“Nope. We have another hour to go.”
Libby had to refrain from moaning aloud. Her body was cramped from sitting in the same position for the past two and a half hours. She wanted to tell him that she was too tired to continue, but since she was the one who had insisted on this extended search, she couldn’t. Instead, she headed the rubber boat back toward the point and parked it next to his float plane. He tied it off to the pontoon and then lowered himself over the side of the boat into the knee-deep water. “You can stay there. I’ll bring the gas can and the thermos.”
“No way,” Libby said, standing. “I have to find the ladies’ room and stretch my muscles.”
She jumped over the side, gasping at the icy shock of the water, and followed Carson as he waded ashore. “Couldn’t you just beach the boat in front of your camp?” she said.
“Yup,” he said, not looking back. “But the wading is good exercise for my leg and I didn’t think you’d be coming ashore. Sorry.”
She noticed he had developed a pronounced limp by the time he reached shore and decided she wouldn’t complain about her wet jeans and waterlogged sneakers. He was suffering a lot worse than she was. While she ducked into the bushes, he lit a gas lantern that had been hung outside the wall tent and by the time she returned the murky clearing glowed with a bright golden light. Libby immediately noticed the can of beans lying on its side with the can opener still attached, and the open hamper on the ground right where she’d left it, brightly checked muslin dishcloth dragged half out. “Looks like you’ve had company,” she said.
“The gray jays ate the muffins you brought this morning,” he commented, retrieving the thermos from the hamper. “Every last one of them.”
“Lucky birds.” Libby picked up the can of beans and finished opening it, leaving the lid on and setting the can on the small table. She accepted the enamelware cup Carson handed her with a murmured thanks and was surprised and grateful to find that the coffee was still hot. She sat on a stump, glad for the parka she was wearing, especially after that icy wade to shore. “How’s your hand?”
“Never better,” he said, raising his own cup for a swallow.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you today. I guess I was a little stressed after my visit with Frey.”
“You did seem a little stressed,” he agreed.
“I probably should have explained the situation to you right from the start.”
“That would have been nice.”
“I should have trusted you more.”
“That would have been nice, too.”
She gave him an exasperated look. “You don’t have to agree with everything I say.”
“As soon as you say something that I don’t agree with, I’ll argue the point.”
Libby smiled in spite of herself. “Fair enough. But you have to understand the position I’m in.”
“I do, and I think it’s a dangerous one.” He was standing with his back to the lantern, casting his face in shadow. Libby couldn’t read his expression.
“I would have described it as desperate,” she said. “What makes you think it’s dangerous?”
“Daniel Frey makes me think it’s dangerous.”
“He’s just a bitter old man,” Libby said.
“He’s a very rich and powerful old man who doesn’t want you to find that plane.” Carson slatted the dregs of his cup onto the ground. “You don’t know what lengths he might go to, to try and stop you.”
“What can he do, other than try to block the salvage rights?”
“Just a little while ago you were telling me you think he sabotaged that plane and caused it to crash on your father’s wedding day. That’s about as low as it gets, wouldn’t you say?”
Libby felt a chill of fear and huddled more deeply into her parka. “There was nobody around back then. He was all alone and there were no witnesses. All the hired help had been flown out the day before the wedding to attend the party. Frey wouldn’t dare try anything like that now.”
“Maybe not, but he has a helluva lot to lose if we find that wreckage.”
Libby set her cup on the table, not relishing the idea of wading through that ice-cold water to the rubber boat. “We’d better get back out there.”
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN LIBBY OPENED HER EYES several hours later she closed them again instantly, wanting to shut out the fact that morning had indeed arrived. Too early! She lay in stillness, listening to the drip of night water off the cabin eaves and the slowly gathering birdsong swell of sound that heralded the new day. She gave a tentative stretch and moaned aloud. She’d worked long, long stints as an intern and was used to getting by on very little sleep, but the stress of the past few days had taken its toll, and the stressful days weren’t over yet.
