“That may be true, but I still want you to look.”
I walked through the apartment, but the place was such a wreck I couldn’t tell if anything was missing. The small collection of Mani’s possessions I had put aside to keep—photo albums, a packet of cards and letters, his journal—everything was ripped and shredded. I dug through the wreckage and unearthed my laptop. The screen was splintered, the housing was cracked, and the keyboard was a litter of broken letters and numbers.
Everything inside me went numb. A hot, dense fog filled my brain and mired my thoughts. “Scraps,” I said, shaking my head, unable to see much beyond my sudden tunnel vision. “I-I don’t know…”
Vanderleigh stepped over a pile of tattered fabric on his way to the door. “I’m going to let you start cleaning, but if you notice anything, please call me. Where will you be staying for the remainder of your visit?”
I opened my mouth to stutter something in reply, but Val beat me to it. “She’s staying with me.”
Vanderleigh nodded. “Miss Mundy,” he said, turning to let me have the full force of his best cop glower. “I advise you to finish your business here as soon as possible and then go home. I’m afraid things are too precarious for you to stay here any longer.”
I nodded dumbly, unable to fully process his warning.
“I’m watching out for her, Detective.” Val appeared at my side and put an arm around my shoulder. “We all are. We lost Mani, but we aren’t going to lose his sister.”
Vanderleigh frowned, obviously unconvinced, but he left us to our work.
My body moved on autopilot while the real me struggled to process all that happened, but then I found a picture of Mani and me, twelve years old, standing in the surf at Kure Beach. My arm was curled around Mani’s waist, and he had put his hand behind my head, giving me bunny ears. The photo lay in several pieces. I found more like that. I grabbed them in handfuls, desperate to keep them together, but the more I grabbed, the more I found, as if someone had taken all of Mani’s albums and boxes of loose photos and run them through a shredder.
I only realized I was crying when Val put his arms around me and pulled me to the couch, and into his lap. He held me and let my tears fall. “Bag them up,” he said. “We’ll work on matching the pieces together later. It’ll be fun. Like a jigsaw puzzle but with a picture you actually like at the end. We’ll invite everyone over and make it a game night.”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes. “I know they’re just some old photos, but I don’t have much of him left. They already took my brother. Couldn’t they let me keep his pictures?”
Val smiled, but any humor failed to reach his eyes. “They can have the pictures. I’m just glad they didn’t get you.”
“You think whoever it was wanted to do this to me?” I motioned to the shredded wreckage.
Val shuddered. “Let’s not think about it. Let’s finish this and be done with it. I don’t want you to have to come here anymore.”
For once, I didn’t argue. Val arranged for a local charity to pick up the bits of Mani’s furniture that had managed to survive the attack. The vandal had focused on personal items, especially my clothes. Kneeling in a pile of familiar fabric shreds, the remainder of my wardrobe and luggage, I covered my face and took several deep, calming breaths. “I need a shower,” I said. “I feel like filth on a stick, and now I have nothing to wear.”
Val leaned against the doorpost of Mani’s bedroom and stared at me, the sparkle in his blue eyes gone. “Thorin said you could get whatever you needed from the store.”
I pushed myself off the floor. “I guess I’ll have to take him up on that.”
Val wrinkled his nose. “Shopping?”
“You can watch me try stuff on.”
His face lit up, and the spark flickered back to life in his eyes. “Really?”
“No,” I said, smirking at him. It didn’t take much to revive his cheerfulness, and that was a good thing because I depended a lot on Val’s reliable congeniality. “Not really.”
We threw out the remaining garbage, and Val took me to Thorin’s store after a stop at a sandwich place for a late lunch. I grabbed cargo pants, knit yoga sets, a fleece pullover, a couple of T-shirts, and a jacket. While I tried things on, Val tracked down hiking boots and a pair of Mary Jane Keens in my size. The store sold sports bras and moisture-wicking underwear for the serious athlete types. I was more of a Hanes kind of girl, but beggars and choosers and blah, blah, blah.
