by Karen Harper
“Bryce, you old dive dog! How the hell are you? I heard you’re not too far away. Want to come see scenic Wasilla?” The man obviously had caller ID.
“Actually,” she said, “I’m a friend of Bryce’s too, and he wants you to come to the Falls Lake Lodge to fly his plane to Anchorage. He’s in the hospital there. It’s Meg Metzler, Carter. Let me explain.”
* * *
That, Meg thought when she got off the phone and had a promise Carter would be here ASAP, was the easy part. She’d trusted Carter with her life before and she wasn’t afraid to now.
But she actually felt sick to her stomach when she touched the link that said simply, BIG MAN. Only one ring. A man’s voice. He sounded young. “Incident Commander Saylor, hello, sir.”
“No, this isn’t him. He asked me to make an important call to this number. This is his friend Megan Metzler in Falls Lake, Alaska. He might have a concussion and is being flown to the hospital in Anchorage, the same one where Steve Ralston is. He was conscious, though, and asked me to—”
“Just one moment, ma’am. Please do not say more or disconnect.”
So this wasn’t direct to the Big Man? She heard murmuring but couldn’t catch the words.
“Ms. Metzler, this is Bryce Saylor’s administrator.” An older voice, calm at least. The man went on, “Since you are calling on Bryce’s private line, I’m sure he gave you permission. Tell me what I should know, all of it.”
To her surprise, the voice was kind. Deliberate. Steady. Absolutely in control. She might be crazy, but she thought that she recognized it, though she certainly wasn’t going to ask or let on. No, she was probably wrong to associate a face—from a newspaper, TV, online—with this voice.
But she was probably crazy to be jumping in with both feet and a trusting heart into what must be some sort of big-time, powers-that-be, deadly danger.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Winter darkness enveloped Bryce’s plane as it flew into the night toward Anchorage. Bryce had trusted it—and her—to Carter Jones, so she did too, at least that’s what she kept telling herself. Besides, Carter, a close friend and mentor of her beloved Ryan, had been with her through a grueling tough time before. She’d trusted his flying abilities before too. A flight and destination she had told no one about and perhaps never would. Well, maybe Chip when he was old enough to understand.
She knew Carter was totally competent. He wore his years well with his silver hair and somehow, in the dead of winter in Alaska, was still very tanned. Who knew that so many men in this area had worked together, and evidently for the government one way or the other, for he’d known not only Ryan, but Bryce.
When he’d asked if she was ready for the copilot’s seat yet, she said she’d still like to sit in back. He said he understood.
Of course, he really didn’t, but she refused to go into detail again. Because of where he’d taken her before, he no doubt thought she was braver than she was. Besides, they were in a hurry. She was right on the edge of a crying jag, and talking about losing Ryan in a crash would set her off. Carter said the gas gauge showed enough fuel to get them there, and he’d trusted Bryce to have taken care of that. He’d spent a good half hour checking the plane for what he called “blast devices,” which didn’t seem to faze him. Carter was of that same breed of men as Bryce and his team.
They were in such a hurry that she didn’t even have time to ask him about his past work with Bryce, whom he’d called “you old dive dog.” She realized that Keith was glad to see them go since he’d spent hours hiding in the trees here, guarding the plane, and had seen nothing. The last thing she had recalled when she’d boarded the plane was that the lake ice had refrozen in rough, broken pieces.
To get through the flight, she sat in the same seat as when they’d transported Steve. Again, she kept her window shade pulled down.
As exhausted as she was, she couldn’t sleep. Her mind drifted... How strange it had felt to gather Bryce’s clothes from his room at the lodge. He wore plaid boxers, not briefs... His T-shirts smelled outdoorsy, like his hair. It had all seemed such a domestic, intimate thing to open the dresser drawers and pack his clothes.
Into his duffel bag, she’d put his toothbrush—an electric one, same brand as hers—his razor and other masculine items she hadn’t seen for almost three years. He’d even hung up the damp towel he must have used in the shower that morning, and his...
