Down River

by Karen Harper

  "You mean like Mitch told you he was listening at the Bonners' bedroom door? I know what I'm up against with you! I was only down here once before, but I'll bet you've been meeting Mitch day and night. I'm surprised there isn't a bed down here, but I guess the floor will do."

  "You don't know what you're talking about, or you're projecting your own M.O. on me."

  "Yeah?" she challenged, shaking the flashlight as if she'd hit her with it, however trapped she looked in that little space. "I heard Mitch say he was playing detective for you, but I'll bet you just want the attention from him. 'Someone pushed me in the river, Mitch, I'm sure of it,'" she mocked. "Or you hallucinated you were pushed. You're unstable, Lisa. I'm sorry about your tragic past, but you're imagining things, and I can't think of a worse quality for senior partner."

  "And I can't imagine Graham entrusting the position to someone who spies and lies."

  "Oh, really?" she said, folding her arms over her chest with the unlit flashlight held straight up between her breasts. "You think a few high-tech, underhanded things are beyond Graham, think again!"

  "Like what?"

  "Never mind changing the subject. I'm talking to him, and you're not stopping me."

  "Then I'll go with you. It will give me the opportunity to tell him you're not only lying about my screaming my mother's name when I found Ginger's body, but that you're the one who set me up to find her."

  "I heard you pull that one on Mitch down here before, but you're crazy! How could I do that? She was alive and well when I left! So what if I asked you to go tie up the boat on the dock in all those waves? You pull that one on Graham, and I'll sue for defamation of character. If you and Mitch kept that insane theory to yourselves, I was going to let it pass, but I'm sure you knocked your head on a rock in the river!"

  "Don't you wish. Actually--and we'll tell this to Graham, too, if you haven't already--someone did shove me in, and the lead candidate for that is my female rival for the senior partner position!"

  "Ridiculous slander! Jonas says you're whacked out from seeing your mother and sister drown, that's all."

  "That's all?"

  "Look, Lisa, I didn't mean it like that, like it was nothing. My point is no one shoved you in, just like that wasn't your mother in the water but Ginger. I'm sorry, really. Let's just back off, okay? I apologize for checking on you and Mitch, but it looks like you're trying to sway him and, through him, the Bonners. It's like tampering with the jury. It looks bad, you've got to admit that. Let's just put our dueling weapons away and swear we'll keep each other's secrets, let things play out, see who Graham names tomorrow."

  Lisa's mind raced. Let things play out. Vanessa had known for days that Lisa had been pushed in the river but evidently hadn't tried to use it against her--yet. Was that because she was the culprit and she was hoping it would remain a secret, maybe until she could finish the job? And if they went to Graham, it might spook him before she and Mitch could get their thoughts together on the casino case he seemed so concerned about.

  "A truce then," Lisa agreed, glaring at Vanessa. "All this will be over tomorrow anyway, one way or the other."

  "Yeah, one way or the other," Vanessa said bitterly, putting her flashlight down at her side and edging closer, sideways out of her narrow space.

  Still unwilling to trust her, Lisa darted back into the room, grabbed the chart and hurried up the stairs before Vanessa got out from behind the rack. She had to tell Mitch all this when she saw him later tonight, because she feared her forced truce with Vanessa was hardly a cease-fire.

  Lisa went directly to her room, locked the door behind her and leaned against it. She panted as if she'd run miles. Yes, Vanessa was the one she suspected of pushing her in the river, but what if things did just play out and she and Mitch could never prove the woman's guilt?

  She shook her head to clear it. She ached all over from being so tensed up confronting Vanessa. Or was it the ziplining and the rafting that had brought back all the aches and pains from her battering in the river, even after she'd felt she was healing a bit? She still had to pack to leave the next day, when she could not bear to leave at all. Restless, she decided she'd take advantage of the sauna as Christine had suggested. She wanted to be calm when she met Mitch later.

  As she walked away from the door she stepped on a piece of paper someone had evidently slipped under it, as if it were a bill for a hotel stay. Maybe a note from Mitch? In the room's dim light, with the muted roar of the river outside, she picked it up and walked to a window. She gasped.

