by J. S. Marlo
“No, but I’ll give you a free piece of advise. Next time, put some clothes on and try answering the door with ‘What can I do for you, Officer?’ instead of ‘Come back with a warrant.’ It’ll save you from an unpleasant interrogation.” Avery tipped his cap. “Have a nice day.”
***
Sunlight shone through the open door and onto Greta’s body, giving a golden tinge to her ashen face. It accentuated the faint smile lingering on her blue lips.
The woman who’d rescued her lay dead on the floor of a broken-down lodge. Had Greta been in her bed, Lucky would have believed she’d peacefully died in her sleep.
The body, which showed no sign of external injury, had lost its warmth. Lucky gently closed her friend’s eyelids, adding a touch of finality to the surreal scene. Greta had abandoned her, and yet all she felt was sadness. I must be in shock.
She waited for her terrible predicament to sink in, for anger to rise, and for panic to sweep her off her feet. As the minutes trickled by, her perspective didn’t change and despair didn’t swallow her. Instead, fleeting images of another dead body flickered at the edge of Lucky’s mind.
“I hope this is a one-time occurrence, that I’m not in the habit of stumbling onto corpses.”
What am I supposed to do? Without a cell phone and without knowing the direction of the nearest town, Lucky had no means of contacting the authorities. Even if I carried a cell, I wouldn’t hear a thing.
“Why did you come here, Greta?”
The tattered furniture and rusted cooking tools scattered inside the lodge suggested someone lived here a long time ago.
It was possible the place had held a special meaning for Greta, that she’d known the former occupants, but it was also possible she’d felt unwell and sought refuge in the first place she’d found. Regardless of the reasons that had brought her here, Lucky couldn’t abandon her. Greta deserved a proper burial.
The best solution would be to bring her body back to the cave and bury her there. Using twigs and branches, Lucky could craft a stretcher and pull it behind her. First, she needed rope to bind the material together.
As she searched the lodge, she remembered Greta’s snowshoes. The leather straps would work perfectly.
She shut the empty drawer of a wobbly dresser, turned toward the entrance, and gasped in shock.
A tall, imposing silhouette blocked the door. He held a pair of snowshoes in his hand.
Her snowshoes.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Avery paused in the doorway of a ransacked shack he’d come upon when leaving Alistair’s cabin.
“Hannah?”
The woman who’d escaped his search stared at him like she’d seen a ghost. At her feet was the body of another woman—an older woman who wore similar attire to the one who’d smacked him across the head.
“I didn’t kill Greta. She was dead when I found her.” The quivering in her voice heightened her melodious accent.
“I’m not accusing you.” The frightened look in her eyes unnerved him. “Hannah, I—”
A noisy engine, growing louder by the second, disrupted their eerie encounter. Avery glanced through the door he had yet to close. A black snowmobile zoomed through the landscape, leaving behind a white cloud of powdery snow. The rider headed toward the lodge. As he neared, Avery made out the RCMP logo on the hood. This isn’t good.
Impervious to the disturbance, Hannah hadn’t diverted her gaze from him.
No one can know she’s alive. Not yet. Not until he identified the culprits.
“Hannah, I need you to trust me.” He bridged the gap between them and pressed the snowshoes against her chest. “Hold on to them and don’t make a sound. You’re in grave danger. You need to hide.”
When her eyes grew wider and her mouth opened, he braced himself for a flow of objections. To his surprise and satisfaction, none manifested. She simply hugged the snowshoes.
“He can’t see you…” Avery scanned the cabin. The cupboards weren’t deep enough. The storage box where the previous occupant had stacked wood had no lid. The bathroom was out of the question. That’d be the first place my colleague searches. A gutted mattress lay in a corner near a slanted couch missing a leg. He’d been ready to remove the cushions and gut the bottom when he caught sight of an iron hoop pinned to the floor. “Come with me.”
