Deep in the Alaskan Woods

by Karen Harper

  “Many murders are crimes of passion, not reasoning,” Kurtz said. “Such is life—and death. Thank you for the information on this and your perspective, and I may need to question some witnesses here again, including you.”

  * * *

  “How did it go?” Quinn asked when they were alone again in his office.

  “All right. It seems they may be thinking Ryker, though.”

  “I guess they always look at the partner first, the husband, the boyfriend, fiancé—lover.”

  She nodded, and they were silent for a moment. He wondered if she was thinking of her former fiancé.

  Their gazes met again before he looked away. He wanted to hold her, but he didn’t want to press, to take advantage of this tragedy. “Want to sit out on the porch for a few minutes before bed? Or if you’re beat, you can have the bathroom first and lights out. Brent’s on his phone to New York in the guest bedroom and says he’s going to sleep after that. I swear, he’s asked as many questions as the troopers.”

  “Did you get what you need out of your bedroom before I take it over tonight?”

  “I grabbed a few things before you even agreed to stay there.”

  “You were sure I would?”

  “It was the best thing for you to do, and you’re a smart woman.”

  “Thank you for that. Sometimes I wonder. I’ll go get Spenser and bring him along.”

  * * *

  Alex put Spenser on his leash and went to the porch entrance. Quinn had arranged two of the several lawn chairs tight together for them. Since Spenser could not get out, she just dropped his leash, but he still stayed at their feet.

  When they sat, Quinn took her hand. The night, noisy with the rustling of leaves and owl sounds, reached in. Spenser, thinking he was their guardian, began to patrol the edge of the ceiling-to-floor screens, dragging his leash.

  “Sorry you’re caught up in this. What a mess,” he said. “Poor, unpopular Val, fish out of water—then no water to even breathe.”

  “Yes. As for me, I’m used to being in a mess. I was in a mess before I even knew it.”

  “With your fiancé?”

  She nodded. Even in the dark, she could feel him watching her intently. “I must have thought I was living a dream, and it turned out to be a nightmare.”

  He squeezed her hand. “We have that in common. If you know tough times, you recognize when things are better, even good.”

  “I agree. I’m—at least before today—determined to get there.”

  “What we don’t have in common, we could make up for. Enjoy each other, do things together, support each other, maybe do more than just get intrigued by and like each other. Want to give it a try—more of a try than we’ve been able to so far—and now with this chaos?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “That’s all I needed to know. I second that.”

  He turned even more toward her and pulled her closer. He tilted his head so that their lips met, slanted, melded. As tired and distressed as she was, she felt that kiss clear down into her belly and beyond. It was so different from how she felt and responded to Lyle, so...trusting and warm. Well, hot, too. She felt she could give and take here, not just give, give, give...

  The kiss seemed as endless as the forest and night beyond. He tugged her to her feet, and they kept kissing, caressing. Thinking they were going somewhere, Spenser came over and rubbed against their ankles. They ignored him. He went around them until they realized he’d tied their ankles together with his loose leash.

  “Your little friend,” Quinn whispered, “is giving us a message. It’s his version of a lovers’ knot. Listen, sweetheart, I don’t mean to give you the wrong idea,” he whispered in her ear as they held tight together. “We both need our sleep tonight. But I hope that—”

  He stopped speaking and froze. She gripped him closer. A sudden sound, a distant voice, shrill, nasal... It seemed androgynous, neither male nor female, and that sent shivers through her.

  Quinn stepped out of the leash, set her back and stood between her and the screen.

  “Not an owl?” she asked, whispering.

  “No way.”

  “It sounds kind of like what we heard out by the lake.”

  “I’ve never heard it this close, not around here.”

  In the dark, they stood, staring out into the windy night. Suddenly, he pushed her back a bit more, then gripped her wrist hard. Spenser growled.

  A dark form passed between them and the nearest cedar tree next to the stockade fence. Someone moving smoothly through the darkness inside the compound, and then that cry again, this time followed by the familiar voice that became slowly distant. To Alex’s amazement, Spenser seemed too cowed to bark, but continued to growl.

  “I’m going out,” he whispered.

  “No. Not alone, and—”

  “Do you believe in earthly spirits and ghosts?”

  “No, but—Quinn, maybe that was Mary. Sam said she has insomnia, walks in her sleep, and I swear, she’s haunted by the losses of her people.”

  “Sam says he only finds her out on their porch. It’s someone else.”

  “Can you call Sam?”

  “Turns his phone off at night.”

  “Then let’s go wake him—see if she’s there. People sleepwalking can do lots of things they don’t remember. Quinn, she’s pregnant and could hurt herself.”

  “Okay, lock Spenser in the bedroom. To Sam’s house, then I may go beyond.”

  She wanted to say, I’ll go with you if you go into the woods, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  22

  Quinn’s big flashlight stabbed a shaft of light before their feet as they ran toward Sam and Mary’s house. Alex was exhausted, and yet fear for Mary jump-started her adrenaline rush.

  Although it was after midnight, they saw the Spruces’ house was lit from within. Standing on the front porch, Sam was shouting Mary’s name over and over.

