Midnight Sun

by Rachel Grant

  Sienna patted the air mattress she’d set up in the backyard of her Gig Harbor home and said, “Come to bed, Rhys.” They’d chosen her house tonight over Rhys’s because the city lights of Seattle would hide most of the meteor shower, which was a shame because, while it was early for the Perseids, it was a clear, moonless night, prefect for stargazing. And Sienna had another sexual fantasy she wanted to fulfill.

  He smiled at her over the top of some sort of legal brief. “Almost done.” In the weeks they’d been together, they spent far more nights at Rhys’s house in Seattle due to his longer work hours, but this weekend, she’d lured him out to the wilds of Gig Harbor for some fantasy fulfillment. Eventually, Sienna would probably move in with Rhys in Seattle, but for now, with her sister gone for an indefinite period of time, she needed to hold down the fort, so they juggled the commute.

  She settled inside the double sleeping bag then stripped off her clothes, planning to surprise him when he climbed in. She’d always wanted to make love outside, under a canopy of shooting stars.

  While Rhys finished working, she stared up at the clear night sky. Later tonight, midnight Itqaklut time, the tribe would hold a ceremony to honor Jana, the shaman who’d shared his mask with her so she could complete her work, and the orca that’d transported both their souls to rest.

  The night after the explosion on the boat, Chuck had had a dream. He dreamed about a shaman in ancient times, whose spirit inhabited his ritual orca-motif mask because his work in this realm wasn’t yet complete. Centuries later, the mask came to the attention of the Itqaklut collections manager, who knew it was special. One day, she returned to her life’s work—the gathering of her tribe’s heritage—and found men full of hate had desecrated the sacred collection. Those men killed her, but she died protecting the shaman’s mask. The shaman let the woman’s soul share his mask. But it wasn’t her mask, so it was difficult for her to remain on this side. She had no bond with the object to tie her down. But she did have unfinished business.

  Trapped in a synthetic box—plastic, slippery, and suffocating—there was nothing the soul could do. Finally, a woman opened the box. This woman could hear the pleas of the desperate soul, and the spirit clinging to the mask set about learning the woman’s emotions, to determine how to get her to return the mask home, where her work could be completed.

  And so the mask brought people together—people with the skills needed to solve the heretofore unknown murder of the woman and the murder of the museum curator, all while preventing even more deaths. The tribe’s entire cultural heritage was in danger, and the mask spirit ensured a man with the proper skills would save everything. Then, in the final moment, when the mask would have burned, the ancient shaman pushed the spirit of the woman safely to the other side. Her work was done.

  The shaman’s work was done as well, and the mask was delivered to the sea, taken by the orca, which honored his spirit.

  Chuck had woken up refreshed and exuberant, knowing deep in his soul he had the full story and that his beloved wife had passed safely to the other side, carrying his love in her heart. After the dream, he’d been healthier, robust again, and it appeared he wouldn’t need dialysis in the future. Chuck had shared what he could of the story with the tribe, and they’d begun to plan tonight’s ceremony.

  Rhys and Sienna had been invited to participate, but they’d declined. This was a ceremony for the tribe, to close the spiritual wound opened by the Pelligrews. Sienna and Rhys had wounds of their own, but they were different from those felt by the tribe.

  For the two of them, their healing came from being together and living up to the promises they’d made in Itqaklut.

  The first meteorites began to streak across the sky when Rhys joined her in the sleeping bag. He grinned when he discovered she was naked. They made love under a sky full of shooting stars, and Sienna felt warm and loved.

  So strange to think that the mask that had started by giving her nothing but grief had later ended up introducing her to her greatest joy.

  Rhys held her as they watched light flash across the sky, and slowly, she drifted off to sleep. Sometime later, Rhys nudged her awake. “Sweetheart, wake up. I think… I think Jana is saying thanks and good-bye.”

  Her eyes fluttered open, too groggy to see or understand.

