness, plotting mayhem, had sent her life’s journey off the edge of a cliff.

Lila stared at the dress form, blood pounding in her ears.

Had Allison Casey appeared in her dream? Had a ghost somehow knocked over the form to get her attention?

When people asked Lila if she believed in ghosts, she never knew how to answer. Ghosts, to her, were residual energy. She sensed it all the time. But a ghost that could knock over a dress form? That was a level of supernatural that went beyond her experience of ghosts.

The wind had knocked it over. It must have. She was overreacting. Freaking out.

Gathering her courage, she walked over to the form and crouched next to it. Somehow it felt wrong to leave it where it was, although if she righted it, another gust might knock it over again.

At the very least, she could turn the form over so it wasn’t lying face down in a sad echo of Allison Casey’s last moments.

She took hold of the form—it was made of leather instead of plastic—and wrestled it over onto its back. There, that was better. More respectful.

Okay, now she was being ridiculous. More respectful of a dress form? What did that even mean? Laughing at herself, she released the form—except she couldn’t. Her hands would not drop away from the old cotton fabric of that dress. It felt as if they were welded there.

Emotion rushed through her. Hot, urgent emotion. Something is coming. Danger. Do something.

2

When fleeing Firelight Ridge, there were only two options. Well, three, if you counted rafting down Snow River. You could either fly in one of the single-prop planes that made regular trips from Blackbear to Firelight Ridge. Or you could drive.

If you wanted to drive, you could only do it until the first major snowfall hit. After that, the road was impassable. No one was going to plow a sixty-mile road to a town that shrank to barely two hundred residents in the winter, especially when it would have to be plowed over and over again, as more blizzards swept through.

But the first big snow hadn’t yet fallen, so a week after that dream about Allison Casey, Lila bought one of Gunnar’s old beaters with the money she’d saved from The Fang. She agonized over telling her friends, but in the end, decided to call them once she’d achieved escape velocity. It would be too hard to go through with this otherwise, and besides, they were all happily snuggled with their new loves. So she packed up her fishbowl and her two suitcases and left town just before daybreak.

She only made one quick stop at The Fang to leave a note for Bear. Bear had been unendingly kind to her, and her heart ached at the thought of abandoning her bartending job there. But with the summer season ending, he didn’t really need her anyway. She suspected he would have laid her off already if he didn’t know she needed the income. Of course she’d cleaned both The Fang and the hardware store thoroughly before she left. She always did that. It helped with the emotional transition.

The gravel road to civilization was lined with tall spruce and cottonwood trees, many of which had lost most of their leaves. Only a few flashes of golden-yellow leaves peeked through the dense prickly evergreen forest. She’d been so looking forward to watching the spruce branches load up with snow. She’d even picked up a pair of cross-country skis from Eve Dotterkind, who’d been clearing out her barn.

Was she doing the right thing? She didn’t want to leave. Ever since she’d first arrived in Firelight Ridge in April, she’d longed to see what it was like in the heart of winter. She’d been determined to stick around after all the summer visitors left.

But she couldn’t ignore the feeling that had swamped her when she’d put her hands on that old dress. Danger. The urge to flee had overpowered her. Trust your intuition. She’d learned that lesson early on and never ignored it.

She glanced down at Goldilocks, who was strapped into the passenger seat with a special lid on her tank to keep the water from sloshing.

“Are you ready for another move? You must be getting tired of relocating at your big age. How old are you, anyway? In human years, I mean? Are you more of a teenager or in your golden years? Maybe I should have left you behind like I did in New York. But I swore I wouldn’t do that again, so you’re stuck with yet another move. Sorry.”

Maybe some people might side-eye talking to a fish, but Lila didn’t mind talking to any living being, and even the occasional rock or mountain. Everything had an energy, and she felt that energy, and liked to engage with it. So what if it wasn’t a two-way exchange? And maybe it was, who knew?

The farther she got from Firelight Ridge, the sadder she felt. She was going to miss everyone, from the retired miners who hung out at The Fang to her friends who had followed her to Alaska.

