Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  "What was his name?"

  She opened her mouth, realized her mind was blank. She couldn't remember a face, much less a name, and barely remembered the groping in the dark. "What do I care," she snapped out. "It was just sex."

  "You're not going to find what you're looking for, not with nameless men nearly half your age. But if you have to keep looking, I can't stop you. That's been clear enough right from the start of this. But I can stop being your fallback position."

  "Go on, then." She scooped up a pile of paperwork from her desk, threw it into the air. "I won't care."

  "I know. If you did, really did, I wouldn't go."

  He stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  * * *

  He was dazzled by the light. Nate couldn't get enough of it, no matter how long the day lasted, he wanted more. He could feel it penetrating flesh and bone, charging him.

  He hadn't woken from a nightmare in days.

  He woke to light, worked and walked through it in the day. He thought in it and ate in it; he soaked in it.

  And each night he watched the sun slide down behind the mountains, he knew it would rise again in a few hours.

  There were still nights when he'd slip out of Meg's bed, walk out with the dogs for company to watch the lights play havoc with the night sky.

  He could still feel the wound, throbbing under the scars on his body. But he thought the pain was a healing one now. He hoped to God it was. A kind of acceptance for what he'd lost and an opening to what he could have.

  For the first time since he'd left Baltimore, he called Jack's wife, Beth.

  "I just wanted to know how you were. You and the kids."

  "We're okay. We're good. It's been a year since . . ."

  He knew. A year today.

  "Today's a little rough. We went out this morning, took him flowers. The firsts are the hardest. The first holiday, first birthday, first anniversary. But you get through it, and it's a little easier. I thought—hoped— you'd call today. I'm so glad you did."

  "I wasn't sure you'd want to hear from me."

  "We miss you, Nate. Me and the kids. I worry about you."

  "I'm okay, too. Better."

  "Tell me what it's like there. Is it awfully cold and quiet?"

  "Actually, it's around sixty today. As for quiet. . . " He looked over at his board. "Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty quiet. We've had some flooding. Not as bad as in the southeast but enough to keep us busy.

  It's beautiful."

  He turned to his window now. "Like nothing you can imagine. You have to see it, and even then it's hard to imagine."

  "You sound good. I'm glad you sound good."

  "I didn't think I'd make it here." Anywhere. "I wanted to. I didn't care so much until I got here. Until I was here, and then I wanted to. But I didn't think I would."

  "Now?"

  "I think I will. Beth, I met someone."

  "Oh?" There was a laugh in her voice, and he closed his eyes to hear it. "Is she wonderful?"

  "Spectacular, in so many ways. I think you'd like her. She's not like anybody else. She's a bush pilot."

  "A bush pilot? Isn't that one of those people who fly around in those tiny planes like maniacs?"

  "Pretty much. She's beautiful. Well, she's not, but she is. She's funny and tough, and she's probably crazy, but it fits her. Her name's Meg. Megan Galloway, and I'm in love with her."

  "Oh, Nate. I'm so happy for you."

  "Don't cry," he said when he heard the tears.

  "No, it's good. Jack would find a million ways to tease you, but under it, he'd have been happy for you, too."

  "Well, anyway, I just wanted to tell you. I just wanted to talk to you and tell you and say that maybe sometime you and the kids could come up. It's a great place for a summer vacation. By June it won't be dark till midnight, and then they tell me it's more like twilight than dark. And it's warmer than you think, or so they tell me. I'd like you to see it, to meet Meg. I'd like to see you and the kids."

  "I can promise we'll come for the wedding."

  His laugh was a little jerky. "I haven't moved in that direction."

  "I know you, Nate. You will."

  When he hung up, he was smiling. The last thing he'd expected. He left the board uncovered—a kind of symbol that he was investigating in the open now—and walked out of his office.

  It still gave him a jolt to see Peter with his arm in a sling. The young deputy sat at his desk, punching keys one-handed.

  Desk duty. Paperwork detail. A cop—and that's what the kid was— could die of sheer boredom.

  Nate walked over. "Want to get out of here?"

