Smoky Lake (Firelight Ridge #3)

Chapter 1

1

To Ani Devi, the tiny outpost of Firelight Ridge, tucked into the remote mountains of Alaska, always felt like a different universe. In this faraway world, none of the rules that governed her life seemed to apply—her old life, that is.

Now, she was at a crossroads, so who knew anymore?

Generally speaking, Ani believed in rules. Rules kept traffic from being pure chaos. Rules kept people from being their worst selves. Grammar rules made language understandable. The laws of gravity kept the furniture in its place. A world without rules of any kind would be incomprehensible to her—even though rules got broken all the time. Better a few broken rules than none at all.

At least that was how pre-divorce Ani had seen things.

Post-divorce Ani…well, post-divorce Ani was still figuring out who she was and what she believed. But one thing she knew was that she’d followed the rules and John hadn’t and now her entire relationship with rules was up for negotiation.

But the Alaska State Trooper standing in the doorway of her suite at the Fire Peak Lodge wasn’t here for a rambling stream-of-consciousness meditation on the nature of rules. He was here for…what, again?

“I’m sorry, have I done something wrong or illegal?”

“I couldn’t say. Have you?”

What?

The trooper was an older man with a large belly and signs of high blood pressure in the florid color of his cheeks and nose. As a pediatrician, she didn’t deal with a lot of heart attack or stroke victims, but she knew enough to warn him about the risks of a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet. No doubt he’d heard it all before and wouldn’t welcome that kind of input from someone he was…what, interrogating?

“I don’t believe so,” she said carefully. “But if you could give me some idea of what you’re here for…”

“Let’s start with your name and address.” The trooper had a badge—definitely legitimate—and wore a round-topped hat with a wide brim, official issue. The name on the badge was Clay Roberts. Why would Trooper Clay Roberts need her address?

“My name is Ani Devi, and I’m currently between addresses.”

“Between?” He cocked his head at her with a frown.

Because I’d rather die than go back to the house in Indiana where my marriage spent the last six years slowly rotting away. “Is that relevant to whatever you’re here for?”

“No. But we need contact information in case someone has to follow up.”

“Follow up on what?” She folded her arms across her chest, making it clear he needed to get to the point.

He got the message. “Were you in the Blackbear Airport on the twenty-sixth of July around three pm?”

That was the day she’d flown here to Firelight Ridge.

“I was. My flight to Firelight Ridge left at four. I was waiting for them to weigh my luggage.”

“What were you traveling to Firelight Ridge for?”

Escaping. Mourning. Rethinking her entire existence. “Visiting friends. Why?”

“Did you talk to anyone at the airport?”

“Of course. I talked to the girl who checked me in. The pilot, Sam Coburn, came out and said hi. He’s a friend. I’m sure I probably said hello to a few other people.”

She tried to bring back more details of that time in the airport, but things here had been a real roller-coaster since then.

“Did you speak to a…Victor Canseco?” He had to check his notebook to get the name right.

“Not that I know of. I don’t recognize the name.”

“Late thirties, Hispanic, wearing a denim shirt and blue jeans.”

Then it clicked. “Oh! Yes. The sick man.”

“He was sick?”

“Yes, is he okay? I advised him not to get on the plane, and go to an urgent care instead.”

The trooper didn’t answer the question of whether he was okay. “Why did you tell him that?”

“Well, I’m a doctor. A pediatrician, actually. He was feverish, sweating. I gave him a mask so he wouldn’t infect the other passengers. I also gave him a bottle of water so he could stay hydrated.”

“Anything else?”

“Tylenol. He had a headache too.” She felt an uneasy pit in her stomach. Had she done something inappropriate by essentially treating a stranger in an airport? It was just water and Tylenol, and she was a medical professional, but still…“How is he?”

Again, no answer.

“Had you ever met Victor Canseco before?”

“No. Never. I’d never seen him before.” Did that sound like overcompensating to cover up a lie? Being questioned by a police officer brought back some very painful memories. That time, at age twelve, she’d been the victim, but she’d still had to answer so many questions, over and over again.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, of course! Why?”

