by Rachel Grant
Given her history with Raptor, she was guilty until proven innocent.
Alec had said his plane landed at eleven. She’d found him after five. During that whole period of time, she’d been in the woods by herself, out of reach by cell phone. No alibi. Nothing. Her future hinged on whether or not the man she’d stupidly declared her own private war on suddenly remembered what had happened to him. Except, given that private war and the blow to the head he’d taken, he could just as well “remember” her attacking him. Head-trauma injuries and memory were tricky things. She’d researched that enough in the months since Vin’s death.
Officer Paul Westover stepped into the outer room of the two-cell block. “It’s your lucky day, Isabel. I just received notice from the court in Fairbanks that you made bond.”
“Really? Jenna found someone?”
The officer shrugged. “I don’t know. I just have the bond receipt, which means I can release you.”
He unlocked the cell, and she followed him into the room where she’d been photographed and fingerprinted.
Joyce Bowman, the post administrator, smiled at her tentatively. “If you want, you can go out the back door, sugar. I think every gossip in town has stopped in to say hi today, wondering who we had in custody for abducting Alec Ravissant.” Joyce’s Texas drawl sounded out of place in Tamarack, but then, Isabel had learned not long after moving here that most people were from somewhere else. Only about half the town’s three-hundred-plus residents were actually from the area. Others were called here, tourists who came to Alaska for a week, then returned a month later, almost in a daze, not quite understanding their rash decision to move, yet knowing they’d at last found home.
Joyce was one of those.
Having come to Alaska for an entirely different reason, Isabel didn’t quite understand. She usually got the itch to move after living in a new place for eight months. Unless she was in school and required to stay, she rarely lasted a full year at one address. There was much she loved about Alaska—and even Tamarack in particular—but she’d been here nearly ten months. If it weren’t for her quest to prove Vin had been murdered, she’d probably already be gone.
She cleared her throat. “You didn’t mention me?”
“I told them the truth. The FBI is investigating Alec Ravissant’s disappearance, and we don’t have anyone in lockup charged with anything related to his abduction.”
She winked at Isabel, who felt both relieved and grateful. If her boss learned about her arrest from the news, the man would flip. He’d lectured her about Raptor often enough. If he guessed she’d visited Raptor property during her solo surveys in the area—including yesterday—it wouldn’t matter that she’d done it during her lunch breaks, she’d be fired.
“Wait here, sugar. I’ll get your backpack.” A moment later, Joyce returned with Isabel’s pack and about three dozen zipper-top bags containing everything that had been inside. “Because you have pending charges, we have to keep the gun and bear spray. But this is the rest of it. Just sign the bottom of the inventory form, and you’ll be all set.”
Isabel scanned the list. The loss of the gun was annoying but understandable. Besides, she had a shotgun and more bear spray in her cabin. She was relieved to see her special Rite in the Rain notebook in a sealed bag. That notebook held enough incriminating evidence to nail her on the restraining order violation, making her very glad she used UTM coordinates in her notes instead of wordy descriptions of the locations she’d visited.
She frowned, noticing one important item not on the inventory, and paused before signing her name. “Where’s my cell phone? You can’t confiscate that, can you?”
“No.”
“Then why isn’t it here?”
“It wasn’t in the pack.” Joyce tapped the list. “This is everything that was inside.”
Isabel didn’t want to accuse the woman of stealing a smartphone, but where could it be? Then her eyes widened as she remembered. She’d left it by the stream. She’d set it down when she heard a noise in the woods.
But later, she’d gone back to the stream to get Alec more water. If her phone had been there, she’d have seen it.
Chapter Five
Officer Westover wasn’t impressed with Isabel’s theory that whoever had assaulted Alec might have taken her phone. “Why would they take your phone? And if they’d left him for dead as you say they did, then once they realized he was still alive, why not go after you in the cabin?”