  It was the printed copy of the painting of the drowned Ophelia that Ellie had mentioned earlier. Someone had written on it. Since you showed interest in this at the memorial service today, I thought you'd like to see it, death beautified.--Ellie

  It was both stunning and haunting. Painter, John Everett Millais, 1851-1852, Tate Gallery, London, England, was printed under it.

  Lisa looked away from the picture, but too late. Like Ginger floating in the lake, like her mother floating in the depths of her soul, the drowned woman stared up with her hands open, beseeching....

  She threw it in the wastebasket, then dug it out again, but left it facedown on the dresser as she darted into the bathroom and donned her bathing suit.

  Ellie should not have shared this with her, but she evidently thought it was comforting or helpful. Yes, that was Ellie, always wanting to help others.

  Feeling suddenly chilled, Lisa wrapped the thick terry-cloth robe around her trembling body. That sauna would feel great. Water, water everywhere, but in comforting, warm, relaxing steam.

  Locking her room, she hurried downstairs and out onto the patio. It was either her confrontation with Vanessa or that picture that had made her feel chilled, because the evening was mild enough.

  She glanced up into the gray twilight sky, wishing she could see the dancing colors of the aurora borealis Mitch said were always there, but could not be seen unless the sky was dark. That's how it was for her attempts to discover who had hurt her, she thought. The danger, that person's evil was there, but hidden in the light of pretense and lies. If events got even darker, would that reveal the murderer, the crooked, clever monster?

  She forced her fears away and checked to see if the sauna was empty. She was relieved to see it was. The sauna fit the patio and lodge, for it looked like a small rustic cabin. It had an external wood-burning heater. She walked around to the side where Mitch had pointed out the timer and temperature-setting dials. She set the timer for six minutes and the temperature to a hundred and thirty, although both dials could go much higher.

  She hit the button to start the firebox next to the eight-gallon stainless-steel water tank that vented into the sauna. That first day, Mitch had also demonstrated for them how you could pour extra water on the heated river rocks inside for a moister, thicker steam.

  She couldn't wait to get inside, to just let all the tension drift away.

  Mitch took the phone call at his desk as the Bonners left his office. They'd not only paid him the rest of what they'd negotiated but included a hefty bonus. They'd agreed on another local pilot to fly them to the airport in Anchorage, since Spike was going into Talkeetna to pick out a coffin for Ginger.

  "Mitch Braxton," he answered the phone.

  "Hey, Mitch, it's me--Lucky, at the saloon in Bear Bones. Gus is in here, drunk as a skunk, shooting off his mouth and getting kinda rough. Says you're his lawyer, but he doesn't need you 'cause he didn't do nothing wrong--cryin' in his beer about Ginger. Nobody seems to be able to talk him down and, if he starts breaking the place up, I'm gonna have to call the sheriff. Considering things, that would be bad news."

  Mitch looked at his watch. Nine-thirty. He had time to drive in, get Gus home and get back before meeting Lisa.

  "Thanks, Lucky. Tell him to cool it, and I'll be right there."

  He scribbled notes to Graham and Lisa. For something like this, he would ordinarily have sent Spike into town, but no way was he mixing Spike with a drunk Gus
right now.

  He shoved the note under the Bonners' door, because talking with them again would take too long, then hurried to Lisa's. He listened for a minute but heard nothing, so she might be lying down. She needed her rest, so he pushed the note under her door and rushed downstairs to tell Christine he was leaving.

  Lisa went into the sauna and closed the door. The cedar interior smelled good. It was about eight-by-six feet with an built-in L-shaped bench she gratefully sank onto, then remembered she should leave her robe outside so it wouldn't be a sodden mess. She got up again, opened the door and put it over the bar outside. That was one way, she supposed, people would know the sauna was being used and could knock before coming in. A lot of people she knew saunaed in the buff, but she never had. Still, if she took a sauna with Mitch here someday...

