The Stranger

by Anna del Mar

  One moment I was onshore, the next moment I landed face-first in the lake. The sting of the icy water startled whatever little breath I had left in me. The water was so cold that it hurt. I kicked. I struggled. I tried to wiggle my hands out of the cuffs. I resisted with all I had.

  But the man held me down in the water. Star Lake flowed into my nose and mouth and, like a cascade, poured down my throat. Bright lights exploded before my eyes. My senses started to ebb. My body began to lose strength. My mind went into a dreamlike state.

  I was drowning. Like my mother. She’d drowned too. She’d walked into the ocean in her sleep and sunk to the bottom. A liquid version of her face materialized before me as the water gushed down my gullet, weighed down my stomach and clogged my lungs.

  “Fight, Summer!” she said. “Fight! Don’t let it happen again. Not again!”

  Not again?

  An image formed in my mind, the details of a little girl’s purple-walled bedroom—my bedroom at my family’s Fountain Way apartment. I realized I was seeing the room through my little girl’s eyes. A whiff of fresh paint tickled my nostrils as I got up from the bed. We had moved in just days earlier. The sounds of an argument came from the living room.

  I peeked out from behind the door and saw my mother, standing against the far wall, facing a man who had his back to me. A third voice came from somewhere to my right, a deep voice whose owner I couldn’t see from where I stood.

  “You had to do it,” the man said. “You had to poke your damn nose in other people’s business and push the envelope. You leave me no choice.”

  “Wait!” My mother’s lips made a sound I couldn’t hear. “Please, don’t do this.”

  “Too late,” the man said. “Finish this.”

  The click of a door closing announced that the first person had left. My mother’s attention focused on the other man in the room.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said. “Please. I won’t say anything, I promise!”

  “It’s as good as done,” the man replied. “Shame I’ll be vacating my nice digs by the end of the night.”

  My heart faltered as my mother’s assailant stalked my mother across the living room. It was him! The same man who was drowning me now, younger back then, but easily recognizable.

  “Summer!” My mother’s eyes widened with terror when she spotted me behind the door. “Get back to your room. Lock the door!”

  “A locked door won’t stop me.” The man blocked the way between me and my mother. “The girl’s seen me. She’s got to go too.”

  “No, please,” my mother begged. “She sleepwalks, just like I do. She won’t remember a thing in the morning.”

  “Is that so?” The man’s dark eyes gleamed with a new idea. “In that case, I’ll let her live. But you’ve got to come with me. No fuss. No crying or screaming. If you come with me right now, I’ll spare the whelp.”

  “How do I know you won’t come back here and hurt my daughter?” my mother said.

  The man showed her the key in his hands then pitched it out the balcony, sixteen stories down. “The little sleepwalker doesn’t need to die today.”

  “Go back to your bed, sweetie,” my mother said on a sob. “Go on. Mommy loves you.”

  My feet obeyed my mother’s voice, but I could feel her fear seeping into my soul. She must have known she was going to die that night.

  “I didn’t want to leave you,” my mother’s voice whispered in my mind. “I wasn’t chasing a dream that day. Somebody was chasing me.”

  “Who?” I mumbled underwater. “Who?”

  And I knew. Whoever wanted me to die had built my death to mimic my mother’s. Another sleepwalking disaster, I could almost hear the coroner’s verdict. Another careless parasomniac who ventured too far. A dream chaser who chased her life away.

  But mine was not an accidental drowning. It was murder. As my mother’s face flickered in and out of focus, I realized what she was trying to tell me. Had she been murdered too?

  “Wake up, Summer!” My mother’s voice startled me. “Don’t let him win. Fight him!”

  The vision dissolved in my mind. I was back, struggling under the water and much closer to drowning. I ran out of oxygen. My body went into a state of biological desperation. I heard my mom’s quiet good-byes smothered beneath the sea as surely as I heard my muffled shrieks echoing in the lake’s dark waters. I was the last thought in her mind before she died.