She shrugged, irritated the man didn’t recognize this for the startling clue that it might be. “Maybe because I had a gun and bear spray and was on alert?” She looked down at the water bottle, remembering the feel of it in her hands as she sat by the stream yesterday. “I heard a noise and grabbed the spray immediately.”
“I’d add it to your statement, Isabel, but you refused to make a statement.” Westover gave her a nasty grin. He’d been pissed she actually understood what “the right to remain silent” meant, because this was likely the biggest crime he’d ever get to investigate—since he’d flat-out refused to investigate her brother’s murder, following the company line and saying it was an accident—and he was no doubt bummed he’d be out of the loop of the FBI investigation.
As if the kidnapping and attempted murder of a US Senate candidate who was also the wealthy CEO of a mercenary organization would be investigated by Tamarack’s finest. And by finest, she meant only police officer.
She crammed all fifteen thousand plastic bags Joyce had separated her stuff into inside the backpack and headed for the back door of the post, bracing herself for a long walk. She’d left her truck deep in the woods two miles from town, but according to Westover, it had been impounded and would be searched for evidence that she’d kidnapped Alec.
Her cabin was five miles from Tamarack, on a lonely, ten-acre parcel that bordered the Raptor compound on one side and the state forest on the other. She was exhausted, but dammit, she had no other way to get home. She couldn’t exactly call Nicole and ask her for a ride. Asking Raptor’s compound director for a ride home from jail fell in the same category as asking for bail money.
So she’d walk, even though it meant five miles—she glanced out the window—in the rain, after an exhausting twenty-four hours in which she’d been assaulted, arrested, and had very little sleep.
Joyce patted her on the back as she unbolted the rear door. “If you wait at the Roadhouse, I can give you a ride when I clock out in another hour.”
She glanced out at the rain again, considering the offer. An hour at the Tamarack Roadhouse. A beer sounded good right now, but she was a wreck. She hadn’t showered since yesterday morning and had slept in a rotting cabin. She was tired to her bones, and hanging out in the Roadhouse was difficult for her on a normal night. She was fine once she settled in; it was that first ten minutes she struggled with, entering the room and the sudden quiet that inevitably greeted her—the crazy woman who wants to destroy the biggest employer in town has arrived—before conversation resumed. Her basic need to be among people usually forced her to face that initial discomfort, and in spite of her crusade, she’d made friends who made her forays into public enjoyable. Worth the anxiety and risk.
But tonight would be worse than usual. She’d bet she was on everyone’s shortlist of people most likely to abduct Alec Ravissant. Showing up grubby from the field would only confirm their beliefs.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll walk.”
“But sugar, you don’t have bear spray or ana’thing. Given where your cabin is, that’s dangerous.”
Isabel grimaced. “In all my months of hiking the forest, the first time I ever needed the bear spray was last night, when Alec Ravissant tried to strangle me. I’ll be fine.”
“Call me when you get home?”
She shrugged. “No phone.” But she was touched. She’d never been particularly close to Joyce, but then, she wasn’t particularly close to anyone. It was surprising and rather sweet to know the woman considered her a friend,
that she would worry about her.
She opened the back door just as the sky opened up, and the light rain turned into a downpour. Five miles in a downpour. Not even Isabel was up for that tonight.
Behind her, Joyce said, “Go to the Roadhouse. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
On impulse, Isabel turned and hugged the woman, surprising them both. She wasn’t a hugger, and pretty much everyone in town knew it.
At least the rain washed some of the forest grime from her skin as she darted down the alley behind the jail to the back door of the Roadhouse. She pounded on the service entrance—it was raining too hard to waste time walking around to the front—and was relieved when Jenna opened the door.
“Isabel!” she said, ushering her in out of the rain. “How did you make bail?”
She stepped inside, shivering, and dripping enough water to form a pond in the commercial kitchen. “I thought you…?”
