Alaskan Christmas Cold Case

by Sarah Varland

  Erynn swallowed hard. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard the words. The last time, she had known the person cared about her, known he’d meant them.

  And then he’d ended up dead.

  She couldn’t let that happen to Noah. Or to her.

  FIVE

  Noah checked his phone. No message from Erynn in the last couple of hours. He checked his watch: 3:00 a.m. Well, that would explain why. They had wrapped up at the department not long after he’d brought the coffee in. Erynn had said she’d wanted to try to get some sleep. But Noah wouldn’t be surprised if she’d mostly wanted a break from him and his misplaced optimism. He could use one, also, but giving up was not an option.

  You still okay? He typed out the words in a text message, made himself set the phone down rather than wait for a reply. His sister Summer, Clay’s wife, had called and insisted Erynn stay with them rather than return to her house. Noah had been planning to post one of his officers at her house, even though he didn’t have the manpower, but this option was better. He trusted Clay to keep both Erynn and Summer safe if anything went wrong, and Summer would keep him updated if anything changed. He’d walked her out to Clay and Summer’s car, the winter darkness weighing on him. The town’s holiday decorations hung on every streetlight—candles, holly, Christmas trees made of lights—and their joyfulness mocked him. This was supposed to be a season of happiness, wasn’t it?

  Instead Erynn was afraid for her life. And Noah felt powerless to stop it.

  It didn’t feel much like Christmas.

  Logically, Noah knew sleep would help his mind-set. It wouldn’t erase the threat, but it might bring clarity. He should really get some rest.

  She’s okay, right? He typed the text to Summer and sent it before he could let his good sense change his mind. This time he really did set the phone down and lie back on his pillow.

  The phone buzzed.

  He sat up to read the message from Erynn. I’m fine. Go to sleep, Noah.

  He exhaled. God, help me. He had worked hundreds of cases in the years he’d been serving Moose Haven but nothing had touched him this closely. Not even when his sisters were in danger.

  Erynn was different. He was different with her. And in all these years of working together, he’d never told her how much she meant to him. He couldn’t now, either. He had to stay focused, had to avoid giving her any reason to elude him because, while he had a case to solve, the fact was he didn’t trust anyone else to keep her safe the way he would. Wasn’t sure anyone cared the way he did.

  He pulled the covers up, let himself nod off. He wouldn’t do either of them any good exhausted.

  When he woke again it was past five in the morning. Late enough to start work.

  He checked his phone to find two messages, one from Summer. She’s fine. Seriously, she’s going to know how you feel if you keep hovering.

  Yeah, Erynn might not know about his feelings for her, but there was a good chance she was the only one in Moose Haven.

  The next message was from Erynn. Sent five minutes ago, probably what had woken him. I’m going up to Harding Icefield. Are you coming?

  Noah typed out a reply. Stay put. I’ll be right there.

  He showered more quickly than usual, changed into fresh clothes and headed outside to his car, locking his front door as he did so and then pausing to look at the deck.

  He’d forgotten to have someone process his front porch for evidence. Chances were slim the killer had left any evidence besides the note itself, which he had taken into the police department—it had come up clean, no prints or useful DNA samples. Still, he should look around.

  The two rocking chairs on the porch looked relatively undisturbed, as did everything else.

  He slid out his phone and texted Clay Hitchcock, the man on his team with the most crime scene training, and asked him to come by to see if there was any forensic evidence Noah wasn’t seeing.

  Clay texted On my way and arrived in less than five minutes.

  Noah debated staying with him.

  “You look like you’re on edge.” Clay stated the obvious as he dusted the table for prints, sprinkling the deep black dust over the surface.

  “Erynn’s threatening to investigate without me. She didn’t say anything to you?”

  He shook his head. “Go. I’ll call you if I find anything.”

  Noah did not need to be told twice. Indecision defeated, he hurried to his car and drove to Clay and Summer’s cabin on the edge of the family’s property about a five-minute drive away.

  Her car was gone. Summer had sure better be with her. His sister was not trained in anything, but she was an athlete and she’d had a serial killer after her once. Anything was better than Erynn being alone.

  Noah left his car running, knocked on the door just in case.

  No one answered. As he’d expected.

  Stubborn. She was pure stubbornness, that’s all there was to it, and if it got her killed...

  Well, it just couldn’t. Because Noah didn’t know how he’d manage to keep living if anything happened to her. She’d leave that big a hole in his everyday life and she didn’t even know it. If she was okay, if he found her... He wasn’t going to be able to keep quiet for much longer. Bad timing or not.

  He climbed back into the car and drove up to Harding Edge Road, which would take him to the base of the mountain, to Moose Haven’s Harding Icefield Trailhead. The parking lot had one car in it. Erynn’s.

  A wave of hot anger washed over him and Noah gritted his teeth. He climbed out of his car, slammed the door and started toward the trailhead.

  “Hey.”

  The voice had come from behind him. Erynn. He whipped his head around.

  “Are you going to wait for us?” She had the driver’s-side window down, was leaning halfway out of it and smiling.

