by Karen Harper
“I can drive you there,” Bill said, coming closer, very close. “Got my truck parked here.”
She nearly took him up on that, but something told her not to. “Thanks, but I can get there another way,” she said. She didn’t even excuse herself or talk to Melissa, who was standing in the door with Suze as she ran back in past them. “I’m going to the lake,” she told Suze.
Bryce’s team had both snowmobiles, and snowshoes would take an eternity to hike in. No, she’d put on those skis one of their guests had left behind and use two hiking sticks for poles to take a shortcut through the woods. It had been years since she’d skied, but then it had been years since she began to fall in love.
* * *
The impact of the blast threw all three divers out of their exit hole on a plume of water like a giant fist. Ice cracked, then shattered into sharp missiles all around them. Bryce slammed down onto a piece of broken ice, then had to fight to stay afloat. He had cut his hand right through his torn gloves and was smearing a crimson stain. Had he cut it on a piece of the plane? On shattered ice?
His mask had smacked into the ice, but it probably saved his face. He tore the mask off to see, but the lake was shaking with aftershocks of waves, tossing him up and down like he was riding a surfboard. He saw Nate had been thrown clear, almost to the shore, sprawled flat on his stomach but moving his limbs. Keith. Where was Keith? He’d been just ahead of him with Nate trying to surface first.
He kicked hard to get to a bigger piece of ice. Tried to scramble up on it, scraping his stomach and thighs. Kicked hard, harder.
What about Bob, who had been on the surface? Bob knew Steve had been attacked there, so surely he had been more careful. Hopefully, he’d seen something, someone—that device had been somehow controlled and set off while they were diving. By whom? Had the evidence bags survived?
Suddenly, someone helped to pull him up. Keith. Keith and Bob too, both on their bellies, reaching for him. Keith was bleeding from the mouth, spitting blood.
“We didn’t see you at first there. I called 9-1-1,” Bob said, sucking in air, breathless. “Help’s coming.”
Kicking off their flippers, the three of them made it to the shore to check on Nate. They flopped next to the evidence bags. Thank God, his plane was intact, sitting a bit tilted, though it would have floated anyway. Bryce hoped another charge had not been set there but he had no time to check on that right now.
Dizzy, his ears ringing, he pointed toward Nate and choked out, “Help him!”
As Bob and Keith got up and scrambled through the snow, Bryce looked around the snowy shore hemmed by crouching trees. He drew his diving knife. Big help that would be when they were dealing with a sophisticated enemy who was now using underwater detonation. But if someone was watching again, the mastermind of all this, Bryce would die protecting these men and this evidence. He had no doubt the crashed plane was now destroyed—and someone had tried to take him and his crew with it.
Dazed, he tried to get to his feet but kept sucking air as if his lungs had been smashed. Headache. Vertigo. That damned ringing in his ears.
He had to see to his men, take care of the evidence. He had to call the Big Man. Tell him that they were into deeper water than he’d ever thought with someone clever and evil who played for keeps.
* * *
Meg skied the back forest paths, taking every shortcut she knew, pulling herself along by poles made to help hikers or by grabbing spruce branches, despite getting showered with their snow. She tried to concentrate, to remember things Ryan had taught her when she was learning to ski.
She knew she had to be careful she didn’t get hurt, not so much for Bryce as for Chip. He was her first priority. He could not lose a second parent, even if Suze would raise him and love him like her own. No, she couldn’t think that way. One anonymous dead pilot did not mean anyone else would die. Steve had survived. Bryce and his men must too.
Out of breath, aching in every muscle, she spotted the frozen lake ahead through the silhouette of trees.
She gasped. Not one hole in the ice but several—big broken pieces. Another plane crash? A bomb dropped from a plane?
She heard the whap-whap of helicopter blades, the shouts of men. Surely Bryce and his crew had not been diving when—when whatever hit.
Her tears steamed her goggles, so she yanked them off and let them dangle around her neck, though she then had to squint in the sharp light. The sound of the hovering chopper was loud. Did it even have a place to land with all that broken ice?
She forced herself to speed up, faster, faster. She had to see Bryce, to know he was safe.
* * *
Bryce was pretty sure he was hallucinating. Maybe dreaming. Meg was bending over him but she kept turning upside down, then around. He wished they were in bed together and she was teasing him. The noise in his ears prevented any sound coming from her sweet mouth as it moved so he shook his head to clear his hearing. That hurt even more.
“The helicopter landed farther down the lake where the ice is still solid.” That’s what she said. He could hear her now, but she sounded like she was in a barrel. “You might have a concussion, Bryce, so just lie still. The others are all alive. They said a bomb went off underwater.”
No kidding, he thought, and drifted away, but he was so glad to have her hands on his shoulder, her face so close. Her voice came again, a little clearer this time.
“Bryce, I said, please lie still. The guys from the chopper are walking down the side of the lake toward us with their medical gear. And your plane is okay.”
“Saw it. Good. Good—you’re here.”
He had to get up and be sure his crew were really all right, but she was holding him down with both hands. She was shaking with cold since she’d put both her gloves over his hand where he’d been cut.