“No. I called a few friends in Fairbanks, but no one answered. Maybe one of them got my message in time?” Jenna handed her a stack of kitchen rags. “I’ve got an order up. Get dried off and head into the taproom. I’ll bring you some salmon chowder.”
She left Isabel to load a tray and deliver it, while Isabel blotted rainwater from her clothes and hair. Finally marginally decent, she headed for the front of the house. Soup sounded like the greatest, most wonderful food on the planet, and the owner’s salmon chowder was her favorite.
Entering the taproom from the back, she was halfway to a table before the usual and accustomed hush fell. First a logger seated at the bar saw her, then he tapped the shoulder of his friend, and it snowballed from there. Tonight’s hush was worse than usual, as half of Falcon team sat at a table in the middle of the bar—the same men who’d been in the cabin this morning—and gazes darted from Isabel to the team and back, as if everyone expected a scene.
She dropped into a chair at a table on the edge of the room, catching Brad Fraser’s gaze as she did so. She glared at him.
He stood and crossed the room to her, a beer in his hand and an apologetic smile on his handsome face.
“Go away, Brad. I have nothing to say to you.”
He pulled out a chair and sat down. “Tough. I’ve got lots to say to you.”
Months ago, she’d considered getting involved with an operative to glean information, but the very idea had made her queasy, so she’d dropped the plan. But if she’d gone through with it, Brad would have been on her shortlist of candidates. He’d been in the Army, and like most of Falcon, he’d served on one Special Forces team or another. Green Berets, if she remembered correctly. He was tall—at least six-two, she guessed—fit, and handsome. The only operative who might be better looking was Ted Godfrey, but Godfrey wasn’t nearly as friendly as Brad, and even more important than his looks and background, she’d liked Brad. Which made his betrayal this morning even worse.
“I had to tell Rav you were on Raptor land. I didn’t know how you were involved with his disappearance, and if I didn’t tell him then, my ass would’ve been fired. And I like you, Isabel, but not enough to lose my job.”
“I spent several hours in jail, Brad.” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “After I saved your boss’s life.”
“You’re out now—”
Another hush fell over the crowded taproom. Isabel glanced up to see Alec Ravissant in the Roadhouse doorway.
Crap. She knew she should have walked home, screw the rain.
Isabel was in the Roadhouse, just as the woman at the jail had said she’d be. Alec had intended to make a beeline for her table, but between the glare she cast him, and the fact that she was seated with the leader of Falcon team, he decided to grab a table and bide his time. He needed to talk to Isabel and didn’t want an audience.
He was in the midst of ordering a beer when his compound director appeared next to the chair opposite him. “A beer, Rav? Really?” Nicole took off her damp coat and draped it over the seat, then dropped into it. “I haven’t laid eyes on you since you returned from the land of the lost, and I find you here.” Nicole glanced at the waitress, “Jenna, I’ll have a whiskey sour, please.”
Alec noted the waitress’s name. No wonder Isabel had been so smooth with the first name. In filling out the paperwork to pay her bail, he’d noticed Hayes was her middle name. The real Jenna left to fill their orders, and he faced his director, to whom he did owe an explanation, as he’d purposefully avoided her when he was at the compound earlier. He’d wanted to deal with Isabel before diving into the massive workload that had only gotten worse thanks to his unscheduled campout with Isabel. No doubt Nicole had followed him into town.
“I’m tired and hungry, and the last day and a half have been brutal.” He grimaced. Given his aches and pains, brutal was likely an apt description of his missing hours. “I decided to stop for a bite because I hear they have good burgers here.”
“Bullshit. The burgers are lousy. It’s the chowder that’s good.” Her wide, toothy grin always reminded Alec of Julia Roberts’s megabucks smile. “And Joyce told me you followed Isabel here.”
He shrugged and let out a small laugh. Small towns. So much for keeping secrets. “You went to the jail?”
“I was going to bail her out.”