  “It’s midnight in Itqaklut. The ceremony has started. And look up at the sky. Jana is thanking you.”

  The sky was a blur, but it didn’t look like the shooting stars were spelling words, let alone ones for her. She rubbed at her eyes and opened them again. When she finally managed to focus, she gasped. She’d seen the aurora borealis twice from Washington, but neither time had been anything like the play of colors that danced across the sky now. It was a symphony of light. Green, red, violet, and blue hues all flowed together. But on the edge of the red was a shade Sienna knew as well as her name—because it was her name—burnt sienna—a warm earthy orange in the celestial sky.

  Sienna smiled and whispered, “You’re welcome, Jana.” Then she added, “And thank you for Rhys. I don’t know if you intended for it to be permanent or not, but I’m keeping him.”

  Author’s Note

  In October 2013, a large collection of artifacts that had been stored at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum for nearly sixty years was returned to the Suquamish Tribe. The artifacts had been excavated from the Old Man House site in Kitsap County, which was the winter village for the Suquamish Tribe and home of Chief Sealth, also known as Chief Seattle. Transported over Puget Sound by ferry, the artifacts were escorted by a very rare and large pod of orcas. Nearly three dozen orcas surrounded the ferry as it entered Eagle Harbor at Bainbridge Island.

  Tribal members were on the ferry to witness the remarkable event, and many believe there is a spiritual tie between the orcas and the tribe. In June of 2014, the tribe held a ceremony to honor the killer whales who led the treasures of Old Man House back to Suquamish.

  You can read about the orca escort in this Seattle Times article, or watch this King 5 news segment, which describes the significance of the artifacts to the tribe’s cultural heritage and includes footage of the orcas.

  Thank you for reading Midnight Sun! I hope you enjoyed it! If you’d like to know when my next book is available, you can sign up for my new release e-mail list on my website at www.Rachel-Grant.net. You can also follow me on Twitter at @RachelSGrant or like my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/RachelGrantAuthor. I’m also on Goodreads at www.goodreads.com/RachelGrantAuthor, where you can see what I’m currently reading.

  Books By Rachel Grant

  Evidence Series

  Concrete Evidence (#1)

  Body of Evidence (#2)

  Withholding Evidence (#3)

  Incriminating Evidence (#4)

  Grave Danger

  Midnight Sun

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to the amazing Robin Perini for inviting me to be a part of the Twelve Shades of Midnight anthology, which gave me an excuse to start this new series and dabble in the paranormal.

  Thank you to the other fabulous authors in the anthology for participating in this fun project and the wonderful support and camaraderie that developed as we worked out the details.

  Thank you to Jenn Stark for the online plotting sessions and for critiquing this even when you were under deadline. I’m forever grateful! Thank you to Darcy Burke for her always spot-on critiques.

  Thank you to my editor, Linda Ingmanson, for helping me make this book shine.

  Thank you, as always, to my husband, David Grant, for sharing his knowledge about Iñupiat prehistory, archaeology, artifacts, daylight fireworks, fishing boats, and C-4 explosives, and for helping me find the information I needed on those subjects and more when my question couldn’t be answered with an Internet search. I love you.

  Incriminating Evidence

  Chapter One

  Tanana Valley State Forest, Alaska

  September

  It was a show tunes ki
nd of afternoon, which was unusual for Isabel, but the words to the old songs came to her effortlessly as she walked downslope, deep in the Tanana Valley State Forest. Loud, full-voiced singing was necessary to warn bears she was hiking in this remote Alaskan wilderness and was intended to scare the creatures away. Given her off-key voice, singing pretty much guaranteed humans would stay away as well. A decided bonus.

  Although, now that she was on day four of the timber sale survey, she was ready to be done. She’d had enough solitude this week and wouldn’t mind meeting up with Nicole for a beer at the Tamarack Roadhouse. It was getting late, already after five p.m., and she was still a two-hour hike from her truck, but her extra-long lunch excursion put her behind schedule and she had one more parcel to inspect before she’d be done with the archaeological survey. It was worth the long day to avoid hiking all the way back here tomorrow.

