by Karen Harper
* * *
At nine thirty she took a break and joined Bryce where he was waiting for her on the couch where they’d sat last night.
“If it won’t take long for you to ask your questions about the white blanket person, I can do it now,” she told him.
“Great,” he said and pulled his laptop up from the couch and opened it up. His taking notes made her a little more nervous, as if this was all so formal. Well, in a way, it was life-and-death.
“So Chip says, as you did earlier, that he saw the person first.”
“Yes. I don’t know how long he was there because that blanket did make him blend in.”
“Any impressions of him—we’ll call it a him for now? Short, tall, thin, heavy? Bearded? Did he have a hat?”
“Sorry. You know, I think he had the blanket pulled up over his head like a hood. For extra warmth, maybe.”
“Or to keep his head and face hidden.”
“But no one could know a plane was going to crash.”
“No, but he could know one was due. Smuggling—drugs, for example—is one option for what the nameless pilot was doing in a plane with no markings.”
“I don’t mean to be nosy, but have there been other deaths the NTSB has investigated that were tied to smuggling? Of drugs? Money? Even people?”
“You know, the Big Man could use you on his staff—obviously you are working with me already.” He smiled tautly and closed his laptop. “Got to go meet Steve and head out to the site. See you out there. I promise you we’ll have the body covered if we have it up by then, so don’t worry about that.”
He gave her knee a quick squeeze and got up from the couch in one fluid motion. She rose too, partly so he wouldn’t see her surprised expression that Suze had planned all this, and partly because they were going out there with food and coffee where a frozen body—under a tarp or not—was going to be brought up.
* * *
Just after they’d served lunch and the skiers had departed for the Talkeetna foothill slopes, Meg and Suze started out in Suze’s snowmobile. Chip was hanging out with Josh, his brother Sam and Sam’s wife, Mary. Mary worked the front desk at the lodge when they were away and sometimes the gift shop, and was six months pregnant, but that didn’t stop her from staying active.
“I can’t believe you set all this up,” Meg told Suze through her woolen scarf she’d wrapped around her lower face under her knitted, pointed cap. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you are interested in Bryce Saylor.”
“Hardly. Since I broke up with Mr. Pompous-Only-Lawyer-in-Town, I’m holding out for a fellow artist. I have Commander Saylor picked out for you.”
Meg punched her shoulder, but the noise of the snowmobile kept them from talking further. Meg remembered Bryce’s joke about working for the NTSB, since she was already working with him. Of course, he was kidding.
After all and above all, this was serious business. She had overheard a conference call Steve and Bryce took from their boss in DC, the guy they called Mr. Big. No, that was on Sex and the City. This guy was “the Big Man.” The only thing she’d really heard on their conference call had shaken her: “Get that body up before someone else does or word gets out to the media. I can only sit on this so long. I embargoed it with the Anchorage paper, but they’re easy to impress. Just pray the rabid mainstream media don’t get hold of this. We don’t need Russia in the news more than it is already—and not on this topic.”
“Bryce’s plane looks big out here,” Suze was yelling back over her shoulder as they came to a stop and she killed the motor.
“It is big, especially compared to the one Ryan flew and the one under the ice. I don’t see either Bryce or Steve. I thought he said they’d take turns diving because when he surfaced last time, the plane had shifted a bit.”
“Bet it got frozen in place last night, so they decided to dive together. Let’s just walk over to his plane. Maybe he left it open for us like you said he did for you and Chip. Darn cold weather.”
Toting their insulated food bag, they walked past where Bryce and Steve had left a pile of gear. Some diving equipment was out on this ice too, near a DANGER STAY AWAY sign, orange barrels and rope Mayor Purvis had arranged to be left there. At least no one else was here, and they weren’t going to stay long. Bryce had said that as soon as they got the body up and took it in a tarp out to the road to meet the medical examiner’s van from Anchorage, they’d seal off the sunken plane until tomorrow, when they would search it more thoroughly.
