Warming Trend

by Karin Kallmaker

  Lisa went back into her detective mode. She picked up a Dragonfly coffee mug and carried it to the far end of the kitchen. “Let’s say this is the accident site.” She walked back to her previous perch and regarded the mug from that distance. “How does that mug get over here?”

  “Someone carries it. Call me Person Unknown.” Tan, with a grin at Lisa, retrieved the mug, moving it to the counter opposite all of them. “Theory one: Monica carried it to GlacierPort.”

  “Except that we agree that it’s impossible she got it inside. Don’t we?”

  Tan nodded. “I don’t see how she could have. Security was treating it like a drug raid at a fraternity. It was serious business.”

  “So we don’t even know how it got to GlacierPort, let alone past security and into Monica’s office.” Lisa picked the mug up and moved it all the way back to the end of the kitchen. “Let’s start with it all the way back at the accident site. Where did it go from there?” She left the mug and joined Tan.

  Ani watched them both staring at the mug as if it would suddenly tell them secrets. Her stomach was in knots and she could feel a sick tremor in her shoulders from holding in the incoherence of her feelings. She might have screamed, but Tan and Lisa suddenly looked at each other, back at the mug, then at each other again. They nodded.

  “Right, then.” Tan picked up another mug and set it on the counter opposite.

  “Yep,” Lisa said. “That’s it.”

  Ani couldn’t help but look at Eve, who was giving her a look that seemed to mirror her own. It was Eve who asked, in a steady voice, “What’s it?”

  Lisa and Tan shared a mutual sigh of longsuffering. Lisa picked up the second mug and held it out to Ani. “Ani, I found the missing mug. Here, get rid of it for me.”

  Ani looked across the kitchen to the first mug. “But the missing mug is over there.”

  “Duh,” Lisa and Tan said, in unison.

  “Oh my lord,” Eve said. “She couldn’t pull that off. We’re really reaching here.”

  “She was desperate. Somehow the notebook got separated from Kenbrink. Maybe she did that—took it from him—maybe she didn’t.” Tan folded her arms over her chest. “But they’re in her possession and then she realizes she can’t possibly keep their loss a secret. So why doesn’t she put them back?”

  “Ice fog. It was freezing and she was lucky to get back to camp. Her own kit was buried,” Ani said, feeling just this side of faint. “Too far down to care about the minor stuff in it, like the radio and GPS. Her own notes were on her handheld, which was in her pocket.”

  Lisa assumed a pose matching Tan’s. “Let’s say the Kenbrink notes ended up buried with her kit. Maybe all she wanted was to make sure they got lost. Maybe she took them to safeguard them, then realized that would look damned cold—like she was more worried about the notes than saving Kenbrink. Either way, she decides she can’t tell anyone she ever touched them. But she gets back to GlacierPort and everyone is being searched. She knows the notes won’t be found, so the next place to look is back at the accident site. What’s she going to say when the notes are with her lost stuff? She must have freaked.”

  Tan completed delivery of their findings with, “So she needed to spread suspicion around. She had similar notebooks—all she needed was to letter Kenbrink’s name on it. And there was Ani, already under suspicion.”

  Ani’s heart was racing. “Why would she fabricate a notebook for me to get rid of? No, it doesn’t make sense. What if I opened it?”

  “Think about it, Ani,” Tan said gently. “You didn’t open it, did you? Why not?”

  Ani shook her head, trying to silence the clamor. She closed her eyes and envisioned those tense minutes in Monica’s office with the notebook lying on Monica’s desk. Monica was the one who had brought up the boiler room. She’d left Ani alone with the notebook twice. She’d mentioned the problem with fingerprints, and Ani hadn’t wanted to leave more prints than necessary. “I think…I read her cues and she read mine. I didn’t doubt it was the real notebook from the way she handled it. The clasps were closed and I didn’t want to put my fingerprints on them. I knew I only had a few minutes. But I didn’t do what she wanted, which was burn it up and get caught afterward, near the boiler room. I mean, I never asked myself how they found me where they did, just about red-handed. But I had tossed it outside, hoping it would be found. It was sheer, dumb luck—”

  Ani laughed, because it was cosmically funny, like one of those Russian folk tales her father had liked, that ended with everybody dead and some evil imp of fate drinking vodka shooters while eating the bones of his victims. “Just my luck, that I destroyed the notes anyway. If they’d been found intact, it would have gotten messy, with her word versus mine that she’d tried to fool me. The real notes, if any of this is true, still exist where she left them. If anything, my idiot luck made it even better. The notebook was found and I felt so awful....”

