Chapter 2
SHE’D SIMPLY have to learn to live with herself.
Keely stood on the tarmac outside the terminal of the Copper Mountain Air Base, burying her chin and nose in her knitted scarf. Her hat was pulled low against the biting wind careening from the jagged, gray cast of mountainscape to the north.
Yeah, give her New York City any day. Sure, the temps dropped into the low thirties, but she could go from her heated condo to her heated garage to her driver’s heated Escalade, right to her studio’s heated entry, where coffee from Stumptown waited for her in her office.
Although, the breakfast today at the Gold Nugget, followed by the coffee from the Last Frontier coffee shop as she’d waited for the plane’s noon departure, had found a place in her heart, especially with one of the bakery’s sinfully delicious cinnamon rolls.
She’d watched the sunrise from the warmth of the shop, seated in a log chair, listening to the chatter of the barista about a trial of a local thug.
Something about the death of a DEA agent, some takedown of drug runners.
With all the vast wilderness, it seemed logical that they’d have a plethora of crime hidden in the bush, as Alaskans called it.
“Did you weigh this?” The question brought her back to now, on the tarmac, and came from the pilot, a man named Cade “Mack” Maverick, from Maverick Air.
Mid-fifties, he had a sort of Indiana Jones feel about him, with his leather jacket, baseball cap, and cockeyed grin.
He grabbed her Louis Vuitton carry-on and slung it onto a cart with two other bags.
It bounced and nearly fell onto the snowy tarmac.
“It’s twenty-three point two pounds,” she said. She’d packed little, really. A pink velour jumpsuit, a couple pairs of wool socks, extra canvas pants and a white wool sweater, her sleeping supplies—earplugs, eye mask, face tape—and makeup, a few hair products, and of course, the picture album.
Silly.
“Good. Any more, and we’d be overweight. You’d have to wait for the next flight.”
“Thanks for letting me tag along.” She’d prearranged for a flight out later tonight, but frankly . . .
Well, she had a life to get back to. Enough games, what-ifs, and dodging the only answer that made sense.
“Did you get breakfast? Because we have no food service on board.” He winked at her.
“I ate. Twice. Once at the Gold Nugget, then again at the Last Frontier.” Her voice had started to rasp already. Shoot.
“Oh, Nora makes a whopper of a breakfast. Did you get her wild rice omelet with venison?”
“No. I . . . just eggs and sausage.” No more talking. She cleared her throat.
“Oh, her reindeer sausage is award winning.”
Keely managed a smile. Reindeer? Ew.
First thing she’d do when she got home was order a slice of pepperoni pizza from Lombardi’s.
“And you can’t leave town without one of the Frontier’s famous cinnamon rolls, so . . . good call. We’ll get this stowed, and then you and the others can board.” He lifted his chin to a couple other passengers standing apart from each other.
She glanced over at them. One looked like he should probably be traveling by dogsled.
He was dressed in an oversized parka fringed with wool, snow pants, and leather mukluks.
A pair of leather mittens stuck out from his pocket, and he carried a rucksack over his shoulder.
He looked in his early thirties, maybe, brown hair, wore a hint of a dark grizzle on his chin.
Kept checking the sky to the north as if expecting something.
The other seemed a woodsman of sorts. Dark eyes, a bit of a scowl, but who wouldn’t be sour against this biting weather? He, too, wore a dark beard, although longer and a bit unkempt, a wool hat, and a heavy fleece coat and snow boots. A scar parted the beard on his cheek.
She looked at her shearling Prada Ugg-style boots. She’d nearly worn her slide-on slippers, but at the last minute had opted for her mini platform, ankle-height version. After all, it was Alaska.
An hour, maybe a little more, and she’d be at the Anchorage Airport, booking a flight home, all this nonsense in her rearview.
Mack returned, the cart empty. “Go ahead and climb in.” He glanced over at one of the men, the one in the parka. “Wilder, grab the copilot spot.” He looked at the other man. “Mr. Thornwood, you can sit behind me to balance out the plane.”
Thornwood grunted even as Wilder nodded.
Keely followed the troop toward the small plane. A red stripe ran the length of its compact body, with the words Maverick Air painted on the side.
Wilder got in first, followed by Thornwood. Keely stood on the metal stairs and glanced back at the small town of Copper Mountain.
Woodsmoke rose from the collection of pines between the air base and downtown, evidence of life in the cluster of houses tucked along the dirt roads. Already, the scent of barbecue smoke sharpened the air, so clearly the Midnight Sun Saloon had fired up their stoves for the day.
Bye . . . Mom?