  Peter looked up, one finger of his good hand poised over the keyboard. "Sir?"

  "Want me to uncuff you from that desk for a while?"

  Light came into his face. "Yes, sir!"

  "Let's take a walk." He grabbed a two-way. "Peach, Deputy Notti and I are on foot patrol."

  "Um. Otto's already out," Peter told him.

  "Hey, crime could be rampant out there for all we know. Peach, you've got the helm."

  "Aye, aye, captain," she said with a snicker. "You boys be careful."

  Nate took a light jacket from a peg. "Want yours?" he asked Peter.

  "Nah. Only Lower 48ers need a jacket on a day like this."

  "That so? Well, then." Deliberately, Nate rehung the jacket.

  Outside it was brisk enough and overcast. Rain was probably on its way, and undoubtedly, Nate thought, he'd regret the gesture of leaving the jacket before they were finished.

  But he headed down the sidewalk with the damp, frisky air blowing through his hair. "How's the arm?"

  "Pretty good. I don't think I need the sling, but between Peach and my mother, it's not worth the grief."

  "Women get all fussy when a guy gets himself shot."

  "Tell me about it. And try to be, you know, stoic about it, and they're all over you."

  "I haven't talked to you too much about the incident. Initially I told myself I'd made a mistake taking you out there."

  "I spooked him when I got out of the car. Incited the situation."

  "A squirrel dropping an acorn would've spooked him, Peter. I said initially I told myself I'd made a mistake. The fact is, I didn't. You're a good cop. You proved it. You were down. You were hurt and dazed, but you backed me up."

  "You had the situation controlled. You didn't need backup."

  "I might have. That's the point. When you stand with someone in a volatile situation, you have to be able to trust him—no reservations."

  The way he and Jack had trusted each other, he thought. So you'd go through the door, into the alley, no matter what waited in the dark.

  "I want you to know I trust you."

  "I . . . I thought you had me on the desk because you were trying to ease me out."

  "I've got you on the desk because you're injured. In the line, Peter. A commendation regarding your actions during the incident is going in your file."

  Peter stopped, stared. "A commendation."

  "You earned it. It'll be announced at the next Town Hall meeting."

  "I don't know what to say."

  "Stoic works."

  They crossed the street at the corner to swing up the other side. "I have something else to tell you, and it's sensitive. Regarding the investigation our department is conducting. The homicides."

  He caught Peter's quick glance. "Whatever the State Police have determined, this department is treating them as homicides. I have several statements from individuals giving their whereabouts during the times in question. Most of those statements, however, can't be corroborated, at least not to my satisfaction. That includes Otto's."

  "Oh, but chief, Otto's—"

  "One of us. I know. But I can't cross him off the list because he's one of us. There are a lot of people in this town, or outlying it, who had the opportunity for these three crimes. Motive's a different thing.

  The motive for the two subsequent
arrow back to Galloway. What was the motive for his murder? Crime of passion, gain, cover-up? Drug-induced? Maybe a combination of those motives. But whoever it was, he knew."

  Nate scanned the streets, the sidewalks. Sometimes it was what you knew that waited in the dark.

  "He knew them well enough to do that winter climb with his killer and with Max. Just the three of them. He knew his killer well enough to indulge in, I guess we'd call it role-playing while they were up there, enduring harsh conditions."

  "I don't understand what you mean."

  "He had a journal. It was on him—and left on him. Coben gave me a copy."

  "But if he had a journal, then—"

  "He never used the names of his companions. They were on some sort of lark. The kind that tells me if he hadn't been killed up there then, he'd have died on some other climb unless he'd straightened up.

  They were smoking grass, popping speed. Playing Star Wars. Galloway as Luke, Max as Han Solo, and ironically enough Galloway's killer in the Darth Vader role. The mountain became that ice world they were on."

  "Hoth. I like the movies," Peter added with a little hunch to his shoulders. "I collected the action figures and stuff when I was a kid."

  "Me, too. But these weren't kids. They were grown men, and somewhere along the line, the game got out of hand. Galloway wrote how Han—I believe that was Max—injured his ankle. They left him behind in a tent with some provisions and kept going."

