Chapter 13
13
“Okay, that’s just…creepy. Partly because of the handwriting. I think this font would be called ‘serial killer.’” Even though Maura was trying to make light of it, that was just to hide the fact that she was rattled. She wished she hadn’t picked up that note, or that she hadn’t taken her gloves off first. Who else had touched it? She tossed it back onto the dashboard and wiped her hands. “Got any sanitizer?”
“In the glove compartment.” Lachlan picked up the note—gloves still on—and examined it. “Pretty cryptic. I think we should show this to Elias too. He might know who wrote it and what they’re talking about.”
Lachlan’s calm manner helped her relax. She drew in some long breaths, counting inhales and exhales, the way her antianxiety specialist had taught her. It was just a note written by someone who was barely literate. That was all. A warning.
“You’re assuming one of the Chilkoots wrote it.”
“Only Chilkoots live out here, so yeah.”
“How do you know?” As Lachlan turned the truck toward town, she glanced back over her shoulder. Low clouds gathered over the clearing, their edges tinted a vivid shade of peach from the setting sun. The hoop house blended in with the snow fields, then disappeared as they drove downslope.
“That’s a good point,” said Lachlan. “I only know what I’ve heard. Anything could be going on out here. The Chilkoots rarely come into town.”
“Except for the kids in my class.” Maura wondered about the ethics of asking the young ones questions about their unusual family situation. Then again, she wasn’t working for a school district. She didn’t have to follow any rules. The parents—and guardian, in the case of Ruth Chilkoot—had signed a waiver.
“How do they get to school?”
“There seems to be a rotating schedule of adults who bring them in. I don’t know any of them except for Ruth. She comes on Wednesdays because she does the shopping then.”
“Do you have a good relationship with her?”
“Do you mean would I feel comfortable interrogating her about a mystery man who got bitten by a wolf and left a grenade behind? And whether she knows who’s trying to warn us away from looking for him?”
“That was the idea.” Looking embarrassed, he shrugged. “Sorry. Once something grabs my curiosity, it’s hard for me to let go. You should have seen me in graduate school. I’d go up to four days without sleeping at all.”
An image flashed through her mind of student-Lachlan—fired up about some project, all bedhead and wild green eyes. She wished she had known him then. “Did you have a girlfriend?” she asked, surprising herself with that out-of-the-blue question.
“Sometimes. We were off and on,” he explained when she looked at him askance. “Greta was…well, she was older than me. She was on the faculty, actually, and probably shouldn’t have looked twice at me. Every so often she’d get irritated because I was so young, and she’d dump me.”
Maura frowned, indignant on past-Lachlan’s behalf. “But she knew your age from the start.”
“She did. I think she thought she could mature me faster with the power of her personality. She wanted kids. And she wanted me to want kids. But I wasn’t as malleable as she thought I was. Also, Gil never liked Greta.”
“Why not?” Smart man , thought Maura.
“He thought she was emotionally manipulative. Which she was.” He smiled over at her ruefully. “I knew it at the time, but I was too excited about all the sex to get worked up about it. But kids…” He shook his head. “That’s different. I wouldn’t want to bring children into an emotionally manipulative situation. How about you?”
The transition was so abrupt that she startled. “Me? What about me?”
“Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”
“Oh.” That phrase emotionally manipulative kept echoing through her mind. Did that describe SS too? Or was he just a straight-up obsessive type? “I’m on an extended break from that kind of thing. It’s a recovery phase.”
He cocked his head, waiting for more. Lachlan was an impressively good listener, she’d noticed. Perhaps the best she’d ever encountered outside a therapist’s office.
“My last…thing…didn’t end well,” she finally said. “Or start well. The middle was crappy too. But I don’t really care to talk about it.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything more, and somehow she found words being drawn out of her. “Sometimes I think I’m cursed. My parents met in high school and they’re madly in love with each other. I always thought something similar would happen to me. But then I caught my high school boyfriend with the star quarterback. They’re married now, so at least the high school meet-cute worked out for someone. Then after I started teaching, I fell for the French teacher and we dated for a while. But then he moved back to France to be with his wife, who he’d neglected to mention. He tried to claim it was a French thing, but there’s something called Google that told me he was full of shit. And most recently there was…”
She trailed off, because the next story was the one she really didn’t want to talk about. The one that had sent her running for Alaska.
“There was a man who wouldn’t accept a ‘no,’” she finished. “They weren’t all such disasters, but you can see why I’m taking some time to rethink my approach to romance. I’m clearly doing something wrong.”
“Or you’ve had some very bad luck,” Lachlan said sympathetically, as he turned onto the road that led back into town. “Or good luck? At least you didn’t marry someone who actually wanted to be with a man.”
“That’s not a bad point. If only you could have consoled the eighteen-year-old me. My mother tried, but she was crying almost as much as I was. She really had her heart set on my following in her footsteps. The fact that I’m still not married…” Maura shook her head sadly. “I know she’s disappointed, though she would never say so.”
“How could she be disappointed?” The outrage in Lachlan’s voice made her smile.
“I’ve never seen anyone adapt so easily to Alaska. The way you whipped Pinky’s place into shape, the way you established yourself as a teacher within just a few weeks of getting here? You found a best friend. Me,” he added modestly. “Now you’re out snowmobiling and investigating strange animal sightings. They should see you out here. They’d never be disappointed.”
“They don’t even know I’m here,” she said before thinking about it.
They reached a narrow spot in the road. He brought the truck to a stop so another car could pass by. After giving the driver a wave—she thought it was Oil Can—he turned to look at her. “They don’t know you’re in Alaska?”
“No. And I don’t want to say anything more about that.”
His sea-green eyes held hers for a long moment, then he nodded once. Accepting her boundaries. She deeply appreciated that. “Any idea where we can find Elias and ask him about this note?”