  Tan said, just as gently, “You acted like you’d killed a baby. You were the picture of guilt. I never suspected you might be guilty of something other than taking the notes out in the field. I felt just awful for you. I agreed with everyone else that you would have to leave the program, but even though I was sure you’d done it, it wasn’t fair to me the way you weren’t getting any due process.”

  “Monica got her to leave before anyone stuck up for her.” Lisa slowly sounded out, “The bee-yaach.”

  Ani couldn’t control her shaking anymore and she leaned heavily on the counter.

  “Here,” Eve said. “Let’s go back and sit down.”

  Ani found herself back in the same booth, with a glass of chocolate milk.

  “Drink, it’s sickly sweet stuff,” Eve said. “You’ve had a nasty shock.”

  She did as she was told, feeling both better and worse. Her nerves steadied, but she felt bruised and empty.

  Lisa and Tan were continuing to talk about possible scenarios and Monica’s audacious plan.

  Ani tried one last time not to believe. She didn’t know why it mattered, except…except she’d believed in everything Monica Tyndell represented. “It’s absurd. I think there’s another explanation. There’s got to be. We just haven’t thought of it.”

  “I swear,” Lisa said. “You’d have to find those notes in Monica’s kit bag or whatever it is, before you’d believe it.”

  Ani nodded. “Yeah, that would do it.”

  “So, okay.”

  “What?” She glanced at Eve. This time, Eve looked as if she knew what Lisa was thinking.

  “If Monica’s not the total lying bitch sociopath I think she is, prove me wrong. Clear her name. Do the honorable thing.”

  “What are you talking about? Oh, hell.” Ani knew that look.

  * * *

  “I have a business to run, and I’m not experienced at glacier hiking, that’s why.” Eve stood in front of the Dragonfly with Tan an hour later, still arguing about not going with the three of them on their expedition.

  “But you heard Ani—it’s not that far if we take a helicopter to Kilkat Plateau.”

  “Tan…” Eve didn’t consider Tan a close enough friend to tell her the real reasons, even if she could sort them out. She’d spent most of their discussion trying desperately not to care. “It’s not about me. Or us.”

  “And why not? You and Ani were happy, and if somebody took that from you, don’t you want to find out?”

  “Too much, that’s the point. And Ani has moved on. I can’t let myself go back in time. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

  Eve walked away, keys in hand. A headache throbbed just above her eyes, making her squint in the sharp, late afternoon sun. You don’t get do-overs, she had wanted to tell Tan. We were tested and we didn’t pass. Maybe they’d been better off to discover their trust and love was easily cracked after a year, instead of wasting more of their lives. Oh yes, a sarcastic inner voice responded, look what you’ve done with all the time you saved.

  All their speculation about what Monica
may or may not have done seemed so far-fetched. What was truth and what was fiction? Tears stung her cheeks as she confronted at least one truth: If Ani had asked her to run away with her, she would have gone. A caterer could live anywhere people had parties. Now she had a restaurant she was only just getting off the ground. Even if…she couldn’t leave. Even if…

  She pulled into her driveway without any recollection of the drive home, and pressed the button on the garage door opener. As usual, Tonk burst out from under the rising door, welcoming her. She immediately saw the unopened box with the phone in it, sitting on the workbench. A glance up at the rafters showed she now had some empty spaces for her own things. She tried not to feel the hurt and was completely unsuccessful. She couldn’t even have said clearly what hurt anymore.

