Finding Courage (A Rescue Alaska Mystery Book 3)

by Kathi Daley

  Sarge was silent for a moment. I imagined he needed that time to try to process what I’d just said. To lose a member of the team to a random landslide was bad enough; to lose him to a madman was another thing entirely. “So you’re saying Austin was murdered.”

  I nodded. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.” I took a deep breath as my entire body began to shake.

  “Are you okay?” Sarge looked me in the eye. He put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a little shake.

  “I’m okay. It’s just that…” I couldn’t continue. I tried to speak, but at that moment I couldn’t even breathe. I felt my heart pounding in my chest as a flash of memory seared through my mind.

  “Just that what?” Sarge said persuasively. “You didn’t finish what you were saying.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want to remember.

  “You know you can trust me.”

  I nodded. Sitka and Yukon were sitting so close to me, they were practically in my lap. I could sense their distress. I needed to pull myself together, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that.

  “I want to help you, but you need to finish your thought,” Sarge insisted.

  I put my arms around the dogs and took comfort in their warmth. I let them lick the tears from my face, and then I answered. Softly at first, but as my voice found its footing, I went on with more intensity. “In that moment, when I connected to whoever set off the dynamite that caused the landslide, I saw something else. A memory. Not my memory, his memory.”

  Sarge frowned. “Okay. What was it?”

  “It was Val.” I felt my body begin to shake again. “He was with her. The man who killed Austin was with Val when she died.”

  Chapter 2

  Sunday, October 14

  I’d called my best friend, Chloe Rivers, while Sarge and I were waiting for Dani to return. I briefly explained the landslide, and she not only offered words of comfort but volunteered to go over to my place to let the dogs out and feed all the animals. I was grateful for her help; by the time I’d finally made it home to the cabin I share with seven dogs, four cats, eight rabbits, and a blind mule named Homer, it was well past midnight.

  Wyatt had been checked into the hospital in Fairbanks. Jordan had wanted Jake to spend a night there as well, but he’d finally convinced her that he’d be fine at home with his own personal doctor and girlfriend to watch over him. After Austin’s body had been taken to the local funeral home, Jake had met briefly with Officer Hank Houston. The plan they’d come up with was for all of us to meet with Houston the following morning, after we’d had a chance to rest and deal with our grief over the loss of a team member and friend.

  Sarge and I had talked about it and decided not to tell Jake about my vision relating to Val until the following day, which I guess at that point was today. We figured he already had a lot to deal with, and we knew he was going to take the possibility that Val might have been murdered harder than anyone else. Of course, I still wasn’t sure exactly what the vision meant. The flash had been brief but very real.

  Over the course of the past thirteen years, I’d relived Val’s final breaths in my thoughts and dreams a million times. I remembered being scared and wanting to be with her, to offer whatever comfort I could. I remembered wanting to have the chance to tell her I loved her, to ensure that she knew how much she’d meant to me. And then she was there, in my mind. I knew she’d felt me as I’d felt her. I’d been with her as she died. The memory was permanently etched in my mind, so I knew what I was seeing when the image of the exact same scene had flashed through my mind last night. Only this time I hadn’t been viewing it through my eyes but through his.

  We all believed Val had been lost in the storm. But had she? Maybe the man who’d caused Austin’s death had kidnapped her. Maybe he’d taken her up the mountain to the cave where her body had been found and killed her. Or maybe she’d been lost in the storm and taken refuge in the cave. Maybe the man was lost as well and just happened to stumble onto the same cave she had. Unlikely, I admitted, but possible. The only way we could know for certain was to capture the man and make him tell us. That was something I was either going to do or die trying.

  I needed to sleep, but it wouldn’t come. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the mountain coming down, Austin’s lifeless eyes, and Val’s last breath as she passed into the next life. To say that the evening had been an emotional one was an understatement. At this point I merely felt numb, but I knew once the numbness wore off, I was going to have more to deal with than I expected to be able to handle.

  Moose, my therapy cat, had spent a good part of the night curled up on the sofa with me. That was unusual for the cantankerous old feline who seemed to have come into my life to keep my emotions balanced. While he seemed to be willing to do his job when needed, he wasn’t the sort to cuddle or linger once it was done.

  The dogs, sensing my distress, had also stayed nearby, so it was a crowded sofa where I huddled and waited out the night. As first light rolled around, I was more than ready to get out of my tiny cabin for a long walk in the woods. The sky was dark with heavy clouds and the temperature lingered just below freezing, so I bundled up, then grabbed my rifle and set out with the seven dogs.

  Yukon, the shelter dog I was training for search and rescue, normally settled into a position in the front of the pack, with my wolf hybrid, Denali, and my husky mix, Shia. My two retired sled dogs, Juno and Kodi, usually were in the middle of the pack, while three-legged Lucky and golden retriever Honey stayed within an arm’s length of me. We’d had a few light snows during the month, although the heavier ones of winter had yet to make their first appearances. Areas that saw a lot of sun, such as the meadow behind my home, were free of snow, but there was some on the ground in the shade under the trees. It was in one of those shady areas that I first saw footprints. Large footprints. From a boot. At least a size twelve, I decided. The dogs didn’t seem to be on alert, as they would be had someone still been around, but given the day before, I cradled my rifle, called the dogs to my side, and headed back to the cabin to call Houston to come and take a look.

