Chapter 8
8
So far, Ani had been very pleased with the men her friends had fallen in love with here in the wilds of Alaska. Charlie’s guy, Nick Perini, had saved her life and helped stop a disaster. Molly’s man, Sam Coburn, hadn’t hesitated to fly her to Blackbear and borrow a friend’s floatplane to bring her here.
Even better, she knew she could trust Sam. If any state troopers or military personnel happened to ask him about her, he’d shield her. Molly would make sure of it.
“When do you want a pickup?” he asked her as he stood, tall and solid, on the dock next to the bobbing plane.
“I don’t know. But I’m sure there’s a way to communicate from this place. I’ll be in touch.”
He made an unhappy face. “I don’t like the sound of that. If I haven’t heard from you in three days, I’ll come check on you. I’m pretty sure Molly will insist on it.”
“That’s fair. Thank you. And thanks for all of this.” She waved a hand at the plane. “Are you sure I can’t pay you more than just the fuel costs?”
“Not a chance.” He smiled at her. “You’re Molly’s friend. And here, take this. I nearly forgot.”
He reached into the plane and pulled out a small Igloo cooler. “Fresh smoked salmon, straight from Snow River. Gotta make sure you don’t starve out here.”
“Wow, thank you.” She took the cooler, then reached up to touch her cheek to his. “You’re a good brother,” she murmured.
She found his slight flush adorable. Didn’t he know that Molly’s friends were thrilled that she’d finally fallen in love?
Her friends had tried hard with John—they really had. But she’d always known they didn’t quite trust him.
Sighing at that depressing thought, she slung her tote bag over her shoulder and picked up the cooler. Then she gave another long sigh as she surveyed the stairs that laddered up the slope. Those steps were steep, nearly vertical. Stairs were always a special challenge for her leg.
One step at a time, that was all there was to it. As the floatplane cruised toward the center of the lake, she grabbed onto the railing with one hand and headed up the steep hillside.
She’d only gone a few steps when she heard the clatter of footsteps and a deep voice. “Give those to me,” Gil said gruffly.
She looked up into forest-dark eyes and felt a punch deep in her stomach. “Thanks. And hello to you, too.”
He merely grunted at that, and grabbed her bags. Then the annoying man took the stairs two at a time.
Climbing the stairs was much easier without the weight of the bags, but even so, she was a little breathless when she reached the top. Or maybe it was the stunning view that accomplished that—shifting layers of clouds and treetops, mist drifting in and out of spruce trees, water shining below, the eerie presence of the Korch Glacier a surreal hulk beyond the forests.
Gil opened the door of a simple glassed-in structure filled with light and air. It smelled faintly of lemon, as if it had been freshly cleaned. As soon as she walked through it, a sense of peace came over her. Which was, quite frankly, the last thing she’d expected. She was smack in the middle of an emergency, after all.
But at least it wasn’t the five-alarm emergency that was her marriage, her divorce, her mess of a life. It was someone else’s emergency, and, selfishly, she found that to be a nice break.
“So what changed your mind?” Gil asked as he poured her a glass of water from a Berkey next to the sink. “Last we met, you were headed back to your friends and your regular life.“
“Actually, my regular life is thousands of miles away.” She thought about that, and corrected herself. “And also over.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“But that’s not important right now. I came to warn you that the military guys are searching for you around town.”
He studied her so closely that she wondered if she had dirt on her face from the floatplane. It felt strange to be scrutinized like this. Not even John had looked at her so thoroughly. Sometimes it had felt, with John, as if she was simply filling in the spot in his life where “wife” should be.
“You must have gone to Blackbear,” he finally said.
“Yes. I looked at a map and knew there was no possible way I could get here other than by floatplane. No one in Firelight Ridge owns one of those. Sam and I flew to Blackbear and borrowed a seaplane.”
“When you decide to do something, you do it thoroughly.”
“Oh yes, you should have seen me try to?—”
She broke off, horrified and astounded that she’d nearly told this virtual stranger about her efforts to get pregnant. Something about the close attention he was giving her went right to her head.
Even now, he waited patiently for her to continue. Instead, she scrambled for a change of subject.
“It wasn’t just to warn you. I found something in my pocket. I think Victor must have slipped it to me. It mentions you by name.” She pulled the scrap of notepaper from her pocket and spread it out on the long birchwood table that took up the center of the room.
He pulled out two stools from under the table and gestured for her to sit. She did so gratefully while he studied the note.
“Do you have any idea what he means?” she asked.
He shook his head, still frowning at the words. “Not a clue. Ice castles in the sky…could that mean the glacier?” He gestured out the front picture window, where Ani could see the icy face of the glacier at the edge of the view.
“Ooh, that’s good. I like that. So it’s a poem about a glacier? What about the bells, though? Does the glacier ever sound like a bell?”