  He couldn’t understand the second part. What was there to smile about? He tried to shrug off some of the anger that had built, but more than likely it wouldn’t all dissipate until he’d had a chance to burn off energy on the trail. Hiking was his favorite way to deal with stress. Not fast, running nonsense like Summer enjoyed. Not the risky high-stakes hikes Kate was used to after all of her Search-and-Rescue work. Just hikes. Alone or with his brother, Tyler. But mostly alone.

  “I’m waiting.” What else was there to say? She’d scared the tar out of him, coming here without waiting for him. While he was thankful nothing had happened to her in the trailhead parking lot, it had still been foolish.

  The passenger-side door opened and Summer climbed out, dressed for hiking. Noah was already shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”

  “I didn’t want her to come out here alone, Noah. It was the only choice I had.” She shrugged.

  “No.” He didn’t know if the two women thought they could take him on, but this was his investigation—even more so than Erynn’s, since her time on it would likely be limited once her superiors at the trooper station realized how close she was to it personally. “Besides, I’m with her now. I don’t want you in danger, too.”

  “Should I drive Erynn’s car back?” Summer looked to Erynn, who had climbed out of the car and was digging in the trunk.

  “Works for me.” Noah looked at Erynn, dared her to argue. Instead she nodded. “If you don’t mind, that would be great. But wait until Clay can come up here to meet you.”

  Noah saw where she was going, already had his phone out to call Clay.

  “He’s sending one of the other officers since he was out at my place.”

  * * *

  If Erynn had the kind of vision that enabled her to see people’s emotions, there would be literal waves of anger rolling off Noah. They’d been hiking for a solid hour and he’d said nothing to her, just stuck so close that she’d bumped into him more than once and the way he’d reacted was even more confusing than his anger. Whe
n their hands had brushed, he’d made eye contact with her, held it for a moment too long, and something had shivered inside her all the way to her toes.

  Ridiculous. She had known for ages that she had a small crush on Noah, but nothing she felt for him was real or substantial enough to weather the perpetual storm that was her life. She had no business experiencing tingling in her toes, or anywhere else, because of the man.

  For now what she needed was to convince him that she felt nothing for him. And to focus on figuring out how to keep everyone around her safe while she finally pinpointed the identity of the man who’d haunted her dreams for more than a decade.

  Noah stopped, too close for Erynn to stop fully, and she ran into him. In half a second he’d turned and caught her by the upper arms.

  “What is with you?” She couldn’t stop her frustration from exploding.

  “I thought I heard something.”

  “We’re in the woods in the winter. You probably heard a moose.”

  He still hadn’t let her go, still had his hands on her arms, and every cell in her was aware of his touch.

  Erynn cleared her throat, looked at her arms, one at a time. Back at Noah, who was looking at her. “Are you thinking of letting me go?”

  “Erynn...”

  The way his voice trailed off, husky with emotion, made her know that their time limit for ignoring whatever was between them was about to run out. And the timing couldn’t be worse.

  For years their easygoing banter had been one of the highlights of her life. Being free to fall in love with Noah, able to live a normal life without looking over her shoulder...

  Erynn couldn’t think of anything she’d like more. But she didn’t have that freedom right now. Letting Noah get closer to her would only put a target on his back. She couldn’t do that to him.

  Shaking her head, she pulled backward just enough that Noah released her. She had known he would. He’d never be the kind of man who continued an advance, even an innocent touch like that, when it was unwelcome.

  “We’ve got to get up there and find her body.”

  “I think I’m in love with you.”

  Their voices harmonized as their words clashed. Badly.

  Erynn blinked. She’d feared he’d want to talk about whatever this was between them, but she’d never have imagined he’d go this far. Her palms felt wet and she brushed them on her pants, looking away from Noah as she waited. Should she say something first? Would he?

  Her traitorous heart fluttered and she struggled to catch her breath. Never had she fought attraction to anyone like this.

  But she couldn’t let him love her. Not now. His timing was awful.

  “I’m sorry...” Noah started and Erynn felt her pulse slow. A mistake. He knew it had been a mistake.

  He continued. “I know this is awful timing. I shouldn’t have said it. But I meant it. Every word. And sometime we need to talk about it.”

  Erynn fought to unscramble her thoughts, but it was too much. The man after her. Seeing Janie again after so many years and finding her dead. Noah loved her. Her life was in danger.

  She could not let the memory of her father down. Not after she’d sacrificed so much to get here, to be in the position to do something to help catch the man she still believed was responsible for his death.

  “I can’t talk about this now, Noah. I have to find out who killed my dad and the others.”

  Noah nodded slowly, his face resigned to her answer. Erynn swallowed hard, wished she could take that look off his face. “Listen, when this is over...” But she looked away as she said it. Even when this was over, she wouldn’t be in a place where she could afford to fall in love with Noah. In the next year or two she’d be leaving and his family and entire life was in Moose Haven. Even if that wasn’t an issue, Erynn didn’t know that she’d ever get married.

