Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  "You're back early."

  "No, you're back late. It's nearly eight."

  He looked up at the sky, still bright as noon. "I'm not used to it yet. Woman, where's my supper?"

  "Ha ha ha. You can throw a couple of moose burgers on the grill."

  "Moose burgers, a personal favorite."

  "You get anything more in Anchorage?"

  "No, at least not investigationally. And how was your day?"

  "Actually, I was in Anchorage briefly myself. And since I was there, I happened to wander into this shop where they happened to have wedding dresses."

  "Really?"

  "Stop grinning. I'm still firm on not wanting a big, fancy deal. Just a wild party right here at the house.

  But I decided I do want a kick-ass dress. One that'll make your eyes pop out."

  "Did you find it?"

  "That's for me to know and you to find out." She stepped up on the porch ahead of him, then gave him a smacking kiss. "I like my moose burger well-done and the bun lightly toasted."

  "Check. But before we dine, I did a little marriage shopping today myself."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "Oh yeah." He pulled the ring box out of his pocket. "Guess what this is."

  "Mine. Gimme."

  He flipped the top open and had the pleasure of seeing her eyes pop when she saw the full-cut solitaire flanked by sparkling channel cuts on a platinum band.

  "Holy shit!" She grabbed it out of the box, held it aloft and jumped off the porch. She danced around the yard, crowing out sounds he took as approval.

  "Does that mean you like it?"

  "Sparkly!" She spun laughing circles all the way back to him. "This, Chief Burke, is a ring. How much did it set you back?"

  "Jesus, Meg."

  She kept laughing, like a loon. "I know, tacky. And I don't really want to know. It's a killer, Nate, an absolute killer. It's stupid and extravagant, so it's perfect. Absolutely perfect."

  She held it out, then dropped it into his open palm. "Okay, put it on me, and hurry up."

  "Excuse me, but can we have a little dignity for this part?"

  "I think we've already crossed the point of no return on that." She wiggled her fingers. "Come on.

  Give it up."

  "Good thing I didn't wrack my brain trying to come up with something poetic to say when I did this."

  He slipped it on her finger where it sparkled insanely. "Be careful you don't put your eye out with that thing."

  "When do I go splat?"

  "Sorry?"

  "I just keep falling more and more in love with you. When do I finally hit bottom and go splat?" She framed his face in the way that always made his heart roll over in his chest. "I don't know if I'm perfect for you, Nate, but you sure as hell are for me."

  He took the hand that wore the ring and kissed it. "If and when we splat, we'll do it together. Let's go make moose burgers."

  Thirty

  "What are these?"

  Meg looked at the ring of keys in Nate's hand, deliberately furrowed her brow. "Those would be keys."

  "Why do you need so many keys?"

  "Because there are so many locks? Is this a quiz?"

  He jingled them in his palm while she continued to give him a sunny, innocent smile. "Meg, you don't even lock your doors half the time. What are all these keys about?"

  "Well. . . There are times a person needs to get into a place, and hey, that place is locked. Then she would need a key."

  "And this place that, hey, is locked, wouldn't be the property of that person. Would that be correct?"

  "Technically. But no man is an island, and it takes a village, and so on. We're all one in the Zen universe."

  "So these would be Zen keys?"

  "Exactly. Give them back."

  "I don't think so." He closed his fist around them. "You see, even in the Zen universe I'd hate to arrest my wife for unlawful entry."

  "I'm not your wife yet, buddy. Did you have a search warrant for those?"

  "They were in plain sight. No warrant necessary."

  "Gestapo."

  "Delinquent." He cupped her chin in his free hand and kissed her. Opening the rear hatch of his four-wheel, he called the dogs. "Come on, boys. Let's go for a ride."

  She refused to leave the dogs alone at the house now. They went with her, to Jacob's, or on a day when jobs made that inconvenient, to the run at The Lodge.

  He gave the still-healing Bull a little help on the jump.

  "Fly safe," he said to Meg.

  "Yeah, yeah."