“I suppose it could, if you find a crevasse and make it echo. Seems a stretch. None of the rest of it applies to glaciers. Everything red and dead? Nothing’s red in a glacier. The way my brother explained it, the red light gets absorbed by the ice and only the blue light is visible.”
“But if someone was murdered on the glacier…there would be red and dead.”
“Murder?” He shot her a quick smile, and she realized, with amazement, that he had a dimple. “I’ve been out of the loop, are there any murder rumors floating around town?”
“Just the usual. That old murder spree from the eighties, and a few frozen corpses surfacing in the spring.”
“As far as I know, nothing like that happened this spring. This would be a very cryptic way to tell people about it.” He smoothed the paper out, then squinted at something on it. “Hang on, let me get a magnifying glass.”
He disappeared into a utility room filled with scientific equipment, then came back with both a magnifying glass and a microscope.
“I guess I came to the right place,” she said lightly.
“Never go anywhere without your magnifying glass.” Gil’s expression was so deadpan that she didn’t know if he was serious or joking. Then that unexpected dimple appeared again and she laughed. Every time she thought she had a handle on what Gil McGowan was like, he threw her for a loop.
Gil took his time analyzing the note. She watched, not feeling bored at all by the wait. It gave her a chance to look around the light-filled space, to let the peace and quiet soak into her bones.
After all the angst of recent months, it was pure balm.
It didn’t hurt to watch Gil’s extremely fit body hunch over the counter either. She noticed the dark hairs peeking under the cuffs of his olive-green thermal shirt, and the way it hugged the muscles of his back and shoulders. Every line of his body exuded strength and power.
Finally he lifted his head. “There’s a smudge of something on the paper. I think it’s a mix of blood and plant matter.”
She sucked in a breath. “Blood? Let me see.”
He handed her the magnifying glass and she examined the smudge. “It’s definitely blood, but it’s such a tiny amount. I wish we could identify the plant.”
“I have some contacts, I could try.”
“Everything red, everything dead,” she murmured. Chills swept up and down her spine. “Do you think someone tried to murder Victor?”
Maybe he had been murdered. Maybe he was already dead. She could have been one of the last people to see him alive.
“No, no, no.” He reached for her forearm and gave it a comforting squeeze. “We can’t make that leap. We need to be scientific about this. Right now all we have is some nonsensical words and a bit of blood. A tiny bit, as you said. Are you okay?”
She swallowed hard and gave him a nod. “Yes, sorry. I’m a doctor, but as a pediatrician I mostly deal with ear infections and stomach aches. Death, murder, that’s outside of my usual daily drill.”
“I’ve had two brushes with death. I was mountain climbing when I got swept downstream on an ice floe a few years ago in Iceland. I barely managed to grab onto a tree branch.” He rolled up his sleeve to show her a jagged scar on the inside of his forearm. “It did some damage while it was saving my life.”
She peered at the scar, which was long but shallow. “That must have hurt, but I’m surprised it left such a mark behind.”
“I was a two-day hike from any kind of help. My first-aid kit got washed away along with all my gear. By the time I got to the nearest village it was badly infected.”
He detailed the injury so casually, as if a life-threatening infection was really no big deal.
“My God,” she said softly, tracing her fingertip along the scar. He sat still while she touched him, but he didn’t pull away.
She drew her hand away, and he rolled his sleeve down. “What was the other brush with death?”
“I work for the Diplomatic Security Service, which is like the Secret Service for our diplomatic corps. I got shot at during the ambush of our ambassador to Qatar.” He lifted his thermal shirt to show off the puckered scar on his chest. Her heart nearly stopped at the sight of his muscled chest.
“That’s a dangerous line of work. Why did you choose it?”
“After defending my brilliant brother from bullies my whole childhood, it was a natural fit. I was good at it, but after I got shot, I took some time off. So here I am. And we should get moving.”
“But why?” With dismay, she looked around the delightful space, this aerie tucked into the treetops. “I just got here.”
“Someone searched it before I arrived. It’s on their radar. They may be back.”
She gave a long sigh, recognizing the necessity but deeply regretting it. “You know, maybe it’s not such a bad thing to talk to members of military? The two I saw at The Fang were fairly cute.”
A glint of amusement flashed in his eyes. “Man in uniform syndrome? I can dig up my suit and earpiece, does that do anything for you?”
“I’ll just use my imagination, thanks.” Good lord, were they flirting? It had been so long since she’d done such a thing that she wasn’t sure.
Back to their current situation.
“Where on earth would we go, all the way out here? I’m not one for wilderness camping. You don’t happen to know any ice castles in the sky with rooms available, do you?”
“Matter of fact, I might.”
And there was that dimple again.