Alaskan Rescue

by Terri Reed

  A woman squatted down next to her. She had auburn hair and a kind smile. Her jacket was similar to Hunter’s with the words Alaska State Trooper K-9 Unit. “I’m Poppy.”

  “Where is Violet? Please, you have to tell me.”

  “We’re working on finding your friends,” Poppy said. “Right now you need to concentrate on you. You took a nasty spill. Let us worry about them.”

  Ariel’s mouth dried as the trooper’s words sank in. Something was wrong. Panic assailed her, and she bucked on the litter beneath her. A strong hand gripped her shoulder, forcing her to turn her head away from the woman. She met Hunter’s piercing blue eyes once again.

  “You’re going to injure yourself,” he said, concern etched in the lines of his face. “Your friends are our priority. We’ll keep searching for them, but we need to get you to the hospital.”

  She shook her head, wincing at the cascade of pain that rippled over her. “No, you need to find them now. Find Violet. You don’t understand, she’s—” Ariel clamped her lips together. That wasn’t her secret to tell.

  Hunter frowned. “She’s what?”

  Ariel hesitated but then decided they needed to know. “Violet’s pregnant. Please, you have to find her.”

  Surprise flashed across Hunter’s face. He turned to Poppy. “Can you update the colonel?”

  “Of course.” Poppy moved away to talk on her radio.

  Hunter refocused on Ariel. “You said somebody pushed you?”

  “Yes.” She took a shuddering breath. “I was taking pictures of a bald eagle. Oh, no, my camera!”

  Hunter held up her Nikon. The outside casing was cracked with pieces missing, and the lens had fractured into a spiderweb of lines. “I found it. It’s pretty banged up. Sad to say you’ll need a new one. I’ll put it in my bag.”

  She sighed, part frustration, part relief. “Thank you.”

  “You were saying...?” he prompted.

  Refocusing took effort. “I heard a noise, like someone running toward me, and then—” Her voice broke. “Someone pushed me.”

  Her heart sank. Had one of her friends done this? No. She couldn’t believe that. Wouldn’t believe it. Someone else must’ve come up behind her at the edge of the outcrop. She should have stayed with her friends. Why hadn’t they come looking for her? “Did Violet call you?” She couldn’t keep the hope out of her voice. “Is that why you came to find me?”

  Hunter shook his head. “I’m sorry, no. Do you know where your friends went?”

  She turned her head toward the mountain. “Up there.” When she looked back at Hunter, she caught the glance he exchanged with a dark-haired woman who was rolling up a length of rope.

  Three dogs sat in a line, staring at Ariel. She blinked, half afraid they would disappear, but the dogs remained. The beautiful Siberian husky, an Irish wolfhound and a Malinois. Each wore a vest with the words Alaska State Trooper K-9 Unit stitched into the fabric. So well trained.

  Ariel missed her own dogs. The need to return to her pack brought tears to her eyes.

  “Did the tour guide lead your friends up the mountain?” Hunter’s question brought her focus back to him.

  Unease traipsed down Ariel’s spine. “He did. He said we were going on an untraveled trail. The tour guide was supposed to keep us safe. Is he missing, too?”

  Hunter’s expression darkened. “There’ll be time enough for all of this later, but right now we have to get you to the ambulance waiting at the parking lot.”

  The two EMS men moved to the front and back of the basket. “We’ll carry her.”

  Hunter straightened. “The snow is packed well enough we can hook the basket up to the dogs. They can transport her to the parking lot.”

  “Are your dogs used to sleds?” Ariel asked. Having trained sled dogs her whole life, she knew it wasn’t as simple as hooking a dog to a sled and expecting the animal to know how to safely pull a sled, or rescue basket, in this case.

  Hunter’s head tilted. “All our dogs are properly trained.”

  She bit her lip to keep from directing him as he and the other two troopers attached lines to the basket, then produced the proper nylon harnesses for the three canines. She couldn’t fault their work.

