by Karen Harper
“All of them have windows, though.”
“Yeah, well, even if you want fresh air, keep yours closed. And I think we should tell the troopers that your name and face need to be kept as private as possible, even though Falls Lake is a long ways from Chicago.”
“Thank you. Even the local news isn’t local anymore. If there’s some terrible event clear across the country, the media reports it like it’s right next door.”
“I’m sorry you found her, sweetheart, sorry I asked you along today.”
Sweetheart? She cherished that but hardly believed it. Yet it scared her that she wanted to believe it had slipped out because he meant it.
“Stay put here for a few minutes,” he said, his breath moving her hair, “then I’ll follow you home.”
“Quinn, you don’t have to do that.”
“I’ll come right back. It’s going to be a long, crazy night here. The German guys already told me they think we should all go out and fine-comb the woods for clues tomorrow—like they were supposed to report on today. So, I’ve got to stop them because a forensic team is due early tomorrow. I’ve also got to call Geoff back. Brent phoned him, and he’s been trying to get me.
“At least I’ve managed one good thing,” he went on, still holding her tight. “The officers have agreed that the camp and adjoining area where you found Val will be off-limits to any press or curious onlookers that show up. They’re going to put up a roadblock with a trooper car and cordon off the road. They’re sending two extra troopers from Anchorage to guard the area until they release it after their forensics team and Kurtz and Hanson are finished there. So that should save us from the invasion for a few days. I don’t need this bunch of students giving interviews for something they know nothing about.”
“I wish we could cordon off the lodge, but Meg and Suze need guests before the winter hits. Quinn,” she said, looking up at him as he finally set her back with his hands still on her waist, “let’s face it. Val wasn’t well liked. She even argued with Ryker just before we all went out. The other day, I overheard Mary and Sam say they wanted to get rid of her.”
“Glad you didn’t say that to the troopers, because they surely didn’t mean it that way. They’ll talk to them. That reminds me, I heard Brent Bayer say he’d like to get Val off Ryker’s back, and I’ll bet if we checked with people she knows in LA that she wasn’t Ms. Charm there, either. But let’s let this play out legally. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car and follow you home, because I need to come back here fast to oversee things.”
As they started to leave, he stopped her at his office door. He lifted her chin and kissed her, gently, then firmly, then nearly crushed her in his arms as his lips took hers and she gave back with a passion she didn’t know was there. His lips slanted, giving and taking. One hand cupped her bottom, almost lifting her, pinning her against him, and she loved it.
They were both breathless. “You’re amazing,” he rasped out. “Needed that. Need you.”
They jumped when Sam knocked on the door that stood ajar and called in, “Medics leaving with the body, Quinn.”
Feeling flushed and a bit faint—so maybe it was good Quinn was going to follow her home—Alex went outside with him and the staff as the EMTs carried Val’s body away on the gurney, encased in a bright blue tarp, which they slid into the back of their vehicle. They placed her Gucci bag in the back, too, wrapped in plastic. It probably had the sales receipt from the gift shop for the bear bells she’d quickly made into a necklace. Had they jingled when she died?
Troopers Hanson and Kurtz stood at attention as if they would salute, but they did not.
Next to her truck, Alex saw the state trooper car they had come in. It was a blue and gold SUV with the words Guardians of the 49th on it. She jolted to see what was on the central shield of blue: the big, golden face of a bear staring right at her.
19
“What happened over there?” Suze asked the moment Alex got out of her truck in the lodge’s small parking lot. Right behind her, Quinn killed his engine and stepped out, too. Suze looked at him, then back to Alex and called to them. “Chip saw troopers and the rescue squad go by. He was carrying on that a plane might have crashed. It was all Meg could do to calm him down. I was just going to drive over.”
As they came closer, Alex told her, “Val Chambers, Ryker’s girlfriend, who was here today for a while, the one I took over to the camp—she’s dead.” She looked at Quinn, unsure what more to say.
He told the wide-eyed woman, “She’s marked up with bear claws, but my bet is she was killed by a human predator.”
Suze gasped and covered her mouth with one hand for a moment, then gripped Alex’s arm with the other. “You mean—claw marks like on the lodge wall? But then—then,” she stammered, looking from one to the other, “was that a warning—to Alex? The troopers are on the case? Word will spread.”
“And probably,” Quinn said, “bring in hoards of the curious and the media to the camp, which will be off-limits. It may mean more business for the lodge, but not good for Alex. She could be a target for reporters since she found the body.”
“Oh, no. You—you did?” Suze cried.
Alex nodded. She couldn’t stand to recount it all now, not even to Suze, so how would she ever get through an interview, especially if a reporter learned about—even photographed—the marks outside her bedroom?
“I can’t believe she’s dead,” Suze said, gripping her hands so hard together that her fingers went white. “I mean, I met her at the salmon bake the day you got here, Alex. But then just a couple of days ago, she came to the lodge—I think she went to the gift shop that day, too.”
“Yes, she did,” Alex said, reaching out to steady Suze.
“She looked around so much inside and out that I thought she and Ryker were going to maybe move here, though she made it really clear she didn’t even like our little town.”