  I forced myself into alertness. My stomach hurt, loaded with too much water. My lungs weighted me down. I was no match for the thug holding me underwater. My mind sputtered a number of options, but only one seemed to make sense.

  I stopped fighting. I gave in to both my attacker’s brute force and the water. I looked up and, under a fleeting ray of moonlight, watched the last string of bubbles deserting my body. It seemed like forever. Eventually, the pressure on my back eased. The zip ties were suddenly gone from my wrists. I floated listlessly in the water as my assailant cast me off into the lake.

  I dug into my jacket and ripped off the zipper. I thrust my hand in the pocket. Anya’s quick lesson replayed in my head. Click. I turned in the water, dug my heels in the mud, cocked the gun, pointed and shot.

  The shot blasted my ears and jerked my arm. I wheezed, a terrible aspiration of air that collided with the water ruling my lungs. The man staggered in knee-high water and turned, face frozen in surprise. I shot again. His arms flailed in the air. He fell in the water, dragged himself to shore and crept out of the lake. I shot until I couldn’t see him anymore and no more bullets came out of the gun. Then I dragged myself out of the lake.

  I knew I had to run. I just couldn’t. I was shaking too hard. He could return any minute, but I just lay on the shore, retching torrents of foul-tasting water. The gun was stuck in my grip. Shivers rattled my body. The cold burned, inside and out.

  I had to get indoors. Back to the cabin. Build a fire. But it seemed so far away. I couldn’t move. The snow fell all around me. The cold iced my bones and froze my muscles. All I could do was close my eyes and shiver some more.

  A grunt shocked me out of senselessness. A hot, slimy slap warmed the side of my face. A dank stench startled me. I opened my eyes. Liquid brown eyes stared at me.

  “Get up.” The huge bear spoke with my mother’s voice. “You’re going to die, unless you get up.”

  I was hallucinating. I had to be. The old bear would surely maul me if he found me. The creature’s lips never moved and yet the sound echoing in my head came from it. Oh, yeah, and my mother was gone and dead. Drowned. Murdered? Absurd. This bear-mother combination was hilarious. A hysterical giggle bubbled in the back of my throat. My frozen mind was a hoot.

  “Summer Silva,” the bear said in my mother’s sternest tone. “Move. Crawl if you have to. They will not succeed.”

  They?

  “You will not die tonight,” my mother said. “Follow me.”

  The bear’s paws rustled softly on the new snow. It took a few steps, then sat on its hind legs at the trailhead as if it was a big, ratty dog, waiting for me.

  “Coward,” the bear said, this time in my father’s voice. “I didn’t defy a dictator, cling to a raft for three days in the Florida Straits and fight off sharks for you to die in Alaska.”

  “Daddy?”

  “All those years without a life,” he said. “And now that you have a shot at one, you’re giving up?”

  What did he mean?

  “You’re wasting time,” my father said. “You’re squandering opportunity. You’re wasting the one good thing you’ve found in Alaska.”

  “My life was fine before I came here,” I mumbled through numb lips.

  “But was it really?” my father said. “Every night you set up the door chain, locked in your fears and locked out your future. Is that the li
fe you want?”

  No, but I hadn’t been able to trust anyone...until Seth.

  “Get up,” the bear said in my mother’s voice. “Survival is the best revenge. Claim your life. You like him. You crave him. You love him.”

  How could I love someone who I had just met?

  “Because you trust him,” my mother said. “Him, you can trust.”

  Could I?

  I’d stayed in his house. I’d slept in his bed, next to him, all these nights. I trusted him already and he, he’d proven my trust right.

  “He’ll be sad,” my mother said. “He’ll burn inside all over again.”

  I didn’t want that for Seth. No more suffering for him.

  I tried to get up, but my legs refused to move. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Try,” my mother said.

  “I can’t!”

