Deep in the Alaskan Woods

by Karen Harper

  He heaved a sigh. His hands on her relaxed and withdrew.

  “We’ll get more of that when we get out of here tomorrow,” he told her, pulling her onto her back and lying down beside her. “You owe me big-time for putting me through all this.”

  She let her breath out slowly, afraid to show just how relieved she felt that he’d stopped. Lyle had made a lot of mistakes, underestimating the forest, underestimating her. And these hours when he’d sleep would give Suze and Meg time to get Sam back from Anchorage to track her, to call Quinn, maybe the troopers. It was Quinn, miles and miles away, she wanted right now and always.

  * * *

  Quinn stared at the blur of runway lights below as the jet landed in Anchorage. He hoped the smooth landing was a good omen. It was barely morning, but light dusted the horizon. When they had taxied to a gate that took an eternity to reach, he unbuckled and shook Steve’s hand after he’d popped the outside cabin door open.

  “Good luck on your quest,” Steve said. “By the way, Geoff said to tell you this flight is all on him.”

  “Then thanks to you and him,” Quinn said, before hurrying down the stairs and sprinting toward the exit.

  He felt the burden of finding Alex was all on him. She’d been gone for hours and now the dead of night. Thank God it was not the depths of winter when the dark was endless, but it seemed like that to him now.

  In the long arm of the terminal, he looked up to read signs. He sprinted toward the hangar number he’d been given to meet his helicopter. The most important tracking quest of his life had just begun.

  * * *

  Suze and Meg were both waiting up for him when he landed in their parking lot and the chopper took off again. It was getting light, though the remnants of the aurora borealis still hung in the sky. He hugged them both fast.

  Meg blurted, “We figured you wouldn’t have your tracking or hiking stuff, so we have some of that. And we put a few things in a backpack. I hadn’t thrown out Ryan’s clothes, so I figured...” She gestured to a pair of pants, a sweatshirt, running shoes and a khaki pilot’s jacket with a logo of air force wings on it.

  “My shoes will do, but I’ll take everything else. I owe you both. Is Spenser with Chip?”

  “I’m telling you,” Suze said, nodding, “he’s like a therapy dog. Oh, in the backpack we put a change of clothes for Alex. We just can figure what happened. After, well, after Val we’re scared to death.”

  He frowned at how she’d put that. “Again, thanks to both of you.” He grabbed the things laid out and sprinted for the bathroom off the common area.

  He tossed his city clothes, used the toilet, dressed in these things Meg had brought him. Ryan had not been quite as tall, so the pants grabbed in the crotch and hit his ankles wrong. It didn’t matter. Nothing did but finding Alex, safe and alive.

  * * *

  As dawn dusted the sky and then segued to morning light, Alex didn’t care that her head was partly on the grass and partly on a flat stone. She was alive. She still had a chance to get away when he untied her. Maybe she could signal someone if they came along on the road when they found Lyle’s rental car.

  The pistol was still on his other side, out of her reach, and she’d wake him if she reached for it, but soon, maybe...

  But again, could she actually shoot him to get free? She’d overheard Troopers Kurtz and Henson talking about people blaming law enforcement for killing someone threatening their lives instead of just wounding them. They’d told Quinn that a suspect full of adrenaline, rage and sometimes drugs could still shoot or stab an officer if their bullets just hit a limb, so forget the wounded-and-down theories of dealing with hyped-up, desperate people, and Lyle would soon again be that.

  So should she shoot to kill? If, that is, she got a chance? If they made it to his car. She was so used to Quinn’s skills that she wasn’t sure the increasingly inept and uptight Lyle could find it. Would he even let her get that far or decide to just be done with her and hide her body here in the deep woods?

  He was sound asleep, snoring, but she knew he’d wake if she shifted around too much. But all she wanted was Quinn’s arms around her. Only Quinn’s, but for now she let the morning forest sounds and breeze caress her. Alaska—Falls Lake. Whatever happened, this was a lovely place to live and die.