Would Carson stay if he didn’t find the wreckage in the one week he’d promised her? He’d said he was working a tight schedule on another job, but he’d also said he’d look until he found the plane. Which would it be? And how long could he afford to search? The lake was huge. The plane could have gone down anywhere along the west arm, which stretched for ten or so miles to the north. It could take months to find the wreckage, or it might never be found at all. The familiar gnawing tension built within her as she lay in silent contemplation of all the unknowns and uncertainties and the dark imaginings of her ultimate failure.
Marie had lived for nearly three decades in abject poverty, knowing that her daughter was the rightful heir to half of the Libby fortune. She was willing to live the rest of her life without pursuing it any further than she had when she’d gone to Frey all those years ago, young and scared, pregnant and penniless, and been turned away. She hadn’t even known about such a thing as paternity testing, and thirty years ago using DNA to prove a person’s identity was a technology that was still in its infancy. It simply wasn’t practiced back then.
It wasn’t until Libby went to high school in Anchorage, then to college back East and dived into premed courses that the mysteries contained in a fragment of flesh, bone or blood were revealed to her, and it wasn’t until she started working in forensic pathology that all the pieces finally fit together. It was as if all of her life she’d been moving toward the day when she could use everything she’d learned to prove her paternity, but the five-thousand-dollar retainer she’d promised to pay Carson would effectively wipe out her savings account, and payments still had to be made on her school loans. In fact, they were already overdue.
Her mother’s medical bills were also piling up. Good medical care was expensive and insurance companies typically did everything they could to avoid paying up on claims.
The churning in Libby’s stomach intensified. She sat up and brushed her hair back from the sides of her face. It was all so overwhelming. She couldn’t look at the whole picture right now. She had to take it one day at a time. One moment at a time. She’d get up, help Karen with breakfast, call Susan to check on her mother, clean guest rooms, get lunch out, then assist with the search for the plane until it was time to help Karen with supper preparations.
She wondered how Carson was feeling this morning. She was lying here feeling sorry for herself and he couldn’t even open a can of beans. That had to be galling to a man as physical as he was. Yet, he hadn’t sniped at her last night when she’d taken it upon herself to finish the job he’d started. She’d opened the can of beans and he hadn’t said a word. Maybe he was getting better about accepting help when he needed it. Maybe he was learning that it was okay to need somebody once in a while.
Maybe they were both learning, little by little, to trust each other.
THE MORNING WAS COLD enough that Carson could see his breath inside the canvas tent. Frost coated the interior. He fed the last of the wood Libby had cut up into the tiny box stove and huddled over it for warmth, feeling sick and cold and weary to the bone. He made a little pot of coffee on the tiny propane stove and drank every last drop of it hot and black. His clothes were still damp and clammy and the bandage on his hand s
tank of gasoline from the awkward spill he’d had while refueling the night before. No doubt his boots would squelch like cold sodden sponges when he pulled them on.
What a nice restful and recuperative vacation he was having, here on Evening Lake. And he’d thought it would be easy money. Ha!
The camp jays watched intently from nearby branches as he pried the lid off the can of beans Libby had opened. He forked a mouthful out cold and chased it down with a piece of white bread. Breakfast of champions. He ate this humble but filling repast staring out across the lake, watching while the snowcapped mountains changed from a cold blue hue to a burnished red glow, yellowing as the sun rose behind them. The wild, rugged beauty of his surroundings only served to intensify his melancholy mood and he wasn’t, by nature, a melancholy man. Yet ever since the accident he’d been rethinking his entire life, wondering if maybe he’d been missing out on something. His career had always been very satisfying to him. Planning and working the salvage jobs, ramrodding his crew, captaining the Pacific Explorer…all those facets of his life had occupied almost all of his time and had been enough. More than enough.