His hand spooning her bent elbow, he directed her toward the hardware sticking out inches from the couch. Grabbing the hoop with his free hand, he pulled. The hinges of the trap creaked, and a gaping hole appeared at their feet. There was a ladder going down what appeared to be a cellar or storage space.
Hannah took a step back. Afraid she might bolt, he reached out and cupped her face. She stilled, and their gazes locked. Confusion swirled in her beautiful blue eyes.
With his glove, he couldn’t feel her cheek, but he imagined her skin to be soft and warm. “I need you to go down there and stay still until I get you.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Avery registered the silence surrounding the cabin. “Go.” He brushed her forehead with his lips, then nudged her down and closed the trap.
His mind reeling from the gentle kiss, Avery crouched by the body of the older woman. What bloody possessed him to—
“Stone?” Cooper barged in, his gun drawn. “You’re supposed to answer when I call.”
I was busy. “Next time, try shouting louder than your engine, would you?”
His colleague holstered his weapon. “If I were you, I’d be more careful. Friendly fire is just as deadly.”
Thanks for the warning. “What are you doing here?” Spying on me?
“I’m on break. I was enjoying a quiet ride in the forest when I saw your Ski-Doo parked outside what is supposed to be an abandoned lodge.” Squinting his eyes, Cooper looked down at the body. “Who is she? And what are you doing here?”
“I was visiting the empty lodges in case Hannah Parker and her son sought refuge in one of them.” Avery had stumbled onto the snowshoe prints by accident, and on a hunch, he’d followed them across the forest.
“The boy wouldn’t have walked this far, Stone.” Showing little interest in the dead woman, Cooper diverted his attention to his surroundings. “You’re wasting your time. They were either blown to smithereens or they froze somewhere in the forest.”
To hear his colleague hold on to this fatal scenario infuriated Avery, but he concealed his feelings with a mask of indifference. “I found a dead woman, Cooper. I wouldn’t call that wasted time. She’s been dead a few hours. No visible sign of violence. Do you recognize her?”
“I would have told you if I did.” His colleague toured the lodge like he belonged, snaking his neck into the bathroom. “There are two sets of prints leading here. Did you glimpse another intruder?”
“No. I searched the premises and found only one pair of snowshoes. I’m guessing the other person took off before I arrived.” Conveniently shaped like an egg, Hannah’s snowshoes left similar prints in both directions, making it hard to determine if she came or went. “Why don’t you help me carry the body outside instead of snooping around like a bloodhound?”
“Stone? You—” As Cooper circled the couch, he tripped over the hoop and fell down to his knees. “What the—”
Avery leapt forward, but he was too slow to stop his colleague from lifting the trap and peeking. “Cooper, be—”
“Be what? Careful?” His face turning a crimson shade of red, Cooper slammed the trap shut and kicked the side of the couch, sending dust swirling in the air. “I could have broken a leg over that rusty loop, Stone. You could have warned me.”
At a loss on how to comprehend Cooper’s reaction, Avery stared in dismay at the floor above Hannah’s head.
***
Unable to hear or see anything in her dark hole, Lucky tucked her gloves into her pocket. She felt the walls with her bare hands, stumbling onto what appeared to be a rough opening behind the ladder. If she could squeeze into it, someone peeking from above
might not see her.
The soft kiss burned her skin. The RCMP officer with gorgeous brown eyes had called her Hanna—or something similar—but the name brought no recollection. He knew her, that much was obvious, and he seemed to care for her, or else he wouldn’t have kissed her.
Calling him he sounded so impersonal. Fudge. Warm and chocolaty, Fudge matched his eyes.
She’d sensed Fudge’s fears when he’d urged her to hide. Something he’d seen through the door had brought it on. For her sake, and Fudge’s, she needed to stay silent, but she couldn’t stay still.
As carefully as she could muster, she squeezed behind the ladder and into the hole. The ground was uneven, ragged, prompting her to slip her gloves back on. She inched away from the opening, lugging her snowshoes behind her. When no obstacle blocked her progression, she kept crawling ahead.