“We have a witness who says you had a lengthy interaction. Do you usually have long chats with strangers?”

“You know what they say…a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet.” She attempted a winning smile, but that gnawing sense of dread in her stomach made it difficult.

The trooper’s expression didn’t soften.

“Sometimes I chat with strangers, sure. As a pediatrician, a big part of my job is putting parents at ease. But as I recall, the sick man—Victor—started talking to me. He asked if I was going to Firelight Ridge, since he’d just come from there.”

The trooper’s gaze sharpened. “Why did he ask that?”

What kind of question was that? “Because he wanted to know, I assume?”

A gust of chilly air whistled through the window. At Fire Peak Lodge, which was halfway up the mountain, the temperature dropped fast once the sun went down, and she’d left a window open earlier. She walked over to crank it closed, and caught him watching her stride when she turned back.

So she had a damn limp. Why was that any concern of his? She folded her arms across her chest and returned his stare. “Anyway, I wouldn’t say it was a lengthy interaction. The longest part was trying to find my bottle of Tylenol.”

“What else did the two of you discuss?”

What on earth was all this about? She really couldn’t imagine, but for some reason she felt protective of the man at the airport. After all, she’d informally treated him. Doctor-patient confidentiality might not apply, but that didn’t mean she wanted to share his weakest moments with a police officer.

“I don’t know…Firelight Ridge, I suppose, since I was going there and he’d just come from there. He was waiting for another plane to take him to somewhere else, but I don’t remember where. It was an Alaskan name I’d never heard before, and I’m sorry, but it just didn’t stick. He said he was going to do some field research. Then he started coughing and I grew alarmed by the state of his health. You know the rest.”

The trooper listened attentively to the details of this very mundane interaction. “Did he speak to anyone else?”

“Not that I saw.”

“Did he have anything with him? Luggage, briefcase, anything like that?”

“I’m sure he must have, but I didn’t pay any attention to that. No, wait.” An image formed in her mind. “I think he was wearing a cross-body bag. I noticed it when he was coughing. I was thinking it must be cutting into his ribs.”

“Cross. Body. Bag.” Trooper Clay Roberts said the words out loud as he wrote them down. “One last question. Did he mention anything about who he’d interacted with while he was in Firelight Ridge?”

Ani thought that he might have, in between coughs. But she didn’t remember the name; he wasn’t anyone she knew. “Not really. He said he’d been focusing on his research. I asked if he’d been to The Fang or the Caribou Grill or any of the local hot spots, but he hadn’t.”

“Okay. Is there anything else you can tell me about him or anything he said that might be of interest?”

Ani had finally had enough of this irritating interrogation. “Of interest to whom, and why? Is he missing? Is he okay?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t say anything about that at this point. I will need your contact information in case we have more questions.”

Was it normal to be questioned in such a vague manner by a state trooper…after midnight? Maybe only in Firelight Ridge, when the sunset struck gold from the upper slopes and lit the clouds with colors ranging from indigo to copper.

She gave the trooper her cell phone number, with the warning that it often didn’t work here in Firelight Ridge.

“Will you be staying here at the lodge?”

She laughed at that, since the suites here were out of her price range. The only reason she had a room here tonight was that she was the doctor on call. “No, not normally. But the people here will know how to find me. Just ask for Charlie Santa Lucia.”

For some reason, she didn’t want to give the trooper any information about where she was staying, which was with her friend Lila in town. Lila lived in a converted hardware store that had just been linked to a second known murder. It seemed bad luck to invite an Alaska State Trooper anywhere near it.

As he left, he tossed one more question her way. “How are you feeling, Ms. Devi? I hope you didn’t pick up whatever Victor Canseco had.”

“Me? Oh, I’m fine. Everything’s normal.”

Which was an absurd thing to say, she decided as she closed the door firmly behind the trooper. This was Firelight Ridge. Nothing was really “normal.”