  Within a short time, the dogs were hooked to the basket with the Siberian husky up front taking the lead position, then the Malinois doing double duty as the swing and team dog with the Irish wolfhound as the wheel.

  Hunter gave the command prompting the dogs to pull. “Let’s go.”

  With the humans walking on each side of Ariel, the dogs carted her down the mountain. While the going was mostly smooth across the snow, the occasional bump sent pain stabbing through her head. When they arrived at the parking lot, an ambulance waited and she was transferred to the bay of the vehicle. The two emergency medical service men consulted with the ambulance personnel before heading to their own rig.

  “How did you find me?” Ariel asked Hunter as he and his dog stood by the ambulance doors.

  Hunter put his hand on the dog’s back. “Juneau found you. He’s a—”

  “Siberian husky,” she said at the same time he did.

  Hunter smiled. He had a nice smile. “Yes.”

  “Sir, we need to go,” the paramedic said as he climbed in beside Ariel.

  “Wait! Please, Hunter, tell me what happened to my friends.”

  There was a brief hesitation before he said, “They’re missing.”

  Ariel’s heart clenched. “What about the tour guide?”

  Hunter’s gaze darkened. “He was shot and killed.”

  The breath left her lungs.

  “Do you know why someone would want to kill you?”

  “I don’t know.” Tears burned her eyes.

  “We’ll have to assume that whoever did this will try again once they learn you’re still alive.”

  His words sent terror streaking through her heart. But why would someone want her dead?

  THREE

  Hunter hooked his thumbs in his uniform utility belt and paced outside the emergency exam room of Alaska Regional Hospital, waiting for the doctor to finish his examination of Ariel Potter. Juneau sat by the door as if guarding the entrance.

  Why had someone pushed Ariel off the edge of the cliff? Where were the other wedding party members? Who shot the tour guide?

  The questions bounced around Hunter’s head, unanswerable and not nearly distracting enough.

  Everything about hospitals made him twitchy. The beeping of the monitors shuddered through him like alarm bells, and the smells of disinfectant and sickness turned his stomach. Anxiety clawed its way up his spine, an all-too-familiar sensation that brought back dreadful memories. Memories he’d rather not relive.

  Yet with every passing second, he was taken back to age twelve. His mother had been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. There’d been many doctor visits, trips to the ER, and hospital stays. Hunter had considered those days would be the worst he’d ever have to face, crying out to God to save his mother.

  God hadn’t saved his mother. She had passed with her husband and son by her side.

  His father had done the best he could as a widower raising a rambunctious teen on his own while serving the community as a Metro police officer. Hunter had followed in his father’s footsteps by going into law enforcement.

  Then, five years ago, Kenneth McCord had been retired and restless until he’d met Celeste Roper, who, it turned out, was involved with a scam ring. Celeste had fleeced his father of his life savings. With some good detective work, she and the ring had been brought down and now were in prison.

  And God had denied Hunter’s request to save his father from the danger of a ruthless woman, which left him wary of God and His promises. Why had God let his mother die and his father lose his life savings?

  The swish of the sliding
glass door opening yanked Hunter from his spiraling thoughts, and he straightened as the doctor walked out. Juneau stepped inside the doorway as if to see what was happening inside the exam room. Hunter let out a short whistle, bringing the dog back to heel.

  Hunter strode over to Dr. Chen. The doctor had been working at the hospital for as long as he could remember. He was a tall, lanky man with a headful of thick salt and pepper hair and dark eyes.

  “How’s the patient?”

  Dr. Chen said, “Miss Potter is a little banged up, though nothing is broken and there are no major internal injuries. She did take a blow to the head and will need to be monitored closely for the next twenty-four hours. I didn’t see anything abnormal on the CT scan, and she’s lucid. I’ve made her promise to follow up with her primary care doctor.”

  “I’ll make sure someone is with her around the clock,” Hunter promised. Surely Ariel had family who would be willing to come to stay with her overnight.