  35

  When Quinn ran back into the common room at the lodge, he was shocked to find Suzanne dressed to go with him, holding two backpacks.

  “In case she’s hurt, you might need help,” she told him. “You know your phone will only work a little ways in. You can send me back out with a message if you need to.”

  “Thanks. Don’t take this wrong, but I’ll move faster and be quieter alone. If I don’t come back by noon, call Trooper Kurtz. But thanks for reminding me to put my phone on mute,” he said, digging it out to silence it. “I know exactly where it will and won’t work out there.”

  He was already moving toward the back door. “You two have been great. Nothing like the bold, beautiful Collister girls, all three of them.”

  As he opened the door, he thought he heard Spenser bark, but that might be his imagination. Yet maybe the little guy had heard his voice and thought Alex was with him. She would be—she had to be—soon!

  He jogged across the backyard, past the shop to the shed. Of course her cousins—Chip, too, even Spenser—had been back and forth here. Yet at the edge of the property, he saw a stranger’s prints, a new-looking running shoe with a distinctive, crisp design on the sole, so that should be easy to follow once he got farther along the forest path. New, probably expensive running shoes. Those shoes didn’t fit anyone he could think of around here. His gut twisted tighter. What if her ex had found her? The “how” didn’t even matter right now, only the question of where she was.

  He started down the forest path he knew by heart. If he lost her, if she was hurt, it would be the torment of losing his father all over again—worse! And no way would she have wandered off in the woods alone. She knew better. He had taught her better.

  Meg and Suze had said they’d checked the shed because they knew she’d been inside, but he could not see her tracks coming out. The man must have surprised her, taken her in the shed. But again, he could only find the man’s shoe treads.

  The tracks were deep so he must be carrying weight. Alex? Surely alive. If she were dead, wouldn’t he have left her in the shed? He would have been even more foolhardy—or possessive—than ever to kill her in the shed and carry her body out. Besides, Suzanne and Meg had said there was no sign of blood in there.

  He followed the trail easily enough. The man was trying to move fast but was a little more wobbly than usual, no doubt because of carrying Alex. Since his toes were not making deeper impressions than usual, it showed no extra frontal weight, so she must be over his shoulder for better balance and speed.

  Damn, what if another reporter had been hanging around, waiting for something to happen? Maybe he’d accosted Alex, and she’d refused an interview, then things got out of hand.

  Quinn backtracked quickly to see if he could find where the man’s footprints originated. If he had a nearby hideaway, maybe he’d take Alex there in a roundabout way. He easily located a little spy’s nest not far from the rear of the lodge’s backyard, so the man must have hunkered down waiting and watching. The forensic staff could get fingerprints off the litter here: an empty plastic water bottle and a torn sack from the town bakery that looked like it had held doughnuts—which the ants were crawling over now. Yeah, it could have been a new reporter who’d come back for a second try at this story and knew to watch the lodge.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  On his way back to the path, he saw a discarded, large can of mosquito spray. Only an outsider would carry a can at all—let alone one this big—because Alaskans would know to use something different. And to litter like this—highly unlikely in this green state. />
  It was no local who had been hunkered down here. Again, what if—But no. No way. Alex had covered her tracks when she came here to Falls Lake.

  Forcing himself to concentrate, he followed the trail again. He tried to shut out forest sounds: the wind in the branches overhead, birdcalls, his own soft footsteps. He focused on trying to hear voices, heavy footsteps, even hard breathing, anything.

  But he heard nothing like that. The mystery man had a huge head start—hours—but damn it, he’d follow him somehow to the ends of the earth.

  At the stream where he had stopped just yesterday morning with Alex, he found she’d been alive, at least this far, because that was what was really scaring him. Her captor had put her down, evidently to sit on a rock Quinn now examined.

  Finally, something!