  She was snuffled and approved as they went into the house together, and Eve gave Tonk his usual portions of dry dog food, and added some chunks of cooked chicken and a hefty portion of vegetable scraps she’d minced before she’d left.

  Her eyes continued to seep tears. She felt as if a hand were squeezing at her heart, a pain that didn’t have a name, but she’d felt it before, after Ani left.

  The phone rang, and she almost let it go to the machine, but there was the thought—a treacherous one—that it might be Ani.

  “Hey, partner. Soaking in the tub yet?”

  Monica sounded the way she always did, Eve told herself. “Not quite, but very, very soon.”

  “I finally got a minute to call you back. Sorry I had to go so abruptly. One of my speakers was calling, one who wasn’t sure she’d make it. But she can, so that’s one less emergency for me.”

  “No worries, Monica, really. I was busy anyway. I was crazy to ever think I could have gone on that cruise.”

  Eve had no idea why she’d brought it up, but Monica didn’t seem perturbed. “Like I said, you work too hard. I understand why you had to turn it down. We’ll figure out something else. I have to protect my investment, after all.”

  “Aside from the extra work, I’m fine. Nothing a nice soak won’t cure. It’s just for two days.”

  “Just another day, then?”

  Eve felt a tickle of misgiving. “Yes, right down to the pots and pans.”

  “I’ll leave you to your bath, then.”

  Her hand still on the phone, Eve asked Tonk, “What was that all about, do you think?”

  Tonk answered, but she still wasn’t much good at interpreting dog tail semaphore. Ten minutes later the tub was full and her favorite vanilla rosemary bath cream scented the air. With a sigh she felt all the way down to her toes, she slid into the water and closed her eyes.

  Think about music, she told herself. Think about wine. Think about business—think about anything, but don’t think about her eyes. Or her smile, or her arms. Don’t think about the nights where you felt stretched to the stars. Don’t think about the times she cried because she said you were beautiful to watch, to touch, to love.

  Don’t think about what you lost. Don’t think.

  Not thinking was hard work, she concluded, but she managed for a short while.

  It wasn’t until she went back to the bedroom to put on some soft fleece pants and a simple shirt that Ani’s presence earlier in the day became unavoidably obvious. The “treasure” box from the closet was gone, along with the framed photographs she’d put on top of it. Fresh tears threatened, but she willed them back as she moved another box into its place. There, it was as if Ani and her treasure had never been part of Eve’s life.

  She was hanging on—to what she wasn’t sure. Hanging on, maybe to the walls she’d built that had let her walk around like she hadn’t lost the most precious thing she’d ever had when Ani had run away. She closed the closet door and turned her back on it, arms wrapped tight around her body, holding herself together.

  She might have made it, but Tonk trotted into the bedroom, one of Ani’s boots in his mouth. She wanted to be Tonk, simply happy Ani was back, no worries about all the lost time, living only for now and the next hour, when treats, pets and a boot to play with were all that mattered.

  Tonk dropped the boot when Eve couldn’t hold back the sob of pain and distress, nudging at her arm where she was sprawled across the bed. She cried into her pillow, tears pouring from where she’d held them in for three years, salty, bitter tears, with wracking moans that rose out of the pit of her belly. She hadn’t cried like this, not even in the darkest nights, when the pillow had been an attempted substitute for Ani. Like all those other nights, it was no substitute at all. She’d lost Ani then, and she was going to lose her again.

  * * *

  The breakfast rush was as busy as Fridays usually were. Bleary-eyed and fighting a headache, she turned out hundreds of Santa-shaped pancakes, complete with chocolate chip eyes and whipped cream hats and beards. Tourists wanted “Alaskan cuisine,” so eggs Benedict, with smoked salmon instead of ham, flew out of the kitchen. Soldiers and their families stuck to basic fare, though Eve hoped the fresh pancake syrups would be memorable enough to recommend the Dragonfly over the chain restaurant further down the highway. Apricot hazelnut and buttered rum raisin were big hits, the latter so much so that she ran out. The trade was winding down, though, so she didn’t make another batch. There was always tomorrow. She would be so happy to see Neeka back.