  With her hands jammed in her pockets, she headed down to the plane, then turned and walked backward. "I can get more keys, you know. I have my ways."

  "You sure do," Nate murmured.

  He waited, as was his habit, for her to take off. He liked to watch her glide from water to air and to stand while the stillness erupted with her engines. While he did, he let himself think of nothing but her, of them, of the life they were building.

  She was already working in what he'd discovered—after the snow had melted—was a pair of flower beds flanking her porch. She talked of columbine and trollius and of the wolf urine she sprinkled around to protect them from moose.

  Her delphiniums, she promised, would reach near ten feet in the long days of summer.

  Imagine that, he thought. Imagine Meg Galloway, bush pilot, bear killer, illegal-entry addict, tending a garden. She claimed her dahlias were as big as hubcaps.

  He wanted to see them. Wanted to sit on the porch with her on some endless summer night with the sun ruling the sky and her flowers spread out in front of the house.

  Simple, he thought. Their life could be made up of thousands of simple moments. And still never be ordinary.

  Her plane rose up, and up, a little red bird in a vast, blue sky. And he smiled, felt the quick lift in his heart when she dipped her wings, right then left, in salute.

  When there was stillness again, he climbed in the car with the dogs. And thought of other things.

  Maybe it was foolish to pin so much on an earring, a small piece of silver, and an unsubstantiated claim that Galloway had possessed an undisclosed amount of cash.

  But he'd seen that earring before, and he'd remember. Sooner or later, he'd remember. And money was no stranger to murder.

  He let it sift through his head as he drove into town. Galloway had possessed ready cash and a beautiful woman. Tried-and-true motives for murder. And in a place like this, women were rare commodities.

  The parade committee had already started hanging the bunting for May Day. It wasn't the red, white and blue usual for small-town parades. Why would it be usual in Lunacy? Instead banners and bunting were a rainbow of blues, yellows, greens.

  He saw an eagle perched on a swag of it, as if granting his approval.

  Along the main street, people were sprucing up their homes and businesses for spring. Pots and hanging baskets of pansies and curly kale—both of which he'd learned didn't mind a chill—were already set out. Porches and shutters sported fresh coats of paint. Motorcycles and scooters replaced snowmobiles.

  Kids started to ride bikes to school, and he saw more Doc Martens and Timberlands than bunny boots.

  And still the mountains that ringed the shimmers of spring, that rose into a sky that held the light for fourteen hours a day, clung relentlessly to winter.

  Nate parked, led the dogs to the run. They gave him pitiful looks, their tails sinking between their legs as they trudged inside.

  "I know, I know, it sucks." He crouched, sticking his fingers through the chain link so they could be licked. "Let me catch the bad guy, then your mom won't worry so much, and you can stay home and play."

  They whined when he walked away and gave him a bellyful of guilt.

  He went in through the lobby and tracked down Charlene in her office.

  "I hired three college students for the summer." She gave her computer a pat. "I'm going to need them with the bookings we've got."

  "That'
s good."

  "Local guides always take on a few, too. The place'll be hopping with pretty college boys by June."

  There was a glitter in her eyes as she said it, but to Nate, it looked more like defiance than anticipation.

  "That'll keep us all busy. Charlene . . . " He closed the door. "I'm going to ask you something, and you're not going to like it."

  "Since when has that stopped you?"

  No way to be delicate, he decided. "Who's the first person you slept with after Galloway left?"

  "I don't kiss and tell, Nate. If you'd ever taken me up on it, you'd know that."

  "This isn't gossip, Charlene, and it isn't a game. Does it matter to you who killed Pat Galloway?"

  "Of course, it does. Do you know how hard it is to plan his funeral, knowing he's still in some morgue and not knowing exactly when I can bring him home? I ask Bing every other day when he thinks the ground'll be soft enough to dig. To dig my Pat's grave."

  She snatched two tissues out of the box on her desk, sniffled into them.

  "When my mother buried my father," Nate said, "she walked around the house like a ghost for a month. Longer, I guess. She did everything she had to do—like you are, but you couldn't reach her. You couldn't touch her. She went away somewhere. I was never able to reach her again."