  “Can I eat your liver then?” the bear said in a low rumbling voice. “I really like liver. I ate a human not long ago. The meat was bland but the liver was yummy. Should I start now?”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” I said. “I’ll scratch your eyes out if you come near me.”

  “Follow me,” the bear insisted. “Follow me or I’ll eat your liver.”

  I tried crawling, but it didn’t work very well. “I might be done.”

  “No way,” the bear said, this time in Seth’s voice. “I’ve got your back. Nothing bad will happen to you under my watch. Always remember: you’re way too stubborn to let Alaska kill you.”

  Seth. My mother was dead and so was my father. But Seth? He was alive.

  I crawled up the trail, following the bear.

  “Cold,” I grumbled. “Hate cold.”

  I couldn’t figure out if I was awake or sleepwalking. It was hard to think with a frozen brain. No, I wasn’t asleep. I didn’t feel pain, cold or discomfort when I sleepwalked, whereas right now, I was feeling plenty of all of that. On the other hand, I was following a bear. A bear, for God’s sake! Give me a break. I might not be sleepwalking, but I was definitively hallucinating.

  “Come on,” the bear said. “Chase your dreams. Chase me.”

  I dragged myself up the path by the force of my elbows. I sank one elbow on the ground and then the other. I lost all sensation in my hands and feet. I had no concept of time. It seemed that I’d been dragging myself for days when my head hit on wood. I looked up. The bear sat at the top of the stairs. The deck. The cabin’s deck.

  I crawled up the steps. The door couldn’t be too far away, but I ran out of steam. I was so cold I couldn’t move anymore.

  “Keep moving,” the bear said in my mother’s voice.

  My body refused. I sprawled on the deck, watching the pile of snow growing next to me, snowflakes landing like butterflies without a sound. Pretty. The door. Where was it? Fire. I really wanted a hot fire. A roar. The deafening sound interrupted the silence and shook the cabin and the deck. It wasn’t coming from the bear. It came from the sky instead.

  “Almost there,” the bear said.

  “Good night, bear,” I mumbled.

  “Night, beautiful.” An image of an eagle flashed in my mind. “Go chase your dreams.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  How the hell had I managed to walk straight into Alex’s trap? How was I supposed to protect those I cared for if nobody followed my instructions and everybody did whatever the hell they wanted?

  The helicopter bucked in the air. I fought another wind gust, determined to get to my destination despite the weather. The forecast wasn’t exactly conducive for flying and the ride quality was crap. Visibility was zero, surface winds exceeded forty-five knots, and the wind shear was giving the helicopter hell. My brain rattled in my skull like a marble in a can. I kept my eyes on the main rotor indicators. Severe turbulence led to rotor flapping which in turn led to blade stall, altitude deviation, and mast bumping. I didn’t have time to deal with any of that tonight.

  The helicopter’s searchlights broke through a patch of heavy snow to illuminate the icy waters of Star Lake. At least I was close. I followed along the north shore of the lake’s short finger on the GPS. A memory of today’s debacles had me reeling. After twenty-four hours with my ass parked in a goddamn interrogation room, the hearing had been surprising enough.

  There was the press, of course, always making a clusterfuck of things, but also Grandma, marching in with the governor, a senator, several members of the legislature and the tribal governments, and even a state supreme court judge. Anya and Ally showed up near the end.

  Once Anya presented her evidence, the judge, who was already raving mad, threw a fit. He ranted against federal abuses in Alaska and ended the hearing on the spot. Alex hadn’t succeeded at buying this judge. The Feds left the courtroom with their tails between their legs. The charges against me were dropped. Alex, who made an appearance in the courtroom, swore to Grandma that he had nothing to do with whole thing.

  The hell with Alex. I gritted my teeth. Wait until I was done with this one.

  I fought through a particularly violent bout of turbulence. The helicopter pitched and rolled. It plummeted a good thirty feet and so did my stomach. Good thing I had no civilian cargo. Otherwise, I’d need a barf cleanup crew, which I almost needed myself earlier today, when I found out what Summer had done.