  Already she heard the steam hissing through the vents as they circulated heat and humidity into the small room. She'd wait to see how thick it got before she poured a wooden ladleful of water onto the heated river rocks from the very river she'd conquered--with Mitch's help. Nothing like bodysurfing the Wild River in the heart of Alaska, she told herself, still trying to shut out the image of that painting, of Ginger, of--

  No. From now on, it was going to be mind over matter. Although her psychiatrist had told her that repression was worse than letting terrible memories surface, she was just going to shut out nightmare images from her past. She would go on, face the future, maybe with Mitch back in her life.

  The increasing steam and temperature felt great. She warmed up, then began to perspire. Yes, sweat it all out, all the poisons, physical and mental, she thought. Pour it out through those pores. Get those endorphins released from the pituitary gland to get a natural high--not that she needed that around Mitch--as well as relieve aches and pains. Tension and stress should melt away. Besides, she knew taking a sauna increased the heart rate, so it had the benefit of mild exercise without moving, the perfect prescription for her. For a moment, sitting there, leaning back against the fragrant cedar wood, she almost nodded off to sleep.

  She jerked alert. Had she slept? Obviously, the six minutes she'd set weren't up yet, but the steam was so thick, the heat still rising. She had selected a heat she could tolerate, hadn't she? If it got any warmer, she'd end her session early, go out into the evening air, then hurry up to her room to take a cold shower.

  Mitch had told them he'd had people use the sauna who had then gone outside to roll in the snow. Maybe that was the Japanese couples who came here to see the aurora borealis and conceive a child.

  What would this area look like all covered with snow with the shifting, wavering lights of the aurora overhead? The river, beneath a thick coat of ice, would be silent. Or would it still murmur its depths and dangers? She'd never cross-country skied, but the groomed trails in the forests were lovely and, of course, they could go dogsledding, flying along through the white depths...and then cuddle up before a roaring fire.

  The temperature and hissing of steam hadn't seemed to level off. No way she'd pour water on those river stones. She was so thirsty she could drink a river.

  Feeling groggy, she got to her feet. She dare not lie down for a nap in her room before she packed her bag and then met Mitch at midnight, or she'd never get up. At least she felt relaxed now. Too relaxed, wobbly legged.

  She had to find the door by feel. She pulled at the handle, but nothing moved. Surely, she hadn't found a closet in here, disoriented about where the door to the outside was. Could it be stuck? She hadn't noticed a lock, but could one have somehow slipped into place?

  She tried again, then pushed at it with all her might. Nothing moved.

  Lisa pounded on it, shouting, sucking in what seemed now to be searing breaths of steam. "I'm in here! Help me! Let me out! The door's stuck! It's Lisa! Help me!"

  Panicked, she braced her foot against the wall and pulled up on the door handle with all her might. The wooden handle cracked, flew off to throw her back onto the floor, where she hit her head against the base of the bench.

  She shook her head, trying to clear it. She felt so dizzy. The room was fogged with thick steam, but she found the crack that was the door. She tried to push it open again from the floor, then clawed at it, gasping, panting.

  She lay on the floor, looking up through the white water around and above her. Drowning in the heat and steam, in the river. Where was Mitch? Beside her in the water, she saw Ginger in a painting Ellie gave her. And then, staring from the whiteout mist, her mother's green eyes. "Lisa, come with me, honey. Take my hand. I have Jani, here, come on now..."

  Lisa's heart beat so hard, so fast, pounding like the engines of the monster ship. "No! No!" she screamed as the cruise ship's powerful wake sucked her under.

  No, no, she had to fight that memory, stay with what was real, she told herself. There was no cruise ship, no pounding, rushing river.

  She knew where she was trapped, entombed in a wooden coffin, just like Ginger, not drowning but already dead.

  21

  M

  itch had Gus talked down, back home and snoring in bed in record time. No way was this guy--client or not, and he'd been through hell for clients--going to keep him from spending time with Lisa on her last night here. He drove too fast, roaring out of Bear Bones and heading back to the lodge. He wanted to convince Lisa not to leave tomorrow. Commitments or not, she would have to admit it would soon be safer here than in Florida, since one of her colleagues had evidently tried to kill her, and that's where they were all heading. If Vanessa or Jonas had pushed her into the river, they could try something again on their home turf.