She jolted alert. Where was she? Whose voice? Oh, she wasn’t in Bryce’s room at the lodge...she knew where she was. In an airplane heading for Anchorage again. She’d seldom been there before she met Bryce, and now twice in a few days.
“Hope I didn’t startle you,” came Carter’s voice over the speaker. “Almost there, Meg. Going to begin approach. This is a great plane. Love flying it.”
She had slept, had dreamed...that her bath towels and clothes were next to Bryce’s. It had been a nice dream—and a good sign. For all her anxiety about flying, she’d managed to fall asleep. That was something. That was progress. And she had a feeling it had something to do with a certain incident commander.
* * *
From the airport, they took an Uber to the hospital. She and Carter found a state trooper guarding Bryce’s door on the top floor. She had been cleared to enter, but Carter had not.
“That’s gratitude for you,” Carter muttered with a grin. “But I know the drill. Protocol, privacy, protection. Knowing Bryce from way back, I’m sure you’re in good hands now. Gonna get something to eat and rent a car to get home. Tell him he owes me big-time. And,” he said, shaking her hand, “take care of him, but yourself too. Things can get sticky in this game, especially for a noncom.” He nodded a goodbye and walked down the hall without looking back.
A noncom? She thought that meant a noncommissioned officer in the service. He must be teasing or kidding, for she was not even that. But had he meant it as a warning?
She turned to the trooper who sat outside Bryce’s door way down at the end of the hall, far past the nurses’ station.
“He was asleep but not now,” he told her when she approached. “You can go on in.”
He opened the door for her. Clutching Bryce’s duffel bag, suddenly trembling, she entered his room, uncertain what she would see. She felt she was walking through a door to a whole new life, not only growing closer to him but becoming part of a team on a key quest she knew next to nothing about.
* * *
Meg looked nervous and tired to Bryce, but so damn good. He’d been scolding himself for getting her even more involved, but he needed her in more ways than one. This enigma of a once simple dive-and-recover assignment was getting darker and more demanding by the hour. Steve and Nate injured. He and his team targeted for death in an underwater explosion. By who and over what?
He reached out his hand that didn’t have stitches and bandages. She took it, and he tugged her closer for a quick kiss, then down so she sat on the edge of his bed.
“We can do better than that—and we will,” he whispered. “In a better setting too.”
She nodded and blinked back tears. “I’m glad to hear that—that you’re still yourself, I mean. Yes, we must stop meeting like this in such a private, romantic setting.”
“Darn right. Meg, it means a lot to me that you came, that you’re helping me when you could have said I should take a flying leap. I’ve still got that buzzing in my ears that you didn’t set off this time. I promise you, payback will be extensive once I get the heck out of here one way or the other and soon. Now, you obviously talked to Carter. Great guy, but sadly, he doesn’t have clearance anymore.”
“Neither do I, though. He called me a noncom.”
“Just think of that as noncombat instead of noncommissioned. But necessity—and desperation—is the mother of invention, and that’s where I’m at. At least they’ve told me Nate is going to recover well, but I’m still worried about S
teve. How did it go with the Big Man?”
“I told him about a possible missing treasure. He said that could be used for good or bad, and that he—and you—were trying to find and stop the bad. Also, he mentioned he’d send a guard to stay at the lodge ASAP because he knew you’d ask for that. He said to tell you the man would pose as a photographer-writer working on a book called Wild Winter Alaska.”
“Great title for my life in general lately. Okay, yeah, I know the guy he’s sending us. Rafe Coffman. He’s a good guy. I’ll fill you in on him later.”
“When I told him you had suggested a security guard for me, he said I should stay in your hospital room all night and the guard on the door would do because he wanted to keep the lid on things until the dead pilot is ID’d and traced. He is going to have a sketch of the man released to the media, because he felt he couldn’t keep it secret much longer—and he is desperate to know who and why. The Big Man figures someone will turn up who knows the man, maybe throw light on who he was supposed to meet, et cetera.”