  Even with the restaurant down to just a few customers, Bennie’s arrival was a relief. Lunch trade was just ninety minutes away. He promptly started prep for the regular menu while Eve sorted out and stored all the breakfast ingredients, like eggs and grated cheese. She was in a quandary about the lunch special—normally, she would have worked it out last night, but the evening had passed in a numb blur. A survey of the walk-in refrigerator indicated she would need to go light on all but cheddar cheese until the dairy delivery tomorrow morning. “I think the lunch special is going to be ranch house chicken sandwiches, with smoky sauce and cheddar.”

  “Do you want me to pound out chicken breasts when I finish with the pantry and salad stations?”

  “Sure—let’s start with two dozen. I was thinking a quick grill thickness.”

  He nodded. “Slice of dill pickle and corn slaw on the side?”

  “You have a recipe for the slaw?”

  Bennie lifted one eyebrow as he sliced through a head of red cabbage. “Of course I do. And it’s called ‘Bennie’s Fabulous Corn Slaw.’”

  “Fair enough.” She was smiling when she left the kitchen, aiming for a cup of coffee and a seat at the counter for just a few minutes, after she wrote the special on the neon electric board in the window. Bennie hadn’t given her any odd looks, so perhaps she had successfully covered her red nose and the dark circles under her eyes.

  She added a few flourishes to the menu board, then gratefully headed to the coffee station. Her composure was cracked by the sight of Lisa at the counter, halfway through an order of pancakes, with fresh fruit on the side.

  She had no choice but to say hello, and sit down. She could politely plead work after a minute or two.

  “Ani and Tan went to some depot or supply zone to check out equipment. They were positively gleeful. I opted for a different kind of shopping.” Lisa forked up a bite of pancakes. “This apricot stuff is awesome, by the way.”

  “Thanks. Yes, I can imagine the two of them picking out crampons the way you and I would pick out shoes.” Eve smiled, hoping it didn’t seem forced. Up close there was no denying it—Lisa was a beautiful woman, from the bones out. At first glance, just a pretty face, but after yesterday’s revelations, she was the kind of inquisitive, intelligent woman that Ani deserved, though Eve was willing to bet that Lisa annoyed Ani a lot of the time. “Were you kidding, yesterday, when you said you surfed for a living?”

  “Not at all. I surf for a living, and jockey drinks to pay the bills.”

  “Is that how you met Ani?”

  Lisa nodded. “She’s a fantastic bartender, but what a waste of her talents. I mean, she’s constantly telling me about qui
ck-frozen this and suspended air or methane or what-have-you, like if she tells me enough I’ll care more.”

  Ani couldn’t help but laugh. Her inner bitchy side wanted to hate Lisa, but she couldn’t manage it. “I remember that well.”

  “So, did you really leave because you thought Ani was in love with Monica?”

  Eve knew her smile stiffened. “I don’t see any point in revisiting all of that again.”

  “She was crazy in love with you. You should have heard her out.”

  After a deep, steadying breath, Eve said, “Look, you might be Ani’s girlfriend, but this is still none of your—”

  “I’m not.” Lisa had another bite of pancakes.

  “Not what?”

  Lisa rolled her eyes. “Her girlfriend. I’m a friend. I think that’s how Ani introduced me, too. Down in Florida, friend just means friend. In my case, it’s also permission to butt into your business.”

  Eve tried not to look stunned by the revelation. “Ani may have given you permission to butt in—”

  “She didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?” Lisa wasn’t Ani’s girlfriend—no, it would not be appropriate to smile, and it was bizarre that a little sprite inside was trying to burst into song.

  “Didn’t give me permission. I am an annoying person who thinks she gets permission from the universe to butt in.”

  Really, Eve wanted to dislike this woman, but the wide, engaging grin drew a reluctant smile instead. “I’m still not baring my soul to you.”

  “Then bare it to Ani. Let her bare hers. Ask her over tonight or something. Talk. You owe her that.”