“Look,” Suze said, pointing at the trampled snow. “They spilled something.”
Scarlet drops speckled the snow. Worse, there was a frozen blotch of crimson.
“Blood,” Meg said. “I think it is. And surely not from a frozen dead body.”
“Maybe one of them cut themselves.”
Meg lifted her eyes from the ground and glanced around the area. At least she saw no one in a white blanket. And then she saw what Bryce must have seen outside the window of the lodge. Near this small snow bank, the tracks of someone dragging his feet. Those marks went out onto the ice where the trail just vanished. Nothing—she saw nothing out on the ice, blinding white in the sun.
“I’m scared,” she told Suze. “I’m sure Bryce said one would go down, one would stay above for safety.”
Her voice caught. Her insides twisted.
“Should I call for help?” Suze asked. “Like Josh or the mayor, to send someone out? How about the medical examiner in Anchorage so they can contact the van they have heading here?”
“That driver was told to stay on the road, and Bryce and Steve would bring the body out.”
Meg stared at the drops of blood again. “Bryce and Steve are supposed to keep word about this low-key. Even though a lot of people knew about the plane crash itself, the lack of ID on it is so far still a secret. You know, the blood drops might lead to the hole in the ice. I’m going out.”
Suze grabbed her arm. “Let’s just wait here together. One or both of them will surely surface soon.”
“No, I think—” Meg got out before a movement out on the ice snagged her eye. “Look, I think someone is coming up. Maybe they had to both go down to bring the body up, but what about the blood? Wait, don’t call anyone yet in case it’s animal blood, or one of them just cut himself.”
She started out carefully on the ice as she had once before. Suze made a grab for her, then just shouted, “You be careful!”
She hadn’t done one careful thing since she’d met Bryce Saylor, Meg thought as she half skidded, half walked toward the too-familiar hole in the lake ice.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A masked diver popped through the ice and motioned to her with one hand. Bryce? Steve? Why didn’t he take off his mask?
He raised one hand as if to ask a question, then pulled out his mouthpiece.
“Even in the water, the body’s heavy.” Bryce’s voice! He was gasping for air. “Where’s Steve?”
“I don’t know,” she shouted. “We didn’t see him but found blood in the snow.”
“Can you give me a hand?” he asked through ragged breaths as she carefully went closer. “I can’t lift him by myself. Don’t bend over or you might go in headfirst. On your knees so we can get him up on the ice.”
We, she thought. Yes, in a way, they were a team, at least right now.
“I can help,” she promised, but the idea of handling a frozen corpse made her stomach cramp.
“But something’s wrong if Steve’s not here. The guide rope he was tending cut loose and disappeared. I don’t see it. I had to fight my way up with this body. The plane shifted since the last dive, but seems frozen in place now.”
She could not believe she was doing this, grasping the frozen arms of a corpse. Rigor mortis was one thing—but this... Mostly, Bryce pushed him up, and she pulled, slipping closer to the hole, trying to
maneuver the weight on the slick ice. The man was literally a stiff, nearly frozen solid, glazed face staring.
Bryce hoisted himself out and lay gasping for air while he ripped off his mask, air tank and other gear.
“I hope Steve didn’t come in after me, if that rope broke. He can’t be in the plane. I locked it. You sure about the blood? Got to trace it, find him. He may be cut or hurt.”
She scrambled up to help him stand. He rose heavily to his knees, then to his feet. She steadied him as he ripped off his fins.
“It’s not like Steve,” Bryce said between big breaths. His teeth were chattering. “Show me where the blood is. We don’t find him fast, we’ll need help, but if he’s just cut we can keep it quiet like we’ve been ordered to.”
So this was some sort of secret retrieval. Some sort of government undercover work? At least Suze was just going to call the mayor. All of Steve’s joking about UFOs and aliens aside, something really strange was going on. She wondered if even Bryce—and “the Big Man”—knew what it was yet.
Was Bryce to be trusted?