At Val’s apartment, I showered, shaved, brushed my teeth, and slipped into a pair of yoga pants and a hoodie similar to a set I had lost to the vandal.
“You smell like my soap,” Val said when I plopped beside him on the couch. He had the television on and an outdoor magazine in his lap open to an article about rock climbing. “That’s kind of sexy.”
“Is that all you think about?” I said.
“Research shows the average male my age thinks about sex once every seven seconds.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s amazing you manage to get anything accomplished.”
Val watched me untangle the knots in my wet hair until his gaze burned hot on my neck and I called him out on it. “Quit looking at me like that.”
“Am I making you nervous?”
“A little bit, yeah.” I looked at his face, and the heat in his eyes startled me.
“The only reason you feel that way is because you won’t admit what’s between us.”
I started to speak but stopped, cleared my throat, and started again. “What is between us?”
One of his auburn eyebrows arched. “You tell me. I haven’t hidden my feelings.”
“Wanting to get in my pants is more of an impulse than an emotion.”
Val threw back his head and laughed. “God, you always know how to get under my skin.” His hand went to my neck, and his thumb stroked my jaw. I leaned into his touch. “Ah,” he said. “Is that an impulse or an emotion?”
“It’s complicated.”
“That’s not what I asked.” His gaze burned into mine, and a serious focus hardened the lines on his face. He wanted an answer, and maybe he deserved one, but I don’t know was no answer. Not one that would satisfy him. I’m scared, was the truest answer, but not one I wanted to admit. It would bring up more difficult questions, such as: why didn’t I trust him? Then I would have to tell Val I suspected him of hiding something. But was I ready for that confrontation and the damage it might cause if I was wrong?
My cell phone rang and jolted us out of the moment. Val’s eyes drifted to my phone. “That’s the number from the store,” he said.
I picked up the phone and considered ignoring it, but curiosity won out. “Hey, girlfriend,” Skyla said when I answered. “Hugh said you and Val were in here ringing up a load of clothes. He told me what happened at Mani’s place. Why didn’t you call me?”
“There honestly hasn’t been time. I was cleaning all day.”
“And smooching around with Val.”
Skyla had a knack for rattling my chains. “So what if I was?”
“Girlfriend, Val’s name is spelled P-L-A-Y-E-R.”
“I think that’s too many letters,” I said. Val watched me. A suspicious gaze narrowed his eyes.
“Is he there with you right now?”
“Yup.” I stood and moved away from Val.
“Look, I want to talk to you, not over the phone. Can you meet me at Pits in a little while?”
I looked at Val again. He raised his eyebrows, asking a silent question. “Uh,” I said.
“Can you ditch him?”
“That could be difficult.”
“Shit,” Skyla said in a brusque way. “Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to call everybody who’s in town and tell them to meet at Pits like one of our regular get-togethers. While all the guys are distracted, we’ll slip out for a little while.”
“Okay, when do you want to meet?”
“I have to close the store, so later, after nine. He
re comes a customer. Gotta run.”
I told Val about Skyla wanting to meet at The Pits. Val’s nostrils flared. “So, she just wants to hang out, grab some beers?” He sounded skeptical.
“Yes.” I said, pacing the room. I stopped at the patio door and, on a whim, yanked it open. Alaska was known as the land of the midnight sun, but that happened in high summer. Now it was nearly autumn, but even then the sun still wouldn’t set until almost nine o’clock.
“Solina?” Val watched me from the doorway. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Something’s bothering you.”
I chuckled. “Well, yeah.”
“I mean besides the obvious.”
I knew what Skyla wanted to talk about. Question was, did I want to tell anyone else? Val and Thorin knew more about Hati and Skoll than they’d told the police, but Skyla didn’t want to involve them. They obviously didn’t trust each other, leaving me squeezed in the middle.