  Charlene blinked at tears, lowered the tissues. "That's so sad."

  "You haven't done that. You haven't let it make a ghost out of you. Now I'm asking you to help me.

  Who moved on you, Charlene?"

  "Who didn't? I was young and fine to look at. You should've seen me back then."

  Something stirred, he reached out to grab the tail of it, when she exploded.

  "And I was alone! I didn't know he was dead. If I'd known, I wouldn't have been so quick to . . . I was hurt and I was mad, and when the men came swarming around, why shouldn't I have taken my pick? Taken lots of picks?"

  "There's no blame here."

  "I slept with John first." Her shoulder jerked, and she tossed the tissue into her pink wastebasket.

  "I knew he had a crush on me, and he was so sweet about it. Attentive," she said, wistfully now. "So I went to him. But not only him. I filled up on it. I broke hearts and I broke up marriages. And I didn't care."

  She steadied herself and, for once, looked quiet, almost thoughtful. "Nobody killed Pat because of me.

  Or if they did, they wasted their time. Because I never cared about any of them. I never gave them anything I didn't take back. He isn't dead because of me. If he is, I swear, I don't think I can live with it."

  "He's not dead because of you." He walked around her, behind her, and laid his hands on her shoulders to rub gently. "He's not."

  She lifted a hand, closed it over his. "I kept waiting for him to come back. For him to see I wasn't pining for him—and want me again. I swear to God, Nate, I think I waited for that until you and Meg went up there. Until you found him, I was waiting for him."

  "He would've come back." He tightened his grip when she shook her head. "You get to know the victim when you do what I do. You get inside them and understand them better, a lot of the time better than people who knew them living. He'd have come back."

  "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me," she said after a moment. "Especially somebody who's not trying to get in my pants."

  He gave her shoulders a pat, then took the earring out of his pocket. "Do you recognize this?"

  "Hmm." She sniffled again, flicked her finger over her lashes to dry them. "It's sort of pretty, but I don't know, male. Not my kind of thing. I like splashier."

  "Could it have been Pat's?"

  "Pat's? No, he didn't have anything like that. No crosses. He didn't go for religious symbols."

  "Have you ever seen it before?"

  "I don't think so. Wouldn't remember if I had, I guess. It's not much of a thing."

  * * *

  He decided to start showing it around, get reactions. Since Bing was having breakfast in The Lodge, Nate walked by his table, let the earring dangle from his fingers. "Lose this?"

  Bing barely gave it a glance before staring back into Nate's eyes. "Last time I told you I lost something, I got nothing but grief."

  "I like to get things back to their rightful owner."

  "It ain't mine."

  "Know whose it is?"

  "Don't spend a lot of time looking at people's ears. And I don't want to spend any more time looking at your face."

  "Nice to see you again, too, Bing." He put the earring away. Bing had trimmed his beard an inch or so, Nate noticed and figured it was his warm-weather look. "February 1988. I can't find anybody around who can tell me, absolutely, you were here through that month. Have found a couple who think maybe you weren't."

  "People should mind their own, like I do."

  "Max was gone, and I hear you had a hankering, let's say, for Carrie back then."

  "No more than any other woman."

  "Seems like a good time to have moved in on her some. You strike me as a man who doesn't let opportunities go to waste."

  "She wasn't interested, so why waste my time? Shit. Easier to find one and pay the hourly rate. Maybe I went down to Anchorage that winter. There was a whore named Kate I had some transactions with. So'd Galloway. His business."

  "Whoring Kate?"

  "Yeah. Dead now. Damn shame." He shrugged it off as he ate. "Dropped dead of a heart attack between Johns. They say, anyway." He leaned forward. "I didn't kill that dog."

  "You say, anyway, and you seem more concerned with that than with two dead men."

  "Men can take care of themselves better than an old blind dog. Maybe I was in the city some that winter. Maybe I ran into Galloway going through Kate's swinging door. Didn't mean a damn to me."

  "You talk to him?"