by Nora Roberts
Either way, he knew how painful it was to come back. How all those atrophied emotions and sensations burned and twisted as they struggled back to life. And he knew he cared enough to do whatever it took to spare her from that.
And there was more. He could admit that as he drove alone, with only the rumble of the heater breaking the silence. He needed her knowledge, her memories of her father to fill in gaps in the picture he was creating.
Because he needed the work, the headachy, exhausting, frustrating buzz of police work. Those muscles were flexing again, painfully. He wanted that pain. Needed it. Without it, he was afraid, very afraid, he’d just slide silently back into the numbness again.
Lights were on in her house, but her plane wasn’t there. He recognized the truck outside as Jacob’s. A whip of worry slapped down his spine as he pushed out of his car.
The door of the house opened. He saw Jacob in the stream of light an instant before the dogs flew out. Over their noisy greeting, he called out: “Meg?”
“Picked up another job. She’ll be camping out tonight in the bush with a hunting party she took in.”
“That typical?” Nate asked when he reached the porch.
“Yes. I came to see to her dogs, and check the heat block on her car. That, too, is typical.”
“She called you then?”
“Radioed. There’s stew if you’re hungry.”
“Wouldn’t mind.”
Jacob walked back to the kitchen leaving Nate to close the door. The radio was on, tuned to KLUN. The dj announced a round of Buffy Sainte-Marie as Nate tossed his coat over the arm of a chair.
“You’ve had a long day,” Jacob commented as he spooned up stew.
“You’ve heard, then.”
“Nothing travels swifter than bad news. A selfish last act, to take his own life so brutally, leaving his wife to find the shell. The stew’s hot, the bread’s good.”
“Thanks.” Nate sat. “Was Max a selfish man?”
“We all are, and most selfish when we despair.”
“Despair’s personal, that’s not necessarily the same as selfish. So, do you remember when Max came here to start the paper?”
“He was young and eager. Persistent,” Jacob added, and poured coffee for both of them.
“Came here by himself.”
“Many do.”
“But he made friends.”
“Some do,” Jacob said with a smile. “I wasn’t one of them, particularly, though we weren’t enemies. Carrie courted him. She set her sights on him and pursued. He wasn’t handsome or rich or brilliant of mind, but she saw something and wanted it. Women often see what doesn’t show.”
“Guy friends?”
Jacob raised his eyebrows as he slowly sipped his coffee. “He seemed to be comfortable with many.”
“I heard he used to climb. You ever take him up?”
“Yes. Summer climbs on Denali and Deborah, if I remember, when he first came. He was a fair climber. And once or twice I flew him and others into the bush for hunting parties, though he didn’t hunt. He wrote in his book or took photographs. Other flights for other stories and photographs. I flew him and Carrie to Anchorage both times she was ready to deliver their children. Why?”
“Curious. He ever climb with Galloway?”
“I never took them together.” Jacob’s eyes were intense now. “Why would it matter?”
“Curious, that’s all. And since I’m curious, would you say Patrick Galloway was a selfish man?”
“Yes.”
“Just yes?” Nate said after a moment. “No qualifications?”
Jacob continued to drink his coffee. “You didn’t ask for qualifications.”
“How’d he rate as a husband, a father?”
“He was, at best, a poor husband.” Jacob finished his coffee, turned to the sink to wash the mug. “But some would say he had a difficult wife.”
“Would you?”
“I would say they were two people with a strong bond, who pulled and twisted that bond in their individual pursuits of opposing desires.”
“Would Meg be that bond?”
Carefully, Jacob laid a cloth on the counter and the cup on it to dry. “A child is. They were no match for her.”
“Which means?”
“She was brighter, stronger, more resilient, more generous than either of them.”
“More yours?”
Jacob turned back, and there was nothing to read in his eyes. “Meg is her own. I’ll leave you now.”
“Does Meg know what happened with Max?”
“She didn’t mention it. Neither did I.”
