Chapter 33
33
Just as Maura had reached the door that led to the locker rooms, a commotion caught her attention. She looked back to see a crowd gathering around the slippery section of the boardwalk, the part that got continuously thawed and refrozen. She couldn’t see more than that, and the drip-drip of her hair felt like a tick-tock down her back. So she put it from her mind and hurried into the locker room to change.
When she reached the east side of the building, she found Lachlan already waiting there.
“Did you see what happened in there?” she asked, pulling down the scarf she’d wrapped around her face.
“I did. Poor SS wasn’t paying attention and he tried to walk too fast on the slimy boardwalk. Somehow he slipped and fell on his ass. I can’t say how, don’t want to incriminate myself. The paramedics are with him, as well as a bunch of extremely concerned staff members. I think a lawyer might be present, or at least someone who keeps babbling about liability releases. I don’t think he’ll be leaving anytime soon, but we should get out of here.”
She ducked under her scarf again so should could laugh at SS’s predicament without looking like a jerk. Maybe he’d get the hint that he shouldn’t even be in Alaska.
When they reached Sam’s car, she hesitated before getting in. “Do you think it’s safe to drive this car?” she asked Lachlan. “Should we find the tracker before we go anywhere?”
“We can’t just leave it here. Searching for the tracker might take a while. All I did was buy us a little time. Hang on, let’s call Sam and see what he wants us to do.” He stepped away to make that call, while she shifted from one foot to the other to stay warm. “We worked it out. He’s going to meet us at the Fairbanks airport. Gil’s coming, and he’ll drive Sam’s car down to Blackbear to throw him off. Sam will take us back to Firelight Ridge. Hopefully we’ll be out of town before SS reaches the parking lot.”
Her eyes widened. “Do you think it’s safe to go back there?”
“They’ve been spreading around a story that you’re sick of using an outhouse and aren’t planning to come back to Firelight Ridge. They made sure the investigator heard it. I’m sure SS will get the word, and since he knows we were here in Fairbanks, maybe he’ll believe it.”
“Maybe.” SS was so unpredictable, and so relentless, that she couldn’t be sure of anything. But she couldn’t think of another plan at the moment. At least in Firelight Ridge, there were eyes and ears everywhere. SS couldn’t sneak up on her. She missed her students. She missed Pinky, and the new friends she was making. And she could still be with Lachlan, at least a little while longer. “Let’s do it,” she decided. “As soon as we get home, I want to talk to Molly about representing me. Doesn’t Sam know someone with the FBI?”
“He does. He was working with them when he first came to Firelight Ridge.”
“Perfect. We can find out if SS put his foot in it by coming here.” Ever since she’d had that revelation in the hot springs, she’d been filled with the sense that there was light at the end of the tunnel. She didn’t have to live this way. She could free herself from this nightmare once and for all and go anywhere she wanted. Even back home to Colorado, if she chose. The very idea made her giddy.
On the way to the airport, Lachlan suggested she try to locate Dr. Reed’s ex-wife. “While we have reliable cell service,” he added.
“Is it safe to use my phone?”
“I think so. He’s tracking this car, not your phone.”
She did a quick search and discovered that the professor’s wife was named Andrea Reed, maiden name of Garth, and that she still lived in Vancouver, where she too worked at the university as a drawing instructor. “I bet that’s awkward,” she mused, as she dialed the number listed in the university directory.
It was almost a shock when someone answered. “You’ve reached Andrea Reed,” said a brisk female voice. “I’ll be on leave until the end of the spring semester. Leave a message at the beep.”
But her voicemail was full and not accepting new messages.
She glanced over at Lachlan, who looked just as taken aback as she felt. “That seems weird, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t she be checking her messages regularly?”
“I hope she’s not in some kind of danger. Now that I think about it, Dr. Reed sounded pretty threatening on the phone.”
They reached the section of the airport set aside for smaller planes, and pulled into a parking spot.
“One more call,” said Lachlan. “I’ll do this one.”
She listened in as Lachlan called the main number for the Clean Energy Engineering Faculty.
“Hi, I’m a graduate student interested in transferring to UBC. Someone told me that I should consider studying with Professor Reed. Can you tell me what his area of focus is so I know if he’d be a good fit?”
He nodded several times, then said, “That’s not quite what I had in mind, but thanks.”
Call over, he looked at Maura. “He specializes in experimental energy sources. He’s an engineer and an inventor, but so far he hasn’t built anything that can be produced at scale.”
“Do you think that’s what he was working on in Wind Valley? Something to do with wind energy?”