“That’s Val—was Val,” Alex said.
“Does that poor girl have a family to bury her?”
Quinn said, “Ryker told the officers she has a sister she’s close to who lives in Mission Viejo, California. She’s not married, either, so same last name. Listen, Suzanne, since you may well be housing a horde of reporters soon, here’s what I’ve been thinking. The two troopers and their reinforcements will be cordoning off my entire property, parking spaces, the compound, the backyard and into the woods where the crime occurred. And yes, Alex could be a target for any media who show up. They will, from Anchorage at least. She doesn’t need her face nor her name online or on the air or the printed page, but it may become public record.”
Alex’s stomach flip-flopped. Surely he wasn’t going to suggest what she was thinking—what she hoped. She bit her lower lip so hard it hurt.
“My New York City guest at the compound,” Quinn went on, “is leaving later tomorrow. He even has a cab clear from Anchorage coming to get him. If he tries to stay longer, I’ll have him move here to the lodge.”
“We could use the business right now,” Suze admitted. “But I still hope we don’t get inundated with the press, however much the right kind of publicity would be nice.”
“Are you two following why I’m going to propose a plan?” he asked, frowning. “For now Alex needs to come live where the reporters can’t get to her, where the area is cordoned off and, at least for a while, we have state trooper protection. Since Brent Bayer is here one more night, I can sleep in my office tonight, and Alex can have my room. When Bayer leaves tomorrow, Alex—Spenser, too, of course—can move into that guest room because the whole area will be off-limits to outsiders of any kind.”
“But I’d need to come back and forth to oversee the store,” Alex put in as her heart beat harder. “It might get busy with all the new guests at the lodge, especially if there were people here to buy things, especially if people learn that the dead woman was my last shopper and
bought a bunch of bear bells, no less. Quinn, I heard what you said the bells being no good, but I saw she had strung them and wore them around her neck.”
“Yeah. I saw that, too, but didn’t know the source. If Mary is feeling up to it, we can ask her to cover the store for a few days until things calm down.”
“But I can’t ask her to do that, learn all that,” Alex said.
Suze shook her head. “We used to pay Mary to cover at the store now and then when Meg and I were too busy. She knows the ropes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Alex asked. “It would have given me a link to her since I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“It isn’t you,” Quinn said. “She’s wary of outsiders and protective of me. She likes what Sam and I are doing and, of course, feels protective toward the heritage of Falls Lake.”
“We thought you would worry you were taking Mary’s job,” Suze said. “When she started to get an upset stomach, about the time you called us about coming here, we were filling in for her all the time, anyway. Sam was grateful you were here.”
“Oh,” Alex said as jumbled thoughts bombarded her. What else hadn’t they told her? Maybe Mary did not want her here because she still wanted the job, money to help get ready for the baby. And what would Mary, Sam and Josh say about her moving into the compound even if it was Quinn’s idea, especially if Mary was protective of Quinn?
Above all, as kind as it was of Quinn, as desperate as she felt about being identified publicly, was she really ready to sleep tonight in Quinn’s bedroom and then move into his guest room right across the hall?
“I—it’s a desperate and unusual situation, you know what I mean,” she told them. “I guess, well, I mean, it does make sense, just for a little while, I hope.”
Alex’s heart was beating so hard she could feel it with her hands against her breastbone. Probably nothing would come of publicity over this death in backwoods Alaska. It would be a long shot if Lyle or anyone would learn of this horrid event and trace her here. And to be close, day and night, to a man she was so attracted to was not a good idea.
No, she’d be insane to move in with Quinn, that’s for sure, because she was coming to care for him so fast. A romantic relationship with him—with anyone now—would be the height of stupidity and recklessness.
“Thank you, Quinn,” she said. “I’ll get Spenser and my things together fast so we can get back.”
* * *
Quinn followed Alex’s truck back toward camp. His heart was pounding. This was the smart thing to do, but he knew he had to have the utmost self-control. Meg had given him that slant-eyed Really? look of hers when she was told the whole situation. Chip had been upset he couldn’t go, too, and kept repeating that he was glad “another” plane had not crashed.
And that darn little Spenser—Quinn was almost as nervous about having him around as he was Alex—was all protective growls and barks getting back in her truck, as if he knew what his owner had been through or thought they were off for a long trek again. Especially, in his house, Spenser would remind him of his own lost dog—and other losses. And Alex would be one hell of a temptation. He’d steered pretty clear of women because it just made life easier and less complicated—but now...
He swore under his breath as he followed her into the parking lot at the camp. Trooper Hanson had unspooled more yellow police tape when a van with a satellite dish and bright logo on its side drove in ahead of them. Quinn could tell it was from an Anchorage TV station. They must have been monitoring police calls or had an informant to be here this fast.
Glad to let Hanson talk to them, he grabbed Alex’s single big bag while she lifted out a plastic laundry basket with shoes in it, what looked like a cosmetic bag and some of Spenser’s stuff. He hustled her toward the gate, ignoring the voice yelling, “Hey, Q-Man! Can we ask you a few questions about events here today before we get kicked off the grounds? We can talk in the road!”
