Chapter 32
32
They watched the aurora borealis in silence for some time. Lachlan knew this enchanted interlude wasn’t going to last forever. Eventually the cold air would catch up with them, and they’d scamper inside and return to reality. But he intended to savor every moment until that happened.
Sharing the hot springs with Maura was bittersweet; he knew that forevermore, long after she’d left, he’d remember her eyes shining through the drifting steam and her laughter as she painted frosty shapes on her skin. His heart ached to tell her how he really felt about her. That he’d never only seen her as a friend, and the more time they spent together, the more he…loved her?
Yes. That was it, plain and simple. As if anything involving Maura could ever be simple, he thought. Not in her current situation, anyway.
He forced his thoughts away from her and back to the wolf. If some habitat disruption was affecting the wolves, was it the same thing the smaller wild creatures were responding to? He thought about the military aircraft that had picked up the Reeds when they left. Hadn’t Gunnar said that one of the kids had been sick? If they’d left in a hurry, maybe something had gotten left behind.
“That family,” he said out loud.
“Excuse me?” Maura was still staring dreamily up at the sky.
“Dr. Reed. Maybe he wasn’t just trying to survive off the grid. Maybe he was doing some kind of research. He studies clean energy, right? Maybe he was working on something top-secret, and that’s why a military aircraft picked them up. Just speculating,” he said quickly, when Maura shot him a look.
“No, this is good. It explains why he chose Wind Valley in particular.”
“He had his family with him. Maybe we should contact them since he won’t talk.”
“That’s a great idea,” said Maura. “We could start with his ex-wife. I was reading a bit about her after he hung up on us.”
“Good thinking.” He smiled and skimmed his hand across the surface. “The hot springs working its magic again. Didn’t I tell you about this place?”
Odd that he had such faith in a pool of water surrounded by rocks. But his experiences had been real, even if he couldn’t quite explain them. Maybe it had to do with the ordinary boundaries of logic dissipating in the steam, allowing his brain to make new connections.
“There is something I’ve been thinking about,” Maura said after a time, bobbing her toes above the water, one foot, then the other.
“Tell me.”
“Your question from earlier, about my long-term plan. It was a valid point. I’m realizing that it might not be sustainable to simply stay one step ahead of SS for the rest of my life.”
“Hmmm.” He’d been thinking the same thing for a while, but hadn’t wanted to throw cold water on her hopes. “Any other ideas?”
“Well, I could agree to testify against him. If he’s in jail, he can’t bother me.”
He looked at her closely. “You don’t sound like you believe that.”
She shrugged, her bare shoulders rising briefly above the water’s surface. They were both immersed up to their necks; he imagined they must look like two bobbleheads floating at sea. “I doubt he’d go to prison. Most likely, he’d get some kind of suspended sentence or probation. Maybe that would scare him enough to make him stay away from me, or maybe it would piss him off even more. There have been so many times when I’ve thought, now he’ll stop. Now he’ll move on. And he just doesn’t. I think he has some kind of disorder. What else could explain it? Maybe if he got some treatment…but I already told you how his father shut me down when I suggested it.” She floated her arms to the sides, her hands skimming through the steam. The closest light—a dim shade of magenta—gave the scene a vague air of emergency.
Dammit, this was supposed to be relaxing.
But then he realized that something was relaxing—her barriers were breaking down. Maybe the steam was easing the fear that had kept her from talking freely about her experience with SS.
“I can see why you wouldn’t trust the system,” he said gently. “But if there’s another woman coming forward, wouldn’t that help your case?”
“Maybe. But the track record overall isn’t great. Verdicts get overturned. And I don’t have a lot of money for lawyers. I used up a chunk of my savings just getting to Firelight Ridge.”
“You could probably work something out with Molly Evans. She’s brilliant, and you know how things are in Firelight Ridge. There’s a lot of bartering going on. I think the Chilkoots pay her in moose meat.”
She smiled at that. “I suppose I could sharpen up my hunting skills, which at this point are zero.” Letting out a sigh, she tilted her head back. “Ugh, lawyers and courtrooms…I can just picture SS getting on the witness stand and telling a million lies about me, about how I led him on, or asked for him to chase me to Alaska or—” Abruptly, she shifted her position, creating a splash that drew a few looks from across the pool. “Wait. Isn’t there something about crossing state lines?”
“How do you mean?”
“If you cross state lines while committing a crime, that means the FBI can get involved. Otherwise it’s the local or the state police, or the sheriff.”