  Her birth parents never had, but her biological father had broken her mom’s heart time and time again. That had probably been what led to her biological mom’s downward spiral, drugs and ending up on the street, losing custody of Erynn.

  No, Noah wasn’t cut from the same cloth... He was a better man.

  Nevertheless, he was still a man, still not worth trusting with her entire life and self-worth. Not if children were doomed to repeat their parents’ mistakes.

  Because Erynn had no desire to spend the rest of her life broken because of a man. Like her mom had.

  “Okay, when this is over. We’ll talk then.”

  She raised her eyebrows, surprised at his sudden agreement. Noah liked to be right. Not that she could blame him. So did she. “You mean it? We won’t discuss it at all now?”

  “Discuss what?” He blinked, his eyes shining almost with mischief.

  To be able to feel that lighthearted...Erynn would give almost anything. But there wasn’t any chance of that, so she smiled. “Thank you.”

  Noah started forward on the trail again and Erynn followed. She considered herself to be in good shape, but her thighs burned from the uphill climb, one of the toughest the area had to offer, even in the summer. Now, in December, she and Noah were both wearing Kahtoola MICROspikes for traction, and each step took more effort than it should to dig her boots into the snow and ice to make sure she didn’t fall.

  Because the last thing she needed, besides finally being killed by a man who’d wanted her dead for half of her life, was to fall down and have Noah rescuing a damsel in distress.

  She did her own rescuing, thank you very much.

  Noah didn’t seem to have much to say anymore, and Erynn felt herself relax a little with every minute he was quiet. They’d had such an easy working relationship, and yes, she’d seen more than once over the last few years how it could easily sneak into more. So very easily.

  But she couldn’t let it. For either of their sakes. Because even if Erynn wasn’t afraid to risk her heart the way her mom had, she knew her past had left her with an entire airport truckful of baggage. It might not be true for everyone who’d been in foster care as a teen, but it was true in her life.

  Noah deserved better.

  Another strike against them.

  She should not be thinking of Noah at all right now. She should be thinking like the victim whose final resting place they were going to see. The Ice Maiden had taken this trail before she was killed. Erynn looked around, tried to see the area through the eyes of someone living her last day.

  Had Michelle come up here of her own power? Been brought up here to die? They’d never been able to answer either question to Erynn’s satisfaction. Erynn readjusted the straps of her backpack, tired of the way it was slamming into her lower back.

  Backpack.

  If the Ice Maiden had come up on her own, she’d have been prepared for the hike. Was there a backpack somewhere they had overlooked when they’d investigated before? As fast as the thought entered her mind, Erynn dismissed it. They had canvassed the entire area. Even if they’d missed something, it wouldn’t be discoverable anymore. People or animals would likely have moved it, as this trail was fairly well traveled in the summer and home to quite a few bears.

  She took another couple steps up the mountain, dug her spikes into the ice. As she did, her mind kept working, stumbling down a mental trail she thought might have merit...

  “Noah.” He turned to look at her, the hope on his face enough to tell her he was wishing she would discuss something personal rather than the case. She decided ignoring that was the best course of action, feeling her jaw clench in resistance to the way she knew she was hurting him. “What if she had a backpack with her?”

  “You know we looked for anything like that.”

  Erynn shook her head. “What if it’s under the body?”

  Noah stopped walking, seemed to consider the question. At least it looked like it with the way he angled his head. “It’s possible.”
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br />   “We’re going to have to find a way to recover the body, now that the case is back open.” At least it was winter and though it would take more work, recovery was safer for those working. There had been snow still, that June, the snow pack around the glacier deemed too unstable to recover the body at the time. Now it should be stable, though uncovering the body would be more difficult.

  Now things had changed. Everything had changed.

  “You aren’t going down to that glacier.”

  “I didn’t ask to.” The thought had crossed Erynn’s mind, but she knew there were people who were better equipped to handle that aspect of the investigation. Her skills in the backcountry weren’t bad, but they were limited to when she actually had solid ground beneath her feet. Glaciers, especially crevasses and ice caves, were quiet dangers, but could turn deadly easily enough.

  In fact, the person who’d initially called in the body’s discovery had assumed the death had been an accident. Until they’d investigated and found signs that could have indicated a struggle in the area.

  When missing persons reports had indicated it might be Janie, Erynn had been crushed.

  He would never stop coming after them.

  Even now she had to gulp a breath down, focus on expanding her lungs with enough air to keep her heart from skipping beats, like it did sometimes when she was nervous. A benign condition, the cardiologist she’d seen had assured her, but irritating enough. Who was she, a heroine in a romance novel, that her heart would dare to do something as dramatic as flutter out of rhythm?

  No, Erynn wasn’t made for romance. Any relationship she’d tried to have as a teen hadn’t gone anywhere—she was too closed off to let someone get to know her easily and most boys hadn’t wanted to put in the effort. Besides, her parents’ history should serve as a warning to her—their failures were probably genetic. She’d settle for being friends with people who’d found their happily-ever-afters—enough of them certainly had in the last couple of years. The entire Dawson family, besides Noah, had paired off in twenty-four months or less and several other friends from town had gotten married, too.