“He says ‘et cetera’ a lot, and it’s usually because he doesn’t want to actually say more. I’ll call him to let him know you’re here and tell him I’m not staying in this place long, I don’t care what they say. I owe him for asking you to stay here. I owe you too, Meg. Seriously. I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done. I know you already have plenty on your plate with the lodge and Chip. Being a single mother can’t be easy, even if you and Suze make such a great team. So, thank you. I truly couldn’t do this without you.”
Meg could feel her cheeks warm as she smiled at him. “I wouldn’t be helping if I didn’t think it was important—if I didn’t think you were important.”
Bryce met her smile with a grin of his own. “I appreciate that and I hate to ask another favor of you, Meg, but Steve is now in a medically induced coma, and they won’t let Jenny or Mark in to see me, so I was hoping, if you could call his room and meet her out there in the hall, maybe you could help her. I know you understand some of what she’s going through.”
She realized they had been holding hands all this time. Nodding, she squeezed his. “Yes, I’ll try to comfort her—if anyone can right now.”
She tugged her hand back and pulled up the only chair in the room to sit close to his bed. “Do you want me to unpack your duffel bag?” she asked, dipping in it to retrieve his cell phone.
“Just my razor because I would feel guilty if I scratched up your face with this stubble.” He winked at her. “Then I’ll order us something to eat. First, got to call the Big Man, give him my own update.” He reached for his phone. Their fingers touched as she handed it to him.
“Bryce, his voice sounded familiar.”
He quirked a brow. “Familiar how?”
Meg shrugged. “Just the sound of his voice. The way he spoke. The expressions he used, you know, ‘et cetera.’”
“I’m currently in no position to confirm nor deny,” Bryce said with a sly smile that made her even more certain she had recognized the voice. In fact, she could think of a certain political figure whose speeches on TV sounded an awful lot like the Big Man Bryce reported to.
Her stomach cartwheeled and not only because she was in this so deep. Surely this assignment of Bryce’s was not just about recovering a body or even now about lost Civil War treasure. Something else must be going on, something big.
* * *
Meg ate a late supper with Bryce in his room—a far cry from the steak dinner date he’d promised her in Anchorage, she teased him. Yet she ate a lot. Physical exertion? Nerves? Bryce was allowed to check off anything on the menu list. He’d doubled up on things and they’d even split some dishes. He said he’d take a nap until she got back, and she was to send his best wishes to Steve’s family.
She went to the guest area on Steve’s floor to meet with Jenny. Mark, she’d said on the phone, was insisting on staying with his dad though he had not woken up yet.
Meg hardly knew Jenny, but they hugged and sat facing each other in a corner of the waiting room like old friends. Meg realized she must look bad with no makeup and messy hair, but the poor woman looked as if she’d aged ten years since she’d seen her a few days ago.
After Meg told Jenny that Bryce was fighting having to rest for several days under “concussion protocol,” Jenny blurted, “Someone’s desperate to try to hurt—kill—all of them. Out to stop anyone who goes near that sunken plane. It’s like a curse!”
“A curse that’s been obliterated now,” she told Jenny and explained about the explosives and that another team member, Nate Young, was recovering in this same hospital.
“His poor family. But since you’re visiting Bryce, thanks for taking time to see me. I’m scared to death I’ll lose Steve—or he won’t be the same when he—when he wakes up. He’s in a drug-induced coma now for who knows how long?”
“I understand your anxiety and anguish, really. I’ve been through something terrible like this, only my son and I didn’t have even a chance to see my husband, Ryan, fight for his life. I’m a widow. A fatal plane crash, on our boy’s birthday. Sorry to spill all that on you, and I’m sure your story will not be the same—and will have a happy ending—but just wanted you to know why I do understand.”
She nodded and sniffed back tears. No doubt, she’d already cried herself dry. She reached for Meg’s hands, and they held on to each other.
