by Stewart, Anna J. ; Sasson, Sophia; Carpenter, Beth; Jensen, Muriel
“We’d better go. We don’t want to disturb them while they’re nesting.”
“They’re so beautiful. How did you know they were there?”
“I used to come out here sometimes when I was in college, just to get away from people. Swans mate for life and tend to come back to the same nests. To be honest, I didn’t expect to find them. Swans live for a long time, but not that long. I suspect this might be one of their cygnets and his mate.”
“I’m so glad you brought me. I’ve never seen wild swans before.”
He looked at her feet. “I’ll clean your boots for you.”
Dana laughed. “Not necessary. Seeing those swans was worth every bit of mud. When was the last time you came here?”
He thought about it. “The day after I graduated. I was packing up, getting ready to move back to Anchorage, and I decided to visit one last time before I left. The swans were here, getting their nest in order.” He met her eyes. “I’ve never brought anyone with me before.”
Dana reached for his hand. “I’m honored.”
He held her gaze for several moments before he stepped closer and slowly lowered his head. Her lips parted in a tiny gasp just before he pressed his mouth against hers. She closed her eyes and let her entire focus shift to the sensation of their lips meeting. His hands settled around her waist, and her arms automatically reached up around his neck. She pushed her fingers into his thick hair and pulled him closer. He responded, tilting his head and deepening the kiss.
He didn’t rush, simply kissed her as though it was the one and only purpose of his life. Dana wasn’t completely inexperienced. She’d had a boyfriend in college, dated a few other men, and yet somehow, she’d never truly been kissed. Not like this.
The sun may well have moved several degrees across the sky before he lifted his head and looked into her eyes once again. He stroked her cheek with one finger, setting the nerve endings in her skin vibrating.
After a few minutes, he took her hand and led the way along the path. He didn’t let go until they reached a tangle where he had to hold the brush out of the way so she could squeeze by. She shivered, suddenly cold without his touch.
When they returned to the truck, Kimmik greeted them as though they’d been gone for months. Sam rubbed his head before commanding him to jump into the cab. Sam climbed into the driver’s seat and looked over at Dana, holding her gaze for several long moments before he started the engine, and he drove back toward town without a word. Dana didn’t speak, either, afraid words would break the spell.
They pulled up in front of the cabin. Sam turned off the engine but made no move to get out. “About that kiss—”
“Don’t.” She didn’t want to hear how it was a mistake, or didn’t mean anything, or couldn’t happen again. She knew all those things, knew she was going home soon and would most likely never see Sam again. But she couldn’t be sorry that kiss happened when it did. Because tomorrow, everything might be different.
He took a deep breath and looked at her. She could see some emotion deep in his eyes, a struggle taking place before his self-discipline won out and he was once again in control. He nodded and climbed out of the truck. “Let’s get changed, and then we can go to dinner. All that exercise must have stimulated my appetite.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE OFFICE OPENED the next morning promptly at nine. Sam held the door for Dana. They were the first customers, having waited outside the office door for the borough office to open. He was tempted to suggest something else this morning, some touristy thing to give Dana and him an excuse to put this off until afternoon. But they needed to know the truth, even though he had a good idea that in this case, the truth wouldn’t set them free.
Today was more productive. The clerk, a smiling middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Linda, wrote down the names and invited them to have a cup of coffee while she looked through the files. Within an hour, she handed a sheet of paper to Dana. “I found this one.”
Sam looked over her shoulder. “Wayne Raynott. So he was in Fairbanks.”
“Yes.” Dana eyes roamed over the paper. “Looks like he owned a commercial property on Zelda Street named The Nugget. The note says also residential. Wonder what that means.”
“It may have been a business with an apartment above.” Linda looked at the address on the record. “Or maybe there was a house on the lot as well as a business. That’s way out on the edge of town.”
“Zelda Street.” Sam shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to that part of town. Did you find anything about Roy Petrov?”
“Not yet. I’ll keep looking.” Linda disappeared into the file room once again.
Dana paced around the room, studying the paper in her hand. “Okay, so we know my dad owned property. What does that tell us?” She rotated her shoulders as if she were trying to shrug off her misgivings. “The Nugget doesn’t sound like any sort of tool or construction business.”
Sam put his hands on her shoulders and massaged them. He could feel the tight ribbons of muscle beneath his fingers. “I’ve been thinking. If your father owned a commercial property, he probably ran a business from it, right?”
She looked up at him, her eyes brightening. “So he would have had to have a license.”
“Right. Let’s check on business licenses.”
After another thirty minutes, the clerk returned, admitting defeat. She found no indication that Roy Petrov had ever owned property in the Fairbanks borough.
“We appreciate your help,” Sam said. “Where would we check on business licenses from that time?”
“Well, that might be a problem.”