  I’d walked out of the courthouse a free man, only to have to deal with the public relations fallout, the storm that had grounded most flights, and Spider’s news. He’d called me on my cell while I was on the way to the helipad. Dammit. I hadn’t liked any of what he had to say.

  “Found your guy, Sergio De Havilland,” he’d announced without preamble. “He’s having a good time in Rio.”

  “And?”

  “He’s in the import export business,” Spider said. “Some sort of scheme peddling luxury cars to the rich and famous. The odometers are reset along the way.”

  Confirmation that the guy was indeed a bag of shit. “Did you get close like I asked?”

  “Of course.” Spider’s voice sharpened with a mix of affront and amusement. “Our guys on the ground bought him a few drinks.”

  “And asked him some good questions I hope?”

  “It took some doing, but they got him talking about his ex.”

  “Go.”

  “According to De Havilland, Summer was a saint, the best woman ever.”

  “And the reason for the divorce?”

  “He was young and foolish, she was the one who got away, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

  Interesting. Summer didn’t want his name mentioned in her presence and yet he was all nice and lovey-dovey.

  “Anything else?”

  “Drugs,” Spider said. “He keeps it really hush-hush, especially from his father, but the little shithead hits cocaine like a snorting machine.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. Summer wasn’t likely to put up with that.

  “Our guys put him to bed and checked out the rest,” Spider said. “His accounts are maxed out and most of his efforts are centered on raising capital for his little adventure. Problem is, his mobster partners are likely to come after him if he doesn’t pay for the merchandise. He’s got a friend with international banking connections trying to throw him a lifeline. I’m no bean counter, but for what I saw, his business sense? Zero. Long story short, he needs money. He’s going down fast.”

  Red flags snapping everywhere. “Does he have any insurance out on Summer?”

  “None that we’ve found so far. I know what you’re gonna say, you want us to look some more.”

  “Right on.”

  “Hacking insurance companies all over the wide world takes time.”

  “It’s a thankless task, I know, but it’s got to be done,” I said. “While you’re at it, check for policies where th
e beneficiary is the stepmother. What’s the status on her?”

  “Nothing new,” Spider said. “Yes, she’s up to her eyeballs in credit card debt, but her liabilities aren’t out of whack with the average American. Everybody who we’d talked to in Miami said she was loud and shrewd, but not criminal in nature. We also canvassed work associates at Summer’s office.”

  “And?”

  “They fucking love her at Carrera and Associates. The people who work there think she’s awesome, the glue that keeps the place together. Carrera relies on her for everything and everybody we talked to had nothing but praise for the woman.”

  Why wasn’t I surprised?

  “And the sister?”

  “I have some interesting news about her.” Spider launched into the specifics.

  I’d listened carefully. The information he shared and subsequent communications put me in a precarious position. Even now, I hadn’t decided what to do about it. And then there was Ally’s astonishing story of what had gone down at Anya’s.

  Yes, I’d thought about Anya at the lake while I was “visiting” with the Feds, but I’d had no way to convey my thoughts to anyone useful. And even though I was grateful to Summer for her help, I would’ve much preferred to know she was safe under Robert’s supervision and not alone in the middle of the damn Alaskan wilderness.

  Jer and Ally had wanted me to wait until the morning to fetch Summer, but they didn’t know her like I did. She was trouble in the flesh and prone to disaster. Grandma actually forbade me to fly and the storm almost grounded me for good. The only reason I was able to take to the air is because my Firehawk was equipped with a state-of-the-art ice protection system that used automatic electrothermal heating to prevent ice from forming on the main and tail rotor blades. The hell with the storm. I needed to get to Summer.

  At last, the searchlights brushed against the outline of Anya’s cabin. I spotted no lights inside and no smoke coming out of the chimney. Why hadn’t Summer built a fire?