  “Quinn,” Sam yelled when he saw them. “She’s not here this time! She must have wandered away.”

  “She may have gone past my place. We saw something or someone through the porch screens. We also heard that crying voice. What if she’s the Falls Lake ghost.”

  “No! No way! She wants to find it, see if it’s her grandmother’s spirit, and I can’t talk her out of that. Maybe it has to do with her passion to get pregnant and have a child—but never mind all that now. We got to bring her back if she’s sleepwalking again, going to the lake. I’ll get a flashlight, too! I wish Josh was here to help.”

  He darted inside and came back out with a flashlight that threw a beam even bigger than Quinn’s. The three of them jogged the way they’d seen the dark form go past Quinn’s porch.

  “You think she might go out the back door of the compound?” Sam asked.

  “I made sure the padlock was not only on it but shut. But I had to give the two troopers down in the dining hall the combination. If we can’t find her right away, we’ll get their help.”

  “And have them think she’s a little crazy? I mean, if they learn she walks in her sleep and doesn’t remember it, what else they gonna think she did and doesn’t remember it?”

  Alex stumbled as they darted around the dining hall, but Quinn’s grip on her arm held her up and pulled her on. The lights were off inside, so maybe the troopers were asleep. She actually wished that Kurtz and Hanson had stayed here, too, because they could use their help now, but they were over at the lodge. Unfortunately, their staying a night there meant they’d be fair game to any reporters who showed up.

  “Damn!” Sam muttered when they saw that not only the lock but the gate were open. “You think she remembers the combination in her sleep? I swear I didn’t think she went out. Let’s find her quick. If not, I’ll come back for the troopers.”

  “Listen!” Alex said. “I do hear th
at voice. We can track her by that.”

  “You stay here,” Quinn insisted. “Go straight back to the house and lock yourself in with Spenser. You don’t need to be out here at night, not after everything today. If Brent is still up and asks where I am, tell him I’m with Sam.”

  “No, I want to help. I want to help find her.”

  Sam’s face looked like a fright mask in the reflected flashlight beams, but she saw him nod at her.

  Sam said to Quinn, “Alex wants to help. I say she comes along.”

  Quinn swore under his breath as the three of them plunged out into the dark.

  * * *

  Quinn was impressed by Alex’s stamina and determination. Was that part of what had drawn him to her? Or was it her stubbornness, however vulnerable she seemed at times?

  The voice was sporadic now but not as distant. Despite the darkness, they picked up their pace. He let Sam lead the way with Alex next while he brought up the rear. She knew to follow, not to talk, to keep up. Damn, but she even seemed to remember where the patch of devil’s club was and skirted around it, while Sam got some of it on his pant legs.

  They were almost to the lake, to the spot he always brought the beginner tracker classes on their last day for a picnic and a walk down to see the beaver dams and waterfall. He could hear the roar of that tall, silver spume that had opened its fierce mouth once to drown the little pioneer village. If Mary was obsessed with that, she probably needed psychiatric help, not for walking in her sleep but to get over eternally mourning her drowned ancestors, especially now when she needed to look after herself during a pregnancy.

  They emerged from the forest through the opening he had always referred to as “the twisted path,” the same one he and Alex had used to find Spenser just three days ago, though it seemed like three years. It was cloudy, so light from the moon and stars were no help, yet at the expanse of water, they turned off their lights to be able to see better, farther. A dark night at the end of a dark day—

  “Wish she dressed in white instead of the dark denim she wears,” Alex said as the three of them strained their eyes to search the stony shore. “What does she wear to bed?”

  “Sometimes she just falls asleep in her clothes, like tonight. If she was wearing white, which she is not, she would look like a ghost,” Sam muttered. “Now I will not allow that, and she will never sneak out again.”

  “But, my friend,” Quinn said, “what if she thinks she can communicate with her family’s, mourn for them this way?”

  “With the baby now,” Sam said, his voice angry, “she can’t!”

  “There!” Alex said, pointing. “Something dark moved down there.”

  Sam’s beam illumined a moose drinking from the edge of the lake.

  “Sorry,” Alex whispered.

  “It is good,” Sam told her. “You are helping. She needs a friend.”

  Quinn saw Alex nod and a tear track on her cheek gilded bright in Sam’s light. He figured she was thinking about the loss of her sister. “Let’s walk the shore,” Quinn said, “at least a ways. I wish she’d make some noise again.”

  But they jolted when they heard the cry, louder, even more sharp and distressed. Quinn put his arm around Alex and tugged her to him. “Just where we heard it the other night,” he whispered. “Let’s go that way, Sam.”

  “I cannot believe that can be her, out here alone, endangering herself,” Sam said, his voice betraying he was close to tears.

  Quinn countered, “You have to accept she might have done this other times. You sleep like a rock, she doesn’t and—”

  “Quiet!” Alex insisted. “Are we going over there or not?”

  This girl had guts, Quinn thought. Despite the high odds against her staying in Falls Lake, even in this dark, the light in his head went on at last: he had found the woman he wanted to be with forever.

