by Rachel Lee
“That’s a tragedy. One of our national parks, called Glacier, has no glaciers anymore.”
“Sad. Very sad. Some days I try to imagine Norway being green year-round. The idea hurts.”
“The gifts of life are fleeting.”
“So it appears.”
At Maude’s they were chilled enough to order some hot food to eat before Maude filled bags for them. The diner was empty of all but a few hardy souls.
“I’d offer you lattes,” Maude grumbled, “but the damn things would be ice by the time you get home. The food in the foam containers won’t be much better. They’re working on clearing the roads, but I don’t know if it’s worth digging out your cars yet. Where would you go? I hear the grocery has hardly any staff this morning. It’s not like us.”
Hillary looked up at her from over a hot bowl of oatmeal. “Not like you?”
Maude sniffed. “Snow doesn’t shut us down. At least not usually.”
“We also don’t usually get this much of it,” Trace remarked when Maude had gone back to her kitchen. “We’re not exactly prepared for it.”
“Everyone should have skis.”
She was pleased when he laughed. She could tell the melancholy mood was overtaking him again.
“Have you no plows?” she asked. “I saw them on the front of two of your police vehicles.”
“Oh, we have plows. Just probably not enough of them. As for the police, if there’s trouble somewhere, they can’t wait for a plow to get through.”
She nodded. “I should have thought of that.”
“You can’t think of everything, Hills.”
Once again her nickname. She liked that he had arrived at it all on his own.
“Especially,” he added, “when our brains are fried. I believe I have most of the emails in order now.”
“Then we should start reading in sequence.”
“I think so.”
The walk home felt less invigorating than when they had set out earlier. They each carried three bags of food from a generous Maude, enough to get them through a couple of days now that they weren’t running.
For the first time, Hillary felt uneasy entering the house. She turned briefly while Trace unlocked the door and caught sight of something moving. Something dark. Then it was gone.
Not until they were inside did she speak. “I saw something or someone move in the bushes across the way.”
Trace dropped the bags on the small lowboy in the short, narrow hall. “Footprints.”
She had no difficulty following his thoughts because they were already hers. She set her bags beside his, and together they started out. They should have a clear trail to follow.
The footprints were there as expected. They were scuffed together and smashed down almost to slush.
“He has been here for a while,” she said.
“Yup. Split up?”
It would double their chances of finding the man. She nodded and started down the road in the general direction of the trail of footprints. Every so often she glanced to her right to check that they hadn’t switched direction toward a copse of trees.
Not yet. Her instincts took charge, and when at last the footprints took a sharp turn, she followed them into the snow. Trace wasn’t far behind. Then she reached the truck stop parking lot, already mush and ice from the heavy trucks beating it up.
She signaled Trace to swing to the left while she followed the outline of the parking lot to the right. Heavy trucks grumbled loudly, their engines and exhaust warming the air. And melting more snow.
No sign of footprints exiting the lot. Trace met her a minute or two later.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing,” she agreed.
As one they turned to look into the truck stop diner.
“There is a crowd in there,” she remarked. “No way to identify anyone.”
“Nope.”
“I only caught a glimpse,” she told him. “It could have been anyone wearing a balaclava and dark jacket.”
“That might well describe half the people in there.”
“Any snow on him or his boots would have melted by now.”
“Still not enough even if it hadn’t. All those truckers. Many might still be dusted with snow, and their boots might be slushy from the parking lot.”
Once more, Hillary walked around the lot in tightening circles, wondering if she could find any prints in the mess that appeared to follow a straight line from the ones they had been following. It looked like a stampede had run through that lot.
She hated to give up. Part of her training had involved tracking. She should have been able to find something. But not even the least little thing called her attention. Angered, she rejoined Trace, who had been doing the same thing.
“He knew where to run,” she said.
He nodded. “Probably had it planned out in advance.”
And they were, she realized, once again talking about the man, but now as if he posed a real threat. She imagined Trace wanted to get his hands on him. To shake him, perhaps, until the truth spilled out.
“Why,” he asked as they walked home, “would the guy stay after he killed Allan? Hills, none of this is making sense.”
“Only because we don’t know the answers.”
He snorted. “That’s obvious.”
She let a minor laugh escape even though she was feeling deflated. “True. So is the fact that little of this makes sense.”
“We have a ton of speculation, that’s all. And if Allan didn’t leave a clearer message for us, I may follow him all the way to heaven and give him a good shaking.”
She glanced at him and saw that he was trying to joke. Good. She hated to think he might be close to despair.
Once inside they took care of all the high-calorie food Maude had sent with them. It hadn’t grown as cold as Maude had anticipated, but it did fill the refrigerator.
“Back to work?” she asked when they finished.
“I want a few minutes first. I want to think about that guy.”
“Speculate, you mean.”
He grimaced. “Obviously.”
