by Karen Harper
“Maybe I’ll come over with Suze. She’d like to see where the plane crashed—that is, when our friend Mary comes to lodge-sit for us so we can get away for a little while.”
“That’s great. I thought you might not want to have anything to do with—with planes and crashes, unless you were on site and had no choice. Sorry, maybe I’m reading too much in. So, did you learn anything else about me online?”
“Nothing personal. I just like to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Dealing with? I like that—it makes me sound a little dangerous.”
“Mom, he does dangerous things,” Chip insisted, running back into the room.
“But above all as incident commander,” Bryce turned away to tell the boy, “I am helping people, sometimes rescuing people to keep them safe.”
“I’d like to help you but I can’t until I’m older,” Chip said, his round, freckled face and voice so sincere.
“You have already helped me. We’ll talk about how you helped and what you saw, if it’s all right with your mother.”
“Of course,” she said, seeming to recover her poise.
Talk about being an incident commander of deep dive recovery, Bryce thought. What was it about this woman that made him want to stay in Falls Lake longer than anticipated? This woman lived out in the wilds, miles from his home, and pretty obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with flying.
Hell, he had a job to do here as soon as Steve arrived, and it didn’t have anything to do with a diversion like Megan Metzler. So why did he want to get off course in uncharted territory with her?
* * *
Meg saw Steve Ralston, another recovery diver from Bryce’s team, arrive about an hour later. There would be a larger team assembled this spring to bring up the sunken plane, but it only took one extra team member to recover a body. Steve carried his gear, and Suze checked him in while Bryce was in his room. Steve was redheaded and stocky, somewhat shorter than Bryce. And unlike Bryce’s short hair, this guy had a lot of hair scraped back into a ponytail. And a tattoo on the side of his neck that said Semper Fi.
Meg had started to walk him to his room when Bryce came out into the hall, so she stood between them.
“Sounds like a weird case,” Steve greeted his friend as they shook hands, nearly pressing her between them. “Might be an alien.”
“Yeah, right, but his craft doesn’t look like a UFO. I’ll take you to the site, and we can retrieve him tomorrow, get the emergency crew here from Anchorage so they can take the body for an autopsy. The ME has been advised and is waiting. You’ve met Meg?”
“And her sister,” Steve said. He had a tiny gap between his two front teeth. “Meg was just starting to tell me that she saw the plane go down. You debrief her yet?”
“Only informally. Her six-year-old son was there too, so I’ll also ask him what he recalls.”
“A real stickler for the Big Man’s tactics, huh? He always said let the dust settle before interviews but don’t wait too long.”
Meg felt she was in the middle of a meeting. One partly about her. Bryce had not mentioned a formal interview about the plane crash. Her stomach cramped a bit, not that she wasn’t willing to help.
She said, “Steve, I’ll just open your room door for you and let you two make your plans. Chip and I will be glad to help with any information we have, but we were so surprised, and it happened so fast...”
Her voice trailed off as she and Bryce exchanged looks. “So, should I write up what I recall?”
Bryce reached out to take her elbow. “I’ve found such information is more helpful if not taken right after a traumatic incident. The ‘Big Man’ Steve refers to is our superior. He’s in Washington, DC,” he added.
“Oh, not local NTSB then? He must be hanging out with all the politicians,” she said.
“Something like that,” Bryce said. “Our roles at the NTSB aren’t typical by any means. We’re part of a special task force—with a very particular agenda. We do work alongside regular agents on occasion, but most of the assignments we’re given are a bit...broader in scope. Classified.”
“Classified,” Meg repeated, her interest piqued. “And your boss is ‘the Big Man’?”
“That’s right,” Bryce said. “He prefers to keep his identity classified too.”
Meg looked to Steve, who just nodded. “All right, well, I have to admit the incident really shook me up in more ways than one—to see the plane go down. You’re right, I’m steadier about it now.”
Steve said, “Not the first plane with a UFO—unidentified flying occupant—in the skies around here.” He winked and punched Bryce lightly on the shoulder before going into his room.
“He’s kidding about that, of course,” Meg said as Bryce released her elbow. “The man under the ice—he’s a normal human being, right? Wait—is that what you mean by classified?”
Bryce laughed. “The guy in the wrecked plane is unidentified but not an alien. Steve has a weird sense of humor. I’m sure we’ll find some ID in the plane and learn if the pilot was just passing overhead, was lost—or meant to land at Falls Lake.”
* * *
That night Meg was on kitchen duty while Bryce and Steve ate with the four skiers who were staying at the lodge. Later, after Chip talked at length to Bryce about what he remembered from the crash—Meg had asked to sit in on that but had agreed not to respond—she had told Bryce all she could recall while he took notes on his laptop.
After she tucked Chip in with the dogs sleeping on the floor, she went back out into the common room of the lodge. Suze was nowhere in sight, the skiers were watching a National Geographic program on coral reefs being stunted by global warming, and Bryce sat across the room in the only dark corner, away from the large TV and the glow and warmth of the fireplace. He seemed to be just staring out into the darkness.