  Curiosity burned in the doctor’s eyes. “You don’t normally wait around to check on those you bring to the hospital.”

  “Miss Potter is part of an active investigation,” Hunter replied.

  Ariel had to know something that would help the Alaska K-9 Unit uncover what had happened on the mountain. That she was pretty and vulnerable and had sent all of his protective instincts surging really wasn’t the point.

  He had learned the hard way that pretty and sweet didn’t always reflect what went on inside a woman’s heart.

  Though he’d never questioned his mother’s love for him, she’d been a hard woman to please. Combined with what happened to his father and Hunter’s own dismal track record in the romance department, he had determined romance wasn’t something he intended to pursue again. He had his faith, his father, Juneau and his family within the K-9 Unit. They were all he needed.

  “It’s not usual to see you taking an active interest in your witness,” Dr. Chen said.

  Hunter cocked his head. “Why assume she’s a witness?” Had she said something to the doc that he needed to know?

  Dr. Chen smiled. “You didn’t put her in handcuffs. So either she’s a witness, or—” His dark eyes assessed him. “You’re worried about her.”

  There was truth in the doctor’s words even if he didn’t want to admit he was worried. “Someone hurt her. I want to make sure they don’t succeed a second time.”

  “Very commendable.”

  “Just doing my job. I still need her official statement,” Hunter said. “Can I see her?”

  “I’ll release her to your care,” Dr. Chen said. “The nurse is helping her dress now. We gave her a pair of scrubs because her clothes were so tattered. And I figured you might want them for trace evidence. Though we did give her dry socks and put her boots back on to keep her feet warm.”

  “Thank you. That will be helpful. I’ll have someone come retrieve them.”

  Dr. Chen shrugged. “You work emergency room trauma long enough, you know the drill. I’ll have her discharge papers ready in a moment.” He walked away.

  A few seconds later the door to the exam room opened again and the curtain was pulled back. A young nurse wheeled Ariel from the room. She was dressed in green scrubs and cocooned in a thin blanket, clutching a brown paper bag in her hands. Hunter’s gaze zeroed in on the bandage wrapped around Ariel’s head, her blond hair sticking out like golden pieces of straw. Her cheeks were rosy, but her skin chalky, and the pupils of her pale brown eyes were dilated. She was still recovering from the shock of the fall. Juneau moved to walk beside Ariel’s wheelchair.

  When the nurse brought the chair to a halt, Juneau put his head on Ariel’s knee. She stared at him while gently stroking his head. Hunter wasn’t surprised that Juneau was offering her his comfort. The breed was highly intelligent, friendly and gentle. Juneau’s gift of being in tune with the emotions of humans matched well with search and rescue work.

  “She can take some Tylenol for the headache,” Dr. Chen said, drawing Hunter’s focus as he joined them and handed him paperwork with instructions. “If she worsens or blacks out, bring her back to the ER.”

  “You have my word,” Hunter assured the doctor.

  Shrugging out of his jacket, he gave it to Ariel. “Here, put this on.”

  She slipped her arms into the sleeves. The jacket was huge on her, but it would be warmer than the blanket.

  “You’re very kind,” she murmured.

  The nurse wheeled Ariel out to Hunter’s SUV parked in the spot near the entrance reserved for law enforcement. The night was dark, broken only by the glow of the streetlamps. Snow continued to fall steadily, coating the world in pristine white.

  Ariel glanced up at him, blinking away the snowflakes landing on her eyelashes. “You don’t have to take me home. You can just put me in a cab.”

  “Not happening, Miss Potter,” Hunter said. “Someone tried to kill you. Your friends are missing, and a man is dead.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “I know. You don’t have to remind me. You should be out looking for my friends.”

  “People are searching for them now.”

  “Why are you helping me?” The genuine puzzlement in her tone had him frowning. Why did she find it strange that he’d want to assist her?

  “Because you need help and it’s my job.”

  “Ah. Well, thank you.”