Inevitably another pot of coffee. Inevitably another round at the kitchen table.
Hillary spoke while they waited for the coffee. “When my father and I are home together, we often gather at the table like this.”
“From what I’ve seen, it’s a popular place. Did you talk a lot?”
“Always. We played cards. Drank beer or aquavit. If it was an especially cold day and snowy outside, we gathered before a fire. Friends came over. I liked those days, but I mostly liked the private time with my father. There was never enough of it.”
“Such good memories.”
She eyed him. “Have you none?”
“A few.” He didn’t elaborate, though.
“How did you feel about your father disappearing?”
He cocked a brow. “Do you want the expected answer or the truth?”
“The truth.”
“I was relieved.”
That told Hillary as much as anything he had already said. She tried to imagine being relieved when your father left town. She couldn’t. She had lived with the dread all her life that one day her father would never come back.
* * *
TRACE WATCHED EMOTIONS play over Hillary’s face. A usually impassive woman, she was letting her inner life show. At least to him. A sign of trust?
But the man. Always the man. He kept popping up like a bad penny. Instinct told him the guy was definitely involved.
“What do you think of that man?” he asked her.
“He’s around too much to be simply curious. He’s also not very good at staying out of sight.”
“I can’t escape the question, though. If he killed Allan, why is he still he
re?”
She ruminated for a while. She poured coffee for them, then recovered a container of pastry from the counter. “Sweets. Sometimes I need them.”
He nodded understanding.
“Okay,” she said as she settled across from him. “Reasons a killer might stay in town. Because he’s not sure the story ended with Allan?”
“Good one,” Trace said. “You’d have thought the results of the inquest would have been enough to send him on his way.”
“Unless he fears there is some kind of evidence here.”
He forked a piece of apple pie and drank some coffee before answering. “Then suddenly you show up and we spend a lot of time in the house. He might suspect what we’re doing.”
She made a face. “It’s also possible he may think I’m your kjære come to visit.”
“Kjære?”
He mangled the pronunciation a bit, but she didn’t mind at all. She searched briefly for the English word. It wasn’t one she had ever needed to use. “Sweetheart.”
“Ah.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I should be so lucky. But that still doesn’t explain why he’s been hanging around for so long.”
“No.” She ate the rest of her pie, then got herself some fresh coffee. “All right. I agree, but this whole matter is strange. And if we are speculating...”
“Then anything is on the table. Could someone have told him about the emails?”
“You will make me shudder again. All the way to the top and beyond. So many lives at risk, so many operations no longer secret. I hate to think.”
“If I believe that, then my anger over Allan’s death will seem small in comparison.”
“But we have to know for many reasons. All right, perhaps he has stayed because you made it so clear to everyone that you believe Allan was killed.”
“Everyone in town appears to have heard about my meltdown.”
“Oh yes, including the lovely Edith. I think even her dog knows.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Hills!”
The laugh shone from her eyes. “You made quite a spectacle, I gather.”
He sighed and pushed his plate away. “I did,” he admitted. “Nothing covert about what I believed. Bad soldiering.”
“But good...” It was her turn to sigh. “I haven’t the words for it. You are a good man. That’s all it was.”
“I was a little out of my mind at the time. Ignored. Helpless to make anyone consider anything besides suicide.”
“From what Edith said, a lot of people believed you might be right.”
“It would have been nice if they’d said so at the time. But what would have happened if they sided with me? An insurrection? Not likely.”
She watched as he went to get himself more coffee. Nice view. Desire stirred again, but she pressed it down. “May I be bold?”
He looked at her, cup in hand, still beside the counter. “When have you ever been timid?”
“I can’t remember. All right. We need to talk to your sjef of law enforcement. Your chief law enforcement officer.”
“What good can he do?”
“He can hear what we suspect. Perhaps we might get some help with this strange man.”
He looked out the window. “The snow has nearly stopped. Let me call him. Maybe he can spare some time.”
* * *
TRACE CALLED THE department and asked to speak to the sheriff. Gage Dalton answered after a few moments, coming straight to the point in his gravelly voice. “What’s up, Trace?”
Trace almost hated to speak the words, given the hard time he’d given Gage right after Allan’s death. “It’s about Allan.”
“Oh?” At least Gage didn’t sigh.
“We think we may have found something. And we think we have a problem. Got some time for us to walk over?”
“I have a better idea. I’ll drive over. At least I’m outfitted with tire chains and a plow. Give me twenty.”
When Trace disconnected, he faced Hillary. “He’s coming over.”
“Good. It will be nice to have a new wall to bounce the ball off.”
He was charmed by her phrasing. Occasionally her English took unexpected turns. Sometimes contractions deserted her, and other times they slipped easily past her lips.
Gage was prompt. Trace caught sight of him limping up the walk through the window and almost winced for the man. Trace’s injuries had been treatable. Gage’s had not.