“She say when she thought she’d be back?”
“She’ll fly the party out the day after tomorrow, weather permitting.”
“You got any problem with me staying out here tonight?”
“Would Meg?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then why would I?”
HE KEPT COMPANY with her dogs and made use of her fitness equipment. It felt good, better than he’d imagined, to pump iron again.
He didn’t intend to pry into her things, but when he was alone, Nate found himself wandering the house, poking into closets, peeking into drawers.
He knew what he was looking for—pictures, letters, mementos that pertained to her father. He told himself if Meg had been there, she’d have given them to him.
He found the photograph albums on the top shelf of her bedroom closet. Above a wardrobe that fascinated him with its mix of flannel and silk. Beside the album was a shoe box crammed with loose pictures she’d yet to organize.
He sat down with them on the spare bed, opened the red cover of an album first.
He recognized Patrick Galloway immediately in the snapshots behind the clear, sticky plastic. A younger Galloway than the one he’d seen in the digitals. Long-haired, bearded, dressed in the uniform of bell-bottom jeans, T-shirt and headband of the late sixties and early seventies.
Nate studied one where Galloway leaned against a burly motorcycle, an ocean behind him, a palm tree to his right—and his hand lifted, fingers veed in the peace sign.
Pre-Alaska, Nate thought. California, maybe.
There were others of him alone, one with his face dreamy and lit by a campfire while he strummed an acoustical guitar. More of him with a very young Charlene. Her hair was long and blond and curling crazily, her eyes laughing behind blue-tinted sunglasses.
She was beautiful, he realized. Seriously beautiful, with a streamlined body, soft, smooth cheeks, a full and sensual mouth. And couldn’t have reached her eighteenth birthday by his estimation.
There were several others—traveling photos, camping shots. Some were of one or both of them with other young people. A few urban pictures where he thought he recognized Seattle. Some, where Galloway was clean-shaven again, were taken inside an apartment or small house.
Then he came across one with Galloway. The beard was back and he was leaning against a road sign.
WELCOME TO ALASKA
He could track their trail by the photos. Their time in the southeast of the state, working the canneries, he supposed.
And he got his first glimpse of Meg—so to speak—with the photo of a hugely pregnant Charlene.
She wore a skimpy halter and jeans cut below her enormous and naked belly. Her hands were cupped on the mound, protectively. She had the sweetest look on her face, a painfully young face, Nate thought, that radiated hope and happiness.
There were photos of Patrick painting a room—the nursery—others of him building what looked like a cradle.
Then, to Nate’s shock, there were three pages of photos detailing labor and delivery.
He’d worked Homicide and had seen, he considered, just about all there was to see. But the sight of those up-close images had the stew rolling dangerously in his belly.
He flipped past them.
The sight of baby Meg settled his stomach and made him grin. He wasted time skimming through those�
�or maybe not, he thought, as he could study the tender or joyful way one or both of the new parents held the child. The way they held each other.
He could watch the seasons change, the years pass, as he moved to the next album. And he saw the young, pretty face of Charlene grow harder, leaner, the eyes less full of light.
Photos per year began to diminish into those taken more on holidays, birthdays, special occasions. A very young Meg grinning gleefully as she hugged a puppy with a red bow around its neck. She and her father sitting under a straggly Christmas tree, or Meg by a river, arms full of a fish almost as big as she.
There was one of Patrick and Jacob, arms slung around each other’s shoulders. The shot was fuzzy and badly cropped, making Nate wonder if Meg had been behind the camera.
He dumped the shoe box and began to sort through the loose snapshots. He found a series of group shots, all of which obviously were taken the same day.
Summer, he thought, because there was green instead of snow. Did it get that green here? he wondered. That warm and bright? The mountains were in the distance, their peaks gleaming white under the sun, the lower reaches silver and blue and dotted with green.
Someone’s backyard cookout, he thought. Or a town picnic. He could see picnic tables, benches, folding chairs, a couple of grills. Platters of food, kegs of beer.