A faint light shimmered in the distance, beckoning her to continue. The air cooled down, and debris began to accumulate under her knees. Twigs, cones, dry leaves, and feathers formed a blanket, reminding her of a burrow. She should have borrowed one of Greta’s hunting knives. Without a weapon, an encounter with a wild animal could have deadly consequences for her.
Bottling her apprehension, she pushed up a slope and met snow through which the light filtered. She prodded the blanket of white with her snowshoes, creating a gap that grew larger with each jab. Almost there.
Lucky blinked against the bright sunlight.
She’d emerged at the side of a dead stump, surrounded by black spruces, balsam firs, and naked white birches. Through the branches, she spotted the lodge.
Some thirty feet upwind, Fudge and another officer transported Greta’s body to a snowmobile. The newcomer was a fellow officer. That Fudge had wanted to keep her presence in the lodge a secret from his colleague troubled her. But then, Greta hadn’t trusted the Mounties either.
The other officer walked to a second snowmobile, leaving the task of strapping Greta to the seat to Fudge. Lucky wasn’t close enough to see their ranks. Based on their behavior, she suspected the newcomer to be the one in charge.
Fudge rose to his full height. With a sweep of his hand, he dismissed the other officer. His colleague steered in the direction she’d come, and Lucky chided herself—and Greta—for not taking precautions. If he followed the tracks, they would lead him directly to the cave.
Once the other officer faded out of sight, Lucky took a few steps toward Fudge to let him know she’d escaped the cellar.
Without looking back, Fudge straddled his vehicle and rode away with Greta.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Hannah? Are you in there?”
Squashed between the ladder and the opening in the wall of the cellar, Avery flashed a light into the makeshift tunnel. He hadn’t realized when he sent Hannah down, that another escape lay beneath the ground. Since Cooper hadn’t seen her, Avery could only assume Hannah had crawled into the narrow tunnel.
“Hannah?” Yelling at a deaf woman served no useful purpose, except venting his frustration. “Your grandfather never taught you not to venture into dark holes?”
She could be stuck inside, injured, or unconscious. If the tunnel led outside, and no section had collapsed, it was also possible she’d reached the surface. For your sake, Hannah, you better be a tunnel rat.
Avery had been gone less than fifteen minutes. She couldn’t have gotten far during that time. He tried squeezing into the tunnel, but no matter how much he wrestled with the narrow opening, it wouldn’t accommodate his large shoulders. There’s no going in this way.
Short on options, he headed outside, and under the scrutiny of the dead woman tied to his seat, he searched for an exit point.
Let’s assume the tunnel was dug in a somewhat straight line. As his gaze traveled south, he shielded his eyes from the reflection of the sun on the snow.
Some thirty feet from the lodge, a large cluster of birch trees had grown amidst the evergreens. While the observation held no scientific value, it drew him that way. A burrow had been dug next to a large stump.
Bloody hell. Lost among the sweeping pattern of a branch was the partial imprint of a snowshoe.
Hannah had covered her escape, but with Cooper on the prowl for the second intruder, she wasn’t safe.
You have a son, Hannah. Can’t you think of him for a second? If she thought she was protecting Rory by running away from him, she was mistaken.
“Hannah…” He sighed. The woman was as amazing and resourceful as she was infuriating. That she trusted him with Rory warmed his heart.
If only it could appease his worries.
***
He kissed me, trapped me underground, and then abandoned me.
Each heavy step Lucky took embedded Fudge’s actions deeper in her brain where she couldn’t reconcile the three elements. She’d believed him to have her best interests at heart when he’d forced her to hide, never imagining until now that his actions might conceal a more sinister design.
She couldn’t go back to the cave, not with the other officer lurking in the area, not until she ascertained he wasn’t a threat. And she couldn’t go back to the lodge, not at the risk of running into Fudge. Those men were supposed to be bound by duty to serve and protect people like her.
I need my memory. And something to eat. And a place to stay for the night.
