“I beat you back,” he told her. “But I’m sorry to say, I’ve been a little out of it.”
“He was unconscious for nearly forty hours,” the woman added.
Chase ignored her, and ran a hand over the stubble on his head. “See?” he said to Sam. “It’s already growing back.”
“And the tattoo?” Sam asked, trying to keep the conversation light in front of the other woman.
He raised his right arm, wincing a little as he twisted toward her. Then he flexed his right bicep. Sure enough, there was a faint indigo Don’t Tread on Me image there. He rubbed a finger over the snake’s open mouth. “It’s harder to get these things off than they say.”
His eyes met hers, and they studied each other for a minute longer. His left ear was pierced, but now a small silver loop was threaded through it, not a dangling skull.
His right eyebrow rose, giving him a quizzical expression. “You really thought I was dead?”
He always had a knack for knowing exactly what she was thinking. A lump formed in her throat and choked off her speech. She nodded.
“Come here.” He reeled her in with surprising strength, and she leaned toward him. He gave her a long bruising kiss, holding her tightly to him with his left arm. When he finally released her, he said, “You look like you just returned from the tropics, querida. You even taste like salt water.”
Behind them, the other woman pointedly cleared her throat.
Chase gestured from one woman to the other. “Raven, this is the amazing, intrepid woman I’ve been telling you about—Summer Westin. And Summer, this is my sister, Raven.”
“Call me Rae, please,” the woman said.
Rae. Sister. No wonder she and Chase looked like a matched set. Sam smiled weakly. It was official now, she was socially retarded.
Chase squeezed her fingers. “I would have called you if I could.”
Clearly, he hadn’t been surfing the Internet or listening to his voicemail in recent days. There would be time enough for explanations later. She squeezed his hand in return. “I can see that you’ve been a little preoccupied, Chase.”
“I’m getting out tomorrow morning.” He gave her a sly look. “That cabin’s still ours for the next three days.”
She looked at him doubtfully. She was not a nurse, or even a natural caretaker.
“You could ski or snowshoe,” he said. “I could cook.”
And they would no doubt talk about their relationship. She never wanted to lose him again, and yet even the possibility of being permanently attached to any man was still a little terrifying. What would he expect from her? She wiggled her bare toes. “I need to go shopping first.” Tad Wyatt’s corporate credit card was in her jacket pocket.
“The airline lost your luggage?” Rae asked.
“Something like that,” Sam said. “It might show up later.” According to J.J., Schwartz had promised to ship back all the belongings she’d left in his vehicle.
“I’ve always wanted to see the Galapagos,” Rae said. “Were Darwin’s enchanted islands everything you expected?”
Chase winked at her. Obviously, he hadn’t told his sister about Dan’s death.
“The Galápagos Islands were everything I expected,” she told them. “And so much more.”
Epilogue
“If I hadn’t been a novice diver, maybe Dan would not have gone alone to that site.” Sam mashed the phone against her ear to block the sound of the breeze sweeping in from the south. Out in Chuckanut Bay, an osprey snagged a fish, and Sam pointed to direct Chase’s attention to the sight while continuing her conversation. “If I’d gone with him, maybe Dan would still be alive.”
Back in Delaware, Elizabeth Kazaki sighed. “Or you both would have died.” She hesitated briefly, and then added, “Thank you for the photos and the article.”
Sam had sent Elizabeth enlargements of the best photos she’d taken of Dan on their trip. Dan smiling on the deck of Coqueta before their first dive, Dan in his dive gear underwater, holding out the sea cucumber. She’d also sent Elizabeth a copy of a photo and an article that had arrived from Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galápagos. The photo showed Eduardo Duarte on stage accepting a plaque from the director of the Park Service for his thirty years of service. The director of Darwin Station, Dr. Ignacio Guerrero, was on the platform, too, along with several unidentified dignitaries. The banner behind them was in English—protecting the galápagos forever.