“Hell of a way to find out we’re onto something big here,” he whispered. “Can’t believe I’m bleeding. Got cut by ice, I think.”
“If ice can bring down the Titanic, it can cut Bryce Saylor,” she said. She was like a stern nurse. Probably like she’d treat Chip if he were hurt, but he liked it, just having her here, close.
He tried to remember exactly what had happened. He saw the remote control firing device attached to the plane. Got the team to head up. It went off. Underwater shock waves. Almost made it to the surface, ears screaming, pain, fight for the surface, but everyone alive...
And Meg with him here.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Meg tried to concentrate on what Bryce said. She kneeled next to him in the snow where the medic had covered him with a thermal blanket. His sentences were sometimes broken, yet he spoke with authority and passion. He frowned and moved his head from time to time, as if he could clear his ears from the buzzing he’d mentioned.
But she had to tell him something else she’d learned online about Varina that could tie into his discoveries yesterday and today. She quickly brought him up to speed on her internet search. “Bryce, the fortune Jefferson Davis escaped with included a massive amount of heirloom jewelry that Confederate women had donated in support of the Confederate cause.”
“Then that’s it,” he said. “We’ve stumbled on the cache of Confederate money and jewelry that must have been missing for years. The treasury and riches of the South.” He took a deep breath. “The fortune that Jefferson and Varina Davis tried to escape with—but it disappeared before Northern troops captured them. But who had it and why did at least some of it show up in the wilds of Alaska in an unmarked plane? Where did it come from and where was it going?”
“I’ll help you try to find out. But, yes—why here? And who here?”
“Listen to me,” he whispered, seizing her hand with his uninjured one. “We only have a few minutes until they put me on that chopper, and I get to go visit poor Steve. Someone’s picking us off like ducks in a row. I need you to go into my room at
the lodge and pack my things for the hospital. Will you?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I’ll bet they test me for concussion, maybe try to keep me there for a while. But I can’t let that happen. I don’t have my phone, or I’d handle this another way. It’s in my room in a shoe under the bed. Laptop’s under there too. Can you bring both to me in Anchorage as well as my clothes?” He gave her the code to his phone. “You can call the Big Man—that’s what it says on my phone list—Big Man. Ask him for someone at the regional NTSB office in Anchorage to escort you, guard you once you’re there.”
“You’re making sense. Your head has to be okay. Maybe you won’t have to stay there long.”
“No matter what they say, I’m not staying there long. Nate and I will probably have guards on our room doors but you’ll be allowed in.”
He frowned and slowly moved his head, so he must be in pain. Either that or he was getting the buzzing in his ears again. Or had he thought something terrible could happen to her in all this and regretted asking for her help?
“All right. I can do all that. I can drive to Anchorage.”
“Not drive. On my phone’s another name and number—Carter Jones. Retired pilot in Wasilla. Tell him I’m asking him to come here, fly my plane out so it won’t be blasted apart next. The keys to start it are in my room at the lodge. Tell him to check its exterior and landing floats for IEDs and underwater explosive devices. He’ll know what to do. Will you be brave enough to fly with him in my plane to Anchorage?”
“Not in the copilot’s seat, not looking out a window, but otherwise—piece of cake.” She burst into tears, wiping them away fast with her coat sleeve. She did not tell him that Carter had been a friend of Ryan’s. And that the old gentleman had been with her when she faced her worst fears to honor her dead husband.
How had it ever come to this? Was she dreaming? More like a nightmare. But Bryce knew this was something big and he trusted her enough to call the Big Man, maybe find out who he was.
She heard the crunch of footsteps and looked up. The chopper pilot and medic were coming to help him get into the chopper after they’d carried Nate in.
“One more thing,” he whispered. “Get the envelope with the jewelry out of the safe and bring it with you. I’ll contact someone to take it, secure it. Meg—if you have second thoughts about this, it’s okay. It won’t change my mind about you.”
“I can do it. I know it’s important.”
“I won’t say ‘that’s my girl,’” he whispered, “because you’re not mine—yet. And you’re not a girl but one hell of a woman. I promise I’ll get someone to protect the lodge, maybe come in as a guest. I’ll set that up as soon as you bring my phone—so don’t worry about Suze and Chip, because I’ve seen she locks up tight at night anyway. I’ll tip the guard off to keep an eye on Bill Getz too. But I swear to you, I’ll get released soon, be back at the lodge until this is solved. Someone local has to be involved. Hey, I’m feeling better already—tell the Big Man that,” he said, but he frowned and grimaced.
“They’re hours ahead of us in the East. Office hours are long over.”
“He answers day and night.”
That stunned and scared her too. But she wasn’t taking her promise back.
Keith and Bob also came over to help Bryce up. With the pilot and medic hovering, they walked him toward the chopper. He looked dizzy when he turned to glance at her before he mounted the steps. He was unsteady on his feet. So was she. How had all this happened so fast and with such high stakes—a secret worth killing people for?
Meg knew she was running on pure adrenaline. She backed off to avoid the heavy air wash from the rotors and watched with tears in her eyes as the rescue chopper lifted away. She was going to go back to the lodge on the snowmobiles with Keith and Bob, who had been examined and were patched up but didn’t need hospitalization. At the lodge the two men were going to be picked up by yet another state trooper and taken somewhere to be debriefed by someone.