Now what? “Were the records lost in a fire or something?”
The clerk shook her head. “No, Fairbanks didn’t require a business license before 2005.”
Dana let out a sigh. “So there’s no way of finding out what kind of business it was?”
“Well, there’s the state business license.”
“Where are those filed?”
Linda gave a wry smile. “Juneau.”
Dana let her chin fall to her chest. Linda laughed and wrote something on a notepad. “Here. Go to the library and ask for my friend Gretchen. She’s big into genealogy, knows her way around the state computer system. She’ll help you.”
“Thanks.”
Gretchen turned out to be a tiny woman with unnaturally black hair scraped back from her face and wrapped into a knot on top of her head. She set down the book she was reading and listened with rapt attention while they explained what they were trying to find and where they’d looked so far.
“State business license division.” She tapped on her computer for a few moments. “Hmm, computer records don’t go back that far.” She picked up the phone and punched in some buttons. “Helen? This is Gretchen.”
Dana leaned closer to Sam and spoke in a low voice. “Sounds like another dead end. How long to drive to Juneau from here?”
“You can’t drive to Juneau. You have to fly or take the ferry.”
“You’re kidding. You can’t drive to the state capital?” Before Dana could ask more questions, Gretchen hung up the phone, a smile on her face. “She found it. She’s emailing it to me right now.”
“Wow, just like that?”
Gretchen’s eyes twinkled. “I’m that good.” A minute later, she printed out a copy of the business license and handed it to Sam.
Sam skimmed it. “Pay dirt. Wayne Raynott and Roy Petrov were business partners in—what’s this code mean? Oh, a drinking establishment—alcoholic beverages.”
“Partners?” Dana leaned closer to read i
t. “They ran a bar?”
“That’s what it looks like. Business name is The Nugget, and the address is the same as the one your father owned.” He looked up at Gretchen. “This is exactly what we needed. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” Gretchen picked up her book.
Sam and Dana made their way to a relatively private corner of the library. She shook her head. “This is so strange. My dad didn’t even like bars. He always said nothing good ever comes from hanging out with drunks.” She looked at Sam. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“Don’t apologize. I tend to agree with him. But whether that was an opinion he formed after being in the business or just decided a drunk’s money was a green as anyone else’s, he obviously did own a bar. And ran it with my father.”
Dana worried at her lip as she stared at the paper. “I’m surprised to find my father had a partner. He didn’t tend to trust other people. I wonder…” She stopped talking.
It seemed to Sam that Raynott was the one who couldn’t be trusted. But seeing the concern in Dana’s eyes, his own melted away. None of this was her fault. “Hey, we’re trying to get at the truth here. I don’t want you holding back information to avoid hurting my feelings. According to the State of Alaska, they were business partners, so maybe your father developed his attitude because of whatever happened to end the partnership.”
Dana studied the printout. “I guess they must have been successful. I never asked Dad how he got enough money to start the equipment and tool rental business, but it wouldn’t have been cheap. I’ve never seen any records of bank loans or other investors.”
“That would have been during the time they were building the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. From what I understand, money was flowing like water in those days, and there would have been a lot of thirsty men in Fairbanks with a wallet full of cash and not many options on how to spend it. But where did he get the money to buy the bar in the first place?”
Dana shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t talk much about his childhood, but I doubt his family had a spare dime. He sometimes mentioned he’d been working full-time since he was sixteen. I gathered he must have dropped out of high school.”
“How old would he have been when he bought the property?”
She did the math. “Maybe twenty-six?”
“So he probably worked for someone else for a few years first.”
“Something about working for a cousin who paved parking lots. I think he drove some of the work vehicles.”
“The Alaska pipeline would have needed drivers. At the rates they were paying, a frugal man could have saved up enough to pay cash on a modest property in a few years.”
“He was frugal—” Dana gave a wry smile “—especially when it came to business matters. But how does your father fit into the equation? He’s on the business license but not listed on the property.”
“I don’t know. From what my mother said, my father grew up in a village quite a ways north of here. I don’t think he had a lot of spare cash, either. So how would they have met, much less become partners?”
They looked at each other for a few moments before Sam shrugged. “I’m stumped. Let’s go see this property.”
As they reached the parking lot, Dana’s cell phone rang. She glanced at the screen and grimaced. “It’s my mom. I need to take this.”
“Okay. I’ll wait here.” Sam sat in the truck and watched her pace along the sidewalk in front of the library. She mostly seemed to be listening, shaking her head. Occasionally she would stop moving and say something, but whatever she said didn’t seem to be going over well because the pacing would start again.
Sam wasn’t sure what to make of the conversation he’d overheard in the car yesterday. Dana sounded more as if she were dealing with a spoiled teenager than her mother. Not that Sam was any sort of expert when it came to mothers, but he was beginning to suspect Dana hadn’t been on the receiving end of a lot of nurturing when she was growing up, from either of her parents.