Most of all…

No, she couldn’t think about Bear. That would make it too hard to leave. Bear was like a guardian angel and a thirst trap rolled into one. Sometimes she caught herself staring at him while he did something innocuous like wiping off the bar counter. She’d realize that her mouth was open and her lower belly was fluttering and she’d completely forgotten whatever it was she’d been doing.

But Bear had never given any hint that he saw her as anything but his employee. Which was a relief, really. So many bosses or managers had made passes at her throughout her checkered employment history. That was one of the reasons she’d left so many jobs. She couldn’t tolerate that sort of energy around her—always watching her back, guarding her smiles, making sure she wasn’t “flirting.” Co-workers always told her to “block it out,” but she didn’t have that ability.

Bear… I’m sorry. I wish I could explain. But where would I start?

Her hand shook as she set her Thermos of coffee between her thighs so she could unscrew it. Bear didn’t know about her weird intuitive streak. No one in Firelight Ridge did except for her friends, and they’d been sworn to secrecy. She’d loved being able to start fresh in a place where she didn’t sense things quite so intensely.

Well, until the other night.

The sky was turning pink and the morning light haloed the treetops on the eastern side of the road. Up ahead, the road changed. It was about to widen out into an overlook. There was a turnout up there where you could park and take pictures of Snow River and its braided channels and shifting gravel bars. That overlook marked the end of the Firelight Ridge road. A few miles beyond, there was Kursk, where the paved road began. After that, Blackbear, and beyond that, the rest of Alaska.

In other words, after that overlook, her Firelight Ridge adventure would be over.

Tears sprang to her eyes. With her vision blurring, she swung the steering-wheel to the right and brought the old Saab to an abrupt stop facing Snow River. The sun was rising to the east, over mountains that traced sharp bright edges against the sky. The river flowed from the ice fields all the way to the Gulf of Alaska. Along the way, it branched into various streams and offshoots, one of which flowed through the town of Firelight Ridge.

Snow River said goodbye to Firelight Ridge all the time. And it also said hello. Lucky Snow River.

For long moments, Lila watched the sunrise light sparkle on the river’s surface, turning the water shades of silver, purple and even emerald green. Goodbye, Snow River. Goodbye, Firelight Ridge. Goodbye, hardware store. Goodbye, Fang.

She let out a long breath. Time to go. She could do this. She was used to leaving things and people and places. So many times, she’d had to do this exact same thing, leaving before she was ready, because an overwhelming feeling told her she had to.

Her hands were resting on the steering wheel, but when she tried to move her right hand to turn the key in the ignition, it wouldn’t go. It simply would not budge.

Come on, she urged it. You can do this. Let’s get on the road.

Finally, her hand inched off the wheel and settled on the key. It felt like dragging her hand through concrete sludge. I don’t want to leave. I can’t leave.

Winning the battle, she finally managed to turn the key. The engine sputtered to life, then promptly died. She tried it again. This time it didn’t respond at all. Dead.

She looked at the gas indicator. It had read over halfway full when she left Firelight Ridge. But as she watched, it glitched and dropped like a stone all the way to empty. Faulty gauge. Great. What were the chances that an old beater car that had been sitting around Gunnar’s lot would have issues? She should have seen that coming.

Now what?

Sinking back in her seat, she unscrewed the lid of her Thermos. She took a long sip of coffee. Someone would pass by soon enough. Maybe they’d have a spare gas can in the back of their truck. Maybe they could give her a lift to Kursk, where there was a gas station. People around here helped each other out; that was how they survived. Maybe somewhere else she’d be freaked out by running out of gas. But not here.

Her eyelids felt heavy. She hadn’t been sleeping well ever since that dream, and she’d gotten up early to hit the road. Before she knew it, she was dozing off. It felt like stepping onto a piece of driftwood being carried downriver. So soothing. So sweet. So dreamy.

A tap on her window had her jolting awake. Her eyes opened to see it was broad daylight, perhaps even afternoon. Had she really slept that long? Her Thermos lay sideways in her lap. Fortunately, she’d tightened the lid before drifting off. Her neck was cramped. She winced as she turned to see who had appeared to rescue her.