  "That proves Max didn't kill him."

  "Depends on how you angle it. You could speculate that Max decided to follow, caught up with them in the ice cave and went crazy. You could further speculate that Max held the Vader role and killed both his playmates. Those aren't my personal theories, but they're theories. And the State accepts the second one."

  "That Mr. Hawbaker killed both guys? Then got himself down alone? I can't see it."

  "Why?"

  "Well, I know I was just a little kid when all this happened, but Mr. Hawbaker never had a rep for being, you know, bold and, um, self-sufficient. You'd have to be both to handle that descent."

  "I agree. Later in the journal, Galloway wrote that the Darth character was showing signs of—let's call it lunacy—anger, risk taking, accusations. A lot of drugs involved in this and, from what I've read, a by-product of the strain, altitude sickness, the high some climbers get from being up there."

  Nate watched Deb come out of The Corner Store to take Cecil for a walk. The dog was wearing a bright green sweater.

  "Galloway was worried, worried about this guy's state of mind," he continued as he casually exchanged waves with Deb. "About getting them all down safe. His last journal entry was written in the ice cave.

  He never got out of it, so he was right to be worried. But he still wasn't worried enough to take definite steps to protect himself. There were no defensive wounds on the body. His own ice ax was still in his belt. He knew his killer, just like Max knew his. Just like Yukon knew the man who slit his throat.

  "We know him, too, Peter." He sent another wave to Judge Royce, who strode toward KLUN with a cigar clamped between his teeth. "We just haven't recognized him yet."

  "What do we do?"

  "We keep going through what we know. We keep working with the layers until we know more. I'm not telling Otto about the journal. Not yet."

  "God."

  "This is tougher on you. These are people you've known all your life, or a good part of it."

  He nodded down the street where Harry stood on the sidewalk outside The Corner Store catching a smoke and talking to Jim Mackie. Across from them Ed walked briskly in the direction of the bank but stopped to exchange a word with the post mistress who was out sweeping her stoop.

  Big Mike came out of The Lodge and jogged, undoubtedly heading for The Italian Place and his daily bout of shoptalk with Johnny Trivani. His little girl let out belly laughs as she rode his shoulders.

  "Just people. But one of them, out here on the street, inside one of these buildings or houses, in a cabin outside of town, is a killer. If he has to, he'll kill again."

  * * *

  He went to Meg's every evening. She wasn't always there. Jobs were picking up as the weather warmed. But they had an unspoken agreement that he would come and stay. He'd tend the dogs, see to some of the chores.

  He was leaving his things there, such as they were, little by little. Another unspoken agreement. He kept his room at The Lodge, but it was more a storage area for his heavy winter gear at this point.

  He could've moved that to Meg's, too. But that would've been the line. The official we're-living-together line.

  He saw the smoke from her chimney before he made the turn, and his mood cranked up another notch. But there was no plane on the lake, and it was Jacob's truck in her drive.

  The dogs bolted out of the woods to greet him, with Rock carting one of the mastodon bones they liked to gnaw on. It looked fresh to Nate, and he left the dogs playing an energetic tug-of-war with it as he went inside.

  Nate could smell blood before he was halfway to the kitchen. Instinctively his hand went to the butt of his weapon.

  "I brought meat," Jacob said without turning around.

  There were a couple of thick planks of something bloody on the counter. Nate relaxed his hand.

  "She doesn't have much time to hunt these days. Bear are awake. It's good meat for stew, meat loaf."

  Bear meat loaf, Nate thought. What a world. "I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

  "We share what we have." Jacob continued calmly wrapping bear meat in thick white paper.

  "She told you I was with her most days during the time her father was taken."

  "Was taken? That's an interesting way to put it."

  "His life was taken from him, wasn't it?" Jacob finished wrapping the meat, then picked up a black marker and wrote a date on the packages. It was such a housewifely gesture that Nate blinked.

  "She told you this, but you don't trust her memory, or her heart."

  "I trust her."

  "She was a child." Jacob washed his hands in the sink. "She could be mistaken, or could, because she loves me, be protecting me."