But when Libby Wilson had walked into his office, the encounter had triggered a restlessness inside of him that not even his focus on keeping Alaska Salvage afloat could quiet and calm. In fact, he’d be pacing right now if his leg wasn’t so gimpy. That was the hell of it. If he could just do something, something purely physical, like cut and split twenty cords of wood, he knew he’d be able to work through this strange inner turmoil. But he couldn’t even draw a deep breath without wanting to cough his bad lung up. Couldn’t even wade out to the boat without feeling weak as a kitten afterward. Couldn’t even feel his right hand, let alone move it.
She, on the other hand, radiated youthful vitality, making his own inadequacies all the more painfully noticeable. No man wanted to appear weak in front of a woman, especially a beauty like that. A beauty who was about to become a billionairess…but only if he got his ass in gear and found the damned plane.
He set the half-eaten can of beans on the little tabletop next to the remaining few slices of bread and reached for his wet leather boots. Pulling them on wasn’t going to be the most unpleasant thing he’d ever done, but the way he was feeling right now, it’d come pretty close.
FISHERMEN, IN THE EARLY morning, were very easy to deal with. All they wanted to do was have their breakfast and get out on the lake. In spite of the fact that they’d spent every moment of the previous day on the water, they couldn’t wait to get back at it. Fly rods and fishing gear in hand, they made for the boats. Libby stood in the doorway of the lodge, watching them move en masse toward the dock, when Graham Johnson spoke at her side, startling her.
“Karen said you wanted to talk to me. Luanne told me what happened between you and Frey yesterday,” he said in his deep voice. “She says to be careful. She thinks Frey could be dangerous.”
Libby studied Graham’s expression. “What do you think?”
“I trust what Luanne says. My father told me to stay away from him ever since I was a little boy. He told me never to go near the big lodge on the warm shore.”
“So being a typical boy, you went there the first chance you got,” Libby guessed. “Graham, did Frey ever shoot at your father?”
He nodded. “One day, when I was ten years old, I took my father’s canoe and fished my way down toward the forbidden warm shore. Nothing happened. I didn’t see anyone. It was like the place was deserted. So I paddled to the dock and when nobody came out I decided the old man must be gone and I went to look inside the big lodge.”
“And?”
“And Frey caught me snooping around. I was holding a piece of carved ivory, one of those Yupik fish lures. It was a beautiful thing and I was admiring it. Suddenly he was there. He looked huge to me. He shouted and his voice shook the logs. He took the lure from my hand and then he thrashed me.”
“He hit you?”
“Beat me bloody. Drove me out of the lodge and told me if I ever came back he’d have me arrested and put in jail for stealing. So now I had to go back with my father’s canoe and explain why I looked the way I did. I told him I fell out of a tree, but he didn’t believe me. I guess I don’t lie too good. So I told him the truth.”
“I bet you never went there again.”
“No, I didn’t, but my father did. He went back there that very day. He stood on the dock and called Frey out of the lodge but the old man didn’t come. I guess it was a good thing he didn’t. My father was pretty mad. When my father came back home his arm was covered with blood. I asked him what happened and he told me that Frey took a shot at him from the lodge. He said Frey was a coward and wouldn’t come out to face him. He told me if I ever went there again Frey would probably shoot me, too.”
Libby was shocked. “Was this shooting ever reported?”
Graham shook his head. “I doubt Frey told anyone about it. Besides, no one was killed.”
“Did Frey’s employees know about it?”
“No doubt it kept them on their best behavior that summer.”
“That must be how my mother heard about it. That episode sounds like something out of the Wild West. Graham, do you think Luanne is safe there?”
He shrugged. “Karen offered her a job. I told her to take it. The Whittens are good people and the food is great. But she’s stubborn. She needs the money he pays. She’s determined to stick out the rest of the summer.”
“Stubborn seems to be the ruling word around here,” Libby said. “I went to see your father yesterday.”
“He told me, but I would have guessed by the food on the table. He said the bossy blue-eyed girl came by and told him to take more white man’s medicine.”