Of course it would be Bear.

3

Bear Davis hoped that none of the stormy emotions churning through his heart showed on his face. His sister used to joke that he had two expressions, blank and scowly. “Scowly” came in handy when it was time to boot rowdy customers out of the bar. But he tried to keep it to a minimum in most other circumstances.

With Lila, it was different. With her, he didn’t worry about scaring her away. She’d never once shown any fear or wariness of him. For someone who’d been large and intimidating since the age of twelve, that was unusual.

Then again, so was she.

She rolled down her window and shone her sunny smile at him. “Hi Bear. What are you doing all the way out here?”

Lila’s friend Ani had tipped him off that Lila might be in trouble, based on her cleaning frenzy over the past few days. Should he tell her that he’d raced a speedboat across Smoky Lake, then hopped on a four-wheeler, then jumped in his truck and most likely ruined his struts so he could catch her?

Nah.

“Wanted to ask you the same thing.”

“You didn’t get my note?”

He frowned. He hadn’t even stopped at The Fang before racing after her, after Gunnar had flagged him down with a warning about the Saab she’d bought. Oh well. The place was unlocked and the regulars knew what was what. “What did it say?”

“It doesn’t matter now, I guess. Is there any chance you have a gas can in the bed of your truck?”

“I do.”

He paused, hoping she’d explain what direction she intended to take the gas he brought her. But those mesmerizing violet eyes simply held his, giving nothing away.

“Be right back. Gas station’s a few minutes away.” He strode back to his truck. His heart was doing a funny thing, sort of racing one moment, then thudding the next. He didn’t want Lila to leave. But he also didn’t want to stop her from doing something she wanted or needed to do. Mostly, he wanted her to trust him enough to tell him if she had a problem.

He was starting up his truck, which he’d parked next to Gunnar’s old Saab, when Lila slid into the passenger seat. It felt as if light flooded the cab. That was what Lila did; she brought light.

“I can’t let you pay for my gas,” she explained with one of her quirky smiles. “That would be no way to treat my roadside assister.”

His jaw tightened. He wasn’t fucking triple A. This was remote Alaska. People helped each other and didn’t expect payment unless it came in the form of smoked salmon or blackcurrant jelly.

“I still owe you wages for the last week.”

Left unsaid—you skipped town before even collecting your last paycheck.

“Oh. I guess I forgot about that.”

Just like you forgot to say goodbye. Or why you were leaving. Or why you’ve seemed so anxious this past week.

He reached past her to open the glove compartment and retrieve an envelope, which he handed to her.

She opened it and drew in a breath at the sight of the ten hundred-dollar bills inside. “You don’t owe me that much.”

“I do.”

Clearly, she had no idea how much her bright smiles and empathetic presence had increased his business. He’d had to increase his standing order with every one of his vendors. His customers were going to cry in their beer once they found out she was gone.

They drove in silence to the bend in the road known as Kursk. The gas station there had only recently installed self-service credit card pumps. For years, you’d have to hope that a member of the Wiggleworth family would happen to be around to take your money. Change came slowly out here in the mountains, but it did come.

And sometimes it came suddenly, as when Lila had first walked into the bar.

* * *

His old bartender, a guy known as Turk because of his affection for Wild Turkey, had decided to quit cold turkey.

“Redefining my name, boss,” he’d explained when Bear went to check on him. He was shaking and shivering under a pile of quilts, while his friend Timmy hovered nearby. Bear was pretty sure they were a couple, but they never specified and no one ever asked. “Call me Cold Turk now.”

“All right then. Good luck to you, Cold Turk. I can still keep you busy if⁠—”

“No. Gotta avoid any environment with temptation. Timmy looked it up.”

“When you feel better, might want to check out the AA group.”

Ironically, he sent a fair number of people to that group. He could tell when someone was ready to quit, and ready to seek help.

When he got back to The Fang, he posted a “help wanted” sign. It was April, and business was still on the slow side. He figured it would take time for word to get out, and by Memorial Day, when things got busy, someone would have stepped up.

But a few hours later, in walked Lila. The timing and the serendipity were almost uncanny.