No, that felt weird. She had one mom, and she’d already said goodbye to her.
Goodbye, Vic.
Keely drew in a breath of cool air, then climbed in beside Thornwood. She belted into the cozy seat and dropped her backpack at her feet.
Mack closed her door, and it latched. She tried to ignore the smell of woods from her fellow passengers.
First class, Alaska Airlines, here she came.
Her eyes burned, and she blinked hard, gazing out the window at the thick forest that surrounded the airfield. To the south, the sky opened up, a beautiful blue patched with clouds.
“You sure you want to leave so quickly? You just got here,” Nora had said this morning as she set a plate in front of Keely, along with a cup of whipped-cream-topped cocoa.
“Gotta get back to work,” Keely had said, not remembering to whisper.
Nora had wiped her hands on her apron, then sat in a nearby straight chair in the dining room, rich with oiled walnut furniture. Keely ate off china on a lacy tablecloth.
Quaint and weirdly comforting, really.
“What do you do?”
Keely took a sip of the cocoa and made a mental note to have her assistant give Nora a jingle and pry the recipe from her. “I . . . I’m a singer.” That kept it simple. Sort of.
“Really. Oh, that’s lovely. Opera? Jazz?”
“Pop. And some musical theater.” She didn’t want to say Broadway, because that might raise follow-up questions and maybe lead to her short stint in Hollywood, which would lead to Chase Sterling and . . . all the rest. Right?
Nope.
Nora found a smile. “Hal and I are Beatles fans.”
Of course they were.
Nora leaned close. “But back in the day, we liked Dylan and Joplin.” She winked.
“Classics,” Keely said.
“Oh, I don’t think they’d want to be known as that. But yes.” She’d gotten up. “Good luck to you and your music. I hope to see you back here.”
Probably not.
Mack got into the plane, then turned in his seat.
“Listen up, this is your safety briefing. First—keep your seat belt buckled. It can get rough, especially with the blizzard heading our way. Our flight path veers a little east before we turn south to Anchorage to dodge it, but you never know what pockets we might hit.”
Nice. Maybe she shouldn’t have eaten the sausage.
“In the unlikely event we need to put down, just stay calm and listen to my instructions. There is a fire extinguisher up by the copilot seat and a first aid kit under the pilot’s seat.
The door is opened by pulling the handle up to unlock it and then pushing outward.
” He handed back a couple of headsets with microphones.
“This will help with the noise, and if you can’t hear me, let me know. ”
Keely put on her headset, and he tested it. She gave him a thumbs-up.
Her father’s voice walked into her head. “Stay alert, stay alive.”
Whatever, Detective Williams.
Then she put her head back and closed her eyes. Sorry, Zoey. She hadn’t sent the email yet, but surely this was the right answer.
Mack taxied the plane out to the tarmac, and she listened as he called in to the tower. Moments later, they lifted off, her stomach dropping a little. But as they arched out over the town, headed southeast, she opened her eyes to watch.
A muddy and frozen river ran south from the western side of the small town, the houses and cars resembling Matchbox toys.
She made out the Midnight Sun Saloon, as well as the Gold Nugget Inn, and then the plane veered east to avoid the darkening clouds to the west, and the landscape turned a mix of green pine jutting from a blanket of white.
In the distance, humpback mountains rose, gray-green and ominous.
They passed tiny lakes, like dimples in the earth, some of them with cabins perched on the shore.
A settlement caught her eye—a cluster of buildings carved out of the forest—with cleared land around it, situated next to a frozen lake.
Smaller houses circled a larger building in the center, and a massive barn on one end rose, twice the size of the main building.
Looked almost like a small town, but no roads led to it.
They flew over it, and then Mack banked south and followed a wide river, tumbling even in the extreme cold.
“Good luck to you and your music.” Yeah. Time to start therapy, probably.
Movement next to her tore her attention from the scenery, and she froze as Thornwood unbuckled his seat belt.
What—?
Then he leaned forward. Her breath stopped as he put a Glock 19 to Mack’s head. The ridiculous fleeting thought that her dad might be a little proud that she knew that detail left her when Thornwood growled, “Land the plane.”
What—what—?
She gasped, and Thornwood shot her a look that made her grab the arms of her seat.
Cold, dark eyes speared through her.
“What are you doing?” Wilder turned in his seat, and Thornwood pointed the gun at him. He recoiled. “Don’t shoot!”
“Land the plane,” Thornwood growled again. “There, on the riverbed.”
She looked down and spotted a wide shoreline, pebbled and frozen. There?
“I’m not landing,” Mack said.