  ******

  “When was the last time you were out here before this morning?” Houston asked.

  “Yesterday morning.”

  “And the footprints weren’t here?”

  I shook my head. “No. Living out in the middle of nowhere this way, I keep an eye out for any signs that I may have had a visitor. I would have noticed the footprints if they’d been here yesterday. These had to have been left sometime between around eight o’clock yesterday morning and this morning, right before I called you.”

  Houston bent down and took a closer look. “I’m going to take some photos and a cast. When I’m done, I’ll come by your cabin and we can talk about what these footprints might mean.”

  “I need to feed the animals and then clean cat boxes and the barn. I’m going to grab a shower after that. If I’m in the shower when you show up, just come on in. The dogs know you. I think it’ll be fine.”

  Houston looked directly at Denali, who considered it his personal mission to keep me safe. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” I touched Houston’s arm, then looked directly at Denali. “Friend. Houston is a friend.”

  Denali wagged his tail, then came forward for a body rub, which, he’d learned along the way, he could expect from anyone who was introduced as a friend.

  When I finished with the feeding and cleaning, Houston was just finishing up as well. I told him to help himself to some coffee while I took a quick shower and got dressed. What I didn’t expect was that he’d make breakfast while I was getting ready to tackle the day ahead.

  “You cooked.” I took an appreciative sniff of the wonderful scent coming from the oven.

  “I tossed together a breakfast casserole from ingredients I found on hand. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? I’m grateful.” I furrowed a brow. “I guess I never did get around to eating di
nner yesterday. No wonder I’m so hungry.”

  “We’re meeting with Jake and the others in a couple of hours, but as long as I’m here and have garnered your attention with my fabulous cooking skills, I wanted to talk to you first.” Houston glanced toward the door. “Kojak is in the truck. Is it okay if I bring him in?”

  “Of course. I had no idea he was out there or I would have suggested you bring him in earlier.”

  “He’s used to waiting in the car for me when I have to go out on a call, but he knows you and your dogs, so I’m sure he’d appreciate coming in to say hi. I’ll get him, and we can talk while we eat.”

  Houston returned with the rescue I’d hooked him up with and the casserole was done, so we filled our plates and sat down at the small dining table near the window.

  “This is really good,” I said after taking my first bite. “I want the recipe.”

  “No recipe. I just use whatever’s on hand and mix it all together. I call it breakfast surprise and it’s different every time.”

  “Well, this particular combination is wonderful. So, what did you want to know?”

  Houston set down his fork and took a sip of his coffee. “Let’s talk about the boot prints. Any idea who they might belong to?”

  I took another bite of my food, then leaned back in my chair as I considered the question. “I don’t have any neighbors who are close enough to wander around on my property on any sort of a regular basis. If you keep going along the path where I found the prints, it comes out at a fairly large natural pond. I suppose it’s possible someone parked on the road, then cut through my property to get to the pond when I wasn’t home yesterday. It sort of looked like the footprints came from the woods and then stopped on the edge of my meadow, however.”

  “It does appear as if whoever left the prints came toward the house from the woods. The snow ends with the tree line, so the person could have continued on farther onto your property.”

  “The dogs would have gone crazy if that happened, though I wasn’t home yesterday afternoon or evening, so there’s no way for me to know if they did. I know no one got into the house or the barn; there would have been bloodshed by whichever dog happened to get his teeth into the prowler. Still, I suppose they could have had a look around outside. The question is who and why?”

  “What time did you leave home yesterday?”

  “Around one. Neverland opens at two on Saturdays. I would have gotten off at ten, but we had the rescue, or I guess I should say the fake rescue. I didn’t get home until after one. I usually take a break halfway through my shift to come here to let the dogs out, but when I knew I wouldn’t make it, I called Chloe, who came by to let them out at around eight. She didn’t mention anything strange going on. If the dogs had sensed an intruder earlier in the day, Denali at the very least would have been extra cautious when Chloe came by. She didn’t mention anything about it, but I can ask her.”

  “We will. But let’s finish this conversation first.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “What else do you want to know?”

  Houston got up to refill his coffee, motioning to me. I nodded, and he refilled my cup as well. “When I spoke to Jake last night,” he said as he sat down again, “he told me you’d made a connection with someone on the mountain seconds before it exploded and rained down on them.”

  “Yes, that’s correct. I was trying to connect with the boys we’d been sent to find but wasn’t getting anything. Time was of the essence with the temperature drop forecasted, so I was trying extra hard to open my mind to any source of pain or fear. In the moment before the rocks and dirt came down on Wyatt and Austin, I connected with someone in a great degree of emotional distress. The emotions that person was experiencing were raw and very intense. For a second, it felt as if someone had stabbed a knife into my chest, before he seemed to channel all that pain and grief into a single action. It was then I realized what he planned to do. I called Jake and told him to run. He tried to warn the others, but they were too far ahead of him.”