  Most of this week’s survey soundtrack had been sad songs, but yesterday had been Vincent’s birthday, so her melancholy was understandable. Then suddenly, this afternoon Rodgers and Hammerstein popped into her head. She’d started with Oklahoma!, continued with The Sound of Music, and now she’d moved on to Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, specifically, “I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General.”

  She’d feel ridiculous singing at the top of her lungs, except after months of working in Alaska, she’d grown used to the need to make noise while conducting pedestrian survey. She’d found straight-up talking to herself disconcerting, so she’d taken to singing. Now it was second nature. She barely even heard her own voice as she studied the ground for telltale signs of prehistoric human activity.

  She paused, taking a deep breath, preparing for the next rapid verse, when she heard a branch crack, followed by a grunt.

  Not the grunt of an animal, but one of a human. In pain?

  She stopped. With her head cocked toward the wind, she listened. Again she heard a sound. Faint. Human. Definitely not happy.

  She scanned the woods. The underbrush was thick and mosquitoes vicious. Whenever she stopped walking, they swarmed. She fought the urge to wave her arms to shoo them away so she could listen.

  But all she heard was wind. Birds. Buzzing mosquitoes as the bloodsucking females feasted on her cheeks and arms. Normal forest sounds.

  She slapped away the biters. Maybe she’d heard a wolverine. Their grunts could easily be mistaken for human. Shaking off the foolish notion she’d cross paths with another person out here on the edge of the bush, she resumed walking and singing, but the happy beat was lost. Now she sang solely to ward off bears. She scanned the ground as she walked, looking for signs of prehistoric occupation or use. Her job was to find archaeological sites that would be destroyed by the coming timber harvest. That was what she was here for. She needed to focus on what paid the bills.

  The ground sloped at a grade above fifteen percent. Poor conditions for finding a site, because the ground was too steep for occupation. If there were a site in the vicinity, she’d find it at the base of the slope. She continued in that direction, determined to do a good job for her employer, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

  Branches snapped below her, to the right.

  She stopped signing midword.

  Any number of fauna could have triggered it. She hadn’t seen any scat, at least nothing fresh and therefore worrisome, for the last half mile. But still, she dropped a hand to the grip of her pistol while the other grabbed the bear spray. Of the two, the pistol was the least effective, but the noises had her on edge. While a pistol wasn’t good defense against a bear, it was excellent for dealing with humans.

  These woods, remote, abundant with resources, yet marginally accessible due to logging roads, could be a gateway to the bush for people on the run. Maybe she’d been foolish to brush off the noise as a wolverine.

  Another sound carried on the breeze, and she ducked behind a tree to listen and wait. In her gut, she knew she wasn’t about to face down a bear. She held the gun in front of her, pointed upward, clasped between both hands like a prayer. Her heart pounded, but she had no real understanding of why. This just didn’t feel right.

  She couldn’t stay behind a tree gripping a gun forever and eased out from her feeble hiding spot. Slowly, silently, she crept down the hillside toward whatever—or whoever—had made the sounds.

  She spotted him immediately. Sunlight filtered between the leaves, highlighting the red splatter of blood that covered the man’s face. He lay still. Unconscious or dead?

  She’d heard of archaeologists finding bodies on survey before, but the accounts always had the earmark of urban myths—two people removed from the teller of the tale. She’d never met anyone who’d actually encountered a corpse themselves. She supposed she’d considered how scary such a find would be, but hadn’t really thought beyond that, because really, it just didn’t happen.

  It was like planning for a head-on collision. She’d been certain that sort of thing would never happen to her. Car accidents, kidnappings, tornados, and random bodies in the woods were all on the list of things that happened to other people.

  And yet here she was. Adrenaline flooded, frozen with shock, and facing a body in the deep, bear-infested woods.