She should just go to bed, she knew, because she was aching with exhaustion. But she’d say good-night to Bryce first if he was awake. In the morning, the ME’s van should be here from Anchorage, so he and Steve were going to bring the body up.
When she got closer, she saw he was looking down into his laptop, but nothing bright was on the screen to light his face. Oh, he was watching a video or movie on a dark background with a darting single light on the screen.
It must be something he had filmed, something underwater, maybe the sunken plane. She stopped and watched the screen. A man illuminated by a light, a dead man with stiff, frozen arms being pushed in the black current and his face so white with eyes wide open. The dead pilot?
His screen went dark. Bryce didn’t speak for a moment, then turned to look at her. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t hear you—then at the last minute saw you reflected in the window glass.”
“The night outside acts like a dark mirror.”
“Didn’t mean for you or anyone but Steve to see that. Not very good bedtime video. I usually just shoot still photos but not this time. Join me, please. I want to ask you something.”
She sat on the edge of the short leather couch, perched as if to flee, then forced herself to sit back.
“Let me explain,” he said. “I keep thinking there’s something I’m missing from what I filmed. I’ll take more video tomorrow before we bring him up.” He didn’t smile but looked back out at the window. A single motion detector light that covered the patio went on, then off.
“When something large enough moves out there,” she explained, “it does go on. I’ve seen deer, moose set it off before, even something as small as a beaver. Usually guests will rush to the expanse of glass to watch a bit of wildlife.”
“I swear I saw something earlier that was tall move out there—along the tree line, probably too far out to make the light come on.”
“Tall? The wind moves the spruce and fir branches, and sometimes snow cascades from them, and it looks like someone moved,
though that doesn’t make the light come on. What sort of idiot would be out in this cold with the snow so deep? If it was an animal, we’ll see the tracks in the morning.”
“I heard you have a security guy. Looking around, it seems everyone’s accounted for but him.”
“Yes, Josh Spruce. But he’s not on duty most nights and works inside during the day this time of year. Besides, he has a girlfriend in town he was going to see tonight, so no way he’s skulking around in the cold and dark out there.”
“I’ll go out in the morning. I know where I saw the movement.”
A stubborn man, she thought. Things could not get stranger—or more exciting.
“I don’t mean to freak you out,” he told her and reached out to snag her hand in his. “I mean, more than I already have. You and Chip have been a tremendous help, and—like I said earlier—I appreciate it. The thing is, I don’t think seeing someone out there was my imagination.
“And,” he added in a lazy, slower tone of voice, “I don’t think the fact we’re getting along so well so fast is my imagination either. You’re living pretty isolated here now.”
Now, she thought, meant since Ryan had been gone. They had lived in town, but without his income she hadn’t been able to afford the house and had been grateful to move here with Suze for support and work.
“And then,” he went on, still holding her hand, turning toward her on the couch and ignoring his laptop when it slid off his lap to rest between them, “the plane crash happened, and I crashed in on your life.”
“But you’ll soon be gone.”
“Maybe not. My boss said he wants me to oversee the resurrection and identification of that mystery plane. And, remember, I can fly and I know exactly where Falls Lake and the lodge are.”
She hated to admit it even to herself, but that thrilled her. Of course, she didn’t want him in her life, a pilot with a hazardous job. At least that’s what she thought, what she should tell him right now in a polite, gentle way to end all this.
So why, when he put the laptop on the coffee table and slid closer, simply holding her hand, did she feel a lightning bolt jag to her heart—and lower? Being with this man, she could crash and burn, but she did not want to do anything to stop that.
CHAPTER SIX
Early the next morning, Meg was in the kitchen, ready to fix the lodge’s six guests and her family pancakes, waffles or omelets on request. Josh Spruce was helping out, humming off tune and frying bacon and sausage on the other range. They always liked to give their guests a choice of hearty fare.
She did manage to sit down for a quick cup of coffee at six thirty with Bryce when he came to the table but said to hold his breakfast until Steve showed up. They were meeting at nine and heading out to retrieve the pilot’s body at ten, when there was decent daylight. For one moment, sitting there with him seemed so normal, so lovely. Chip still asleep, the other guests not here yet, Suze and Josh busy, so just the two of them for a few precious moments.
“Even though it’s still dark, I’m going outside to check where I saw that movement last night,” Bryce told her.
“Our cousin Alex just married a professional tracker,” she said. “Wish he was here to go with you.”
“So I heard from the mayor. Quinn or Q-Man the tracker of cable TV fame. I’ve seen his reality show, tracking here in the Alaskan wilderness. I’ll bet he’s glad not to be here if he’s on his honeymoon. As to your earlier question about what I want when I come back in—” He turned to look at her a bit too long while her heartbeat kicked up. “I’ll take pancakes and sausage, please. Be right back.”