The article from the Gazeta Galápagos, translated by Chase, reported that the Chinese delegation had not shown up for the big celebration. They had withdrawn from discussions of a resort in Villamil, citing “concerns about potential impacts on the unique environment of the Galápagos.”
Right now it seemed like a small victory, but at least her work with Dan and J.J. had accomplished NPF’s immediate goal. The count was done, the word was out, and the resort would not be built anytime soon.
“It’s your call, Elizabeth,” Sam said into the phone. “I will name names if you want me to.” Out There would welcome another post from Zing or even Wilderness Westin if it was salacious enough.
“Dan talked about Eduardo many times. I know he considered him one of the good guys. You believe him, that it was an accident?”
Sam recalled the tears in Eduardo’s eyes as he had confessed, and her own eyes welled up. “I believe him.”
“Then let’s just remember that Dan died doing work he thought was important, in a place that he loved.”
“I wish I were half as gracious as you are, Elizabeth.”
“And I wish I were half the fighter you are, Sam. Let’s both resolve to live joyful lives from here on.”
Sam took a breath to steady her voice. “I’ll do my best.”
She ended the call and tucked the phone into her pocket. Chase wiped a tear from her cheek with a gentle finger, and curled his arm around her. She welcomed the warmth; the rock on which they sat was draining her body heat.
“You already did your best, querida,” he said.
Sam doubted that. She could never go back to Ecuador, and she’d be looking over her shoulder for the likes of Carlos Santos for a long while. She’d never be able to sort out the good guys from the bad in the Galápagos. At least for the moment, she’d lost her desire to explore other countries.
She knew that Chase had psychological injuries, too, along with his physical ones. As usual, he hadn’t told her the details, but the media reported that certain leaders of the New American Citizen Army were brutal thieves preying on illegal immigrants and that a corrupt Border Patrol officer had fed them information for a percentage of the profits.
Chase had done his job, but she knew all the deaths weighed heavily on his conscience. She laid a hand on his denim-covered thigh. “I’m sure you did your best, too, Chase.”
He made a scoffing sound and turned away for a second, then handed her a plastic cup of red wine, and held up his own. “To happier days ahead.”
“Amen to that.” Sam clicked her cup against his. “Although I’m pretty happy right now.”
“Thanks for letting me recuperate here.”
She’d had him to herself for three weeks now. Well, not precisely all to herself, especially in this last week. At this moment, Maya was at her house helping Blake and his daughter Hannah cook chicken enchiladas and something called empanadas. Blake called it an “Adiós Family Fiesta.” Spring break was over. Tomorrow the girls were leaving to go back to school, and Chase would board a plane and return to work.
Sam and Chase sipped wine and watched the sun sink behind the San Juan Islands to the west. On the small outcroppings near Chuckanut Island, basking harbor seals raised their tails and heads above the cold water to catch the last of the warm rays, curling their bodies into lopsided smiles. The incoming tide had risen to their bellies; the seals looked as if they rested on top of the shining plane of water. She wished she had a camera to record the sight.
“Ready to go?” Chase held out his hand for her empty cup. He s
tood up, pulled her to her feet. “You know, we should call this dinner party ‘Hasta Luego,’ not ‘Adiós.’ ‘Hasta luego’ means see you later, and we’ll see each other again in six weeks, right?”
Sam had set a rendezvous date with Chase a month and a half from now, in Boise. It was halfway between her home and his, and Boise was the town where Chase had grown up. What were credit cards for, anyway?
“I’ll be there,” she said. “No matter what.”
~ END ~
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Discussion Questions for Readers
and Book Clubs
In this story, Sam becomes enmeshed in an investigation in the Galápagos Islands while her lover Chase goes undercover in Arizona. What are the similarities between the two situations?
Sam begins her Galápagos trip as a tourist with few clues about what to expect. Do you think tourists typically understand the culture and history of the places they visit?