  Her past speculation had been wrong. It wasn’t scary; it was utterly terrifying. Worse than facing down a bear, a pair of rattlesnakes, and a brown recluse all at the same time. Nature, she could handle. This wasn’t nature.

  This was murder.

  She glanced left and right. She would never hear anyone approaching over the roar of her racing pulse. She stepped toward the man, slowly. Gun out. Pointed at the body.

  As she neared, she caught the slightest rise of his chest. He was alive.

  Not murder, then. Attempted murder? Assault?

  His face was swollen. He’d taken several blows in addition to the gash on his temple that bled profusely. She dropped to her knees at his side. She had no choice but to holster the pistol to check his vital signs.

  His pulse was solid even though his breathing was shallow. It was likely a blessing that he was unconscious, because if he were awake she’d bet his head would hurt like a sonofabitch.

  What to do? Whoever had done this to him could return. But if she left him here, unconscious, vulnerable, he could die. No. Would die. There were too many scavengers and predators in the area to believe he could survive, bleeding, unconscious, and alone.

  But then, he could be the villain in this. Drug dealer. Poacher. Criminal on the run. This could be his just reward. She searched his pockets for a wallet with ID, but came up empty. His clothing didn’t argue for poacher. His clothing—business casual slacks and a blood-saturated button-down shirt—didn’t belong in these woods at all.

  She checked his mouth, looking for rotting teeth, signs of drug use, anything that would indicate she had something to fear from helping him. But his teeth’s perfect alignment could only be attributed to orthodontia. Bright white and nary a silver filling.

  She opened his shirt, searching for other causes for his blood-soaked clothing besides the gash on his temple. All she found was hard muscle. Whoever this man was, he took good care of himself.

  Given his build, in spite of his city clothes, he could be a Raptor operative who’d strayed from the compound. That thought had her considering leaving him. The bears and wolves could have him. Or whoever had done this to him could come back and finish the job.

  She shook her head, knowing her thoughts were unfair. Not all the operatives on the Raptor compound were rotten. She got along with most of them and was even drinking buddies with Nicole. But she knew without a doubt a few operatives were up to no good, and she had a serious problem with their boss. But then, it was hard to have kind feelings for the person who might have covered up her brother’s murder, especially when yesterday would have been that brother’s thirty-fourth birthday.

  She had to assume, given this guy’s condition, he could be one of the operatives involved in dirty deals. The fact
that she didn’t recognize him only made him more suspicious.

  She stood and slowly turned in a circle, scanning the woods. What should she do?

  It was a five-mile hike—at least half of that uphill—to her truck. No way could she carry an unconscious man that far. Hell, there was no way she could carry him thirty feet.

  She pulled out her first aid kit and dropped to his side again. She’d tend the head wound while she decided what to do. Using precious water from her water bottle, she dampened a pack towel and cleaned the gash on his temple. Given the blood, bruises, and welts, she’d have trouble recognizing him even if he were a regular at the Roadhouse, but she was fairly certain she’d never seen him in town, nor was he one of the operatives she’d met when she’d interrupted the live-fire training exercise and been arrested.

  Her hands shook as she cleaned the gash, and she paused to steady her breathing and get the trembling under control. She scanned the woods, wondering if this man’s attackers lurked nearby. Every instinct said to flee, but she couldn’t abandon him.

  He couldn’t be a soldier attending a Raptor training, because after months of effort, she’d successfully gotten the government to shut down the compound’s military training program while they investigated the company’s safety measures. The weekly influx of soldiers had halted two months ago. But still, to be certain, she checked for dog tags and confirmed he wasn’t wearing any.

  Breathing under control, she swabbed his cut with alcohol again and applied antibiotic ointment. She closed the gash with three butterfly bandages.

  Unless he had internal injuries she wasn’t aware of, he’d probably be okay—as long as he wasn’t left to die unconscious and alone.