Driving by desperation, Lucky slogged through the forest. As dusk captured her strenuous trek, the smell of burning wood reached her nostrils. She pursued the warm scent to a lone cabin.
A light shone through the window. If she spent the night outside, she would die of exposure. To ensure her survival, she had no other choice than to beg for shelter. She removed her snowshoes and knocked.
A man with salt and pepper stubbles matching his unkempt, grayish hair answered the door. “What do you want?”
Unruffled by his gruff welcome, she wedged a boot in the narrow opening to stop him from slamming the door in her face. “My name is Lucky. In exchange for food and shelter, I’ll tidy your cabin in the morning.”
“…morning…breakfast…” As he spoke, he rubbed his chin, distorting the movement of his lips.
“Does that mean yes or no?” To tell him she couldn’t hear might give him the idea that he could take advantage of her. She wanted to rest, not fight.
“You’re not too bright, are you?”
A burst of irritation warmed her blood. Just because she was currently deaf didn’t mean she lacked grey matter. “Are you going to feed me or not?”
“Course I will.” He ushered her inside. “When you’re done, you can start by cleaning the bedroom.”
***
Avery nursed a cup of bad coffee in front of his computer. The all-night turning, tossing, and worrying had been worse than the bloody exercise program he’d been forced to perform before returning to active duty. Snowflake had been happy to see him go to work so she could undoubtedly crawl back into his bed and sleep.
The unidentified body was in the basement of Fred’s medical clinic. The coroner had promised to contact him as soon as he finished the autopsy. Cooper had—
“Stone?” The sergeant called from his office. “Get in here.”
If his superior learned to wrap his authority in a net of civility, he’d get better cooperation from his men. Not too happy to be interrupted in the middle of his search, Avery cleared his screen, then dragged his feet to Reed’s office. Chloe McTavish’s juvenile record, which he shouldn’t have been accessing, made no mention of prostitution.
“Yes, Sergeant?” There was an empty chair, but having no intention of prolonging the conversation, Avery chose to stand by the door.
“You found the body of an old woman. Cooper discovered a recently inhabited cave. And you have an intruder on the loose who may or may not be the hermit living in that cave and who may or may not be implicated in the woman’s mysterious death.” He grabbed a donut from the box on the corner of his desk and took a bite. “Am I missing anything?”
“The lodge where the body was found belonged to a Henry Watt. Nine years ago, he died in a bar fight at the age of sixty. Stabbing. No one was ever charged. Upon his death, his wife Margaret left town. Cooper and I are working the case.”
“What about the Parker woman and the boy? Did you wrap that case?”
Every day unwrapped a new mystery. At this rate, it’d be weeks, or months, before Avery ties a bow over those cases.
“Cause of explosion deemed accidental. Two missing people.” The lie should keep Reed off his back. “The search of the surrounding woods yielded no results, but I’ll continue making rounds.”
“When you make those rounds, try to remember nobody is going to pick up your slack.” The door chimed, and Reed looked above Avery’s shoulder. “Here comes trouble.”
Avery turned around and recognized the man he’d seen naked. “You know him, Sergeant?”
“He’s a trapper. He likes to complain about people stealing his catch. Deal with him.”
Reed’s way of dealing with unpleasant cases consisted of dumping them on his subordinates’ desks. His sergeant’s stretched definition of delegation mirrored his leadership abilities. Serving with him was not an honor.
“Alistair?” Avery met him on the opposite side of the counter. “I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.”
“That wasn’t funny.” The man unzipped his coat, sending snowflakes fluttering onto the counter. “She assaulted me. I want her arrested.”
The trapper got trapped? Sweet Justice. “What did Chloe do? Relieved you of some dough?”
“Not Chloe.” Alistair shot him an angry glare. “It’s that white Indian woman. She tied me to my bed and slipped a noose around my neck. If not for Chloe’s early return, I’d still be gagged and bound.”
Too bad Chloe showed up, that would have saved Avery the trouble of writing a report. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from behind the counter, ready to take notes. “What happened? Start at the beginning.”