  Or--the worst scenario that plagued him--what if Graham was somehow involved in the casino money-laundering scheme? Could Lisa be endangered from that? But what was the missing link? What was it that Graham was afraid would come out if the two attorneys who'd worked on that case put their heads together? Despite the fact Mitch longed for tonight to be about him and Lisa, it had to be about Graham and the casino case, too.

  He jumped out of the SUV and hurried toward the lodge. As he went in, he saw he'd have to get past his guests to be alone with Lisa tonight. Graham, Ellie, Vanessa and Jonas were huddled around a card table before the hearth, playing a board game. Christine was serving them beer and a stack of sandwiches. At least Lisa wasn't in sight. She'd managed to get away from the crowd and was no doubt either in her room waiting for him or maybe even out on the patio where they planned to meet. He didn't like the idea of her waiting out there alone.

  Graham looked up from the game. "Hey, Mitch, glad you're back. How's Gus?"

  "Sleeping it off--the booze and his loss of Ginger."

  "Mitchell," Ellie said, "that man's obviously very volatile. I still think he could have hurt Ginger, even if it was in a moment of passion."

  A moment of passion, Mitch thought. That's what he was feeling for Lisa--a long moment of passion. He had to keep moving.

  "He's a guy who wears his feelings on his sleeve," Mitch said, "therefore he's a guy who doesn't hide things."

  All four of the game players looked up at him as he strode toward the stairs. Which of them, he wondered in a moment of silence with the fire crackling as if they all sat with an inferno threatening, was intent on hurting Lisa?

  Christine cleared her throat. "You hungry, Mitch? I've got three kinds of sandwiches here."

  "No, I'm fine. I've got something I need to do. I'll see everyone in the morning for our farewell breakfast."

  "Which is where I'll make the senior partner announcement," Graham said. "I need one more night to sleep on it. I think Lisa's exhaustion finally got to her because she hasn't come out of her room since dinner."

  Mitch nodded and started up the stairs.

  "Don't you want to know who's winning?" Jonas called after him. "We're playing State of Alaska Monopoly, and I just bought a hotel in the Talkeetnas."

  "That's the place I always like to land," Mitch said, but didn't stop. Since Lisa was in her room waiting, he'd ta
ke her down the back stairs so no one knew they were going out together. Maybe he'd bring her back up to his suite that way, too, if she was willing.

  If she was willing...She had to be willing, he chanted to himself as he raced down the hall and rapped on her door.

  "Lisa? Lisa."

  He knocked louder, hoping nosy Vanessa didn't come upstairs to see what was happening. Could Lisa be sleeping that soundly? He felt hurt. He was so revved up to have this time with her, so how could she just fall asleep? He was exhausted, too, but running on pure adrenaline--or libido long denied.

  Mitch hesitated, then used his master key to enter Lisa's room. His note for her still lay folded on the floor. He picked it up and opened it to be sure it wasn't one she'd left for him in return. No, it was his note.

  He rushed into the room, looking around. The bathroom door was open, no water running. The bed was neatly made, with slacks, sweater, panties and a bra tossed on it. He recalled undressing her along the river when she was so cold, then warming her with his own body. Damn, if he didn't start to sweat at that mere memory--or with foreboding.

  He glanced around the rest of the room. A piece of paper lay on the dresser, maybe a note for him.

  He flipped it over. A color reproduction of the Ophelia painting Ellie had mentioned, with a note from Ellie. His stomach knotted. This Ophelia did remind him of Ginger drowned, but had it set Lisa off to nightmares of her mother and baby sister again? And, if so, where was she?

  Gut instinct, tinged by fear, racked him. The river? The lake?

  He closed her door behind him and went downstairs by the narrow back steps. Out on the patio, he called out quietly, "Lisa? Lisa, you out here?" There was no sound but the wind through the trees mingled with the eternal rumble of the river. Spike's plane was tethered at this dock now, rather than down by Ginger's cabin, and he'd brought Ginger's boat here, shoved up on the shore.