“Ballsy move, considering what she was arrested for.” The words were said with admiration, not judgment. Nicole was the highest-ranking woman in Raptor and earned the position by being tough as hell. Tall, blond, and striking, there was much about her that probably set other men’s hearts racing, but he didn’t fool around with employees, and he respected her too much to think of her as anything other than the highly skilled director of his favorite sector of the company—the military training division.
She shrugged. “I know her well enough to believe she’s innocent and couldn’t stand the idea of her being stuck in the lockup all weekend.”
Alec didn’t know Isabel at all, but he’d come to the same conclusion. “Why didn’t I know you and she are drinking buddies?”
Nicole met his gaze head-on, no intimidation, which was one of the things he liked about her. “Because I didn’t want you to know.”
“Were you concerned I’d question your loyalty?”
“No. I was worried you’d want me to use the friendship to have her declawed.”
Alec leaned back in the chair and considered Nicole’s statement. If he’d known, would he have asked her to figure out Isabel’s weaknesses to disarm her and send her packing?
He didn’t think so, but it was possible.
The waitress arrived with their drinks. As soon as she left, Nicole leaned forward and spoke softly under the din of the noisy taproom. “I’ll be honest. I first became friends with her for just that reason. I figured I’d determine if she was nuts or grieving or vindictive. Then I got to know her and…I like her. I can’t really help but feel protective of her. I’m sorry she managed to halt the trainings for two months, but given how her brother died, the closure probably should have happened sooner, and at least that gave us the opportunity to retool the simulated village and upgrade the shoot houses.”
Yes, Nicole had found a way to make lemonade out of that fiasco, yet another reason he liked her. He had yet to tour the village and God’s Eye to inspect the improvements, but tomorrow, with Keith’s help, he’d get this trip back on track.
Alec watched Isabel over Nicole’s shoulder. “Is there anything between Isabel and Fraser?” he asked. Sure, the operative had denied it, but seeing them together had triggered another twinge of jealousy.
The blow to his head must’ve messed with his brain.
“No. Isabel doesn’t go out with operatives.” Nicole shrugged. “Since moving to Tamarack, Isabel hasn’t gone out with anyone. And it’s not for lack of offers; the ratio of single men to single women here is four to one.”
It was a really bad sign that this news pleased him. And yet, it did.
Chapter Six
Isabel’s seat faced Alec. He boldly stared at
her, which both unnerved and excited her. And that was just plain wrong. The man had me arrested. She twisted in her seat and met the gaze of one of the operatives Brad had abandoned at the other table. Chase Johnston. Unlike Alec, the young man’s stare gave her the creeps.
“Chase’s watching me again,” she said to Brad. “I thought you were going to talk to him.”
“I did. He both denied it and said he’d stop. He’s just a puppy with a crush, Isabel. He can’t help it.”
“I think he’s the one who’s been stalking me, and he’s probably the guy who shot off bear bangers outside my cabin when the compound was first closed.” She met Brad’s gaze, daring him to deny—again—that anyone had been stalking her, let alone had shot off the loud noisemakers designed to scare bears away.
Being a wise man, Brad just smiled and sipped his beer. “How’s the chowder?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re lame at deflecting conversation.”
“So we’ll talk about how lame I am instead.” He winked at her.
She couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re taking a chance sitting with me in front of the big boss.”
He shrugged. “Rav’s cool.”
“Cool is not the word I’d use to describe Alec Ravissant. Ungrateful is more like it, followed by ass.”
“Speaking of,” Jenna said as she set a beer—which Isabel hadn’t ordered—in front of her. “Did you see Ravissant’s ass? Ohmygod, he is ten times hotter in person than in pictures. I think he’s even hotter than Ted.” She plopped into the empty seat next to Brad.
Isabel laughed. “Eh, his ass is okay, but his chest is better.” She secretly agreed he was hotter than Ted.
“Go ahead, have your girl talk,” Brad said. “Pretend I’m not here.”