Trace decided he’d better not wait much longer to shovel the sidewalk. It was perilous out there, and while he hadn’t expected anyone so he hadn’t hurried to get to shoveling, clearly he’d been wrong.
He opened the door before Gage could even knock. “Sorry about the walk. I waited too long.”
Gage gave his patented crooked smile, only one side of his mouth lifting. The other side of his face had been burned, and shiny scar tissue evidently deprived him of some facial mobility.
“Don’t worry about it,” Gage said. “You have no idea what I’ve tromped through already today. And my own walk isn’t shoveled yet. Knowing my wife, she’ll have it done before I get back.”
Trace grinned. “She’s in great shape.”
Gage lifted a brow. “She’s always been in great shape. Now she stays that way at the gym. Yoga! Anyway, she says she’ll have to die eventually, but she doesn’t have to get old along the way.”
“I like that attitude.”
“You would, being the guy who runs around this county like a mountain goat.”
By then they were inside. Gage had knocked as much snow as he could from his boots and then hung his parka on a wall hook beside Trace’s and Hillary’s.
“Coffee?” Trace asked.
“You need to ask? Cars need gasoline. I need caffeine.”
Trace made the introductions in the kitchen, and soon there was a cozy gathering around the table.
Gage looked at Hillary. “So you’re Brigid’s soldier friend.”
“Yes.”
“A wonderful soul, our Brigid.” Then he turned his attention to Trace. “You said you had some stuff to discuss about Allan. I’m assuming it’s not the ground you already covered.”
“Not exactly. Let’s start with the fact that Brigid was killed in late January. I know how that made Allan’s death appear, even more than six months later. But consider.”
Gage nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Allan left me this house, but he also included all the passwords to his computer files in his will. I’d have come in here sooner to check it out, but...” Trace trailed off for a moment. “Gage, this place is full of memories for me, and, worse, it felt like an empty dark pit. I didn’t want to come in here. And when I did, Hillary reminded me how strange it was that Allan left me all those passwords.”
Gage sat up a little straighter, wincing as he did so. “It’s strange, all right. My inclination would be to let things remain locked and hope the equipment got trashed.”
“Exactly. I had to conclude that Allan wanted me to find something.”
“I can see that. So you started reading.”
“I wish. I found all the computer files scrambled. No date sequence to all the emails. He’d scattered them in different folders with no organization whatsoever.”
Gage now frowned. “That’s odd. Do you think he was trying to bury something?”
“Yeah, I do. Then I found a sentence from him in one of his last emails. He told Brigid to let it go. To just let it go. That was one of Brigid’s favorite sayings, and very unlike Allan’s temperament. It felt like a warning.”
“Maybe.” Gage was clearly withholding judgment.
Hillary rose. “I want to show you something.”
As she left the room, Gage looked at Trace. “She’s British?”
“Half, she says.”
“Nice accen
t. Kind of lilting.”
Just like Gage not to miss a thing.
“She’s a soldier, too?”
Trace hesitated. “Yeah, sort of.”
“What? What am I missing?”
“She doesn’t want anyone to know, but she’s Norwegian special ops.”
“I won’t tell a soul. But damn! A Valkyrie?”
Trace nodded, but if anyone in this town needed to understand Hillary’s background, he figured the sheriff was it.
Gage offered another of his crooked smiles. “Pity the man who gives her any trouble in a dark alley. I’ve heard a little about them. But she’s right. She doesn’t want to become the subject of constant attention. Or of the grapevine.”
“That’s not what she’s here for.”
“I take it she agrees with you?”
“Maybe not at first. Now yes.”
“Interesting.”
Hillary returned just then holding an envelope. “It took me a few minutes to find it.” She sat at the table and pulled the pages of the letter out of it, smoothing them. “This,” she said, pointing as she moved the paper close to Gage. “The underlined part.”
“‘Too many guns,’” he read aloud. Then read it again. “Underlined. Heavily.” After a moment, he swore. “I guess I know what you’re thinking.”
“Probably,” Trace answered.
Gage leaned back, wincing again. “Discovering illegal arms sales would be enough to get a lot of people killed. Damn it all.” Gage looked at Hillary. “I used to work undercover for the Drug Enforcement Administration. I’m suspicious by nature. This makes me very suspicious.”
“Us too,” Trace said. “But we need to comb through everything for more information, or we’re at a standstill.”
Gage nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. “More coffee?” he asked.
But he didn’t ask Hillary, a gesture Trace appreciated. He went to get the sheriff more coffee.
“I need to think on this,” Gage said presently. “I guess it was too easy to believe suicide under the circumstances. Especially since I knew how much trouble Allan was having with PTSD. Veteran suicides are all too common. But now...” He shook his head. “You’re in a fine kettle of fish, and I don’t know how I can help.”