Jenny whispered, “There’s something dark and awful about this assignment—about that plane. Steve and Bryce have worked together before, some secret stuff, but nothing like this. I hate to think of it this way, but at least Steve—and that other injured man, Nate—are out of evil’s path now. I just hope you can convince Bryce not to get back into it. You know, as much as I love Steve, as much as Mark looks up to him and needs him, I wish I’d married a car dealer—a banker, a baker—you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do,” Meg told her. “More and more I really do. Love’s a risk, but you can’t help loving a man who helps and protects others.”
“Scary but true,” Jenny whispered. “So you and Bryce—what about you?”
“Too early to tell. As you can imagine, nothing has been normal or calm around him yet. I’m hoping.”
“You’d think I’d be good at that by now—waiting and hoping he comes back, that he’s okay, that he’s not heading off to someplace he can’t tell me about, though I knew about the Falls Lake assignment and figured that would be like a walk in the park. Stupid me.”
Meg could only hope, if she kept close to Bryce—which maybe for her and Chip’s sake, she should not—that would not be her story too.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After Meg returned from seeing Jenny, and Bryce had woken up from his nap, she ducked into the bathroom attached to his room while he called the Big Man. She had closed the door, but when she wasn’t running the water, she could hear what Bryce was saying, especially when he raised his voice.
“What do you mean, don’t go off script? There is no script on this case, so I can’t read it even between the lines!” A pause. His voice level dropped. “Yeah, I know. Actually, I’d like her clear of this, but she’s valuable to me. Yes, it’s partly personal, but you understand that. Your wife is a great support to you, even in official business, on foreign trips... Right, right. No, I realize that’s completely different from a woman I met recently, but I feel I know and trust her. Come on, the soft side of you—if it’s still there—understands that.”
Though she was ashamed of herself for eavesdropping, she held her breath and pressed her ear to the door.
After a pause, Bryce went on, “I’m telling you, the best thing you can do for me and this case is get me out of here. I don’t have a concussion—had that twice before, and this isn’t it. The ringing in my ears comes and goes, and the doctor thinks it will lessen in the near future. Out of here tomorrow morning at least, sir. For me. For this mess. Ac
oustically detonated bomb in little Falls Lake, Alaska? Somebody skilled, with money and bad plans, is in this, and I need to find out who.”
More silence. Should she stay here or go back out?
“Okay, here’s my advice on that,” came Bryce’s voice again. “I agree the pilot’s face—in a sketch—should be released. But if that brings an onslaught of media to the sight of the crash, one look and they won’t believe that a single plane went down. The explosion shattered the ice for the width of a football field. Then the questions would be, what happened here? Why? What divers barely escaped? They’d say they need to talk to them. Sir, the detective work on this needs to be done there, quietly if possible, to ferret out who was waiting for an unmarked plane to land with that historic treasure haul.”
More silence. What he’d just said was right, but it scared her. Another horde of reporters. The lodge besieged. She couldn’t stand that.
“Good idea, let’s have the state troopers cordon off the entrance to the site. The more security around there, the better. Rafe and I can field questions at the lodge if the media invasion hits there. Glad the article won’t mention that Meg Metzler and her son saw the crash.”
Meg sucked in a deep breath and wilted in relief against the bathroom door. All she needed was Chip giving interviews and both of them being hounded. At least this partial release to the media would save poor Jenny from having to answer questions about what happened to Steve. Bryce was right: just release a drawing of the dead pilot and mention a crash in Alaska in the hope someone would come forward with an identification and explanation.
“Rafe’s doing the sketch of the corpse?” Bryce was saying. “Yeah, I knew he draws as well as photographs, and the fewer people in on this now the better. His pictures always look like art shots anyway. Thanks for sending him to the lodge. Is Rafe Coffman the name he’ll be using? Oh, yeah, sure, his publishing name. Okay. Got all that. Sir, I repeat, please pull strings to get me out of here. And has anyone opened those two boxes from the plane yet? They were big and heavy.”