Do you believe that the tourism industry suppresses or downplays news of criminal activities to further their own goals?
Systems of justice differ from country to country. Do you think there may be Americans serving prison time in foreign countries for crimes they did not commit?
At the end of the story, did you feel that justice had been served in the Galápagos? In Arizona? Do you feel that the situations should have been handled differently?
Preview of
Backcountry
Book 4 of the Sam Westin Mysteries
Chapter 1
Sam Westin stared at the photo on her cell phone. The jagged granite mountains, ivory-barked alders, and cloudless azure sky were so perfectly mirrored in Pinnacle Lake that she couldn’t tell the difference between the reflection in the water and the reality of peaks and vegetation above the shoreline.
This picture would make a perfect enlargement to replace the faded print of Table Mountain above her fireplace.
Except that every time she looked at the image, she might cry.
She thumbed the screen back to the selfie that had arrived in her e-mail three weeks ago. Kimberly Quintana, her curly brown hair frizzed around her head, her petite blond daughter Kyla Quintana-Johnson posed in front of her, the lake sparkling behind them.
Kim and Kyla died here.
“They probably sat right in this spot,” Sam said aloud, touching her fingers to the rock ledge beneath her. Biting her lip, she turned away from the lake. Behind her, Chase was inspecting a small clearing in the shrubbery. “Who comes to such a beautiful place to commit murder?”
He folded his arms across his chest, his gaze fixed on the ground. “Whoever he or she was, the killer—or killers—didn’t leave behind many clues. I can’t even tell where it happened.”
The word “it” wafted over Sam like a cold breeze. There was no blood. No outline where the bodies had lain, no yellow crime scene tape. Rain showers had drenched the site since the murders. Dozens of boot and shoe prints were etched into the mud near the lake shore, but they were smudged by weather and trampling; it was impossible to tell when they had been laid down. Sam recognized the tread patterns left by several brands of hiking boots and athletic shoes, but those might have been worn by the law enforcement personnel who had visited the site over the last several weeks.
The trees and bushes were myriad shades of green, only starting to change colors for the coming autumn. The ground cover was the usual mix of grass, lichens, and ferns. There were even a few blossoms left late in the alpine season; fuchsia monkeyflowers and violet penstemons and one lonely white trillium.
The lushness of the surroundings felt almost shameful. Violent death should not go unmarked. But wasn’t this what she loved about nature? If left to her own devices, nature could heal all the wounds inflicted by humans. Wasn’t that what Kim and Kyla loved, too? Sam hoped they’d had a chance to enjoy the beauty of this place before...
She didn’t want to finish the sentence, even in her mind.
Chase lowered himself onto the rock ledge beside her, extending his long legs out to rest his heels in a patch of moss. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the memorial service.”
“You didn’t know them. I met them less than a year ago.” She’d instantly bonded with the mother and daughter on a trail maintenance crew last November.
Chase studied her face. “Are you glad we came?”
“Glad” was a poor word choice, too. Sometimes human language was simply inadequate. She swallowed around the lump that partially blocked her throat. “I had to see it. Thanks for coming with me.”
She and Chase had the place to themselves. They were not supposed to be here at all. The Forest Service trail was officially closed. But years of experience with lack of staff in wild places had taught Sam that there would be no ranger or deputy to stop them. If by chance they had been challenged after passing the “Closed—No Entry” sign, Chase could argue that as an FBI agent, he had cause to investigate a crime site on federal land.
On the way into the trailhead parking lot, they had passed a lone driver, a man in a baseball cap driving a silver Subaru Forester. Others had come as well, at least as far as the parking lot: an informal memorial had grown up by the trail register. Soggy sympathy cards and a heart woven out of grass nestled among two incongruous teddy bears and a pink Valentine-shaped Mylar balloon that had no business defiling a natural area.
Balloons were notorious for killing wildlife.
Both Kyla and Kim would have been outraged to find one here.