“See where Suze is standing?” she said, pointing. “Blood’s on the snow there, and those scuffing steps you said you saw at the lodge, then nothing.”
“You didn’t tell me that! Did you see anyone around?”
“No. No one.”
He gripped her shoulder hard. “Damn, this is going to blow sky-high,” he whispered, as if the corpse could hear.
“Bryce, Suze can call the mayor. He may send local help, a doctor, someone.”
“Tell her not to call anyone right now. We’ve got to find him. He can’t be under the ice. Steve!” he yelled so loudly she jumped. “Steve!”
* * *
Bryce’s blood drummed so hard in his head he thought normal sounds had gone silent. Suze was gesturing to him. He hated to leave Meg with the body, a strange, otherworldly looking one now that it was iced over in a grotesque position with eyes open and arms half-raised. And still no sign of ID in the cockpit. He had to find Steve fast, dive again, search the entire underwater plane.
He skidded to a stop before the deep-snow shore. “Where’s the blood?” he asked Suze, sounding as if he’d run miles.
“It starts over here then comes this way,” she said, pointing. “And back a ways there are bigger drops of it.”
Bryce saw the red stains right away. Just as frightening, he saw the double-shuffle continuous tracks in the snow Meg had mentioned. But no drag marks of a body...
The thing was, Steve was careful. He’d even told him to be wary. He must have fallen on the ice, cut himself on his dive knife. But why had he left his position near the hole in the ice? And how to explain the missing guide rope? Steve had worn his dive suit in case he needed to get in to help lift the body out, so he must have cut or hit his hands or head for this much blood. Maybe then someone came along and helped him—or had caused Steve’s injury in the first place.
“We’ll find him,” he told Suze. “Don’t call anyone right now.”
His head down, Bryce tracked the blood drops. Without goggles or sunglasses, the glare of sun on snow nearly blinded him. Pounding headache, pounding thoughts. Something so wrong in all this, and now there were two innocent women involved, one he was fast coming to care for. And the Big Man had stressed this needed to be kept as covert as possible until they got answers about what was going on. He’d told Bryce he’d already pulled some governmental strings to keep the crash quiet.
Bryce lost the trail, so he figured the stranger must have gone out onto the ice. He must be carrying Steve, which meant he was unconscious. But come ashore where? Maybe he should backtrack.
He pulled out his dive knife and gripped it in his cold hand.
There! Up the bank toward some spruce trees draped with snow that looked like they were shivering in the cold wind, he saw clearer tracks.
He glanced out at Meg. She was sitting near the corpse but not looking at it, only staring at him. Suze had started out on the ice to be with her.
He squinted to skim the area, concentrating on anything that moved. In the distance, a single deer. A couple of snowshoe rabbits in their white winter coats. Was a white-coated person watching?
He shoved a heavily laden branch of a fir tree aside. It cast most of its snow on him, obscuring more speckles of red. So he was going the right direction. Yes, here again were the too-familiar tracks that looked like two narrow tires had been rolled through here. But then, just beyond—the legs and feet of a man half-buried in the snow, a man whose legs were bound with the missing rope from the dive.
* * *
Meg’s eyes burned from squinting to watch Bryce, even through her snow goggles. She had only looked at the frozen body once, but the wide eyes and mouth agape, all coated with a layer of ice, had been enough to imprint it in her mind. And the man’s arms were raised as if he were being held up by a robber or as if he were begging, “Help me! Hold me!”
But now Bryce was windmilling his arm, gesturing, shouting, though she couldn’t tell about what.
Suze reached her then. Meg told her, “Don’t look at him, but guard him.” She struggled to her feet, slipping, and nearly spread-eagled. “Bryce has found something—maybe Steve.”
“So should I call for help now?”
“I’ll let you know. He may be fine, just resting, or he fell.”
“Okay, okay, but be careful! I’ll call the mayor or 9-1-1 if Steve’s hurt.”
