Alaskan Christmas Cold Case

by Sarah Varland

  Noah took a breath, spoke slowly. “Since we’re both adults, don’t you think that rather than try to protect me from getting hurt because of you, you should let me make my own decisions?” He kept his voice low, dropped it almost to a whisper at the end, because staring into her eyes—without her flinching, without her looking away or making excuses as to why they shouldn’t be together—for this length of time was robbing him of his ability to talk.

  “What you said earlier...”

  “Today?” He didn’t want to misunderstand, didn’t dare to hope she was having the conversation he’d told her they would put off until later.

  “Yesterday. At the glacier.”

  “Yes?” Noah waited, wondered if he was finally going to hear his words echoed back to him. Instead she looked up at him, met his eyes for a few more seconds that stretched out in a way that made him breathless. Then she tipped her chin up, leaned forward and closed her eyes, her thick lashes fluttering.

  His eyes shut subconsciously seconds before her lips met his. She’d initiated the kiss and he let her lead. Her lips were soft at first and he met them with equal softness, building in intensity only as she did, his lips exploring hers like he’d wanted to do for so long.

  She was the woman for him. God, please let this work.

  She continued the kiss long enough that Noah wanted to keep going, wanted it desperately, actually, but he loved her enough to pull back. Feelings. Passion. It had all built between them for years and he wanted to make sure he stopped long before it became difficult to do so.

  He loved her too much to mess this up. Didn’t want to betray her trust, not in any way.

  Even as he pulled back, he wrapped his arms around her and folded her against him, her head tucking against his chest. “Erynn...”

  “Shh. Don’t say anything. Not yet.”

  So he didn’t. He just stood and held her and pretended this could last forever.

  * * *

  Erynn didn’t know if she was most surprised it had taken so long for the two of them to kiss, or that Noah had been the one to end it, or that she’d started it in the first place. Badly, too, like she had a right to Noah’s kisses, to his lips and his love.

  She knew better. But she didn’t want to admit it to herself right now. For these five minutes, she wanted to know what her life might have been like if she’d not been the target of a killer, if she hadn’t learned early and so thoroughly how painful it was to lose the people you loved.

  Maybe that was why she hadn’t been able to say the words back to him. He’d wanted to hear them, she’d seen it on his face, knew his expressions as well as her own, to the point she sometimes felt she could read his mind. But instead of saying them back, she’d kissed him. Maybe that would be enough, would help him understand he wasn’t alone in his feelings, when she couldn’t give him the same assurance.

  Might never be able to.

  For now, standing there, listening to his heartbeat, against the solid reassurance of his chest, had to be enough. And it was.

  “Erynn.”

  She looked up at him, waiting for him to ask for the conversation she knew she couldn’t have yet. Instead she met his eyes, warm and brown and filled with a look she’d used to dream of seeing in a man’s eyes one day. He reached out his hand, cupped her jaw and tilted her face up to meet his again.

  This kiss she’d started, he finished with nothing short of perfection. Had she realized kissing Noah would be this...whatever it was? Erynn had lived a lot of life, had adventures, taken chances, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt as alive as she did right now, ignoring the world around them and kissing the man she loved.

  Erynn blinked at her own unedited thoughts, stepped back.

  Avoiding saying the words to Noah wouldn’t do her any good if she was having the feelings anyway. The goal was supposed to be to avoid the emotions altogether, to build a wall around her heart to keep it safe, keep everyone safe.

  She shook her head. “You know we can’t...”

  “I don’t know anything like that, Erynn Cooper. You keep acting like it’s impossible, but I know you, and you know me better than anyone else does. I’ve seen us work together over the years. I’ve seen how you care about people. I watched you in church. You love Jesus, Erynn. I love that about you, and I think...I think you love me, too.”

  From anyone else the words could have sounded arrogant, but from Noah’s lips, in the reassuringly gentle firmness of his tone, Erynn knew they were not arrogant. He was only stating what he believed to be true.

  And he wasn’t wrong.

  God, help me. You know why I can’t do this, can’t feel this way. Take it away, please.

  “The case. Can we finish the case first?”

  She was stalling; she knew it and was fairly sure from watching his expression shift that Noah did, too. But he nodded, always a gentleman, never pushing.

  It made her want to kiss him again, grab his jacket lapels and kiss him and kiss him until she couldn’t remember what she was so afraid of anymore.

  But loss, fear, they would always find her. Hadn’t this week reminded her of that?

  “I need you to let me go to Anchorage.”

  He shook his head. “Not after today. You need to be here.”

  She opened her mouth to argue. He touched a hand to her mouth, his fingers brushing her lips like another kind of kiss. The way it made her mouth tingle with loss had her forgetting all arguments. Focus on tonight. One step at a time, she reminded herself. Eventually she’d get to Anchorage. For now she needed to focus on rebuilding some emotional walls and on making a list of who they needed to investigate, both suspects and potential witnesses that could have been overlooked.

  “Let’s work on the case, okay?” Noah cleared his throat. “As friends...if that’s what you want.”