He picked out Galloway. The beard was gone again, and the hair was shorter, though it still nearly reached his shoulders. He looked tough and fit and handsome. Meg had his eyes, Nate thought, his cheekbones, his mouth.
He found Charlene, dressed in a tight shirt that showed off her breasts, brief shorts that showed off her legs. Even in the photo he could see her face was carefully made-up. Gone was the fresh, lovely young girl laughing out of tinted lenses. This was a woman, beautiful and sharp and aware.
But happy? She was laughing or smiling in every shot, and posed as well. In one she sat provocatively on the lap of an older man who looked both surprised and overwhelmed by the armful of her.
He saw Hopp sitting beside a gangly, silver-haired man. They were both drinking beers and holding hands.
He found Ed Woolcott, banker and deputy mayor—leaner, sporting a moustache and short beard, mugging for the camera with the silver-haired man Nate took as Hopp’s dead husband.
One by one, he identified people he knew. Bing, looking just as burly and sour as he did today, but about fifteen pounds lighter. Rose, that had to be beautiful Rose, fresh and young as the flower she was named for, holding the hand of a handsome little Peter.
Max, with more hair and less belly, sitting beside Galloway, and both of them about to bite into enormous slices of watermelon.
Deb, Harry and—jeez, a fifty-pounds-lighter Peach—arms linked, hips cocked, smiles blazing for the camera.
He went back through them again, concentrating on Galloway. He was in nearly every shot. Eating, drinking, talking, laughing, playing his guitar, sprawled on the grass with kids.
He culled shots of the men. Some were strangers to him, others looked too old, even then, to have made that arduous winter climb. And some had been too young.
But he wondered as he scanned from face to face, if it would be one of them. Had one of the men who’d celebrated that bright, shiny day, who had eaten and laughed with Patrick Galloway and Max Hawbaker, killed both of them?
More loose shots were individuals, groups, holidays. He found Christmas again, and again a picture or two of Max with Galloway. Jacob with them, or Ed or Bing or Harry or Mr. Hopp.
Ed Woolcott, still with a moustache and beard, a fuming bottle of champagne, Harry in a Hawaiian shirt, Max draped in Mardi Gras beads. He spent another hour with the pictures before putting them back, exactly as he’d found them.
He would have to find a way to confess to Meg that he’d invaded her privacy. Or find a way to have her show him the photos without letting her know he’d already seen them.
He’d decide which later.
Now it was time to let the restless dogs out for a last run. And since he was just as restless, it seemed a good time to practice his snowshoeing.
He went out with the dogs. Instead of racing off, they trotted along beside him as he walked out to get his snowshoes out of the car.
Peter had shown him the basics and had proven to be a patient teacher. Nate still fell on his face—or ass—now and then and sometimes got the shoes bogged down, but he was making progress.
He strapped them on, took a few testing strides. “Still feel like an idiot,” he confided to the dogs. “So let’s keep tonight’s practice session between us.”
As if in challenge, the dogs bounded off toward the woods. It would be a hell of a hike, Nate decided as he pushed a flashlight into his pocket, but exercise helped beat back depression. And, if he was lucky, would tire him out enough to let him sleep through any dreams that wanted to haunt him.
He used the house lights and the stars to reach the edge of the woods. His progress was slow and not particularly graceful. But he made it and was pleased he was only slightly out of breath.
“Getting back in shape. Some. Still talking to myself, though. But that doesn’t mean anything.”
He looked up so that he could see the northern lights, could watch them spread their magic. Here he was, Ignatious Burke of Baltimore, snowshoeing in Alaska under the northern lights.
And pretty much enjoying it.
He could hear the dogs thrashing around, letting loose with the occasional bark. “Right behind you, boys.”
He pulled out the flashlight. “Too early for bear,” he reminded himself. “Unless, of course, we’ve got an insomniac in the area.”