  “So killing them served as some sort of an emotional release?”

  I paused before answering. “I guess you could say that. When he went for the dynamite, I lost the connection, so I can’t say for certain how he felt after he sent the mountain rumbling down to the path below, but I think you’re right. I think he let his pain build to a point and then channeled it into rage, which he used to kill a target.”

  “Did you pick up anything at all that might help us to identify him? He seemed to have targeted your group. It stands to reason he must know one or more of you on some level. Maybe he was the subject of a past rescue?”

  “I don’t know who it was. I picked up emotion, even a memory, but not a face or any physical features. I guess I don’t even know for certain it was a man and not a woman, but my sense is that it was a man.”

  Houston crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward just a bit. “You said you picked up a memory. Your memory or his?”

  “Both.” I explained my memory of Val’s last breaths and how he’d had the same one just before he blew the mountain.

  Houston placed his hand on mine. “Oh, Harm, I’m so very sorry. That must have been very painful for you.”

  I swiped at a tear that threatened to trail down my cheek. “It wasn’t fun, but I’ll deal with it. What I really want to know is what it means. Did he stumble upon Val and he was trying to help her when she died? Did he kill her? Was she ever lost in the storm at all, or did he kidnap her and then take her to the cave where she was found? This opens up a lot of questions as to what happened that night. It also makes me wonder if what happened last night is somehow linked to Val’s death.”

  Houston frowned. “Jake didn’t mention the connection with Val when I spoke to him last night.”

  “That’s because I haven’t told him about the memory yet. He loved Val very much. He’s going to take this hard. I figured he had enough to deal with last night. I’m going to tell him when I see him today.”

  Houston got up from the table and started to clear it, and I got up to help. “Is there anything at all you want to tell me before we meet with the group?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. My mind is humming at a pace that doesn’t really allow me to process anything. Austin is dead.” I looked Houston in the eye. “Dead. I’ll never hear another of his goofy jokes or see his cockeyed grin. How could this happen? Why did it happen? It makes no sense.”

  Houston put his arms around me and gave me a long hug. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he was hurting for me. For all of us. There was nothing I could do to bring Austin back, but I sure as heck could do something about finding his killer. Anger was my friend. When I was angry, I could deal with my grief. I thought back to the man who’d caused the landslide and realized that, as disturbing as it might seem, he’d also found a way to channel his grief into anger. I wondered what had set this chain of events into motion in the first place. Had he suffered a loss he was unable to deal with? Had his anger turned to rage and eventually into vengeance? And what did that have to do with Val?

  Chapter 3

  It was a somber group who gathered at Neverland later that morning. Jake had put out a sign, letting people know the bar would be closed for a few days. I think he rightfully felt we all needed time to begin to heal before attempting to resume our lives. Wyatt was still in the hospital, but Landon, who had been in Anchorage and had missed yesterday’s rescue altogether, had flown back, so there were seven of us sitting around a table.

  Jake started things off. “You all know how important this debrief and strategy session is.” He looked at Jordan, then Dani, then Sarge, then me. “For those of us who lived through it, talking about it is going to be difficult.” Jake looked at Landon, then Houston. “For those of you who didn’t, it’s going to be even more difficult as you struggle to understand how this tragedy could have occurred. I’m going to turn this over to Officer Houston, but as always, if you have something to
say, say it. Holding back never accomplishes anything worthwhile.”

  I glanced at Sarge. Should I jump right in or wait? He nodded, so I took a breath and jumped in. “I have something,” I said. I looked at Jake. “I’m wondering if we should speak in private.”

  Jake frowned. “Private? Why?”

  “When I connected to whoever set off the dynamite that sent the mountain down, I saw something. Something I didn’t mention last night.”

  Jake hesitated. “Okay. Does that pertain to anyone in this room?”

  I shook my head. “Not in this room. But it’s something that will affect you more than the others.”

  “Just tell us what you know, Harm. We’re a family here. We don’t keep secrets.”

  I took a breath, then swallowed. “When I connected briefly with the man on the mountain, I not only shared his pain and rage, I shared a memory. His memory.”

  Jake smiled. “That’s good. It could help us figure out who he is.”

  “Maybe. But his memory was also my memory.” I glanced at Sarge one more time. He nodded again, so I continued. “Jake, the man was with Val when she died.”

  The entire room was silent. Everyone looked at Jake, who’d gone pale.

  “He was with Val?” Jake croaked.

  “In the last second before he blew up the mountain, a flash of memory crossed his mind. It was a memory of Val taking her last breaths. It was the same memory I’ve had of her all these years. I experienced Val’s death in my mind, but he was there. I’m sure of it.”

  “Maybe your own memory got tangled up with everything else. It was a pretty intense few minutes.”

  I shook my head. “No. I was in his head. I saw it through his eyes. He was there.”

  Again, no one spoke. I don’t think anyone knew what to say. I sensed Houston was thinking about jumping in, but I shook my head slightly, to let him know he should wait. He was new to the group, and my vision deeply affected everyone at the table who’d known Val, which didn’t include him.