“It’s possible, but Gunnar said the wind is too strong there. Maybe that was the problem he was trying to solve.” Lachlan waved through the windshield at Gil, who was striding across the tarmac toward them. He got out of the car and the two of them exchanged a hard hug.
Maura grabbed her purse and their wet swimming things from the backseat and joined them.
As the twins pulled apart, Gil gestured for her to join them. “Just want to fill you in on what Nick discovered about Jackie Silver.”
“Who?”
“Sorry, the investigator. You’ve missed a lot over the past day or so. It turns out she wasn’t hired by your stalker, but by a lawyer for someone suing the Hopper Police Department.”
Maura exchanged a glance with Lachlan. “Then how did SS find me, if he didn’t send her?”
“Jackie thinks he might have followed her to Blackbear. She was taking precautions, but she had the sense someone was on her tail. Anyway, she’d still like to talk to you. She’s staying at the Lamplight Motel. She’s been helping us spread the story that you’re not coming back to Firelight Ridge. Nick and I both think she can be trusted.”
Maura nodded, but she wasn’t going to trust this Jackie Silver quite so easily.
“I’m going to get your stuff before I drive down to Blackbear,” Gil continued. What hotel were you staying in?”
“The Freshwater Lodge. But don’t tangle with him, please.” She twisted her hands together anxiously. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt or in trouble with the law. Promise me?”
“I can promise I won’t be looking for trouble. If it comes for me, no guarantees of anything.”
Maura looked desperately at Lachlan, who gave a tiny shake of his head, telling her not to worry. He obviously had a lot of faith in his brother.
“When we’re all back at The Fang,” said Gil, more lightly, “I’m going to require a blow-by-blow account of exactly how this asshole slipped at the hot springs.”
That broke the tension, and a few moments later Gil got into Sam’s Camry while Maura and Lachlan boarded the Beechcraft.
“It’s going to get a little bumpy,” Sam told them by way of greeting. “Leading edge of a new storm system is coming through. The good news, it’s bringing three feet of snow, so as long as we can beat it, no one else will be coming into town anytime soon.”
“When you say, ‘so long as we can beat it,’” Maura asked cautiously, “What does that mean exactly?”
“Just buckle up and hang on.”
Needless to say, there was no chance of asking him about the FBI. She didn’t even unclench her jaw for the entire trip—too afraid that her stomach would decide that would be a good opportunity to empty itself.
With each sickening lurch and dip of the plane, she held Lachlan’s hand more tightly, until she was surprised he had any blood flow left. Sam kept his attention on the controls, and the last thing she wanted to do was distract him. Every time she glanced Lachlan’s way, he smiled at her in reassurance. He must have been on plenty of turbulent flights like this. She thought of all the places he’d been, the remote areas of the Himalayas he’d visited, Iceland, Nepal, Finland, any place where the jokulhlaup phenomenon happened.
He wasn’t just a scientist, she realized. He was an adventurer. Maybe that was why they clicked so well. She’d always longed to leave Hopper, but she hadn’t wanted to cause trouble for her family. It wasn’t until she felt their safety depended on her leaving that she’d allowed herself to do so. She thought of her grandmother, who had married a miner with big dreams and settled in Alaska—at least for a time. Adventure was in her blood. She was tired of denying it.
With that resolve, she peeled open her eyes and looked out the window at the chaotic world of darkness and clouds streaming past them. This was life. Pure, invigorating life. Soak it in, she told herself. It’s better than hiding from your own shadow in Hopper, Colorado.
By the time they touched down on the airstrip in Firelight Ridge, she was quietly whooping with every bump. The wind sock on the roof of the storage shed was fuller than she’d ever seen it, and pointing straight toward town. It wasn’t snowing yet, but dense clouds paraded overhead, dramatically lit by the quarter moon that kept appearing and disappearing behind them.
Sam leaped out of the plane, and Lachlan followed close behind to help with the tie-downs. Maura climbed out on her own, bracing herself against the fierce buffeting of the wind. It whined against the metal of the plane and whispered in the trees alongside the tarmac. “Go inside,” it seemed to say. “It’s not fit for man or beast out here.”
One truck waited in the parking lot, headlights aimed toward the plane so they could see what they were doing. Struggling against the wind, Maura made her way toward it. Molly jumped out to help her the last few yards.
“How was the flight?” she called over the whine of the wind. “And why do you smell like,” she sniffed, “sulfur?”
Maura collapsed into the passenger seat of Molly’s truck. “It’s been a day,” was all she could manage before dissolving into laughter of sheer, exhausted relief.