To reassure himself, he patted his side and felt the shape of his service weapon under the parka.
He set off, trying to get into an easy rhythm instead of the awkward step-clomp-step he fell into if he wasn’t paying attention. The dogs raced back, danced around him, and he was pretty sure they were grinning.
“Keep it up and there’ll be no dog biscuits for you. Go do whatever dog business you’ve got to do. This is thinking time for me.”
Keeping the lights of the house visible through the trees to his left, he followed the dog tracks. He could smell the trees—the hemlock he’d learned to identify—and the snow.
Not that many miles west, or north, there would be no trees, so he’d been told. Just seas of ice and snow, rolling forever. Places where no roads cut through that sea.
But here, with the smell of the forest, he couldn’t imagine it. Could hardly conceive that Meg, who had a sexy red dress in her closet and baked bread when she brooded, was out there, somewhere in that sea even now.
He wondered if she’d looked up at the northern lights, as he had. And thought of him.
With his head down, the flashlight beam shining ahead, he pushed his body into the steady pace and let his mind wander back to the photos of that sunny day.
How long after that summer picnic had Patrick Galloway died in ice? Six months? Seven?
Were those pictures with Christmas lights from his last holiday?
Had one of those men who’d smiled or mugged for the camera been wearing a mask, even then?
Or had it been impulse, insanity, the momentary madness of temper that had brought that ax down?
But it had been none of those things that had left a man in that cave for all these years, preserved in the ice and permafrost.
That took calculation. That took balls.
Just as it took both calculation and balls to carefully stage a suicide.
Or it could all be bullshit, he admitted, and the note left could be God’s own truth.
A man could hide things from his wife, from his friends. A man could hide things from himself. At least until that despair, that guilt, that fear wrapped around his throat and choked him off.
Wasn’t he chasing this case for the same reason he was out here in the dark, in the cold, tromping around on oversized tennis rackets? Because he needed to be normal again.
He needed to find who he’d been before his world had caved in on him. He needed to break out of his own cocoon of ice and live again.
Everything pointed to suicide. All that was arguing against it were his own instincts. And how could he trust them after letting them lie stagnant so long?
He hadn’t worked a murder in close to a year, hadn’t done much more than ride a desk for his last months with BPD. And now he wanted to turn a suicide into a homicide because, what, it made him feel useful?
He could feel the weight bearing down on him as he thought of the way he’d pushed his opinions onto Coben, the way he’d issued orders despite the doubts in his deputies’ eyes. He’d invaded Meg’s privacy, for no good reason.
He could barely run a little cop shop that dealt mainly with traffic violations and breaking up shoving matches, and suddenly he was the big, bad cop who was going to close the books on a murder that took place sixteen years ago and disprove a nearly textbook suicide?
Yeah, sure, then he’d track down this nameless, faceless killer, sweat a confession out of him and hand him over to Coben, all tied up in a big pink ribbon.
“What bullshit. You can barely pass for a cop now, what makes you think . . .”
He trailed off, staring dully down at the snow that gleamed under the beam of his light. And the tracks that marred its surface.
“Funny. Must’ve circled around somehow.”
Not that he gave a good damn. He could wander around aimlessly all night, just like he wandered around aimlessly most days.
“No.” He closed his eyes, broke into a light sweat at the physical effort it took to push away from that void. “Not going back there. That’s the bullshit. Not going back down in that hole.”
He’d take the antidepressants if he had to. Do yoga. Lift weights. Whatever it took, but he couldn’t go back down there again. He’d never crawl his way free if he went back down this time.
So he just breathed, opening his eyes, watching his breath stream out white and vanish. “Still standing,” he murmured, then looked down at the snow again.
Snowshoe tracks. Curious, and using the curiosity to hold back the dark, he stepped back, compared those tracks with the ones in front of him. They looked the same, but it was a little tough to gauge any difference in the beam of his flashlight—and considering the fact he wasn’t some wilderness tracker.