Skyla could have closed her eyes, turned her back, and pretended not to see, but she didn’t. She risked herself for my brother while the police and our own parents sat idly by. Skyla had earned my trust, and if she wanted to keep everyone else out of our business, then I wouldn’t contradict her.
“Besides the obvious?” I said. “Is my brother’s unsolved murder and the unwarranted vandalism of his apartment not enough? Is the fact you and Thorin basically handed me my own ass last night not enough?”
Val stepped closer and tucked a loose strand of damp hair behind my ear. “You’re still holding that against me?”
“Maybe,” I said, but I took the edge off by giving him a smile.
“Are you going to tell me what you and Skyla are up to?”
“Who says we’re up to anything?”
“Don’t play dumb, Solina. It doesn’t suit you.”
I raised my hand to stop him. “We’re honestly not up to anything.” I left the “yet” part silent.
Val went inside when I told him I wanted to call my mom and dad and talk to them in private. I didn’t tell my parents about all the recent developments, but I let them know I had finished Mani’s apartment. I had another bomb to drop on them, though, and it took me digging to the deepest wellspring of my courage to do it. I pictured Mani and all the times he had stood up to our parents, and I kept that image in the forefront of my thoughts.
“You’re coming home day after tomorrow, right?” my dad asked.
“Um… about that. There are a few more loose ends I need to tie up. I’ll need a few more days. I’m going to reschedule my return flight.” Dangerous or not, it was too soon to go home. There were too many questions still unanswered, still too many leads to follow.
Mom picked up a phone in another room and joined the conversation. “We need you here, honey. You can’t put off your responsibilities forever.”
“I’m not putting them off, Mother.” They depended on me, and it wasn’t fair to resent them for it. I made my bed long ago when I decided not to go to college, and I had been content to lie in it. This trip had changed things, though. No, Mani’s death had changed things. This was the fallout from that.
My parents protested several more times and pleaded for my return, but their arguments were halfhearted. It was easy to make them out to be cold and unfeeling, but that was unfair. Everyone grieved differently. They had each other to lean on. I had always relied on Mani for such things, but now he was gone, and they seemed to understand that. I used vague promises to put them off a while longer, told them I loved them, and ended the call. I did love them, but we lived on different planes of existence. Theirs was located somewhere warm, fluffy, and slightly medicated.
Val hid in his room for a while, but near time to leave he came out wearing clean jeans and a blue button-down that matched his eyes. He rolled back the cuffs, showing off the fine tone of his forearms.
Val smirked. “Hot stuff, huh?”
“Yes, Val.” I rolled my eyes. “Very hot.” I looked at my yoga ensemble and frowned. “Maybe I should go to Anchorage. Thorin’s store is nice, but…”
“You’ll be better dressed than most of the women in there,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”
I shrugged. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Skyla met me outside after Val accepted a challenge from another bar patron for a round of cricket on the dartboards.
“So, what’s up?” I asked. A breeze blew from the bay, and I shivered. I drew my hood over my hair.
“What do we know so far?” Skyla began by holding up one finger. “Adam Skoll has a nasty temper and a taste for blood, literally.” She raised a second finger. “He runs around with Harold Hati, who also has a notorious temper.” Finger number three. “They both went missing just before Mani’s murder.” Finger four. “Mani’s killer has a very similar modus operandi to the person who killed the guy in the parking lot of that bar.”
“Adam Skoll,” I said.
Skyla nodded. “Adam Skoll.” She flicked her thumb, holding out all five fingers. “We go around asking about him, and the next thing you know, Mani’s apartment gets trashed—looking for you? Warning or threat? Who knows? But this all leads me to a conclusion as to the likely whereabouts of Skoll and probably Hati, too.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Not on a fishing trawler. I think they’re back in town.”
“That’s not a lot of help.”
“It’s better than wasting our time harassing commercial fishermen.”
“But, whoever broke into Mani’s apartment did it while I was with you at that bar. No way could word have traveled that quickly. Maybe it was a coincidence.”
“Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “Don’t go sticking your head in the sand, girl. If Skoll and Hati are working together, then that’s two sets of eyes in two places.”
I squeaked. “You think they’re watching us?”
Skyla jerked my arm. “Shhh! Keep your voice down.”
“Sorry,” I whispered. “But you’re giving me the willies.”
“Wouldn’t you be watching us if you were them?”
I played that through again to make sure I understood her meaning. “Maybe. I guess so.”
“Mundy, it makes sense.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
Skyla blew a breath between her lips so they sputtered together. “I don’t know. That’s why we need to talk. I’m booked for a trip the day after tomorrow. I’ll be gone three days, and you’ll be on your own.”
“On my own? I’ve got Val looking out for me whether I want it or not.”
“No,” she said. Her forehead wrinkled as her brows drew down. “Didn’t he tell you he was going backpacking for a week? We’re leaving on the same day.”
“What?” I spun on my heel, ready to go inside and confront Val about this important omission of facts. “That son of a—”
“Wait!” Skyla snatched my wrist and tugged me away from the entrance. “Let’s finish our business before you storm back in there in a snit.”
“Fine,” I said. “What’s your suggestion?”
Skyla tapped her lip, then she stopped, finger frozen in mid-tap. “You’re coming kayaking with me.”
“I am?” My stomach flipped over. I ran cross-country in high school, sometimes went hiking with Mani, and swam in the neighborhood pool in the summer, but I never much went in for the “granola” sports like climbing and paddling. When I had told her I always wanted to try kayaking, I was mostly being friendly.
“Sure. I’ll give you a quick lesson tomorrow, out here in the bay. A trip like this will be good for you. It will take you off the radar for a little while and give us a chance to figure out what to do next.”
“You sure we shouldn’t call the police?”
“You think you haven’t pissed Mani’s killer off enough already?”
But the police had guns, and bulletproof vests, and backup. “No, Skyla.” I sighed. “I’m probably just getting started.”
/> In the lights outside the bar, Skyla’s teeth gleamed when she smiled. “That’s my girl.”
Skyla and I went back into The Pits. She turned to the bar and ordered a beer, and I went to search for Val. I found him playing darts and winning. Trouncing. Val hit spot-on, but when he missed, he grinned like the Cheshire Cat, as if he missed on purpose. He was a shyster, but a charming one, and he knew it. Val caught my eye and winked. I sniffed and turned away.
“He makes me crazy,” I said, leaning on the bar beside Skyla.
“Guys do that. It’s why I tend to stay away from them.”
“But not Mani?”
“Mani drove me insane above all others. That’s how I knew I loved him.”
“I do not love Val Wotan.”
Skyla scoffed. “Well, he’s definitely got the hots for you.”
Val pushed his way through the crowd to my side, blatantly ignoring Skyla. “Solina, you ready to head home?”
“What, no jukebox dancing?” I said.
Val flicked a glance at the old record player. “Well, we could—”
I cut him off. “I was joking.”
Val tugged my hand and pulled me away from the bar. “You’re not happy with me—for what exact reason, I’m not sure—but if we can get out of here, I’d be glad for you to tell me all about it.”
I stepped closer and smiled my sweetest fake smile. “Oh, we’re getting out of here all right. I’m going on Skyla’s kayaking trip, and you’re going backpacking for a week, which you neglected to tell me when you were demanding I had to come stay with you.”
Val’s face flushed as he ushered me toward the exit. “You needed to be safe last night. I needed to know you were okay. I was going to figure out something for when I was gone.”
“I don’t take well to being manipulated, Val.”
The emotions on Val’s face ran the gamut from annoyance, to hurt, to indignation. “You’ll be putting Skyla at risk, too, remember?”
“That excuse isn’t working for me anymore. Besides, the point of this trip is to get away from the trouble for a few days. Lie low, you know?”
Midnight Burning Page 9