  Her words made Hunter bristle. Yes, he was being paid to do his job, but he was also helping because she needed it and he could offer it. He assisted her into the front passenger seat, tucking the blanket around her and securing the seat belt in place. His jacket was big and bulky on her, making her appear young and vulnerable and in need of his protection. Part of his job was to protect, but what stirred the soft places in his chest had more to do with the woman than his duty as a law enforcement officer.

  Uncomfortable with that notion, he put Juneau in his compartment, then jogged around to the driver’s side and climbed in.

  Ariel had opened the brown bag and retrieved her cell phone, which appeared intact. A frown pulled at her eyebrows. Her lower lip quivered.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Just texts asking to buy one of my pack dogs,” she said.

  He understood the value of canine companions, but he wasn’t well versed in the monetary gain to be had from sled dogs. “Does that happen often?”

  “I have at least three or four requests a week. I’ve told this particular person no several times, that I’m not interested in selling my breeding dogs, only the puppies,” she said. “I was hoping maybe Violet had contacted me. I’m going to send her a text.” She typed on the phone’s keyboard.

  The need to sooth away her troubles tugged at him, but at the moment, the most he could do was get her home and settled comfortably.

  After starting the engine and turning the heat to high, he brought up the navigation system on his dashboard. “I need your address.” Though he had it in the information Katie had given him, he’d rather engage Ariel.

  She seemed to shake off whatever she was ruminating about to give him the street name and number. He typed it into the system. She lived on the outskirts of town. It made sense for a dog breeder to have a bit more space. The drive through Anchorage was quiet this late in the evening. The falling snow required the wipers to go full blast, the swishing noise grating on his nerves.

  “Do you have someone to stay the night with you? Family I can call? A friend?”

  She shook her head and winced. With a beleaguered sigh, she said, “No.”

  “No?” How could she not have family or friends?

  “I’d say Violet, but... I suppose I could ask my neighbor if she’d be willing.” Ariel blew out a breath. “I just hate to ask more from her. She has my puppy right now.”

  “Just one puppy?” Hunter loved all dogs. “I remember the joy, and misery, of
taking care of a puppy. When I was a kid, my dad brought home an eight-week-old Lab. I loved that dog.”

  “Is that why you joined the K-9 Unit?” Her voice was soft and wrapped around him within the cab of the SUV.

  “Yes. Raising Kato was the catalyst to me becoming a K-9 handler.”

  “I imagine Juneau was a ball of fluff as a pup.”

  “I received Juneau as my partner when he was a year old. I missed out on the early development stage. And the sharp puppy teeth.”

  She laughed, the sound pleasing and melodic. “Yes, that is one of the hazards of raising puppies. Sasha, the puppy my neighbor is watching, was the runt of my most recent litter and sickly. I had to nurse him to health. Most breeders would’ve let nature take its course or sold him as a pet. But I just couldn’t do either. I fell in love with him.”

  “Puppies have that effect,” he commented.

  “I need to call my neighbor and check on Sasha. And make sure that Trevor fed the dogs. They are on a very regimented diet.”

  She rubbed at her forehead, clearly suffering a headache. Then she dialed and waited a moment. “Mrs. Nelson, it’s Ariel. Everything is fine now. I took a fall on a hike today.”

  Hunter raised an eyebrow at her. Way to sugarcoat the incident.

  “A little bruised,” Ariel hedged. “How’s Sasha?” She listened for a moment, then said, “I wouldn’t want to burden you. Could you have Trevor bring him over to the house in about ten minutes...?” The conversation went on for a little while longer, and then once she’d confirmed that Trevor had in fact fed the dogs their dinner, she said goodbye and hung up.

  “Who’s Trevor?” Hunter asked.

  “Mrs. Nelson’s college-age son. Trevor’s a responsible young man who will one day be a great musher and dog trainer. A few years ago he asked me to teach him how to mush. We worked out an agreement. I’d mentor him, but he also had to learn how to train dogs and help me around the kennel. A musher is only as good as the dogs pulling the sled.”