Meg made a straight line toward Bryce. He wasn’t shouting now, but bending over something—someone. It had to be Steve. Injured? Surely not dead. Bryce was right. If there were two bodies, this was going to blow sky-high.
* * *
“He’s not dead,” Bryce said as she kneeled in the snow on Steve’s other side. “Faint pulse. I think someone slammed him in the back of the head with something. He didn’t get here himself—he’s tied with the dive rope,” he said as he continued to carefully untie his friend. “Go ahead and get Suze to call for whatever is the nearest ER squad. Maybe Wasilla, maybe clear to Anchorage. But don’t bother the mayor yet.”
“Should we do CPR?”
“No, he’s breathing. I touched the top of his skull through his diving cap. It’s wet with blood. Damaged skull, I think. See those tracks here too?”
She squinted at the snakelike long scuff marks that ran back to the edge of the ice. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Suze, we found him hurt! Go ahead and call 9-1-1, even though they’ll have to come a long ways.”
She ran back to Bryce. “So that’s medical help, but we can call the state troopers. They can follow those tracks to find who did this.”
“No state troopers, at least not yet. I don’t even want the mayor back here—too many questions from him. Once an investigation goes wide, jurisdiction and protocol can slow things down. Under these trees the snow’s not as deep. I think his attacker dumped Steve here, then headed out on the ice.”
“But he’ll have to emerge on the snow shore somewhere—though it’s a huge lake,” she said, her voice fading.
“I can’t leave him. Can one of you watch the pilot’s body and one of you go out to the road to bring the coroner’s driver in? Not for the corpse but to transport Steve. It’s not really their job but I don’t know how long the paramedics will take to arrive, and he needs help sooner than that corpse. A gurney won’t work, but we need a tarp or something so we can get him out of here and to help fast.”
She went to the edge of the ice, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted to Suze that she’d watch the pilot while Suze went out to meet the coroner or any other help on the road.
Suze waved back, shouted something the wind ripped away as she trudged toward where they’d left the snowmobile. She started it and turned the machine away toward the road.
“Bryce, what if whoever did this and made those weir
d tracks is watching? Or trying to separate us—to hurt Suze.”
She saw two tears track down his cheeks. He couldn’t speak at first, and she kneeled beside him to put her hand on his back.
“He has a wife and a son,” Bryce choked out, leaning down to listen to Steve’s sporadic breathing again. Then, as if to apologize, he whispered to her, “Sorry to say that—with your own situation—you know...”
That hit her hard. A wife and son. If he died, she knew how terrible it would be for them. Pain and grief she had tried so hard to control nearly swamped her.
She reached out her mittened hand to grasp Bryce’s through his heavy diving gloves. Though they were layers away from touching each other, it helped. She longed to hold him, comfort him. Just like out on the lake, for her, the ice was broken. Surely she could trust this man. Despite all this secrecy, couldn’t she?
* * *
An endless time later, they heard the increasing roar of the snowmobile returning. At least they hoped that’s what it was. They were both chilled to the bone, huddled together on each side of Steve to keep him warm. It was almost like being in each other’s arms. Meg had not gone back out on this ice, but they kept an eye on the body from here.
She hadn’t said so, but more than once she felt they were being watched by someone they could not see.
“We could keep Steve warmer in my plane,” Bryce said, “but we can’t risk moving him with that head injury. If we only had a stretcher, something to stabilize his neck and head. He’ll get jostled when we get him to the ME’s van. Unfortunately, the guy with it’s a driver, not a paramedic. Who knows when he’ll get here?”
“I can see why the coroner wouldn’t send a medic for a dead body.”
“I’m just praying we don’t have two of them.”
They were both shaking, despite what body heat they shared. Her teeth were chattering and bitterly cold air stung way down into her lungs. As crazy and as horrible as this was, even though she realized they might be watched, she felt strangely safe with Bryce so near. He had insisted on going to get his own coat from the plane to cover Steve, so he now wore only layers of flannel shirts and a light jacket.