  * * *

  Their feet crunched stones on the shingle shore as, still with their lights out, they jogged toward where they had heard the voice. Alex thought it might be a woman but maybe not. A man could make that atonal, nasal sort of sound.

  But all was quiet now.

  They stopped, standing, waiting. No sounds but the brisk lapping of water nearly at their feet and the occasional call of a night bird, the rustle of leaves and the distant, almost hissing sound of the distant Falls Lake waterfall.

  “Should we go farther?” Sam asked. “Should we head back? If she’s gone this far before, she always comes back.”

  “I don’t know,” Quinn said. “I don’t want to split up with Alex and me staying and you heading back or vice versa, but I guess we’d better.”

  “Is that the moose again?” Alex asked, pointing. “I think I see it this time back where we came from.”

  They all turned around again. “It’s her,” Sam whispered. “A single walker in a long skirt.”

  “We need to catch up,” Alex insisted, “but not panic her, in case she really is sleepwalking—in a trance or something.”

  They moved off the shore so they would not make noise. When they stepped up onto the rough turf before the thickest trees began again, Quinn took her hand as the dark figure turned away toward the trees. Alex was instantly out of breath at the pace Sam set.

  Quinn had to let her hand go as they plunged back into the dark forest, using their flashlights now.

  “If we get close to her,” Sam said, “we’ll have to go dark, so we don’t scare her.”

  Alex soon had a stitch in her side. It made her remember how Mary kept complaining about the pain in her stomach. Maybe she should have that looked at by a doctor as well as seeing a psychiatrist—but were there any around here?

  They nearly caught up with someone on the path ahead. They could hear the sporadic voice again but not footsteps as if the voice had no body, no feet, no human form. Near the back gate of the compound, they saw a figure, standing there, not moving, just sobbing. Yes. Yes, it was Mary for sure.

  “Don’t startle her,” Quinn whispered, but too late because Sam called out.

  “Mary! Mary, we’re here!”

  And then the bad dream plunged into nightmare. It was not their lights, nor the wan ones from the compound door, which stood ajar, but a bright blast of beams from all around jumping at them. Strong lights, strobe lights, blinding lights.

  Sam reached for Mary and hugged her to him, trying to shield her as she screamed out over and over what sounded like “Grandma!”

  Quinn thrust Alex behind him, and she hid behind his back.

  Reporters! At least four with cameras as big as Ryker’s. Voices shouting questions in a blur of sound. Mary sobbed. Quinn shouted at them, “Back off! Stand back and turn those cameras off!”

  “Just a few questions! We had to come around the back way to the tracking compound because the front has police tape!” a man’s voice came from behind the bright lights.

  “You are Quinn Mantell, Q-Man, right?” another voice demanded.

  “We admire your show. I’m Rex Myers from Real Ghosts, another cable show, not in competition with yours. We’re streaming live, too. If we can ask a few questions about whether the ghost could have killed that visitor, we’ll clear out. Maybe just a short interview with you and the woman who found the body, Alex Collister. And if any of you can comment on the Falls Lake murder, we’d appreciate it.”

  Sheltered from the lights behind Quinn’s back, Alex got a glimpse of Mary. Her face was frozen in fear. And catching the light, glistening, was the bear claw necklace she’d told Alex earlier today was broken and she had to restring. Then the lights blinded her eyes, made her blink. She had looked right at them, into them.

  “Go!” Quinn ordered Sam. “Take her and go!”

  With a raised hand to block the light, Sam moved ahead with Mary, and Quinn pulled Alex with him off the crooked path to get around the group. The lights were so
bright she could not tell how many there were for sure. Someone—maybe more than one—ran along behind still shouting questions. One voice yelled the name of an Anchorage TV station.

  A woman’s voice now close behind them called out. “I’m Lydia Scarlet from the magazine Secrets. Can either of you give me a brief statement, then we can leave you alone?”

  Alex covered her face with her hand and was horrified to hear another woman’s voice call her by name.

  Dear God, if these people had learned who and where she was, they would broadcast it, live-stream it, print it.

  Quinn had a good grip on her arm as he steered her toward the back compound gate. Just as they neared it, the two troopers darted out.

  “Media!” Quinn shouted to them. “Came around through the woods.”

  “Is the crime scene back here somewhere?” the Real Ghosts reporter shouted. “Trooper, could we talk to you about these haunted woods and the murder?”

  They kept going, and the troopers held back the onslaught. It seemed so dark, yet safe inside the compound lit only by the window light in the dining hall.

  They went farther in, Sam still holding Mary to him while she blinked at it all—and, indeed, seemed to wake up. “Why are we all here in the dark?” she asked.

  Quinn also held Alex tight to his side, then turned her to face him for a big hug. The four of them listened to the sounds of the troopers disbursing the little crowd on the other side of the tall board fence: “Freedom of speech...the public’s right to know...” came the protests countered by a jumble of orders from the troopers.

  “Got to get her to bed,” Sam said. He’d draped his jacket over Mary’s shoulders, which hid the necklace—if Alex had not imagined it. “Then tomorrow a doctor,” he promised.