  Tears filled his eyes. He saw her footprints, shifting a bit near where she sat. Her feet were parallel and so close together that she must have had her ankles tied. He didn’t see the other set of footprints here, the outsider’s, but he could have walked on the rocks or even in the stream.

  And then more pieces of the puzzle. Shreds of neon yellow plastic tape, snagged along the stream, not police tape but the kind Josh used to cordon off the separate search areas for students to find clues. So that was what she must have been tied with, no doubt her hands, too. Yes, there was a knot in one piece of tape. Could her captor have let her go here?

  Scanning the area, he saw a crude arrow she must have scuffed on the path. He looked up and down it until he picked up the trail again. The man had untied her feet; she was walking in front of him, surely not leading him—but then what if he had a weapon?

  * * *

  “We’ve slept long enough,” Lyle muttered in her ear. His bad breath pushed against her face. “Wake up. We’re out of here in case another plane goes over or they try to find you on the ground. Got to get to the rental car, before someone finds it. I’ll untie your feet again. Let’s go,” he ordered, rising and yanking her up.

  “Lyle, please untie my hands as well as my feet. I need to go behind a tree because nature calls.”

  “You’ve hardly had any liquid, but then, nature sure does call around here—shout, too,” he said with a little laugh at his stupid joke. “Too bad. I think you’re better with hands tied,” he said as he went behind her and cut through her ankle bonds with a jackknife. “We’ll be out of here pronto, because I’ve figured it all out.”

  “The way out of this maze of trees and paths?”

  “You think I’m stupid?”

  “Of course not,” she said, but he was crazy to think there was any chance she still loved him. Had he fallen for her fake change of heart last night? Or did he just want company in the wilds because he knew he was so inept and scared in this Alaska, which was also called the Great Alone?

  * * *

  Alex tried not to drag her feet, though she was stealthily leaving directional arrows on the path again. Even though she still knew so little of tracking, she didn’t want anyone—if someone came after her—to think she was an outsider like Lyle. Whatever happened to her, if Quinn came along this path when he returned, she wanted him to know she had listened to him to pick up her feet but also learned to leave signs—that she had valued his lessons and him.

  I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, Thoreau had written. She had shared that with Quinn and he had quoted it to others. And see what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived...living is so dear.

  How she hated to admit it, but she was more convinced than ever that Lyle, if he did not shoot her, intended to tie her to a tree out here, maybe gag her and leave her. In the dense forest, in the thickets here, they might never find her, though an animal could smell her human scent—her grief and fear—and come to her.

  She thought of Quinn’s father and little dog attacked in a forest. She pictured her own dear parents and her little dog. She remembered long-lost Allie, and was glad that her twin sister lived on in her head and heart, and that was not a curse but a gift. And how amazing she had never told Lyle about her twin but had told her cousins and Quinn so soon. How could she have fallen for this man who held her prisoner now?

  “Damn!” Lyle’s voice broke into her agonizing. “I was sure this was the way back to the road.”

  She did not tell him that it was, that he had actually stumbled on the right path, though they had a ways to go yet through twists and turns.

  “Surely it will lead there,” she said. “If not, to a trail that does.”

  “What do you know about it?” he shouted, yanking her around to face him. “I studied a map. I bought a compass! My direction finder on my cell won’t work in this damn labyrinth! I can figure most things out, but never quite you—did I? You had to hate me to leave me, embarrass me like that!” he shouted, shaking the compass as if he could convince it to give him answers.

  She wanted to scream that she’d more than embarrassed herself to trust him, to so much as think she loved him. But he was getting red in the face, losing control, and she’d seen that before—and fled.

  But now she couldn’t. Now she was trapped in lies, in fear, in deepest regret. She felt it on her face and body like a brand that she had ever trusted and cared for this man. With Lyle, she still felt scratched to pieces, like poor Val had been. Poor dead Val.