  Erynn nodded. “Friends.”

  If friends could be so conscious of the other person’s nearness... Could be aware of the broadness of another’s shoulders... Could imagine what it would be like to be able to step across the line without having to jump backward across it again...

  He took a breath and let it out slowly. “Can we make a couple lists? Try to make sense of this?”

  “I think that’s a good idea.” Erynn forced her mind to focus on the task at hand. She’d tried thinking through lists earlier in the day, but seeing them written down always helped her.

  Noah had left her standing in the living room and walked to the adjoining study—to get paper for himself, she guessed—so she settled down on one end of the couch. Noah would hopefully interpret her unspoken signal and take the other end, keeping the notepad between them.

  Something, anything, some physical reminder that they had to stay apart. Physically, emotionally.

  He walked back in and she felt his presence to her toes.

  Yeah, because space between them could possibly fix the chasm she was drowning in.

  “Got it.” He smiled at her.

  She reached for it, started writing the list of victims so far, her hand shaking a little as she wrote “Mack Cooper.”

  Noah settled in on the couch. Directly next to her, her knee almost touching his thigh. She reminded herself to stay focused, took slow breaths to try to convince the beating of her heart to match that rhythm.

  “Okay, also.” Noah held out a hand for the notepad. “May I?”

  Erynn nodded.

  He tore the first page off, with the names she’d written, and set it on the coffee table in front of them. “We also have ways they’re connected. So list those. I’ll write, you think out loud. Go.”

  “We were all foster kids, except my dad.”

  “He’s a close enough connection I’m comfortable saying he was an anomaly. What about his MO? Was everyone killed by a gunshot like Janie?”

  Erynn shook her head. “N
o similarities in the way people died. Which is strange for a serial killer, though not unheard of.”

  Noah nodded. “Okay, what else?”

  “We all lived in Anchorage at one time.”

  “Do you mean that some of the people were foster kids in other cities and towns or that they moved away after high school, those who...lived that long?”

  “The first. One of the victims had moved to Kenai, but when that family was in Anchorage for a grocery shopping trip, she disappeared and was found later, dead.”

  “So the killer is likely based in Anchorage. And everyone was killed there initially...”

  “Well, until recently. The last two murders were both down here, either in Seward or Moose Haven.”

  “He followed people when they were on vacation? Or he moved?”

  Erynn shook her head. “I’m not sure.” Something had gotten stuck in her brain, but she couldn’t quite work out what it was. Something had “pinged,” caught her attention. If she could just wrap her mind around it.

  But sleep deprivation, stress, adrenaline, made it impossible. She felt her face wrinkle into a frown.

  “Hey.” Noah’s hand on her arm did nothing to untangle the knots of confusion in her brain. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “You honestly think that?” She never asked people that, didn’t like being let down when they made promises they couldn’t keep. Nevertheless, she trusted Noah.

  “I do.”

  She had to swallow hard, look away from his eyes, which made her want to dive deep into the land of what-if and out of the reality she knew was true to her life. She couldn’t kiss him again. Should not have done it the first time.

  Or the second.

  “Is there a chance people stopped going to Anchorage? Did the foster kids he had been after start avoiding the city, so his preferred targets weren’t accessible?” Noah asked, tapping a pencil on the table.

  “You mean that’s why he stopped killing them there?”

  Noah shrugged. “There’s a chance, just an idea.”

  They’d done this with cases before, thrown around ideas, saw what stuck. It had produced results more times than she could count. Maybe he was right. Maybe they really would be able to solve this one, too.

  “Or he has a job that makes him travel?”

  “Could be.”

  “Or it’s different people committed the first group of murders and then these two, Janie and Madison.”

  Erynn stopped. Certain details, like the notes, hadn’t been made available to anyone outside of law enforcement to preserve the integrity of the investigation and to stop copycats. But what if there were two killers and the first had...died? Or had somehow gotten someone to help?

  She didn’t know if any of that made sense, either.

  As much as she hated to admit it, nothing would—not until she had some sleep.

  “I can’t do this anymore tonight, Noah. I’m sorry. I’m exhausted and nothing is making sense anymore.” She looked away as she said the last words. She’d meant them about the case. Hadn’t she? Still, she prayed he wouldn’t read anything else into them, wouldn’t see the way he’d managed to chip away at her armor until she was just a woman who wanted to have the freedom to be in love with a man who loved her back.

  God, if that wasn’t going to be an option for me, if You knew my heart couldn’t take it, all this loss, all these risks, why give me feelings for him?

  “Sleep.”

  She stood and so did he. He reached for her and she knew if he tried to kiss her, she wouldn’t be strong enough to resist. She’d lose herself in the feeling of his lips on hers, again and again, as long as he wanted her.

  Instead he wrapped her in his arms, in a tight hug that filled up the empty spaces inside her heart. Had her blinking back tears. He was the best man she’d ever met.

  Worth loving.

  Maybe.

  “Sleep well,” he said and released her.