That sounded vaguely correct, though he’d never had a reason to look into it. “That makes sense, if more than one state is involved. But what crime was he committing?”
“I don’t know…harassment? Stalking? Breaking and entering our hotel room? There must be something!” Excitedly, she splashed her hands through the water. “One of my problems has been that SS is so connected to all the local law enforcement. But not the FBI, and not the police here in Alaska. You know something, Lachlan?”
“What?” Her change of mood made him almost dizzy.
“You were right about this place. I think I just had a breakthrough! SS made a big mistake coming to Alaska. It changes everything.” Then her face fell. “Shoot, I just realized that we have no proof that he was in our hotel room. Your hotel room,” she corrected.
“That’s not completely true.”
She glanced at him questioningly.
“I took a photo when I was looking through Sam’s binoculars, when you were hiding under your coat. My phone camera has great resolution, so I snapped a couple of shots blindly, in the general direction that I’d been pointing the binoculars. I haven’t even looked at the photos. They might show nothing, so don’t get your hopes up too much.”
“Too late.” Her eyes were sparkling as she paddled closed to him. “That was a genius move, Lachlan. What made you think of it?”
“I’m a scientist. I document everything.”
“How about you document this?” she said in a low sexy murmur as her hand swept across the front of his swim trunks.
He closed his eyes at the pleasure of her touch. She wasn’t trying to make him come, this was the wrong place for that. It was just a tease. A “let’s find another hotel room and dive under the covers” invitation.
As his eyes drifted open, something caught his eye on the wooden boardwalk that led back to the locker rooms. The continuous flow of people coming and going from the springs made it hard to single out one person. It was the colors that had caught his eye. Yellow and green, just like the beanie…
He sat bolt upright and peered through the floating steam. “Over on the boardwalk,” he said to Maura in a low voice. “At two o’clock. Is that who I think it is?”
She gave a quick intake of breath. “Shit. That’s him. What the hell? Do you think he followed us?”
“No one followed us. I made sure.” Then he swore. “Did he put a tracker on Sam’s car? Maybe it wasn’t your phone after all.”
“When would he have done that?”
He retraced their journey from the moment they’d landed in Blackbear. “If he was waiting at the airport, he could have spotted us there, followed us to the store where we got snacks, and planted the tracker there.”
“So he’s been following us all this time?” she whispered in horror. “How did he know we’d be in Blackbear?”
“The investigator? Maybe we weren’t as slick as we thought we were. Or maybe he figured you’d leave town once an investigator showed up, so he camped out at the Blackbear airport. It’s the only way out in the winter.”
They watched as the man on the boardwalk scanned the faces of the people in the small grotto hot tub closest to him. He wore swim trunks and a towel draped around his neck. And that beanie…he probably wasn’t used to Alaska temperatures.
Could they avoid being spotted if they stayed in this dark corner of the springs? It was possible, but the way SS was scrutinizing every bather in the place, unlikely. They had to slip past him somehow and race out of here while he was still searching the springs.
A group of Japanese travelers—about ten—who’d been floating near them made a move toward the stairs. Could he and Maura blend in with their group?
“Time for one more crazy ice hair style,” he told her. He gestured toward the heads bobbing toward the stairs. “Make it fast.”
He didn’t have to explain more than that. They both dipped their heads underwater, then as their hair froze, they transformed themselves into unrecognizable ice sculptures. Maura slicked her hair into two horns, then painted her eyebrows and eyelashes with such a thick layer of frost that she looked like a bighorn sheep.
“That works,” he told her. “You go ahead and blend in with that group. I’ll be right behind you.”
“No, you should come with me.”
“I’ll stand out too much. Besides, I have a plan. Go, hurry.” The bathers were making their way onto the boardwalk, shivering as the cold air surrounded them. “Please, just trust me. Meet me on the east side of the building.”
She nodded her absurdly ice-adorned head and swam toward the group. He watched closely as she said something to one of the teenage girls still in the water. The girl giggled, held her nose, and went underwater. By the time everyone had reached the boardwalk, two other people had crazy ice-hair like Maura’s.
Smart.
The Japanese bathers slipped into the flip-flops they’d left on the boardwalk, and hurried toward the locker room, with Maura in their midst. No one would have known she wasn’t one of them, aside from her bare feet.
They crowded past SS, who had to step to the side to let them pass. His glance went right over them, clearly registering Japanese faces, and looking no further. Lachlan didn’t relax even once Maura was inside the heated building. Hurry , he silently urged her. Your hair is already thawing. The only tiny bit of disguise you have is dripping away.
Time to execute his plan.