Though on a leash, Spenser growled, then barked as if he were a huge mastiff watchdog. Scotties always thought they were bigger than they were, but it made them brave as well as foolhardy.
As if he had not heard the reporter he recognized, he led Alex and Spenser inside and closed the gate behind them, then led them to his house in the corner of the compound. He almost never locked it but he had now, so he fumbled for his key.
For the first time, his familiar, cozy place seemed tiny, dark and plain. He went to his bedroom door, thankful he’d left the room neat enough. He’d even made the double bed and had the quilt pulled up on it. They set the things down on the braided rug partly covering the pine floor.
“Small, I know,” he told her as she stepped in past him.
“Safe and private is what matters.”
“Right. I—everyone here—will do our best to make you two feel at home. I’ve got to go over to the dining hall now to calm the students, and I should look out front to see if Trooper Hanson got that TV van off the property. I know this sounds strange, Queen Alexandra, but welcome to the Q-Man Tracking and Survival Camp.”
Tracking—they needed to track a killer. Survival—poor Val had not managed that. She hoped Quinn would agree that one of the troopers should go over to the lodge to look at the clawed-up wall rather than just consult the photographs on her phone or in the printouts she’d made. Because although she meant to study those photos again, and though she’d been deeply shaken to see Val’s bloody scratches, she had to admit that the claw marks looked absolutely the same.
* * *
It was a challenge to be in yet another strange room, hard for Spenser, too. And downright strange, though Quinn hardly seemed a stranger anymore. From the moment she had heard he’d carried around guilt from childhood, she’d sensed a kindred spirit. His clothes in the closet, where she hung her few things next to them, the blue curtains that covered the two windows, the extra forest-green towels in a stack on a bathroom shelf—yes, the quilt and covers on the bed—all exuded that sharp pine, windswept, outdoors scent that was definitely Quinn Mantell. It all seemed so alien and new, yet so warmly familiar.
She sat in the only chair in the room and petted Spenser in her lap as she continued to look around. The wooden walls were not sanded or stained but raw and natural. The colors in the braided throw rug next to the bed echoed the quilt colors. When she’d slid her emptied suitcase under the bed, she’d seen he had stored there snow skis as well as webbed snowshoes and several long poles. And a rifle, though he’d said he never carried a gun when he tracked.
Should she go out and find something to eat in the kitchen, or should she wait until they fed everyone tonight and go to the dining hall for that? For the first time since Quinn’s talk to the group early that afternoon, she felt weak and hungry. She had only grabbed Spenser’s food in her hasty exit from the lodge.
Meg had hugged her and whispered, “You be careful—in more ways than one.”
Deciding to venture to the kitchen, she put Spenser on his leash again and went to the door. She opened it to find Mary standing there, close, her hand raised in a fist to knock.
“Oh, I didn’t hear you coming!” Alex said.
“When I get big with this baby, maybe I will walk more noisily, maybe not go out much at all. Quinn explained to Sam and me why you are here. Don’t mind Josh if he’s upset. Josh is always upset. Come with me, let’s get some food. I crave sour stuff these days, though my appetite is not what it used to be, with all that’s going on. I just hope this third generation from the water doesn’t experience such bad days,” she said, patting her still-flat stomach.
Alex mulled that over as she followed Mary, wondering if she was counting generations from her grandparents who were killed when the waterfall let loose the deadly flood at Falls Lake. She wanted to study Mary, try to understand and befriend her.
“It’s good, considering your new condition, that you didn’t have
to see the worst of things today,” Alex told her as they headed into the kitchen and Mary took two apples from the polished wooden counter. She took a sharp knife from the drawer and deftly cut each in half.
“That is,” Alex went on, “I’m glad you didn’t go all the way down that path to see Val’s body but headed for the compound.”
“Even if I didn’t see her dead, I see her in my head, though not in my heart,” she said, pouring two glasses of milk from the small fridge and grabbing some raisin cookies from a plastic jar. “My family’s deaths are in my heart every time I see Falls Lake, knowing they are lost beneath.”
The woman seemed obsessed with the grief of losing her grandparents and their sunken village. But then Alex could understand grieving for lost souls.
20
“We all share food here. Mostly I do the grocery shopping,” Mary told Alex. Did she feel judged for taking food from Quinn’s kitchen? Spenser sat alert on the floor with his head cocked and his one eye watching. Did he, too, sense the tension in the air between Alex and this woman?
They sat side by side on stools at the small, raised eating bar. Mary chopped her apple half in small pieces with her knife, but Alex ate her halved apple and cookies as they were. Alex noticed she was not wearing the bear claw necklace she’d seen once before. Her pulse began to pound. Someone had scratched Val horribly with bear claws that Quinn insisted did not come from a live bear.
She studied Mary’s hands and wrists. No bruises or scratches. No blood on her clothing if those were the garments she’d had on earlier today. She dare not glance down at her shoes right now.
And Mary had been on her way back to the compound before Val was killed. Maybe Mary had convinced her to come out into the forest a little way with her or promised she’d walk Val out to see Ryker.