A lot of things involving Lila were uncanny.

As she shepherded her two wheeled suitcases across The Fang’s floor, he had the quick impression that she was gliding along a sunbeam toward him. He put down the glass he was drying for fear he might drop it.

“I’d like to apply for the bartender position.” Her smile was blinding. Literally. For a moment, he could see nothing else besides that smile.

I can’t hire her. I can’t work like this.

“Are you sure?” He felt his “scowly” face take over. “I need someone long-term.”

“Okay.”

“You just arrived.” He gave her suitcases a pointed look. “Looks like you’re just passing through.”

“Is Firelight Ridge really the kind of place you ‘pass through’? Pass through to where? The road ended.”

Good point. You had to intend to come to Firelight Ridge. “You have a vehicle?”

“No. I caught a ride. Does the position require a vehicle?”

“Not if you live close enough. Where do you live?”

“That has yet to be determined,” she said lightly. “But I’m not worried about it. It’ll all work out.”

He felt a sudden urge for a drink. Bear wasn’t much of a drinker, perhaps ironically since he’d owned a bar for the past seven years. He grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels and poured himself a quick shot. He offered one to her, but she waved it off.

“I never drink on an empty stomach. Speaking of which, do you serve food here?”

He reached under the counter for a bowl of peanuts and plopped it in front of her. “You’re looking at it.”

“That would be my first suggestion.” She climbed onto a barstool. She was so petite that she couldn’t slide on the way most people did. “People need to have food in their stomachs if they’re going to drink all night.”

“Who says I want people to drink all night?”

“Don’t you want to make money? It’s a bar, after all.”

He actually had a philosophy about this, which for some reason he felt inspired to share with a total stranger. “It’s a community hub. The alcohol isn’t the point. It’s just the excuse.”

Her face lit up, brighter than the sun rising over Fire Peak. “I knew there was a reason I wanted to work here. But you just gave the perfect reason to serve food. Community and food go hand in hand. How about a soup of the day? Soups are easy. Add some bread and butter and you have the perfect meal.”

“So now I need a baker too?”

“There’s no bakery in town?” she asked, shocked.

He braced his hands on the counter and leaned toward her. “There’s no bakery in town. There’s no a lot of things in town. Everything, including food, has to get flown in most of the year. There are no spare houses that you can just claim on a whim.”

That was the moment when he first realized that the fairy-like blond girl with the purple eyes was not one tiny bit afraid of him. She put her hands on the counter and returned his gaze. “Wanna bet?”

“Huh?”

“Let’s make a bet. If I find a place to live that’s in walking distance, you’ll hire me.”

He knew for a certain fact that there was nowhere to live in a five-mile radius. So it didn’t seem like much of a bet. “And if you don’t?”

“Then I won’t bug you for a job.”

“How about if you can’t find a place, you go somewhere with more employment opportunities?” he said dryly.

“No, I won’t be leaving.”

Her certainty confused him. “Why not?”

“Because this is where I’m meant to be at the moment.” She slid off the stool. As her feet hit the floor, she staggered. Like a shot, he whipped his hand across the counter and grabbed her arm to steady her.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” She shrugged off his hand without quite meeting his eyes. He got the feeling that his touch had unnerved her.

He’d have to make sure he didn’t do that again. There was nothing he despised more than men who touched women without permission.

Not that it was going to be an issue, because he was unlikely to see her again. There was no way she’d find a place to stay this time of year.

“Do you mind if I leave my suitcases here while I secure lodging?”

“Sure. Just put them in a corner, no one will mess with them.”

“Thank you. A bientôt! That means ‘see you soon’ in French. I did so much Duolingo when I was on the bus in Canada. If you have any French-speaking customers, I can easily communicate with them. Just a little note for my job application.”

After she left, Bear spent a few moments reliving the entire encounter. Then he went into the back prep area and turned on the Wi-Fi. He made a call to Frank Stetson, who served as town manager along with his regular job of machine operator, and a few other jobs.

“That house on Pioneer,” he said when Frank answered. “The old hardware store. Remember back when we used to let people stay in it, teachers and doctors, anyone who had a skill to offer?”