She returned to the kitchen still feeling the impact of that. Of what? she scolded herself. That he looked at her intently over the rim of a coffee cup? That something unspoken always leaped between them and had since he’d used the word kismet when she’d walked him away from the hole in the ice and she’d actually thought he’d maybe said kiss me? She’d looked the word up. It meant fate, as if they were meant to meet. But he was everything she did not want—and everything she did.
After taking their cups into the kitchen, she still found an excuse to go back to the table—doing Josh’s job of putting out Danish rolls and fruit—so she could watch out the window. The motion detector light was on. Bryce had also taken out a light that threw a stark streak of white ahead of him. He played it over the ground, again, again, in different directions. He must be up to his knees in snow out there but maybe he’d found something. It looked like he was heading toward the road, so perhaps coming in.
Back in the kitchen, she told Josh, “I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. No one else is here yet anyway, and I got things under control. Did I tell you Pam’s a good cook?”
“No, but that’s another point of many in her favor, right?”
“Like she needs more,” he said with a grin.
If Josh could ever blush, he just did. He used to be so uptight, but he’d greatly mellowed since he’d started dating Pamela Cruise. He was absolutely their jack-of-all-trades around here as well as at Quinn’s tracking school next door, where he worked part-time. Well, she could understand a love interest smoothing out someone’s life.
That really showed Bryce wasn’t for her: all he did was get her edgy and excited.
As she waited at the front door of the lodge, she heard Bryce outside, or someone, stomping snow off their boots. When he came in with a gush of cold air, she could tell he was startled to see her standing there.
“Don’t tell Steve about all this, or he’ll get on his alien invasion kick again,” he told her.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t see human footprints or animal tracks out there, but two narrow solid lines like small tires rolled along the ground.” Frowning, he took off his gloves, earflap hat and down-filled coat and piled them on the bench by the door. He wiped his boots on the floor mat there.
“Like a bicycle, maybe? In this snow?” she asked.
“More like two huge, continuous scuff marks. It’s one way to obscure distinctive tracks. From the street, I think whoever it was came back along the side of the lodge to look in your big windows, then doubled back to the street. There must have been a truck, snowmobile, something parked down from the lodge just a little way. The streets have enough ruts and truck wheel marks I bet nothing will show there.”
“But you have a specific job here. You’re not a detective. If someone’s been trespassing, we can call in a state trooper or—”
“I wouldn’t go that far yet. I just want you—all of us—to be safe. The anonymity of the plane, the pilot, now whoever’s watching this place or even you and Chip, worries me.”
“No one could be interested in us,” she protested, but her pulse picked up. “Anyway, those tracks do sound really strange. It would be hard to scuff all that way. Most people would use snowshoes or just walk in the deep snow, not shove their legs and feet through the snow.”
“And why park on the road when there is a perfectly clear, shoveled parking lot nearby? Then this,” he added and picked up his coat, digging first into one pocket and then the other.
He produced a two-inch-square snag of white woven cloth, wool, probably. Their foreheads close together, they examined it. As small as it was, it gave off a faint smell—tobacco? Something stale.
She said in a shaky whisper, “So you were right that someone was peering through the lodge windows.”
“And that it was not some kind of animal or someone in a space suit,” he added, frowning at the frayed piece of cloth. “It has a slight smell that I don’t think is smoke from a fireplace.”
Her stomach cartwheeled at a thought. She had to tell him what she and Chip had left out of their statements, but they’d only answered questions asked about the plane crash itself.
“Bryce, I think I’ve seen that before but don’t know who i
t’s from,” she told him as his blue eyes narrowed and riveted on her. “After the plane crash, when we were sitting in your plane, we saw a man watching your dive. Chip spotted him first, and I saw him too and couldn’t identify him.”
“That line is starting to sound too familiar.”
“Of course, the noise from the crash could have brought someone hiking nearby. He disappeared either before or when the townspeople showed up. And he was wrapped in a white blanket, just standing there when we first saw him.”
He drew in a swift breath through flared nostrils. “Some kind of crude camouflage in the snow? And who knows how long he’d been there? Maybe as long as you two were. Like you, maybe he heard the plane struggling. Or maybe he knew to be there to wait for a payload from a plane—or even a crash.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t think of it earlier. You only asked about the plane going into the lake and my head was still spinning.”
He reached out to touch her shoulder just as they heard voices of guests coming in for breakfast. “I’ll have a few more questions later—actually sooner, before Steve and I go out. When you and Chip are free, I need to know again exactly what you saw, any impressions or clues to identify the observer. Tell Suze I do appreciate her offer for you two to bring us out some hot food later.”
Suze had volunteered that? She tried not to show him she was surprised. She nodded.
“If Chip comes out to breakfast, is it okay if I talk to him alone first?” he asked.
“Yes, all right. I trust you.”
His lower lip set hard. “Don’t know what I would have done without you in all this.”
Before he could see her eyes were tearing up, she hurried back to the kitchen.