Eventually, she ended the call. She dialed another number on her phone and spoke briefly before sliding the phone into her pocket. She seemed to give herself a little shake before she turned toward the truck. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem. Is everything okay at home?”
Dana rubbed her forehead. “Nothing I haven’t handled a million times before. I left a message with the person who’s helping out while I’m away. She’ll take care of it.” She gave him a tight smile. “So, you ready to go see the bar?”
“I’m ready.”
They drove across town to a run-down area. Dana tried to find numbers over the doorways of the strip malls, but the signs were old and faded. They came to a block with even older-looking businesses. A nail salon and a tobacco shop filled the two halves of a sagging wooden building originally painted mustard yellow but now mostly faded to a nondescript tan. Next door sat a cinder block pawnshop with iron bars covering the windows. At the other end of the parking lot, two cars were parked in front of a Vietnamese restaurant.
They passed a vacant lot, and then a house with a pile of bicycles in the yard and a few more scattered houses until the road ended abruptly in front of an abandoned building that looked like it might have been a small church at one time. The street number on the mailbox in front of the small house next door indicated that they had come too far. Sam turned around and they crept back along the road, checking for addresses. Finally, Dana spotted a number on a filling station. “Eight forty-seven. It should be the block we just passed.”
Sam turned the car around. Silvery leaves of birches fluttered in the breeze of the vacant lot where the business should have been. Sam pulled to the side of the rode and parked. “You think this is the place?”
“I think so.”
They got out of the car and walked into the woods. Sam kicked at a crumbling stone foundation sticking up from the ground. “Whatever was here has been gone a long time.” He followed the scars and rubble to trace the foundation of a long, narrow building. Toward the back of the lot, almost hidden among the trees, the walls of a long-abandoned frame house still stood, a spruce growing through what had been the roof. Cushions of green moss lined the boards of the sagging front steps. “Maybe this was the residence mentioned.”
Dana wandered back to the crumbling foundation, her face a picture of confusion. “What do you think happened to the bar?”
“Let’s see if we can find out.” Sam took her hand and led her across the street. After considering the four businesses there, he chose the pawnshop, based on outdated lettering on the faded sign. The shop looked like it had been there since statehood. Of course, that didn’t guarantee the employees had.
A cowbell clanged when they pushed open the door. A gray-muzzled Rottweiler sleeping in a cracked leather chair beside the door opened one hazy eye. They must not have looked like a threat because he closed it again and let out a snore.
Sam put a hand on Dana’s back and guided her farther into the store, where he leaned over to inspect the jewelry displayed underneath glass cases. The shop appeared to be empty, but they heard sounds from behind a curtain. Soon, the curtain was pushed aside and Sam was gratified to see a white-haired man with a cane hobble into the store. “Can I help you?”
“We’re just looking right now. You have some nice things.” Sam let his eyes wander over the jewelry. “Been here long?”
“Long enough. Looking for an engagement ring, maybe?”
A pink blush painted Dana’s c
heeks. “No. How long have you worked here?”
The man’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why do you want to know?”
Sam nudged her gently. “Her dad used to live in Fairbanks a long time ago and we were looking at the old neighborhood. Didn’t there use to be a bar across the street?”
“Yep.” The man’s expression didn’t change.
Sam’s gaze fell on a tray of silver rings. “Could we see that ring, the one with the feather?” The curved plume shape of the ring reminded Sam of the swans they’d seen yesterday.
The man nodded, pulled out the tray and selected the ring. “This is a nice one. Got it from an estate. You don’t find quality like this anymore.”
He handed it to Sam. Sam inspected the heavy silver carving. “Nice. Here, honey. Try it on.”
Dana shot him a skeptical look out of the corner of her eye before allowing him to slip the ring on her finger. It fit as though it had been crafted just for her.
“That looks real nice,” the old man said.
“It does. Dana, do you see any others you like better?” He let his arm rest across her shoulders and squeezed. If they wanted the old man to open up, she was going to have to play her part. Dana stepped closer to inspect the rings in the tray.
Sam kept his voice casual. “So what happened to the bar?”
“The Nugget? It burned down ages ago.” He looked at Dana. “Any more you wanna try, missy?”
“Um, I might take a look at that blue one. The bar caught fire, you say?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Real sad story. Two people died in the fire. Some folks said it was arson. I ain’t sure if it’s true or not. But the owner, once he collected the insurance money, he went and skipped town so fast it set tongues to wagging. Rumor is, with his partner gone, he didn’t want to take no chances on ole Roy’s relations showing up and staking a claim. You know how them families can be. Don’t pay no mind unless there’s money to be had. Or maybe he didn’t want nobody askin’ questions about what the two of them was doin’ there together in the middle of the night.”