“Sure, but it’s been empty since word got out about the murder spree. No one wants to stay there anymore.”

“If you go down there right now and put a ‘for rent’ sign on the door, you might have someone.”

“They got a name?”

He walked into the bar and nodded to Pinky and Gaston, who had just settled at a table and opened up a travel chessboard. Moving to the corner, he crouched down to read the luggage tags on the two suitcases she’d left behind. “Lila. Lila Romanoff.”

“She a teacher or a doctor? You can vouch for her? ”

“I’ll vouch for her. She’ll be good for the town.”

He didn’t know if she had any professional skills along those lines, but he had no doubt that she would be good for the town. If nothing else, she’d be responsible for his new policy of serving soup.

4

Bear still didn’t know why he’d called Frank. He told himself it was because he’d needed a bartender. But that wasn’t the full story, and a guy could only lie to himself for so long.

He’d wanted her to stay. Full stop. He still did.

With the gas tank filled and safely strapped into the bed of his truck, he drove back to the pullout where the Saab was parked.

Damn. She’d gone to the trouble of buying a car from Gunnar, but hadn’t taken the time to tell him why she wanted to leave. He didn’t say a word as he unscrewed the cap of her gas tank and emptied the can into it. Five gallons would get her to Blackbear, where she could fill up again.

He tossed the can back in the bed and wiped his hands on a blue shop towel. Then he tucked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans and allowed himself to look at Lila, who was leaning against his truck while she tore open a package of powdered donuts she’d bought at the gas station.

“Well. I guess this is it. I heard the road was washed out about five miles past Kursk. Drive careful. These tires are probably over ten years old.”

She cocked her head with a frown, her hand inside the package of donuts, probably collecting powdered sugar. Lila loved her junk food. “Past Kursk? Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t I mention that I’m not going that way?”

He lifted his eyebrows. There was no other way.

“I’m not leaving,” she clarified. “I was going to, but then I just…couldn’t.”

“Because you ran out of gas.”

“No. I have gas now. I just couldn’t leave. It’s—” She stuck a donut in her mouth, as if trying to stop herself from saying more. After brushing off her hand, she opened her car door. “Someone has to make the soup,” she said through a mouthful of crumbs. “Thanks for the rescue. I’ll see you back at The Fang.”

As he watched, still confused, she got in and rolled down the window. “Please don’t read the note I left.”

“If you left me a note, it belongs to me.”

She turned the key, shifted into reverse, stomped on the accelerator, and was heading back to Firelight Ridge before he had a chance to even hop in his truck.

He chuckled as he started up his truck. It didn’t matter if he never saw her note. She wasn’t leaving. That was what counted.

Now if he could just get her to tell him why she’d tried to leave. And what had changed her mind.

As he shaded his eyes against the bright sunshine reflecting off the river, something caught his eye. Something dark hunched at the edge of one of the channels.

Black bear?

No, it wasn’t moving like a bear. It shifted slightly every time the current tugged at it. It wasn’t alive. Or at least it wasn’t conscious.

A root ball that had been torn up by a storm and tossed into the river? That seemed unlikely, since there had been no big storms recently and it wasn’t really shaped like roots.

Only one way to find out.

He parked his truck again and climbed over the guardrail. The steep embankment was made of crumbling reddish earth that quickly covered his jacket and jeans. A few times, he came close to slipping and barely managed to grab onto a protruding root or a rocky handhold. But he hadn’t spent five years as a police officer in the bush—the most miserable years of his life—for nothing. He’d once climbed up a sheer cliff to help a boy who had lost control of his four-wheeler.

When he finally reached level ground, he checked the mystery object again.

Correction. Not an object. It was definitely a person. He couldn’t tell much more than that, other than it wasn’t a small person. Not a child.

He checked his phone. No service. He’d have to call the Blackbear police after he’d climbed back up that embankment.

Steeling himself, he walked across the gravel that the river had deposited in dunes along its shore. The closer he got, the more his stomach sank. People had drowned in Snow River before. They might be fishing on the shore, slip on the rocks, get swept away. It had been known to happen.