A faint scratching sound made her turn to check the rocks that flanked both sides of her. A Townsend’s chipmunk, its tail flicking up and down, edged away from her pack and the remains of their brunch. The striped rodent froze, eyeing her. Its cheeks bulged suspiciously.
Sam pulled the leftover crackers and cheese into her lap. The chipmunk dashed to the top of a boulder a few feet away, where he twitched and chittered, loudly broadcasting the news of these giant intruders in his territory.
“Were you here when they were murdered?” she asked the animal. “Did you see what happened?”
The chipmunk leapt from the rock and vanished into the underbrush.
“That’s what I figured.” Sam stuffed a wheat cracker into her mouth and chewed. “Nobody saw anything.”
Nobody except for Kyla and Kim, of course. And whoever killed them.
If she hadn’t been in Idaho with Chase at his family reunion, she would have been hiking here on August second with her friends. After conquering all the familiar trails off the road to Mount Baker, they’d been on a mission to explore the trails further south along the Mountain Loop Highway. If she had been here at Pinnacle Lake instead of partying with Chase’s Latino-Lakota clan, would Kim and Kyla still be alive?
Chase matched a cracker with a piece of cheese, inspecting both carefully before raising the snack to his lips. “I’m so sorry about Kyla and Kim. But if you’d been here, you might have been killed, too.”
Sam didn’t respond. As a child, she’d been sleeping, absent from her mother’s deathbed. Absent, out kayaking alone when her colleague died in the Galapagos Islands. Absent, away in Idaho when her friends died right here.
In age, Sam was nearly equidistant between Kyla and Kim. But she shared a special bond with Kyla, perhaps because they resembled each other, at least superficially. Like Sam, Kyla was petite with long white-blond hair, although Kyla had warm brown eyes and a splash of playful freckles across her nose, while Sam’s skin was uniformly pale and her eyes were a cool gray-green. Also like Sam, Kyla spent weeks at a time backpacking in the wild, while Kim worked behind a desk, escaping only for occasional day hikes with her daughter and Sam.
Kindred spirits were hard to find. The loss of her friends felt like a bruise that might never heal. Sam touched her fingers to Chase’s thigh. “You checked the case file for me
, right? What do they have?”
Chase covered her cold fingers with his own warm ones. “You really want to know?”
She nodded. “It can’t hurt any more than it does already.”
Letting go of her hand, he pulled a wad of pages from the pocket of his windbreaker, smoothed them across his thigh, and read. “Kyla Quintana-Johnson was shot in the back with a 30-06 rifle bullet. A second bullet, most likely from a .357 revolver, was lodged in her brain. That bullet entered her forehead.”
Sam sucked in a breath that made her heart hurt.
“Kimberly Quintana was killed by a single .357 bullet to the brain that entered through her forehead.”
At least, Sam tried to console herself, their deaths sounded like they’d happened quickly. The women hadn’t been raped or tortured.
“No bullet casings or other bullets were found in the vicinity of the bodies, and unfortunately, those are very common weapons. The surrounding ground was hard and dry; the only footprints found were near the lakeshore. Imprints were taken of those; bits and pieces of trash collected from around the scene, but there are no links to anything substantive yet. The trail register was checked, but the pages were wet and the pencil was missing and no hikers had signed in on that day.”
That figures, Sam thought. The registers, which were supposed to be used by the Forest Service to record trail usage by hikers, were rarely collected. Often the pages inside the crude wooden boxes had no place left to write and there was no implement provided to write with.
“No witnesses found so far.”
The lake in front of her morphed into an impressionist painting. Sam wiped at her tear-filled eyes but only succeeded in blurring her vision even more. “Can I see the crime scene photos?”
“No.” Chase folded the pages and stuffed them back in his pocket. “Trust me; you don’t want to remember your friends that way.” He checked his watch, then stood up. “We both need to get moving.”
Taking his hand, she pulled herself up from the rock. “Was there anything in there about suspects?”
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