“Let’s get going,” Bob Morrow told her. “Change of plans. Keith’s going to stay here with the other snowmobile until that pilot friend of Bryce’s shows up to fly the pontoon plane. He’ll stay hidden and he’s armed. Let’s go. I need to pack up for the team at the lodge, but I hear you’re doing that for Bryce.”
“Yes, for Bryce.” But was she risking herself for a man and a cause she still knew too little about?
* * *
Meg only told Suze she was flying to Anchorage with a pilot friend of Bryce’s to take his belongings to him for a short hospital stay—and she’d take his envelope out of the safe. Suze was shocked to hear she was going to fly again and to hear what had caused the blast. As much as Suze and Meg had shared over the years, Meg had never told her about that secret flight with Carter. At the time, it had felt too overwhelming to talk about. She’d gone expecting the trip would somehow bring her closure, and when it didn’t, she hadn’t wanted to put herself in a position where she might have to admit it. What had started as an effort to say goodbye to Ryan had ended up feeling too personal to share with anyone—not even her twin.
“At least they won’t be diving in that strange wreck anymore,” she said, shaking off the memory.
“Hate to lose paying customers, but it made me nervous to have that dive team around. I’ll bet the fact Bryce is relying on you means he intends to keep seeing you, even if his work is done here. Want me to go help you pick up his things so Bob can get you back to that plane in time?”
“No, I’ll be fine. I got the impression Bryce will be back here to continue the investigation since someone local must be involved. Right now, I have to grab a few things to take myself since I’ll be there at least one night. I’ll rent a car and drive back or Uber like some of the visitors around here do. Right now, I’ve got to explain to Chip without really explaining too much.”
“Listen to your big sis, now,” Suze said, putting her arm around Meg’s shoulders. “You just be sure Bryce is not really working for the CIA or FBI or something like that. I mean, the NTSB is one thing, but it’s obvious something really dangerous is going on.”
“I trust him. I’ll be careful. And be back tomorrow one way or the other.”
* * *
“You’re going flying again without me?” Chip protested when she told him she had to fly back to Anchorage. He bounced down hard on his bed, almost tossing her to the floor from her perch on the edge.
“This is just to take Commander Saylor his things, Chip. I said I’ll be back soon, tomorrow for sure.”
“But the weekend’s almost here, so I wouldn’t miss much school or anything if I went too. I mean, I want you to help him, but I could too.”
“I promise you I will ask him to take you up in his plane when he can.”
“Yeah, but what if his hit on the head means he can’t fly?” He sighed and seemed to deflate to half his size as he put his feet back on the floor and crossed his arms over his chest. All three dogs at their feet looked intent on his every word.
“When he talked to me he seemed better,” she explained, “and the hospital might even help him more. I need you to do what Aunt Suze says while I’m gone, and not to tell anyone, even if they ask, where I am. I’m totally trusting you or I would have told you some story about where I’m going.”
He heaved a huge sigh. “He’s trusting you, and you’re trusting me,” he whispered, finally losing his frown. “So that kind of means we are all working together.”
“It sure does. I depend on you, and he does too.”
“You know what he told me—Commander Saylor?”
“No, what?”
“That he could get me a soccer net for out back and show me how to be a goalie—like defend the net. See, here’s the thing, Mom. The goalie is a kind of leader. That means he gets blamed for things if the soccer ball gets past him, but he also gets famous for s
aving the game. Like in life, there are good things and some bad, but you and me knew that already, right?”
“Right,” she whispered as she hugged Chip to her and kissed the top of his head. “That was really nice of him to say he’d bring the net and work with you. I think he likes you.”
“Yeah, but he likes you more, which is okay with me, really.”
She hugged him again. She loved Chip so much—really.
* * *
As familiar as Meg was with the rooms at the lodge, as many times as she’d been in them—even cleaning them before they felt they could hire help to do that—it was so strange to be in Bryce’s bedroom. She had not known what to expect. It was quite tidy. He had smoothly pulled up the sheet, covers and quilt on the bed. He’d hung the DO NOT CLEAN sign on his door, but he’d asked for fresh sheets and towels.
Clutching the flashlight she’d brought since she knew she’d be peering under the bed, she noted his duffel bag and a few hanging items of clothing in the closet. Nothing just thrown around. The rest of his things were probably in the drawers. She kneeled on the braided rug beside the bed, lifted the quilt coverlet and aimed the light beam under it.
She found his laptop, pulled out the old pair of running shoes and saw the phone pushed down into the toe of one. The recharging cord was in the other.
She pulled everything out. She’d been nervous even unlocking the door to his room, but she was even more shaky now. Call the pilot first, she thought. He’d need time to get here from Wasilla—if he was able. If not, she supposed she’d have to drive to Anchorage. She had an instinctive, automatic aversion to the Big Man but had to call him next. People seemed afraid of him, and she didn’t like that. She thought it was a bad way for a leader to lead.
She felt reassured when she found Carter’s name in the call list. When she touched the number, it rang only twice before someone answered.