  She stared wide-eyed at Lyle, someone who had seemed to love her once, to love animals, but now she knew he loved only Lyle.

  He threw the compass to the ground and raised his gun toward her as a shaft of sunlight split through the trees and slanted across his face. He blinked and jerked his head.

  She could tell he was losing control, but so was she. He dragged her on, several steps toward a slight swell of a hill with a tangle of vines and weeds below. No way she could defend herself with her hands still tied.

  Suddenly she was sure he had worked himself up to act—to be rid of her, to kill her and shove her down into that wild forest growth. He must have known she was lying, that she detested him. She could only be grateful that he did not seem to know about Quinn, had not seen them together. If only Quinn were here...

  She knew it was now or never. She ducked, threw herself at his knees, rolling into him and taking him down. His gun went off but she wasn’t shot—yet.

  36

  Quinn jerked his head up. A gunshot? Distant. A hunter possibly, he tried to tell himself, but he hurried toward the sound of it.

  As sunlight sifted through the thick trees, he looked down again to read the tracks. Still two sets of footsteps, Alex’s and the man’s in single file, she walking ahead of him because he blurred some of her prints.

  Now, tiny bits of shredded paper. And more than once another deep-toed arrow to show their direction, as if he needed that. Yes, that was his girl, his beautiful, clever and bold Alex!

  But the tracks were scuffed here. And dried blood! Drops, then smears of it, but perhaps from a deer, which had left tracks. No, a moose, a big one, maybe a bull with a full rack of antlers, magnificent to see. What kind of jerk would shoot at that?

  So had some passing hunter seen Alex go into the storage shed at the lodge and decided to risk kidnapping her? No way, not with those fancy new shoes.

  Quinn was out of breath, but he pushed himself to jog at a speed which still let him keep his head down to watch for tracks. The animal must have been shot, staggered a bit, but went on down a side path, limping. With the dried blood, that was obviously not the gunshot he’d just heard. Maybe her captor was trigger-happy and probably nervous as hell. If it was her former fiancé—Quinn’s biggest fear—what kind of a vet shot a beautiful animal that would probably not attack?

  At least it was not bear tracks he was staring at. The ripe berries this time of year could draw them to areas where they didn’t live.

  Time was ticking and Alex’s captor must have
some sort of escape plan, maybe including having a plane pick them up on the lake. If they left the area, she might be lost forever.

  He was even more torn when he double-checked and saw footsteps heading two directions, one toward the lake, one toward the road. Why would her ex take her toward the lake unless he was waiting for a plane—or meant to drown her?

  Quinn chose the direction of the lake and hurried on.

  * * *

  Alex slammed into Lyle, then the ground hard, but so did Lyle. Her breath whoofed out. They both scrambled for the gun. She was closest to it, picked it up in her tied hands. No time to get her finger on the trigger and aim, so she got to her knees and heaved it as far as she could. The only good thing that had happened so far: it landed in the middle of a tall, blooming bush of devil’s club.

  She was shaking all over, hot and cold. She would have never shot him in time before he grabbed her or got the gun—and used it himself.

  “Damn you, Alex!” he shouted, and kicked her in the stomach before he scrambled to his feet.

  Doubled up in pain, she could barely choke out her words. “I just...didn’t want you to shoot another animal. Or me when I—I’ve been so relieved to see you, make things up to you. I’m sure we’re on the path toward the road.”

  Still lying on the ground, she dry heaved. She had nothing in her to throw up. Her head pounded, and her belly throbbed. Never had she been so scared and so miserable—well, maybe when she was with Lyle those last days.

  “That looks like a bunch of thorns where you threw it,” he said, looking away.

  “Those prickers are toxic,” she gasped, wiping her mouth with the tail of her blouse. “Lyle, we must be close to the road. Leave me here and just go on. I don’t know if I even have the strength to walk anymore.”

  “And leave you to make up some story about my kidnapping you? Get up, damn it!”