But fishing season was over. There were no more salmon making their way upriver to their spawning grounds. And this person wasn’t wearing hip waders or high boots or oilskins. They hadn’t been fishing.

She. She hadn’t been fishing. He was next to her now. Long wet ropes of hair wrapped around her neck and head like seaweed. She wore a short wool coat. Green and black plaid. She was heavy-set, plump, you could say. He didn’t recognize the coat or anything else about her, so he didn’t believe she was from Firelight Ridge.

He tugged her by the feet to get her fully out of the water. She wore sodden Converse sneakers and jeans. Water streamed off her, saturated the gravel. Had she been trail running? Not in that coat, he thought. Or jeans.

Just to confirm the obvious, he gingerly reached through the tangled strands of hair to find her neck. Her skin was cold, so cold. She couldn’t possibly still be alive. Still, he spent several long minutes searching for a pulse. Nothing. To his eye, she hadn’t been in the water more than a day or so.

He washed his hands in the river, dried them on his pants, and snapped some photos with his phone. He included the exact location where he’d first spotted her body.

Climbing back up that embankment was a lot harder than sliding down. Then he had to drive another mile to pick up a signal.

“Blackbear dispatch, what is the nature of your emergency?” He recognized that bored voice. In fact, he and Carol Hews had enjoyed a two-year fuck-buddy relationship before she’d decided last winter that she wanted a family.

“Carol, it’s Bear. From Firelight Ridge.”

“Bear, I’m sorry but it’s over. You can’t be calling nine-one-one because you want me back.”

“I don’t⁠—”

“I know. But you don’t have to rub it in. Can’t you just play along?”

No. He couldn’t. Normally, sure. They’d played all sorts of fun games, but now was not the time. “I found a dead body.”

“Shit. No kidding? In Firelight Ridge?” Carol shifted right into professional mode. “GPS says you’re in Kursk.”

“Snow River, right near that overlook on the way to Firelight Ridge. She drowned. Or at least, I found her in the water.”

“You saying you don’t think she drowned?”

“I don’t know how she died, but you’d better send someone out here.”

“Hang on.” He heard the tapping of keys. “It’s going to be about an hour. Can you wait there? With the body? Coyotes might get at it. Bears. Hell, even the eagles are hungry come fall.”

“Yeah, I’ll wait. Who’s coming?”

“Probably Cromwell, he’s closest. Turner if he finishes up a burglary in time.”

Bear let out a silent sigh. He knew all the police in the area, the Blackbear PD, tribal police, and Alaska State Troopers. Firelight Ridge itself didn’t have any law officers, and people tended to treat him as if he was one, just because he had his finger on the pulse of the town.

But only Cromwell knew that he actually had been an officer himself, before things had gone wrong. Cromwell loved rubbing that old nightmare in his face.

He ended the call and scrambled back down the embankment. He wouldn’t be able to fend off wildlife from inside a truck. Hunkering down on a long cedar driftwood log, he settled down to wait.

Interesting coincidence that Lila had parked up at that overlook while there was a dead body washed up on shore a few dozen feet below her. And another thing—why hadn’t she noticed?

5

“They’re saying she was murdered.” Molly Evans stepped barefoot into the glassed-in deck at Sam’s house. Sam was staying overnight in Blackbear, where he tended to pick up all the hottest news. She’d just gotten off the phone with him, while Ani and Charlie and Lila set out bowls of popcorn and a pitcher of margaritas.

Girls’ night had just taken a very dark turn.

Lila curled her legs under her on the love seat. Normally she loved this deck, especially this time of year, when the cottonwoods lost their leaves and you could see all the way through the bare branches to the mountains.

But murder…somehow the word made the gray sky look even more ominous.

“What else did he say?” Charlie set down a roll of paper towels that would serve as napkins.

“Just that she hasn’t been identified yet. They’re trying to figure out who it is, but she doesn’t seem to be a local.”

“How do they know it was murder?” Ani asked. Ever since she’d divorced John Walsh and gotten together with Gil, she had a look about her that her friends hadn’t seen in many years—relaxed and content. “Couldn’t it just be a drowning?”