“Is he following my orders?”
Graham nodded again. “Reluctantly.”
“He wouldn’t talk to me about the story of the three-legged dog.”
“He doesn’t talk much. He needs to warm up to you first, and that can take a long time.”
“Great,” Libby said. “I have a few more days to work my way into his heart.”
“You might make it,” Graham said, preparing to head down to the dock. “You blazed a pretty good trail into his stomach with that basket of food.”
After the fishermen and guides had departed, Libby placed a quick phone call to Susan. “Your mom’s doing wonderfully,” Susan assured her. “Feeling better by the moment and beating me daily at cribbage. She’s worried about you, though.”
“Tell her I’ll be home soon,” Libby said. “Give her my love.”
Halfway through cleaning the guest rooms Karen surprised her by bringing her a glass of iced tea. “Thought you could use some refreshment. You were out pretty late last night.”
“Too late. I feel like I’m moving in slow motion this morning.”
“I don’t see your salvage operator out there. He must be sleeping in.”
“We’re working above the point now,” Libby explained, taking a swallow of the cold iced tea. “We think that’s where the plane might have gone down. You wouldn’t be able to see him from here, but I’m sure he’s out there.”
“Are you going out again?”
Libby nodded. “The more I can help him, the faster the search will go. It really takes two people, one to drive the boat and the other to watch the sonar readout. But it sure is tedious work. I didn’t think an hour could possibly last two hundred minutes, but they do out there when you’re working a grid pattern and studying the lake bottom.”
Karen gave a sympathetic laugh. “Sounds like you’re having some fun, but at least you’re sharing the tedium with a handsome companion. Why don’t you invite him to dinner tonight?” she urged again. “His presence at the supper table would be a welcome diversion from listening to all the fishing stories.”
Once again Libby shook her head. “He’d never come. I’ll just keep bringing him leftovers and hope he doesn’t starve to death in the meantime.”
“Suit yourself, bu
t all work and no play…”
“Trust me, Karen. Carson Dodge isn’t the least bit playful, unless romping with a pit bull is up your alley.”
“Is he married?”
Libby gave her blank stare. “I don’t think so.”
“Does he have any kids?”
“I’m not sure.”
“So, forgive me for asking, but what did you talk about last night to while away those long hours?”
“Nothing. We were both too tired to carry on a conversation.”
Karen sighed, shook her head and turned away. “Hopeless,” she muttered as she walked back toward the kitchen.
CARSON HAD ONLY INTENDED to stop briefly at his camp to refuel and take a short break, but he sat down at the base of a spruce to stretch out his bad leg and the warmth of the sun felt so good as it seeped through his still-damp blue jeans that he thought maybe a few minutes of sunbathing might loosen up his muscles and ease the pain. A few minutes soon became a few more minutes. The breeze was pleasant. It kept the bugs away. He liked the sound of the wind blowing through a stand of spruce, the high-pitched lonesome whisper it made over the wash of waves against the lakeshore. He closed his eyes and rested the back of his head against the tree trunk. Quiet here, with the noisy and demanding gray jays absent. They probably knew by now that the good stuff came in baskets from the lodge.
Carson opened his eyes and glanced toward the tent. A couple packages of those dried noodles would go down pretty good about now. Fill his empty stomach. Trouble was, he couldn’t make himself move. Couldn’t will himself to get up and cross the clearing. He closed his eyes again and let the sound of the wind and the waves fill his world with peace. When he opened them again it was with a start. He blinked, rubbed his face with one hand and was shocked to see that the sunlight had shifted so that his legs were now in full shadow. He heard a twig snap and the sound of approaching footsteps. No doubt that was what had wakened him.
Before he could stand up a woman came into view, skirting the shoreline. She stopped when she spotted him. “Hello,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Karen Whitten. We met on Monday, when you flew in to meet with Libby. I brought you some lunch. Libby would have come herself but she’s still cleaning rooms.”
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