  She walked to the bedroom, changed into pajamas and then opened the door so he could see if anyone tried to climb into the house through her window. She got into bed, closed her eyes and let sleep take her.

  TWELVE

  Two days. Forty-eight full hours had passed since they’d been shot at in Seward, and Erynn was going stir-crazy. Noah hadn’t let her leave his house. And, yes, she was an adult, made her own decisions. But she also trusted him and if he thought she needed to hole up for a bit...

  Well, she might as well. She’d gone through the files Noah had brought her, and while every word had reminded her of the past, none of it was new information to her or useful in her investigation. What else did she have to do?

  Noah was a different story. She’d noticed his restlessness yesterday as the day had stretched out and they’d done their best to toss around ideas of things to investigate. He had passed the better ones along to his colleagues at the Moose Haven Police Department and the troopers. But she could see what it was doing to him to be benched.

  She could feel it. After all, she felt the same.

  However, she didn’t have a choice. He did.

  “We really need to talk, Noah.”

  His head snapped up. She realized her mistake quickly and clarified, “About the case. And us both being stuck here.”

  “I’m not taking you out anywhere investigating. You’ve been fine for two days, and he hasn’t even tried anything, which tells me this is the best place for you right now.”

  Erynn wasn’t sure. Her uneasiness was growing with every hour that passed, not diminishing. But Noah didn’t need to know about any of that, did he? It wasn’t like she was keeping a specific threat to her safety from him. He knew why she would be worried, on edge. But her feelings now were probably just out of control. Erynn didn’t need to tell him, not until she had a reason to believe she was in more danger than they already knew she was in. She had another point to this conversation.

  “I think you need to go back to work. In person. Not delegating from here.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not leaving you and just hoping for the best, Erynn.”

  He wouldn’t have done that for a single other person they’d helped protect over the years. Erynn knew it, appreciated it. But it needed to stop. They were stalled and if they didn’t make some traction on the case soon, she was worried it would go cold again.

  Until a moment when she let her guard down and then it would be too late for her, too.

  Noah must have read the expression on her face because he sighed, sat in a chair across the living room from her. “Tell me what you had in mind.”

  “I will stay here. I can see that’s important to you and I’m not stupid enough to risk my safety or the case by taking unnecessary chances.”

  “Not like a few days ago when you left the safety of my sister and Clay’s house and headed to the glacier?”

  “Exactly. Not like that.” She had been wrong to do that. Might not feel like admitting it to him, but she was woman enough to admit it to herself. “I will stay here. Get another officer posted here. But we need you out there, solving this. You care about it. You’re motivated to see it through, more than anyone else but me, I think.”

  And she couldn’t work it. Did not have a choice. It didn’t stop her from spending her days bent over a notepad, trying, but she knew that to be making a real impact she needed to be out there, as well. Not that it mattered. Her orders from her boss had been clear, and she knew Noah was right about it being too dangerous for her to be active in fieldwork right now, even unofficially.

  “You’ll stay here.”

  He was actually considering it—something she hadn’t counted on.

  “Yes.” Erynn nodded.

  “Let me think about it.”

  Three hours later they were finishing up lunch when Noah looked up at her and sighed. “Okay, we will t
ry it. For this afternoon. And if I don’t like how it goes... If you feel more uncomfortable than usual...”

  “Then you can come back to house arrest with me.” Erynn shrugged. Sure, she was uneasy already, so it would be difficult for her to feel less so. She sure wasn’t going to say anything to risk Noah agreeing with her idea. Because she knew in her heart if they didn’t change something, didn’t get more aggressive, the killer was going to slip through their fingers.

  Again.

  “Thank you.”

  It felt strange. Surreal—maybe that was the word her mind was grasping for—to watch him go through the motions of getting ready for his day to hunt the murderer.

  “Any ideas which leads you’re going to follow up on there in the outside world?” She tried to keep her tone light as she watched him lace up his boots.

  “I’ve been in contact with some of the officers in Anchorage who were active during the case’s beginning.”

  She hadn’t braced herself for that answer. Her dad’s colleagues? “Any progress?” she asked, hoping she kept her voice casual but doubting she had.

  “Not sure yet.” He stood, walked to the closet near his front door and pulled out his jacket. “I’m still waiting to hear from one guy.”

  The chances it was her dad’s former partner were looking pretty good. She had tried to talk to the man, when she’d grown up and become law enforcement, but he hadn’t offered her any leads. Had just told her that he knew her dad wouldn’t have wanted her risking her life going after the same man he’d been trying to bring to justice. Erynn had believed him. Mostly. But she still felt like he knew more than he was saying, and wished she knew what it was.

  Maybe he would tell Noah.

  She nodded, not sure what she should say, how much to hold close to herself. Did Noah realize how often she did that? She wasn’t like his sisters. Well, at least one of them. Kate tended to keep quiet most of the time; she was introverted. On the other hand, Summer sometimes seemed to think by talking. Did he know that the times Erynn was quiet were the times she was pondering things the deepest?