“No, because they found a knife wound in her back,” Molly explained. “That’s not what killed her, but it’s probably what sent her into the river. Then she drowned.”

Images flooded through Lila’s mind. A woman stumbling through the woods. A knife hurtling through the air, ripping into her back. Pain, panic…rushing water… white water.

She shuddered and blinked them away. It was just her imagination. This was Firelight Ridge, where her intuitive ability was dampened. She wasn’t picking up actual images of what had happened. It was just her mind filling in the blanks. “So sad,” she murmured. “I’m glad it wasn’t anyone we know. We’ve had enough drama around here.”

Charlie quirked a smile at her as she plopped onto a cushion on the floor, her long blond ponytail swinging behind her. “I love how you talk like an old-timer.”

“I’ve been here longer than anyone in this room,” Lila pointed out, making everyone laugh. But it was true. After she’d come to Firelight Ridge, Molly had come looking for her, and then Charlie and Ani had shown up to help in various moments of crisis. But Lila had been the trailblazer, and she took pride in that.

“No arguing with that.” Molly chuckled as she poured out margaritas from the pitcher. “Okay then, old-timer. You tell us. Is it common around here for murder victims to float down the river?”

“Don’t they usually show up in the spring after being frozen in the snow all winter?” Charlie lowered her voice for more drama. “Sometimes nibbled at by wild animals?”

“How did this conversation get so gruesome?” Looking distressed, but still stunning, Ani accepted a margarita from Molly. Ani and Gil were still deciding if they were going to stay for the winter, and Lila didn’t want to scare her off with gory details.

“Our murder rate is very low here,” she assured her friend. “It’s much more likely that you’d get buried by an avalanche or chased by a bear or…” Realizing that was the wrong tactic, she smoothly shifted gears. “Or have a nice peaceful winter reading by a cozy fire while watching the snow gently fall through the spruce trees.”

The others cracked up.

“You should have told us you got a job with the tourism bureau,” joked Molly. “How are you going to describe The Fang? Upscale dining at one of Firelight Ridge’s most iconic establishments?”

Lila made a face at her. “It is iconic. Besides, you’re going to see for yourself that I’m right.”

Molly and Sam had decided to spend the winter here, even though Sam’s secret surveillance job was technically over. Molly felt she had unfinished business with the Chilkoot children and their legal status, and once she took on a mission, she never abandoned it.

“I’m very much looking forward to that, although I’m also keenly interested in the murder possibilities. How about that murder spree here back in the eighties? I’ve heard it mentioned a few times, but I still don’t know the details.”

That incident had been on Lila’s mind ever since the dream she’d had a couple of weeks ago. “I hate that phrase, murder spree. It makes it sound like Spring Break or something, like a fun thing. A horrible, vengeful man snapped and decided to take his frustrations out on a bunch of his own fellow townspeople. That’s just a terrible situation.”

“So you do know the details.” Charlie licked salt off the rim of her glass, her eyes wide with interest. “I asked April to tell me the story, but she refuses to talk about it. She says it was a black mark on Firelight Ridge and bad for business.”

April owned the most expensive inn in town, Fire Peak Lodge, and she’d recently put Charlie in charge while she dealt with legal issues arising from a crime committed in the late nineteen seventies.

“It’s hard to get the straight story.” Lila eyed the popcorn, but decided to pass for now, especially if she had to talk about that incident. “I’ve heard a few different versions of it at The Fang. At first I heard the shooting happened at the airstrip. People used to gather for the arrival of the plane that carried the mail. There was no post office, so you’d just show up and collect your mail from the bag on the plane.”

“So the gunman was going for maximum density of population?” Molly winced. “Sorry, that sounded very cynical. He wanted to make his mark, is what I meant.”

“Maybe.” Lila shrugged. “But then Pinky Bannister told me that the murders were spread out over a couple of days while they tried to catch the guy. It’s hard to know the truth.”

“There must have been news coverage.” Charlie, always the computer-savvy researcher, reached for her iPad. But Lila shook her head.